Clean hydrogen: A long-awaited solution for hard-to-abate sectors?

One of the world’s biggest climate challenges is decarbonizing fossil energy uses that cannot be directly electrified using renewable power. Among so-called ‘hard-to-abate’ (HTA) sectors are major industries that rely on fossil fuels, either for high-temperature energy or for chemical feedstocks. New research examines how China — by far the largest producer of iron, steel, cement, and building materials — can potentially utilize clean hydrogen (‘green’ and ‘blue’ hydrogen) to decarbonize HTA sectors, and aid in achieving its 2030 and 2060 decarbonization pledges.