{"id":363676,"date":"2025-01-27T17:23:11","date_gmt":"2025-01-27T16:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=363676"},"modified":"2025-01-27T17:28:48","modified_gmt":"2025-01-27T16:28:48","slug":"miracle-of-green-hydrogen-becomes-fading-mirage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=363676","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Miracle\u2019 of Green Hydrogen Becomes Fading Mirage"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From ClimateRealism<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guest Post by Vijay Jayaraj<\/em><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Fanciful dreams of green hydrogen powering the future have met reality. The cost of producing this much-hyped fuel will remain prohibitively high for decades<\/a> to come, crushing hopes of its rapid adoption across industries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Green hydrogen start-ups are shuttering operations, major projects are being shelved, and investors are retreating from what was once seen as the next frontier in \u201crenewable\u201d energy. This shouldn\u2019t come as a surprise to anyone whose attention to fundamentals has not been diverted by the extravagant claims of promoters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I spent a year in Aberdeen, Scotland, a city that operates one of the world\u2019s first<\/a> hydrogen-powered double-decker bus fleets. The cost of a one-way ticket is among the highest<\/a> in the country. It doesn\u2019t take an economist to connect the exorbitant fares to the eye-popping energy costs of producing hydrogen, which priced out ordinary commuters. An Aberdeen family of four could travel cheaper in a cab than on the bus,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Welcome to the insane world of hydrogen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not-So-Green Hydrogen<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Governments, corporations and activists painted a utopian vision. Entire industries \u2013 from steelmaking to aviation \u2013 would be revolutionized by green hydrogen power. The EU earmarked billions in subsidies, while India and Australia announced grand plans to become global hubs for green hydrogen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, this enthusiasm has been dampened by unyielding barriers of economics and safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So-called green hydrogen is the form favored by environmentalists promoting the gas. What makes it green in the eyes of enthusiasts is the manufacturing process: the electrolytic splitting of hydrogen atoms from water with wind- or solar-generated electricity. Never mind that there is nothing \u201cgreen\u201d about these expensive, unreliable energy sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latest analyses predict that green hydrogen prices are likely to remain stubbornly high for decades. The goal of achieving production costs below $2 per kilogram \u2013 the threshold for competitiveness with fossil fuels \u2013 remains far out of reach. In most parts of the world, the economics simply do not add up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reasons are multifaceted. One of the fundamental flaws of green hydrogen is its reliance on wind and solar energy that is expensive, intermittent and unreliable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The entire green hydrogen cycle is also inherently inefficient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Electrolysis remains an energy-intensive process. In some cases, producing hydrogen from wind and solar electricity and then using the gas to generate electricity for consumers results in a loss of 50% to 80% of the energy value<\/a>. Add to this the energy required for compression, storage and transportation<\/a>, and you have a fuel requiring massive amounts of expensive electricity to process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, hydrogen is dangerous<\/a>. Being a tiny molecule with low viscosity, hydrogen is more susceptible to leakage than natural gas and cannot be detected by human senses. Capable of igniting<\/a> over a wide range of concentrations in air \u2013 between 4% and 75% \u2013 hydrogen is more volatile than currently used gas fuels. \u201cIt is perplexing that we\u2019ll have hydrogen in our homes, businesses, buses, trucks and airports. Indoors it can rapidly turn into an explosion hazard,\u201d warns<\/a> Michael Barnard from Clean Technica.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bloomberg\u2019s recent expos\u00e9 on green hydrogen lays bare the financial toll of the misplaced optimism. Start-ups that once boasted billion-dollar valuations are now scaling back or shutting down altogether. Over a fifth of European clean hydrogen capacity is now either stalled or canceled<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the UK, British Petroleum and Orsted have\u00a0ditched<\/a>\u00a0green hydrogen plans and three hydrogen transportation firms have declared bankruptcy. Predicting a \u201cbloodbath<\/a>\u201d this year for hydrogen transportation, Barnard said that \u201cthe reality sunk in that hydrogen would remain too expensive, fuel cell vehicles would remain unreliable, and actual greenhouse gas emissions were much higher than hyped.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Investors are losing patience as promised cost reductions fail to materialize and companies struggle to deliver commercially viable projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story of green hydrogen\u2019s fall from grace is eerily reminiscent of past technological bubbles. We saw similar patterns with first-generation biofuels and concentrated solar power. Each time, the lesson is the same: we must be wary of silver-bullet solutions that promise to solve all our energy challenges without confronting the fundamentals of physics and economics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Originally posted at\u00a0RealClearEnergy.org<\/a>, reposted with permission.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vijay Jayaraj is a Science and Research Associate at the <\/em>CO2<\/sub> Coalition<\/em><\/a>, Fairfax, Virginia. He <\/em>holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the UK, and a bachelor\u2019s in engineering from Anna University, India.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fanciful dreams of green hydrogen powering the future have met reality. The cost of producing this much-hyped fuel will remain\u00a0prohibitively high for decades\u00a0to come, crushing hopes of its rapid adoption across industries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":363677,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691818526,691832896,691832895,691819849,691823591,691819094],"class_list":["post-363676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bankruptcy","tag-billions-in-subsidies","tag-costs-of-producing-hydrogen","tag-green-hydrogen","tag-investors","tag-renewable-green-energy","fallback-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/0hydrogen-molecule.jpg?fit=1280%2C853&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1wBK","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":284000,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=284000","url_meta":{"origin":363676,"position":0},"title":"Green Hydrogen Needs Vast Subsidies","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"10\/19\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Hydrogen is\u00a0not a fuel. Hydrogen must be\u00a0created;\u00a0it must be made from another energy source, just as electricity must be made from\u00a0other\u00a0energy. Global hydrogen trade may be just a pipe dream. 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