The two grandparents of Beatriz Roldan Cuenya (Oviedo, 1976) were miners from the Basins, so energy is in their blood. Raised in Gijón and graduated in Physics from the University of Oviedo, she is one of the most authoritative scientists in Europe in green hydrogen, the industry’s great commitment to the future. She has been outside of Spain since 1998: she received her doctorate in Germany and has worked as a researcher and teacher in California and Florida. In 2013 she returned to Germany and, since 2017, she is the director of the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, one of the most prestigious scientific institutions in the world.
– What are the main investigations of the Institute?
–We are developing new materials and methods to see how they work during chemical reactions. Those materials are catalysts, needed to make a chemical process work faster. One of the issues we are working on is trying to convert CO2 emissions into chemical products such as ethanol or ethylene, which is a gas used to make polymers (substances made up of large molecules), which in turn are then used to, for example, make meat packages sold in supermarkets. Human beings will always generate CO2 emissions as long as we produce garbage. The case is to minimize them and, above all, convert them into other elements. That is where the use of CO2 and green hydrogen would come in to produce methanol or other biofuels that will be generalized in the future. And there is also the production of green hydrogen, that is, generated with methods such as electrolysis, applying an electric current to dissociate hydrogen and oxygen from water.
– Do you agree with that expression that “green hydrogen is the new carbon”?
-That expression comes from a novel by Jules Verne called “The mysterious island”, from 1875, in which it is said: “I believe that one day water will be a fuel, that the hydrogen and oxygen that constitute it, used alone or together, they will provide an inexhaustible source of energy and light, with an intensity that coal cannot. Electrolysis had already been invented at that time, but it took many years for people to realize its importance, because fossil fuels were cheap. The problem we have now is that the solutions being proposed for the energy transition are on a small scale, but we need a global solution. And this happens by resorting to an abundant and clean source, and we find that in the water of rivers and seas. So yes, I totally agree with Verne that hydrogen is the only way to a full-scale energy transition.
–However, the technology to produce green hydrogen is still incipient and expensive. Are excessive hopes being placed on a method that may not be fully mature?
–It is the other way around: Spain started very late in the development of green hydrogen, many opportunities have been lost. For example, Germany, which has little sun and little wind, began to invest massively in renewables much earlier. If one analyzes all the green hydrogen projects being carried out in Spain, they are small. We have lagged behind as a country that has the greatest potential for green energy production as it has a lot of sun. Now is when Spain must invest massively so as not to continue to be left behind.
But won’t it be too expensive?
–Yes, but there is no alternative, because at some point we will dispense with fossil fuels. And the effects of climate change could make everything more expensive, because agriculture could be lost due to desertification.
In this context, what opportunities does Asturias have?
–Asturias offers great opportunities in transport, since we have deep-draft ports such as El Musel. From there you can transport the hydrogen converted into ammonia, something we already know how to do. That is, we know how to generate hydrogen and how to distribute it; the question is how to return it to its original state when it reaches its destination. In any case, from Asturias the hydrogen could be sent directly to Belgium or the Netherlands, and from there to Germany, which will be one of the major importers of energy. Right now, the gas pipeline between Barcelona and Marseille is being designed, and that forces us to always have good relations with France. It is good to be energetically independent and not be conditioned by a country changing its government and modifying the original supply plans. Furthermore, it is true that hydrogen can be transported in its natural state, as it will be in that gas pipeline, but with the drawback that it travels there with very little energy density, which makes it necessary to build very large pipes. Right now at the Institute we are working with the German Government on a project to distribute green hydrogen throughout Europe, combining countries that have sun, such as Spain, with those in the North, which have wind. Spain would be one of the exporting countries in that consortium.