Room H-343, Palais des Nations and ONLINE
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Meeting ID: 390 128 047 735
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The UNECE Hydrogen Task Force (HTF) organizes this event as part of a webinar series focused on various aspects of the hydrogen value chain creation, classification, certification, and integration with other, primarily renewable energy sources. A previous webinar in June 2024 examined hydrogen's role in decarbonizing hard-to-abate industries like cement, steel, and ammonia production. One key takeaway was the need to address long-distance shipping, storage, and distribution of hydrogen carriers to support emerging international hydrogen trade.
Hydrogen, unlike crude oil and natural gas that are geographically concentrated in a few locations, can be produced locally from renewable energy sources in many more countries, potentially shifting global energy trade dynamics in a future net-zero economy. Regions with cheaper renewable electricity may gain an advantage in producing low-cost, low-emission hydrogen. However, to become a globally traded commodity, hydrogen's import costs must be lower than domestic production. Long-distance transport contributes significantly to the overall costs, so optimizing hydrogen transport is key to developing a global hydrogen value chain.
This webinar focuses on two promising carriers of long-distance hydrogen transport: liquid hydrogen and ammonia. Each presents unique challenges related to their cost, energy density, and the energy required to move a unit of mass over a given distance. The energy-intensive liquefaction process and the need to maintain low temperatures during transport leads to additional energy losses and costs. Converting hydrogen into carriers with higher energy density, such as liquid ammonia, may be cheaper to transport but comes with certain safety concerns and its own technical challenges.
The first part of the webinar covers liquid hydrogen's maritime and rail transport, while the second part focuses on ammonia as a hydrogen carrier and bunker fuel. The event aims to develop concrete recommendations for UNECE member States, with findings to be presented at the annual UNECE Committee on Sustainable Energy session on 18 September.
About us
The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe’s Group of Experts on Gas (GEG) is a forum where UNECE member States discuss sustainable and clean production and consumption of gas and explore whether and how gas could help them deliver on key commitments – the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the global agreements on climate change.
The Hydrogen Task Force (HTF) catalyses dialogue on hydrogen, with emphasis on low emissions hydrogen, at all levels of policymaking in the ECE region. HTF’s aspiration is to establish, in collaboration with other partners, a taxonomy on hydrogen based on a life cycle analysis (LCA) approach and to work towards developing a Guarantee of Origin for Hydrogen (GOH).