RobDickinson:

 

"The new report indicates that “water electrolysis made up ~0.03%” of global hydrogen production last year."

 

Yes, it's depressing - we've got to go so much faster and better.
When the IPCC special report called for "unprecedented, drastic action" worldwide - they were understating the problem.
We're all fiddling as Rome burns..

Places like NZ - where we get a decent amount of electricity from renewables (85% from memory) - should be leading the world in H2 production.
With green hydrogen as an intermediary we could start decarbonizing our many industrial processes that can't use electricity directly.

Nitrogen Fertilizers for example -  we use 850,000 tonnes of urea each year in New Zealand.
The Kapuni plant in Taranaki makes about a third of it - the rest we import from the Middle East and China, all made from fossil fuels..

Ballances' Kapuni plant Converts over 7PJ (that's petajoules) of natural gas a year to 31,000T of hydrogen feed-stock to make 150,000 tonnes of ammonia, which is converted to 265,000 tonnes of granular urea. 
That urea's used mainly as nitrogen-rich fertiliser, also formaldehyde based resins for particleboard and MDF, and 5 million litres of GoClear urea solution - for diesel exhaust scrubbing.

Between them and Methanex's plant nearby - which produces methanol - over half of all NZ's natural gas is consumed making grey hydrogen as a feedstock.

The Ballance & Methanex plants could provide a nice baseload demand for NZ green hydrogen production. 

They've made a start - Ballance has partnered with Hiringa in a JV to develop a commercial scale green ammonia production pilot. 
Under their Joint Development Agreement the two companies are building four big wind turbines (with a total capacity of 16MW) to power hydrogen electrolysers..
They're also going to have a small H2 fueling station off Palmer rd.

Sounds good right? Except a pilot this size's only going to partly decarbonise (<5%) of their New Zealand production.. let alone replacing imports.

Dr Chris Bumby at Victoria University’s investigating a zero-carbon method of reducing ironsand - replacing coal with green hydrogen, to provide a solution to the environmental cost of steelmaking.
The problem is BOC's green hydrogen plant on Whitlam rd in Glenbrook, produces – via electrolysis using certified ‘zero’ power from Kea energy - only a minute amount of the green H2 needed...

Contact and Meridian are expressing interest in green hydrogen production in Southland, if the Tiwai aluminium smelter closes in 2024.
Fortescue Metals and Refining NZ are looking at producing, storing and distributing industrial-scale green hydrogen at the Marsden Point refinery, which is about to be converted into an import-only fuel terminal.
The site's got a deep-water port, nearby large electricity grid connections and industrial water supply.

The problem is none of this has even got a start date..

We should have started industrial-scale green H2 production yesterday.