Right. Using biomass to generate that hydrogen would be bad. Biomass, among all the renewable energy sources, has very poor power/area. PV is an order of magnitude better.
It's not at all clear that PV is more expensive. In the best global locations it's already below $0.02/kWh -- and one would want to do this processing where the inputs are cheap.
Add to that: this is all forward looking, so we must also consider that PV will continue to get cheaper. Extending the historical experience curve to the point the world is solar powered will drop its cost by another factor of 4. This may or may not happen, but calls in the past that the experience curve had reached its limit were wrong.
It's not at all clear that PV is more expensive. In the best global locations it's already below $0.02/kWh -- and one would want to do this processing where the inputs are cheap.
Add to that: this is all forward looking, so we must also consider that PV will continue to get cheaper. Extending the historical experience curve to the point the world is solar powered will drop its cost by another factor of 4. This may or may not happen, but calls in the past that the experience curve had reached its limit were wrong.