By P Gosselin
Once considered a key technology in the green energy transition, companies are waking up and finding out that hydrogen isn’t the answer to the challenges posed by renewable energies such as wind and sun.
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“Instead of progress, disillusionment dominates. The EU in particular – especially Germany – is increasingly being criticized for its costly projects,” reports German online Blackout News. “Companies are pulling out”.
Hydrogen is expensive, hazardous and a real technical challenge that doesn’t promise to be economically feasible. The gas is metallurgically aggressive, highly flammable, explosive. It’s chemical properties make a comprehensive infrastructure difficult to manage. Moreover, producing green hydrogen is “barely affordable” and industries are reluctant to use the volatile gas because it risks being unprofitable.
High costs, low demand and political misplanning are currently jeopardizing the strategy, according to an analysis by Westwood Global Energy Group. “Only a fraction of the planned EU hydrogen pipeline is likely to be operational by 2030.”
Germany has funded an ambitious green hydrogen project in Namibia, in a protected desert area and now it may be demolished for port expansion as the country’s new president is reportedly reassessing the project and looking at a potential shift towards the established oil sector. Technical analyses indicate hydrogen is only suitable as a selective energy source.
Unless there is a major change of course, the EU’s hydrogen strategy risks being a costly failure.
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If hydrogen truly was a practicable, economic energy medium, it would be engineers at the forefront, promoting, developing and perfecting the technology independently of any political impetus.
They aren’t!
“(I)Once considered a key technology in the green energy transition, companies are waking up and finding out that hydrogen isn’t the answer to the challenges posed by renewable energies such as wind and sun.”(/i)
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If these companies followed WUWT they would know hydrogen technology is a dead end.
and always was…
With the possible exception of fusion, hydrogen will always be a dead end.
Most hydrogen is already chemically locked up in water and various hydrocarbons. Separating it out to reuse it is going to be a poor ROI, in a purely thermodynamic sense. It’s fine to use another energy source like nuclear power to perform hydrolysis, if that power isn’t needed somewhere else (like, say, the Spanish power grid). Hydrogen is fine for specific, limited use, but the answer is obvious- LNG and nuclear as the backbone.
It’s cheaper to overbuild nuclear (build enough even for peak demand) than trying to store electricity as hydrogen or in batteries. And the stable supply of cheap off-hours power will inspire industry to invest in projects to take advantage of it – that won’t happen with the wind equivalent that might not be there when you need it.
Hydrogen is a great concept, but it doesn’t work in the real world. There are no hydrogen mines or wells; we’d need to make the hydrogen, which requires lots of electricity. And the H2 molecule is TINY, and pipes and hoses to transport H2 are difficult to make, because H2 is difficult to contain.
There are hydrogen wells, just not many and they don’t produce much. A small industrial hydrogen infrastructure also exists for welding, chemical manufacturing and refining.
Most of the hydrogen used today was produced from steam reforming of methane.
To produce 1 tonne of hydrogen through the electrolysis of water requires 52.5MWh of electrical energy. And then using that of 1 tonne of hydrogen will deliver 15MWh AT BEST. Therefore, ENERGY INVESTED is 3.5 x GREATER than ENERGY RETURNED, which is . . . not much good to man or beast, really.
And for this to have any twisted credibility in our idiotic virtue-signalling world, the electrical supply for the electrolysis of water to produce hydrogen would obviously have to come from “green” wind and solar generating facilities.
But over the last 12 months in the UK, wind and solar combined generation provided 10.48GW, this from a wind and solar combined installed capacity of 49GW . . . which was 21.39% of installed capacity – the “load factor” or efficiency.
So, if you want to deliver 1GW of electricity from wind and solar generating facilities, with a load factor of 21.39%, those facilities will have to have an installed capacity of 4.67GW – an “overbuild factor” of 4.67.
In summary:
To make hydrogen by electrolysis requires 3.5x the energy that will be gained from using that hydrogen, and to generate the electricity needed for that electrolysis, the installed capacity of wind and solar generating facilities will have to be 4.67x greater than the electricity actually needed.
You get the picture – generating electricity through wind and solar, and using that electricity to make hydrogen . . . is an exercise in downright disgustingly idiotically stupid profligacy . . . that the UK government – and it doesn’t matter which crowd of idiots are the government – will expect you and I to pay for.
But it is very effective at both redistributing and destroying wealth. The political class is mundanely predictable.
What percentage of virtue-signalers are signaling, “I’m a nincompoop,” rather than “I’m a saint.”?
One suspects the number is very high.
So that just leaves batteries for firming their fickles-
More ⚡️ Electric ⚡️ FERRY insanity – plus Australian election thoughts | MGUY EV News – 3 May 2025
Dontcha just love the bit about UK Parliament removing EV chargers from the carpark on safety grounds? All aboard the battery ferrys with your EVs chumps.
PS: Speaking of safety and security getting a mention what if the Tianenmen Square tank crew decided Mossad had a bright idea with Hamas/Hezbollah types and they slip a bit of thermal runaway Code for activation in the batteries or they mix it up with some different runaway Code-
Speeding Tesla kills 2 in China, carmaker denies claims that brakes failed
Nah that’s conspiracy stuff as lefties are peacenik luvvy types as Tesla owners well know.
Yeah, the best home appliances, in terms or capabilities, available now are “smart.” These features inherently open them to the risk of hacking.
Why does my refrigerator need to have an IP address?
Well, say I want to get a message to you. I can text your refrigerator and when you go for a cold beer the message will appear either on a screen therein or as voice as the default method. Additionally, your refrigerator will alert your automobile that messages await your return home.
Your refrigerator could alert you that your EV in the garage was on fire, too.
Your refrigerator could see that milk is getting low and decides to order some.
Lot of people making money out of the political R&D projects while keeping it secret that it won’t work
The laws of thermodynamics are against using hydrogen as a fuel gas.
It just that simple.
🤔Hmm? I thought the main idea was to produce Hydrogen with green energy and store the H for use like a battery or a pumped hydroelectric energy storage structure. Spain could have used a mole or two of Hydrogen last week. Numbers get big in this calculation: A mole of hydrogen gas (H₂) contains approximately 6.022 x 10²³ molecules and has a mass of about 2.016 grams.
That mole of hydrogen also releases close to 300 kJ upon combustion. Pretty good, but perhaps George is considering the energy required to produce that hydrogen. (Avogadro’s number was 6.023 x 10²³ when I learned it.)
If we do find natural hydrogen wells of sufficient quantity, we will find a way to use it.
I’m usually skeptical of the punchline, “It’s just that simple.” In this case, however, the line works well. Touché!
As an aside, I often try to mention the laws of thermodyamics to climate panickers. Their eyes usually glaze over and look away before I can finish the first sentence.
Even if one solves all the engineering challenges of handling hydrogen, it lacks sufficient density to be practical transportation fuel, even as LH, a cryogenic liquid.
It’s easy to transport if you stabilize it with a little carbon.
As a teenager some 50 years ago, I recall how demonstrations in Iceland were begun to develop the “new” hydrogen economy. Those demonstrations came and went, Shell, for example had invested significantly there over that time.
The hydrogen processes for transport and storage used today for specialty applications are well developed, however. I have a tank of hydrogen in my basement that I use for quartz blowing and sometimes for analysis.
I have no fear of the tank or equipment failing. My fear is human (me) error, much like working with 110 or 220V electrical circuits in the house. I just purchased a natural gas range and am preparing for its installation upon its delivery in about a week, so these things are on my mind.
Hydrogen has been touted as a fuel since I began reading Popular Science back in
the ’60’s.
https://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/index.php/gm-electrovan/
The 1966 GM Electrovan, I was more impressed then by my dad’s 66 Mustang,..
“…companies are waking up and finding out that hydrogen isn’t the answer…”
Waking up and finding the multibillion £$€ gravy train has stopped, more like.
Energy companies never had the delusion that H2 would be practical. They entered this realm for the same reasons they began exploring other energy alternatives: Either (a) forced by governments to “diversify”, (b) greenwashing, and/or (c) government subsidies and tax incentives that artificially allowed short-term gain at taxpayer and ratepayer expense.
JP Morgan’s 15th Annual Energy Paper (March 2025) points out that estimates of electrolyser costs to produce hydrogen have proved to be 5 times too low and only 5% of the projects supposed to be completed by 2030 have reached a final investment decision.
Even so electrolyser manufacturers have expanded capacity much faster than demand to around 50GW at the end of 2024 whilst demand was only 4.4GW
I shudder to think how many $billions have been flushed down the toilet chasing the hydrogen fantasy.
The precise number of dollars wasted is “a bazillion jillion.” But heck, it’s only money. Idealistic humbug can never carry too high a price.
Not as many as the $trillions flushed chasing the CO2 control knob fantasy.
Hey, I’ve got it: Instead of the Hydrogen Economy, how about the Stupid Economy. It’s free, and there is apparently an infinite supply.
You don’t have to mine, ship, or refine stupidity, either. It floats around on its own, and presents itself in great abundance at frequent intervals.
You may have come across the power source for the long-sought perpetual motion machine.
The hydrogen energy idea would be out of business with one simple act. Withdraw government funding, tax preference and the whole business disappears overnight.