Researchers of the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies ( IASS ) in Potsdam and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have achieved the proof-of-principle for a innovative technique to extract hydrogen (H 2 ) from methane (CH 4 ) without the formation of CO 2 as a byproduct. At this stage, cost estimates are uncertain, since methane cracking is not yet a fully mature technology. However, preliminary calculations show that it could achieve costs of €1.9 to €3.3 per kilogram of hydrogen at German natural gas prices—without taking the market value of the solid black carbon byproduct of the process into consideration. Most of the world’s hydrogen production is currently based on conventional technologies such as steam methane forming (SMR), which also uses […]