The challenge of being able to produce green hydrogen economically is now home and dry. "That box has been ticked," Anglo American Platinum CEO Natascha Viljoen assured Mining Weekly in a Zoom interview. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.) "With measures like the Inflation Reduction Act coming in from the US and with some of the Euro environmental support, we've seen that the debate around our ability to produce green hydrogen economically has broadly gone away," says Viljoen. The conversation is now around infrastructure and end-use development amid the required technologies for green hydrogen generation and hydrogen-powered fuel cell electric vehicle being there for the taking to protect Mother Earth from climate catastrophe. On the fuel cell electric vehicle front, there are more than 400 light vehicle models on the market, "so there's definitely end-use availability as we speak today", says Viljoen. Much now centres on how the system is set up and, in that system, an outpouring of capital commitment has already taken place globally, with many projects going through the final stage of approval. "Momentum in the hydrogen economy has been kickstarted and is really going at pace," Viljoen points out. For current platinum group metals (PGMs) demand to be matched, all that is needed, she adds, is for 10% of the car park to be made up of fuel cell electric vehicles. Whatever the market brings, and however the PGM industry develops the market, Viljoen is confident that the Anglo Platinum she is leaving will be able to play a role in creating a cleaner and a greener future. Mining Weekly: What can be done to ensure greater appreciation of the benefits that PGM-using proton exchange membrane, or PEM electrolysis, to help PEM technology to gain a bigger share of the green hydrogen electrolysis market? Viljoen: The benefit of PEM when compared with alkaline electrolysis is because of the PGM component in PEM electrolysis. Because of the catalytic characteristics of PGM metals, the process stabilises faster at start-up, and then the efficiency of the process throughout is much higher than in alkaline electrolysis. When you think specifically of PEM matching renewables, and we all know that renewables are cyclic, that is where PEM plays a very specific role and where the efficiency of PEM electrolysis totally surpasses alkaline electrolysis, specifically in the application around renewable energy, which is required for green hydrogen production. Mining Weekly is of the view that far more momentum needs to be given to the South African government-led Hydrogen Valley project and the Project Rainbow, which contain a number of multi-partner platinum-using fuel cell electric vehicle opportunities and green hydrogen generation projects. How can this be done? A couple of things are at work together here. For starters, ourselves and Sasol are part of the global Hydrogen Council and in that council, there's a big advocacy drive, along with helping to shape policy and standards around safety, infrastructure and end-use. A big portion of this is how we make this Hydrogen Council material available and get it incorporated into the way that we think strategically and also systemically around how we set up South Africa for hydrogen. The second need includes finding the right level of investment to get the Hydrogen Valley project going, because it can showcase hydrogen end-use. The last is to recognise ourselves as being uppermost in three items. The one is the technology that Sasol has. It is unique technology that belongs to South Africa for hydrogen production. Secondly, we've got the biggest resource of PGMs in the world, and we need to work out how we use that to strategic advantage. Then lastly, a focus is need on how we use the enormous renewable potential that we have as a country. I know that's a little bit further out, and it feels a little bit far-fetched, but the reality is that we are one of only five countries that have enough ...