Very true in the US, but Western Europe is rushing to implement a hydrogen economy now.
The cost is in the infrastructure. That is a government expense even if implemented by private companies. It is a quasi public good.
There is a lot of misinformation around why not to do things. Typical in the US. Half equations are used for the costs. As if fossil fuels are less expensive. Not true at all.
A multibillion-dollar deal to supply Japan with hydrogen appears to be in tatters. First reported by The Age, a trial to supply Kawasaki Heavy Industries with ‘brown hydrogen’ – created from coal using converted powerplants – has been abandoned, according to Japanese news outlet Nikkei. The plan involved converting brown coal to liquefied hydrogen in Victoria’s Gippsland region, to be transported via specially-built ships out of Hastings – providing Japan’s industry with a steady supply of clean-burning hydrogen…
Nikkei Asia reports Japanese utility company Kansai Electric Power has also withdrawn from a project to produce green hydrogen. Unlike brown hydrogen, derived from brown coal, green hydrogen is created from water – with the process to be powered by a combination of wind and solar power…
Kansai was part of a consortium with other Japanese firms including Iwatani and Marubeni, an infrastructure company from Singapore called Keppel, and the Queensland State-owned utility corporation Stanwell. According to the report, Kansai cited higher costs of hydrogen production identified during engineering project planning, which had increased since the original feasibility study conducted in 2021. It’s assumed the project will continue without the support of Kansai, given it has already received a commitment of $117 million from government and consortium partners, and is eligible for more than $2 billion in federal grants.
DB2
One advantage of hydrogen is it is a clean fuel. Blue hydrogen from coal with carbon capture and sequestration should be possible. If coal is abundant and you have sequestration in say Australia, that could be the lowest cost hydrogen. But on a btu basis probably more costly than LNG.