FORATOM supports inclusion of low-carbon hydrogen in Gas Package

FORATOM welcomes the attention given to low-carbon hydrogen in the European Commission’s gas package published yesterday.  Indeed, low-carbon hydrogen will play a key role in helping to decarbonise sectors such as industry and transport. Nevertheless, we regret that no reference is made to nuclear which is capable of producing hydrogen with a similar CO2 content to renewables energies, at a more affordable cost.

“Thanks to nuclear, the electrolysers needed to produce hydrogen from low-carbon electricity will be able to run continuously” states Yves Desbazeille, FORATOM Director General. “This means that they will be able to provide an affordable and sufficient supply of low-carbon hydrogen for hard-to-decarbonise sectors”.

In FORATOM’s opinion, more attention should be given to the carbon content of hydrogen. Indeed, establishing a CO2 threshold which declines over time will help the shift towards low-carbon sources of hydrogen.

Europe will need access to significant volumes of low-carbon hydrogen in the future.  Serious attention must therefore be paid to low-carbon hydrogen produced through electrolysis using low-carbon electricity. However, in order for this hydrogen to be able to compete on an economic basis with hydrogen currently produced mainly from natural gas, it is important to have access to abundant volumes of affordable low-carbon electricity. This is why nuclear is key, as existing power plants offer the most competitive low-carbon electricity prices and can provide electricity 24/7.

Click here to read our position and background paper on hydrogen from nuclear

About us: The European Atomic Forum (FORATOM) is the Brussels-based trade association for the nuclear energy industry in Europe. The membership of FORATOM is made up of 15 national nuclear associations and through these associations, FORATOM represents nearly 3,000 European companies working in the industry and supporting around 1,100,000 jobs.

For more information, please contact Jessica Johnson: jessica.johnson@foratom.org.