Hydrogen Transition and Participation

Abstract

A rapid decarbonization of global steel production is required to reduce CO2- emissions. The use of green hydrogen is viewed as a significant component in order to achieve this goal. In December 2021 the Bremen state senate approved the “Hydrogen Strategy State of Bremen“. The decarbonization of the steel works of Arcelor Mittal with hydrogen-based direct reduction of iron ore, and to establish a local hydrogen economy are central claims.

In order to implement a national (and international) hydrogen economy high amounts of state funding have been granted. In Germany, 9 billion Euros until 2027 were awarded by the federal government within the “National Hydrogen Strategy” (June 2020) for this purpose. They target hard-to-abide industries, because green hydrogen requires a large amount of renewable energy. In opposition to bottom-up local energy initiatives or forms of collective ownership of energy production, the hydrogen energy transition is rather a top-down initiative where state and the private sector represent the dominant actors involved (Lelieveldt et 2023). Nevertheless, energy infrastructures are serving the general public and often have an effect on local actors (Radtke et 2019) and “transitions without public acceptability are unlikely to succeed” (Svennenhuis et al. 2022).

Low-carbon energy infrastructure projects have often led to resistance and protests that slowed down the energy transition. In the case of the decarbonization efforts in establishing a hydrogen economy for industrial clusters, certain structures and logics seam to shape an understanding of participation, its procedures and ways of thinking about it. It is still unclear who should be participating in what way (Radtke et 2019).

Research on industrial decarbonisation, hydrogen transition and participation has focussed on studies on social acceptance of hydrogen technology (Thrän et 2022, Glanz et 2021), hydrogen policy discourse (Belova et al. 2023, Ohlendorf et al. 2022) or tension between justice and a rapid and deep transition (Newell et al. 2022).

In this paper, I draw on recent literature on industrial decarbonization, justice and participation (Upham et al. 2022) and I present latest findings of semi-structured interviews of different stakeholders associated with the hydrogen transition of Bremen’s steel industry.