?? #Hydrogen Philosophy chapter 8 - Economic emancipation through hydrogen

?? Our world has moved closer together, especially in the last two decades. Globalisation, perhaps even turbo-globalisation of late, has led to an extraordinary expansion of trade among the G20 countries in particular.

?? The rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO) have been more or less taken into account. The biggest event for world trade was certainly the admission of China to the WTO and the opening up of this large country, which within a few years became a workbench and thus a dominant factor in the world economy and globalisation.

???? In the meantime, China's dominance is so strong that the world can no longer do without it, especially in many areas of clean technologies.

?? In the course of the pandemic and then again intensified by Russia's war of aggression and the resulting interrupted supply chains. Large areas of strategic importance for national economies had been completely outsourced. Medicines, basic products of medicine were suddenly no longer found in European production, but in Asia e.g. in India. When the gas shock caused by the invasion of Ukraine hit, Europeans were forced to change their minds under great time pressure.

?? Essentially, it can be said that globalisation in the form we have experienced since the 1980s has now come to an end. The unquestioning and na?ve reliance on global just-in-time processes is coming to an end.

???? Economies today understand more and more that they have to focus on their own strengths because they can trust themselves best.?

? Hydrogen exemplifies both developments: As a basic chemical substance, it has so far been mainly imported in Europe, especially to the highly industrialised countries, and first and foremost via natural gas. As an energy supplier, hydrogen is just being discovered and opens up possibilities to at least diversify dependencies on a few others.

?The decisive change, however, comes from the self-sufficiency that hydrogen creates for various value chains. Both in the raw materials and in the energy market, a large share of the hydrogen can be produced locally, in the country itself. This enables even previously dependent economies to emancipate themselves.

?In principle, this connection also enables weak economies, especially in the Global South, to move up into the league of energy producers. However, this also enables many countries in the Global South to regain or rebuild energy-intensive industrial processes.

???? South Africa for example: The country has very large reserves of rare minerals and iron ore. For now, iron ore is rarely processed into pig iron in South Africa, but has mainly been exported as simple ore with minimal added value. With the local extraction of hydrogen, which is also possible on a large scale due to the geographical conditions in South Africa, this essential part of the value chain could remain in South Africa. The reduction of oxygen from iron ore can be done with green hydrogen, this is the revolutionary approach that makes South Africa a new industrial location. This also means that new jobs are created in the Global South.

???????????? India, Mauritania or, if we make the leap to Europe, Ukraine are affected likewise. All these countries - like many others - can emancipate themselves through hydrogen, build their own value chains, create local jobs.?

?? It is becoming the rule that globalisation will enter a new stage of development via the new opportunity that hydrogen offers to industries: Industrialisation - at least with regard to the first process steps - can finally also take place in countries of the global South.

?? This is also good news for the climate, because it means much less transport of industrial goods. Local and regional emancipation brings less shipping, less energy consumption and thus less pollution. Hydrogen globalisation also leads to system efficiency.

?? Thanks to the use of hydrogen, global shipping will be significantly reduced in the future, as it will be increasingly exchanged as a commodity between states, especially via low-cost pipelines. In addition, hydrogen will appear globally as an integrated product, also known as "embedded hydrogen". This applies to various applications, such as reduced iron ore, reduced silicon oxide (an important raw material for the chip and photovoltaic industry), fertilisers, chemical products as well as petrochemical products and their derivatives.

?? It is necessary that the assessment of the environmental footprint of industrial processes is globally consistent in order to achieve this goal. Hydrogen could lead the way in this, as trading hydrogen requires that we have an internationally recognised method to quantify carbon content based on carbon emissions during production per kilogram of hydrogen.

?? Carbon thus becomes a new and crucial currency in our international trading system. The carbon footprint does not only concern hydrogen, but the molecule nevertheless will have a significant impact on this process due to its versatility and circularity.

???? There is also a need for globally recognised institutions to observe and monitor these processes. At some point, it will be the UN's task to intervene here. For example, UNIDO could be considered as a global watchdog because it looks after industrial processes, especially in the global South. Incidentally, the question of education will also play a role, both in the craft sector and in academic education. Here, too, this UN institution can provide essential services.

?? Golden Rule No. 8: The collaborative emancipation of economies will become the geopolitical standard.

?? Unilateral dependence on one or two large economies leads to instability and crises. The renewable production of hydrogen enables our emancipation on the basis of energy security and allows the use of technologies that allow regional cycles, neighbourly exchange processes and geographical diversification.