Benoît Potier (Air Liquide) : Air Liquide va investir plus de huit milliards dans l'hydrogène vert

It's obviously a big question that we have believed in for a very long time. We have actually addressed this question by trying to look at the system as a whole, so a very global approach. And we are not alone; about a hundred industrial groups are today in the World Hydrogen Council, whether in mobility, energy, or technology. Yes, I think it's a bet that will be won. Hydrogen is actually an energy vector, meaning it is an intermediary capable of bringing energy to every citizen in the world, and also for storage, because we must see that thanks to the greening of hydrogen, we may have found a solution to store renewable energies, such as wind or hydraulics.

Absolutely, you are right. Hydrogen can actually be produced so far from natural gas, and it's the cheapest, but we are developing CO2 capture technologies, so that's a very promising path that compensates for the fact. It's reasonable to produce already what is humanly possible with common sense, and then in the future use renewable energies. The beauty of hydrogen produced from renewable energies is that when there is too much wind and we don't have corresponding consumption, or too much sun and we don't have electricity consumption either, at that moment we can produce hydrogen and store it, not for a day, for a few days, but for months or even years in underground tanks. The technologies exist, they have been proven, we already use them in the United States, and so we have a way to store, which is another.

Now we might be at the tipping point. Yes, trucks, fleets, taxis will be able to run economically on hydrogen, absolutely. And in mobility, the priority today is what we call heavy transport, meaning starting with vans, going to trucks, buses, trains since the Stadler is already selling both in Germany and France, and then boats and planes. Everything that will be heavy transport using a lot of energy will switch to clean energies, and hydrogen is one of the best candidates. Personal cars will take a bit more time, as they are more dispersed and would need heavy infrastructure.

On paper, we did the studies, learned the data available to us worldwide, and finally realized that through economies of scale and the number of applications, we can reduce the cost of hydrogen by 60%, which is colossal, making hydrogen competitive. That would make it absolutely competitive. For example, in Canada, we started the world's largest electrolyzer, 20 megawatts today, which is very good North American technology for now, and with hydraulic electricity which is very cheap since there are many dams in Canada, hydrogen is competitive because we already sell to clients.

No, but what is interesting to imagine is that if electrical renewable develops and we need, we will need more capacity, more investments in renewable. From the moment they are made, electricity will be at a reasonable price sufficient to make hydrogen competitive. Will you still need state aid for long? We know that for hydrogen projects, whether in manufacturing, fuel cells, or tanks, it's very complicated because the hydrogen atom is very small, so tanks must be leak-proof. We know the state encourages industrialists a lot; they talked together for publicity. There are 300 billion in projects, 80 billion euros already engaged by industrialists, but behind there are public aids, and it's quite logical since it's a new product, we need to launch economies of scale, and at the beginning, you know, this famous valley of death must be crossed. You have something that works, but to reach scale and be competitive, it needs a bit of both. What we ask from states and us helping at the beginning is that it lasts as little as possible, and in fact, our goal as global industrialists is to be able to do without subsidies as soon as possible. Air Liquide today has 20 billion euros in revenue, hydrogen represents about 10%.

We did a few studies and calculations. We just published our climate, environmental, and more generally our ESG objectives. We think that within a maximum of ten, fifteen years, we can put 8 billion euros in projects on the table, so 8 billion in investments, and we can triple our sales, which are as you said about 2 billion euros today. Exactly, and it will perhaps be 20% of your mix. It might be, it might be 20%. I hope it will be less, that we can do even better elsewhere in health, electronics, and many other sectors.

I can be a bit surprising, but it's first and foremost a human balance sheet. The federation of four companies around an almost crazy objective of producing ten thousand ventilators in 50 days was an incredible adventure, and we succeeded. So with three companies besides Air Liquide, teams were recalled: Schneider Electric, Valeo, and PSA. Their teams, who made cars, electrical equipment, or other components for the automotive industry, found themselves in a warehouse we rented to manufacture ventilators together. We had to train them and make them aware of the health world, which is a separate world. When you have a wheel in a mechanical ventilator, you don't put grease on it to make it turn better; for example, it must turn alone because we are in health, it must not pollute. So, helping to generate examples of challenges, and in fact, it worked remarkably well. We delivered these ten thousand ventilators, meaning the Ministry of Health could equip the different regional agencies, and today I can say that we no longer have problems related to ventilators in France, and it was, I think, a great advance for France.

So, these were sectors we knew well since we manufacture ventilators, but the adventure of partnership and motivation for a cause, whether industrial challenges or health or human challenges, I think we have a great lesson to learn. I think partnerships are not new paths but will regain some color. I think in the 21st century, we must call more on partnerships. For example, in hydrogen, with Faurecia, Michelin, it's absolutely an example, but we have also announced partnerships on technologies, and there will be others.

For everything that is global economy, meaning with global supply chains on markets that are somewhat fundamental markets that are often ours, we haven't completely recovered but we are not far from recovering the pre-COVID level. So the economy is turning, and that's good news. We are in a growth phase in some countries, even compared to the chain, their example. China is not just Europe, to recover for us a level by Eric Mans, which is the pre-COVID level. So that's good news. On the other hand, many things have been shaken up, even overturned, and I expect a sort of industrial reconfiguration at the planet scale. In what way? I'll take an example. We supply the semiconductor industry; the largest factories are in Asia. We use gases, liquid gases, to clean certain parts, and we clean, and we do this for engraving inside semiconductor structures, and we are at nanometric scale, meaning very high technology. Well, there are a few actors in Asia, but the Americans are investing significantly today to create capacities, so supply chains will change, driven by quite massive investments, and yours too, so for us too. So we will reinvest in the United States, we won't stop investing in Asia, and perhaps we will have the opportunity in this area, for example, to invest in Europe.