"If you want to protect the climate, there is no way around green hydrogen," ThyssenKrupp Nucera CEO Werner Ponikwar says. His company specializes in building high-efficiency alkaline water electrolyzers to power steel mills and other fossil-fuel intensive industrial sites, reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In a field crowded with startups, ThyssenKrupp Nucera is jostling to the front as it signs deals with Shell and the Saudi government, among other organizations that see scalable potential in the company's modular electrolyzers, which use electricity to split water and produce carbon-free hydrogen. Historically, alkaline technology has been too inflexible to work well with renewable power sources like wind and solar. But ThyssenKrupp Nucera uses high-tech electrode coatings to make its electrolyzers more adaptable and to reduce each system's footprint by two-thirds. Last year, it grossed €526 million after listing on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in Germany, where it's based. Since then, the company has made inroads in the U.S., where it received a $50 million Department of Energy grant announced in March.
More Must-Reads from TIME
- The Reinvention of J.D. Vance
- Iran, Trump, and the Third Assassination Plot
- Welcome to the Golden Age of Scams
- Did the Pandemic Break Our Brains?
- 33 True Crime Documentaries That Shaped the Genre
- The Ordained Rabbi Who Bought a Porn Company
- Introducing the Democracy Defenders
- Why Gut Health Issues Are More Common in Women
Contact us at letters@time.com