By Kennedy Maize
“But we all know there is no such thing as a free lunch. Hydrogen problems are real. It is so light it is difficult, meaning expensive, to store. That’s a problem for transportation uses.”
Hydrogen, 1H, the primary and most common element in the universe, consists of one proton, one electron, and no neutrons. It’s in first place on the periodic chart of the elements. In common, gaseous form, H2, it is colorless, odorless, and highly combustible. It is the fuel of the sun.
For many years, some energy mavens have touted hydrogen, an energy carrier, as the perfect fuel form for a greener earth. When combusted in pure oxygen, it produces only water and a lot of energy. When burned in air, it emits only small amounts of oxides of nitrogen. As a fuel, it is carbon free.
In air, the combustion temperature is around 2,379°C (4,314°F). A natural gas flame hits around 1,950°C. The intense heat is one reason hydrogen is valuable in industrial applications like welding and cutting metals.
Challenges
Hydrogen is an ideal element for fuel cells, which use an electrochemical process to release the electrons, producing an electric current. But we all know there is no such thing as a free lunch. Hydrogen problems are real. It is so light it is difficult, meaning expensive, to store. That’s a problem for transportation uses.
Hydrogen is not widely available naturally, generally requiring it to be produced by breaking down more available sources such as methane (CH4) in natural gas, or from water (H2O). That introduces a host of expensive problems.
Despite the perceived advantages of elemental hydrogen in an energy economy, its tale is a matter of great expectations often crashing against rocky realizations, perhaps beginning with the May 1937 explosion of the German commercial dirigible Hindenburg over Lakehurst, N.J., killing 36 passengers and crew.
Commercial Setback
The quest to commercialize hydrogen, government-enabled, [1] was set back earlier this summer. Pennsylvania-based Air Products (NYSE:APD), a major industrial gases company, announced it was pulling the plug on its long-troubled Louisiana Clean Energy Project, taking a pre-tax financial hit of up to $2.9 billion.
The project in Ascension Parish aimed at producing “blue” hydrogen and “blue” ammonia, meaning gases produced from breaking down natural gas while capturing and storing the associated carbon dioxide. That distinguishes it from “green” hydrogen, produced by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen.
The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis wrote that the Louisiana project was founded when the “hype around blue hydrogen exploded in 2022, with the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and the allocation of $7 billion in funding to regional Hydrogen Hubs.” The analysis said, “The decision is a huge win for taxpayers, who could have been on the hook for billions of dollars in subsidies, as well as Louisiana communities, which would have borne the environmental cost of such a facility.”
The project initially pencilled out as profitable based on assumptions about the value of carbon capture and storage tax credits from the Biden administration that were speculative at best and, most likely, hallucinatory. IEEFA commented, “By 2025, cheap natural gas and generous production subsidies were no longer enough to get a project to move ahead.”
Pick Your Type
Hydrogen is colorful, based on how it’s obtained. It’s time to introduce the hydrogen color chart.
Hydrogen boosters have most recently touted green and blue hydrogen, although green has largely vanished as an acceptable hue in the Trump administration, unless we are talking about cash. There is no “gold” hydrogen, which might merit some attention at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Prototype Examples
There are successful uses of hydrogen in transportation. Hydrogen Insight online magazine reports that a hydrogen-fueled bus in Spain “with the longest ever range — more than 1,000km on a single tank — has been in operation on various routes in and around the Spanish capital, Madrid, since June, the manufacturer has announced.”
The venerable Spanish bus and coach maker Irizar built the vehicle that is in Madrid service. According to the company, the Madrid coach “incorporates a 190-kW Bosch hydrogen fuel cell and an electric propulsion system designed for medium- and long-distance operations, enabling refueling times of around 10–15 minutes and a range exceeding 1,000 km. It maintains performance and commercial attributes equivalent to those of diesel vehicles.”
Spain is a hotbed of hydrogen energy research and development. According to the fuel cell-oriented web publication FCW, researchers from València’s Institute of Chemical Technology (ITQ) and the Institute of Information and Communication Technologies (ITACA) are working on “materials that improve the production of hydrogen from water from microwave radiation,” producing green hydrogen.
White Hydrogen Supply?
There are also hints that naturally-occurring hydrogen may be more plentiful than once thought. Recent drilling in Canada’s Ontario province by University of Toronto and University of Ottawa scientists found promising amounts of hydrogen. Science Daily reports the geologists “studied the Canadian Shield, a vast region of some of the oldest rock formations on the planet. For the first time, they directly measured hydrogen escaping from these billion-year-old rocks, tracked how it builds up over time, and mapped where the gas is concentrated.
“The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could help determine whether naturally occurring, or ‘white,’ hydrogen can become a practical and economical energy source.”
In January, 2025, the U.S. Geological Survey wrote:
Although naturally occurring hydrogen has been encountered in a wide variety of subsurface environments, millions of oil and gas wells have failed to detect more than trace concentrations of hydrogen…. This led many geoscientists to conclude that economic accumulations of hydrogen in the subsurface are non-existent… It is clear now that geoscientists were premature in concluding that economic accumulations of natural hydrogen could not exist in the subsurface.
Conclusion
Could the promise of enormous, clean energy from hydrogen become real? Not now; special government favor is keeping it in play. Someday? Perhaps. Hydrogen in its different colors is technologically feasible and thus a backstop energy for the future.
[1] Seven regional H2Hubs, created in response to the federal government’s $7 billion investment, are
- ARCHES: California Hydrogen Hub focused on renewable energy and heavy-duty mobility.
- ARCH2: Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub spanning West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
- HyVelocity H2Hub: Gulf Coast hub leveraging legacy infrastructure in Texas.
- MACH2: Mid-Atlantic Clean Hydrogen Hub across Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey.
- MachH2: Midwest Alliance for Clean Hydrogen in Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan.
- PNW H2: Pacific Northwest hub in Washington, Oregon, and Montana.
- Heartland Hydrogen Hub: Spanning Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota
Recent setbacks with the above in-process projects all but ensure that the original goal of 76 “green” hydrogen projects, part of the Biden-era goal of Net Zero by 2050, will not be reached.
Kennedy Maize is a Washington, D.C.-based journalist who has covered energy and environmental topics for nearly a half-century. This post, edited here, originally appeared at The Quad Report. Maize’s previous reposts at MasterResource are here.
