What do cornflakes, beer bottles and cement have in common? Not much at first glance, but soon the manufacturing processes for each will be linked together in a novel industrial decarbonisation project and fuelled, in part, by sustainable energy.
Blue hydrogen: a solution or false hope for UK net zero?
Posted:
16 Mar 2026
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In June 2019, the UK legally committed to reaching net zero by 2050, an ambitious timeline for many industries already finding it hard to decarbonise. In taking part in Trinity Hall’s Undergraduate Summer Research programme, I took on the challenge of investigating this goal and how we can feasibly reach it.
Working with Fellow-Commoner, Professor Jennifer Howard-Grenville, I explored the technology and economics of ‘blue’ hydrogen, a low-carbon alternative to fossil fuels.
Hydrogen itself is an energy carrier that can be produced from various resources in various ways. The most mature way to produce hydrogen is through Steam Methane Reforming (SMR). This process uses high-temperature steam and a catalyst to heat natural gas (methane) to produce hydrogen and carbon dioxide (CO2). If the CO2 is released into the atmosphere, we call this ‘grey’ hydrogen. If the CO2 is captured and permanently stored, we label this ‘blue’ hydrogen. If the hydrogen making process is done through electrolysis using renewable energy sources for electricity (and therefore emits zero-carbon dioxide in the process), we call this ‘green’ hydrogen.
Currently, ‘blue’ hydrogen is more cost-effective than ‘green’. ‘Green’ hydrogen is well-explored but limited by renewable electricity supply and electrolyser costs. Therefore, ‘blue’ hydrogen acts as a feasible stepping stone for industries to adopt sustainable energy and then later transition to zero-carbon ‘green’ hydrogen.
On the UK’s timeline, ‘blue’ low-carbon hydrogen production needs to be operating at scale by 2030 to successfully help with this transition. So how exactly can we make this happen? The answer? There is no one-size-fits-all solution.
As part of my project, I had the chance to explore the growth of the hydrogen sector in the UK through desktop research and interviewing leading experts to assess hydrogen’s potential. My research suggests that whilst ‘blue’ hydrogen does leave a trace of CO2, it can be made “greener” when the CO2 capture efficiency is above 90-95%, and the leakage of methane (a greenhouse gas 30 times as potent as CO2) is minimised across the entire supply chain.
The HyNet Network is aiming to achieve exactly this. As an innovative regional project, it intends to connect energy producers and industrial facilities in new ways, using ‘blue’ hydrogen to replace fossil fuels for some industrial processes. The network aims to share its carbon capture and storage facilities with already established energy producers in the UK who are struggling to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. In doing so, they can help them to decarbonise rapidly. Through providing a shared infrastructure of carbon capture and storage facilities, this can then be extended to the region’s other areas of industrial production – from cornflakes to beer bottles to cement.
You may ask,
Due to facilities facing costly near-term electrification retrofits and delays in the development of grid-connected renewables, electricity is not an immediate enough solution. Even in a future with plenty of renewable electricity, there will be a gap between supply and demand during peak times. Hydrogen can help to fill this gap as it can be burned directly or stored and subsequently converted into electricity, providing resilient and secure power when the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t shining.
Hydrogen might be the most abundant molecule in the Universe, but as it is 14 times lighter than air and highly reactive, it rapidly escapes our atmosphere or gets bound up in other molecules. That is why hydrogen must be produced from other energy sources in order to be used. However, early users of clean hydrogen will pay the same price they would for natural gas, with the government making up the difference to the hydrogen provider to cover their higher development and capital costs. Approaches such as HyNet’s can offer cleaner energy at the same price, resulting in a win-win for manufacturing facilities needing to meet Net Zero targets and for consumers, making it a step in the right direction for sustainability.
Opportunities, like this summer research project, are something you do not typically get to do right after moving straight from school to university. It offers students practical experience of working on a specific topic and reveals what one’s desired profession is actually like. Through completing this project, I have learnt so much about the industry, something that has definitely changed my path going forward and has made me much more likely to go into the energy sector. This has been a genuinely life changing experience that will be highly applicable in my future career.
The Undergraduate Summer Research Projects were made possible thanks to our generous donor, alumnus Iain Drayton (1991).