EU hydrogen ambitions unrealistic

Industry Discussions Renewable Energy
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Green hydrogen developers are cancelling projects and trimming investments around the world, raising the prospect of longer than targeted reliance on fossil fuels. The challenges facing the sector have exposed its initial ambitions as unrealistic.

Hard-to-electrify industries that were seen as ideal candidates for green hydrogen, such as steelmaking and long-distance transportation, have found that transition to the low-carbon fuel looks prohibitively expensive…

Only about a fifth of planned hydrogen projects across the European Union are likely to come online by the end of the decade, he said. That equates to roughly 12 GW of production capacity against an EU target of 40 GW…

“What’s missing is the demand. There are 400 million euros ($464.2 million) of subsidies for hydrogen in Spain and Portugal, but we need someone to buy the hydrogen.”

DB2

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And they tell us hydrogen will always be expensive. Commercial volumes can reduce costs but not enough. The most attractive new source is geo hydrogen occurring naturally. You wonder if there is enough demand to justify development. Maybe one day.

Otherwise we can have cleaner air any time we are willing to pay for it. Europeans are willing to pay some more but not enough. Voters seem less enthusiastic. Interest fades.

We should continue to build green energy capacity at least when it’s cost effective.

The current administration thinks it is not cost effective and is trimming support and regulations requiring green. Nuclear seems to be in vogue for now.

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