Urgent action needed to reverse damage of ocean warming and nutrient pollution, renewable green hydrogen pioneer Lhyfe will warn at Foresight’s Hydrogen Live event in Liverpool on February 8.
The UK’s drive to net zero could help oxygen-starved marine environments recover through offshore green hydrogen deployment, global clean energy pioneer Lhyfe says.
(Lhyfe’s Sealhyfe offshore renewable green hydrogen producing electrolyser platform was launched in September last year).
As companies look to decarbonise their operations, more wind turbines are being placed at sea making the production of hydrogen close to this renewable electricity source increasingly attractive.
Oxygen is the largest product created when using electrolysis to create hydrogen from water.
All of this oxygen could be released into the ocean, helping fragile ecosystems.
Climate change and nutrient pollution from sewage, detergent, and fertilisers and other sources is starving marine life of oxygen, threatening many species of marine life including fish.
More than 90 per cent of the heat trapped by carbon emissions accumulates in the world's oceans.
Temperatures continued to break records in 2022 and the water has also absorbed extra carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, making it more acidic.
Lhyfe believes producing hydrogen using offshore wind turbines could not only help reduce emissions across all sectors but also help repair damage to the oceans.
Last year the company launched its Sealhyfe project to deliver the world’s first offshore renewable hydrogen production prototype.
Lhyfe already operates a renewable hydrogen production facility employing water electrolysis at Bouin, France, and plans similar onshore facilities across Europe.
It is also developing fixed bottom and floating offshore renewable hydrogen production platforms.
(Lhyfe inaugurated its first renewable green hydrogen production site in Bouin, France, in 2021, using wind power).
Stuart Sinclair, Offshore Deployment UK and Ireland at Lhyfe, explains: “We urgently need to reduce emissions and stabilise marine ecosystems, if we are to limit global warming to 1.5°C.
“Renewable green hydrogen production is one part of the decarbonisation of energy systems.
“Reoxygenation could be one way to stabilise ecosystems and is already used in restoring freshwater reservoirs in the US. Our long term vision at Lhyfe is to produce green hydrogen at scale offshore and to give back our oxygen to the ocean, substantially supporting and restoring marine ecosystems.”
A large part of Lhfye’s focus is to support industries to decarbonise as well as regional offerings allowing them to start their energy transition.
The importance of marine reoxygenation will be discussed alongside opportunities to deploy green hydrogen during a presentation at Hydrogen Live 2023.
Media contact: Tom Martin at tom@quantumcommunications.co.uk
NOTES TO EDITORS
Lhyfe is a European group dedicated to the energy transition, and a producer and supplier of green and renewable hydrogen. Its production sites and portfolio of projects aim to provide access to green and renewable hydrogen in industrial quantities, and to enter into a virtuous energy model allowing the decarbonisation of entire sectors of industry and mobility.
In 2021, Lhyfe inaugurated the world's first industrial green hydrogen production site in direct connection with a wind farm. In 2022, Lhyfe inaugurated the world's first pilot platform for green hydrogen production at sea. Lhyfe is present in 11 European countries and has 150 employees at the end of 2022. The company is listed on the Euronext market in Paris (ISIN: FR0014009YQ1 - mnemonic: LHYFE).
For more information go to Lhyfe.com
