International Scientific Journals
of Scientific Technical Union of Mechanical Engineering "Industry 4.0"

The European Union’s REPowerEU strategy places green hydrogen at the center of its plan to eliminate fossil fuels and accelerate the green transition. The strategy targets 20 million tonnes (MTPA) of green hydrogen per year by 2030: 10 MTPA to be produced domestically and 10 MTPA imported. Achieving this requires scaling electrolysis capacity from the current 0.3 GW to 120 GW, a remarkably ambitious, if not unrealistic, target. Current green hydrogen production costs range from 100 to 200 €/MWh, several times higher than natural gas prices, which fluctuate between 20 and 40 €/MWh. In contrast, blue hydrogen, which is produced through natural gas reforming combined with carbon capture and storage (CCS), generally costs between 50 and 100 €/MWh. To bridge the cost gap between hydrogen and fossil fuels, the EU established the Hydrogen Bank with €3 billion to kick-start the market through competitive funding mechanisms. The REPowerEU hydrogen targets have drawn criticism due to limited availability of renewable electricity, underdeveloped infrastructure, and the slow pace of electrolysis deployment. Concerns also focus on the inefficiency of hydrogen use in sectors such as passenger transport, short sea shipping, residential and commercial heating, where direct electrification is significantly more effective. Nonetheless, the EU is advancing regulatory frameworks, developing over 40 Hydrogen Valley Projects, and establishing international import corridors to support market growth. This paper examines REPowerEU’s hydrogen ambitions, balancing its potential as a key decarbonization tool against economic, technical, and logistical challenges that may hinder its realization.

The microscopic and macroscopic views of copper electrodeposits obtained on plastically deformed copper substrates of different deformation degrees have been investigated. Experiments have been performed under galvanostatic conditions. There appear, depending upon the degree of reduction realized during substrate rolling, three types of deposit: epitaxial, homogenous and texture. Epitaxial growth is observed on unreformed substrate and on the substrates with lesser deformation degree (up to 60 %). With the increase of the substrate reduction degree, heterogeneous type of the deposit appeared and the phenomenon of twinning was stated. On very much deformed substrates, as well as in presence of organic additives, field oriented texture type of the deposit is obtained. On very deformed substrates macroscopic uneven deposits appeared, with the linear structure which follows the direction of substrate rolling. Possible explanations of this phenomenon are given.

The purpose of this work is to show a possibility of receiving electrolytic nickel-containing powders of the predicted structure at anode dissolution of secondary heat resisting alloys.