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Assertion: Hydrogen can be liquified and stored with acceptable, minimal hydrogen leakage

Hydrogen can be liquefied and stored with moderate leakage. The liquefaction process has an estimated leakage rate of 1% to 10%, while transporting and handling liquid hydrogen can result in a leakage rate of 2% to 20%.1 There is a high level of uncertainty around hydrogen emissions from liquid hydrogen due to the lack of real-world evidence to pull from.

The leakage rate from liquid hydrogen is highly dependent on the quality of the infrastructure used. Liquid hydrogen must be stored at extremely low temperatures, around -423.17 degrees Fahrenheit. Any unwanted heat transfer can cause some hydrogen to evaporate and leak from the storage container, a process known as boil-off. The longer liquid hydrogen is stored or transported, the more boil-off occurs.2

Liquefying and transporting liquid hydrogen is not a common practice, and as the technology matures, there may be significant emission reductions. Hydrogen production company Air Liquide estimates that emissions from liquifying and managing liquid hydrogen could be reduced to around 4-5% by 2030.3 However, these reductions depend on technological developments and the implementation of new strategies for reducing or managing boil-off. Future estimates of leakage from liquified hydrogen will depend greatly on whether these new technologies materialize.

Sources:​

Footnotes​

  1. Esquivel-Elizondo, S., Hormaza Mejia, A., Sun, T., Shrestha, E., Hamburg, S. P., & Ocko, I. B. (2023). Wide range in estimates of hydrogen emissions from infrastructure. Frontiers in Energy Research, 11, 1207208. ↩

  2. Frazer-Nash Consultancy. (2022). Fugitive hydrogen emissions in a future hydrogen economy. UK Government. ↩

  3. Arrigoni, A. & Bravo Diaz, L. (2022). Hydrogen emissions from a hydrogen economy and their potential global warming impact, EUR 31188 EN, Publications Office of the European Union. ↩