Energy companies, research institutes and associations have signed a joint letter to the European Commission highlighting the possibility of low-carbon energy sources such as nuclear to produce clean hydrogen.

One of the signatories, Romania’s state-controlled nuclear energy producer Nuclearelectrica, said the use of low-carbon sources to produce hydrogen can help achieve European decarbonisation targets set for 2050.

A report last year by the International Energy Agency said “now is the time” to scale up technologies and bring down costs to allow hydrogen to become widely used.

Hydrogen is created using steam methane reforming, which basically uses high temperatures to convert steam and methane into hydrogen gas and carbon dioxide.