Fig. 2: Land requirements to fulfill hydrogen demand in 2020 and 2050.
From: Global land and water limits to electrolytic hydrogen production using wind and solar resources
Per capita country-specific land requirements to fulfill hydrogen demand in 2020 and 2050: a solar and b onshore wind power production. The figure shows the land requirements to fulfill hydrogen demand a, b at country level as per capita land requirements and c, d in terms of total global land requirements in 2020 and 2050 based on a, c solar and b, d onshore wind power production. The countries are selected from the top 30 in terms of total demand of hydrogen in 2050 and are ordered according to the amount of eligible land for solar panels (excluding Trinidad and Tobago for scaling reasons). The interval bars represent the range of land required in 2050 based on the reference and the extreme scenarios of global hydrogen demand in 2050: 400 Mt/y (reference), 92 Mt/y (smallest), 646 Mt/y (largest). The gray areas (and pink areas) represent fractions (and multiples) of the eligible land, as defined in Methods subsection “Land scarcity”, and are used for comparison with the land requirements for hydrogen demand in each country. Different energy generation technologies require varying amounts of land for the same amount of hydrogen demand.
