Technology Quarterly | Heat, hope and hydrogen
Green gases can help in the shift from fossil fuels to electricity
But there will always be more to do
Using electricity to do things currently done with fossil fuels means generating more of it. If all America’s cars were evs and Americans drove as far in them as they drive today, the country’s power consumption would rise by 28%. If just two of Germany’s largest industrial sites—the Ludwigshafen complex run by basf, a chemicals goliath, and the Duisburg plant run by ThyssenKrupp, a steel giant—were to run on currents not hydrocarbons, the country’s electricity consumption would be increased by 15% at a stroke, says Klaus Schmitz of Arthur D. Little, a consultancy.
This article appeared in the Technology Quarterly section of the print edition under the headline “Heat, hope and hydrogen”