How power-to-X technology can fight climate change

The production of renewable energies is soaring each and every day; however, they still play an insignificant role in global energy usage compared to fossil fuels. In recent years, the tendency to use new decarbonized energies has increased. Power-to-X (PTX) is one of the technologies that might be the future solution to a carbon-free world.

Fossil fuels are still dominating different industries, transportation systems, and systems running on heat consumption. Many of these systems cannot run on electricity, as they need fuel; however, the good news is that with the cost of electricity and other renewable energies diminishing every day, it is getting more and more feasible to use them in place of coal, oil, and natural gas.

Power-to-X technology helps us turn electricity into heat, hydrogen, or synthetic fuels, hence the word “power” which is changed “to” anything we need “X”. It can make use of the excess electricity we produce and even reduce the disruptive CO2 in the air as its feed. But, how does power-to-X technology exactly work?

PTX technology, step one: turn electricity into hydrogen

The ultimate target of power-to-X technology is to turn electricity into heat, hydrogen, and even fossil fuels and gases. In the first step, electricity is used to split the atoms of water molecules from each other by means of electrolysis. In other words, hydrogen detaches from oxygen in the water molecules using electrolysis and passage of electricity.

The produced hydrogen alone can be used as a powerful source of renewable energy. It can be useful to heat buildings, manufacture steel, or act as fuel for ships and trucks.

The electricity used in this method is better than using excess electricity in different industries. For instance, wind turbines in Germany sometimes generate so much electricity that they cannot store it all. That is why they have to turn the system off to prevent overloading. Power-to-X technology can easily and economically turn this excess electricity into hydrogen through power-to-X technology.

To clarify it further, it is good to know that the “storage of energy” is one of the biggest challenges of energy-producing industries today. This is why the storage of electricity is also a big challenge. Power-to-X can be the solution here; instead of stopping the production of electricity, industries can let power-to-X turn the excess amount into hydrogen and then to the next shapes of fuels.

Despite all the benefits of hydrogen, these are not the only way to make use of it. The second step of power-to-X opens even more opportunities.

PTX technology, step two: turn hydrogen into fuels

Now that hydrogen is ready, it is time to turn it into other useful fuels. Power-to-X makes the reaction of CO2 with hydrogen possible through some specific processes to produce synthetic kerosene, petrol, or diesel. In addition to that, it is also possible to produce different chemicals in this process.

The required CO2 in this process is easy to gain. There are numerous coal-fired power, cement, or biogas plants in the world that emit CO2. In fact, CO2 emission today stands as one of the most integral causes of climate change, which needs to be mitigated.

What is even more encouraging is that the required CO2 can also be gathered directly from the air. This way, not only can power-to-X technology produce more useful and renewable units of energy, but it can also significantly reduce CO2 as a disruptive greenhouse gas.

Power-to-X technology simply explained

It is true that the fuels produced in the second step of power-to-X can emit CO2 again, but the ultimate goal is to “control” the amount of CO2. Power-to-X again uses this emitted CO2, hence controlling the total amount of CO2 in the world, preventing climate change.

Two biggest obstacles ahead of PTX

Despite all the benefits of power-to-X technology, it still seems to be a technology for the future.

High costs

High costs are probably the biggest obstacles power-to-X is facing. It is still much more cost-effective to produce hydrogen from crude oil and natural gas, rather than wind power and electricity.

Experts believe that as time passes, costs fall too. Power-to-X energy is now standing where some current renewable energies stood 20 years ago. The application of renewable energies is imminent and inevitable, and the increase of CO2 and other greenhouse gases leading to global warming and climate change is nothing the future generations can stand for a long time.

Heat generation

When a kind of energy turns into another, some of it is always lost along the way. As an example, only 20 percent of a car’s fuel energy is turned into motion. Power-to-X is also nothing different. It generates heat. In other words, the lost energy shows itself in the shape of heat.

Because of this loss of energy, maybe it is not yet logical to massively use power-to-X technology. Currently, using electricity helps your car give you many more kilometers than converting it to hydrogen for a fuel cell. In addition to that, turning hydrogen into gas or diesel makes the loss of energy even further along the way.

It still does not make sense to massively use power-to-X technology.

Still, power-to-X is useful as it can diminish the carbon footprint in the air and prevent more pollution. After all, we have to make our economies carbon-neutral, whether we like it or not.

The future of PTX technology

The ultimate objective of the energy sectors in the world is to survive without fossil fuels. If the governments well support power-to-X, carbon-neutral chemical production could be possible by 2050. On the other hand, the demand for electricity will rise significantly due to power-to-X and the cost of renewable electricity will plummet.

Ditching oil, coal, and gas for power-to-X fuels will make the world’s power demand soar. It means that not only will the widespread use of renewable energies be possible, but also it will be affordable too.

The increase in the production of renewable electricity and the reduction of the side costs will eventually ease the acceptance of power-to-X technology and build security for investment in it.