Turquoise Might Be A Better Colour For Renewable Energy Than Green

Missing the wood for the trees is a common occurrence, when obsessive focus on one or more parts obscures the whole. It is more unusual to see a wood swallow a generally admired tree, prune it of its uniqueness, and leave the observer missing its grace and charm. Indians had the occasion to experience such loss, when Vistara merged with Air India last week. True, both airlines belong to the Tata Group, and it does not make sense for the Tatas to operate multiple airline brands. We hope the sleek functionality of Vistara will rub off on Air India, instead of getting lost in the maw of the much larger, older and relatively lugubrious airline.

Last week, Australians got the legal right to disconnect after work. This means that employers can expect employees to respond to messages and calls only as a favour, and not as a right. They cannot take action against employees who ignore requests for any kind of work after their work hours. France, Ireland and some other jurisdictions have already instituted such a right. How this would work out for those engaged in globally networked businesses, where work happens in multiple time zones, is anyone’s guess.

In China, the expectation is that the employee would work 9-9-6, that is from 9 am to 9 pm, six days a week. In India, NR Narayana Murthy sought to lope two entire hours off that workload, by defining an honest week’s work as 70 hours. Yet, employers in India are likely to see a right to disconnect as an outrage.

But such a right would set the norm that the employee’s after-work hours belong to the employee, and admitting work into that private realm is at the employee’s discretion, rather than at the employer’s command.

Last week saw the release of official data on India’s GDP for the April-June Quarter. Growth turned in at 6.7% for the quarter, sharply lower than the 8.1% for the comparable quarter of 2023-24. But the slowdown is a statistical illusion. The GDP figure for April-June of 2022-23 had to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 7.4% for two years to reach the level for the April-June quarter of 2024-25. If the slowdown in growth is an illusion, there is an element of delusion in the official boast that India continues to be the fastest growing large economy, at a mere 6.7%. The US growth numbers also came out last week. America’s $27 trillion plus economy added value to the tune of $760 billion, growing 2.8%. India, growing at 6.7%, added about one-third the US additional output over the quarter.

The Hema Committee report on Kerala’s vaunted film industry and assorted protests over the rape and murder of a senior medical intern at the RG Kar hospital in Kolkata highlighted a major hurdle to India realising the full potential of its workforce: security at the workplace for women. Women should have the right to focus on their work, not worry about harassment at, or on their way to, the workplace. The focus, so far, has been on laws and their enforcement, rather than on the radical change Indian culture needs to undergo, to realise the constitutional promise of gender equality.

Reliance Industries held its annual general meeting last Thursday. The likely announcement of a bonus share issue, for one, has cornered attention. But shareholders and others should pay attention to the plans to invest heavily in solar panels, green power, lithium ion and sodium ion batteries, fuel cells and large-scale manufacture of electrolysers to split water and produce hydrogen.

In 2021, RIL had announced a plan to produce green hydrogen at a price of $1 a kg, at a time, when the Biden administration had proposed a subsidy of $6 a kg to produce green hydrogen. The good thing is that RIL is proceeding along this path in phases. The bad news is that it is sticking to that vision outlined in 2021.

Technology keeps evolving, particularly in areas related to the energy transition. In May 2023, the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy (yes, journals are that specialised, these days), published a novel technique of pyrolysis of methane to produce hydrogen, significantly cheaper than electrolysis. The idea was to use microwave energy to heat up methane, and end up with hydrogen and solid carbon, both valuable products. A year later, companies in Australia and Canada claim to have produced hydrogen using microwaves.

From high-school science, we all know that hydrogen is a colourless, odourless gas, given to violent combustion. Reliance promises to produce green hydrogen. The bulk of the hydrogen produced in the world is grey hydrogen. Then, there is blue, turquoise and pink hydrogen. Those interested in the colour coding of hydrogen could look up this site. Grey hydrogen is produced by combining methane, each molecule of which is one atom of carbon bonding with four atoms of hydrogen, with steam under intense heat and pressure and in the presence of catalysts, to release hydrogen, while the carbon converts to carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. If these greenhouse gases are captured for storage or use, the grey hydrogen turns blue. If the heat for the process comes from nuclear power, the resultant hydrogen is called pink.

Turquoise hydrogen is produced when methane, heated to a high temperature in the presence of oxides of iron, breaks down into hydrogen and solid carbon. Such pyrolysis of methane can be achieved by means other than microwaves, as well: thermal plasma, a fluidised bed reactor and solar-thermal. Pyrolysis via microwaves, it is claimed, consumes 80% less energy than electrolysis of water.

Use of hydrogen in fuel cells to produce power might prove to be a better energy solution for electric vehicles, compared to storage batteries. Expansive use of batteries, whether to store renewable power or to power vehicles, will mean a huge expansion in the demand for battery minerals, such as zinc, lithium, cobalt, copper and aluminium. The resultant scramble for new mines and mining rights is likely to entail extensive environmental damage and social disruption in areas inhabited by indigenous communities.

Instead of locking itself into electrolysers and storage batteries on a gargantuan scale, RIL should watch relevant pyrolysis technologies evolve and mature, and decide its route to clean energy.