To export hydrogen through the new pipeline, Spain and Portugal would first have to be able to produce enough to meet domestic demand and have surpluses to send to France.
From pulling carbon dioxide out of the air to turning water into fuel, innovators are developing new technologies and pairing existing ones to help slow global warming.
Paul Burke, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University; Emma Aisbett, Australian National University, and Ken Baldwin, Australian National University
Australia could use about 7,000 terawatt-hours of solar and wind generation per annum to make a sizeable contribution to cutting global emissions – about 27 times its current electricity output.
A billion-year-old ‘hydrogen economy’ in the frozen soil of Antarctica provides bacteria with energy, water, and the carbon that makes up their bodies.
There are vast quantities of water ice on the moon that represent the potential for extraction and use in rocket fuel. But there are no practical reasons to mine this water.
Hydrogen could replace fossil fuels, but it’s only as clean as the techniques used to produce it. Almost all production comes from high-carbon sources, but new investments could change that.