Hydrogen is the latest buzz in energy circles, hailed as a cleaner fuel option that emits only water when burned. Yet, recent research suggests that hydrogen and fossil fuels may be more friends than foes. This article delves into the overlaps, environmental impacts, and vested interests paradoxically linking the ‘clean’ hydrogen economy to fossil fuel extraction.
Future Hype and Present Troubles
Government officials and captains of industry on both sides of the Atlantic are going gaga over hydrogen (H2). While the US is mulling over a $10 billion tax credit bill to fund hydrogen production, European Union Member States have already earmarked almost €20 billion in direct aid to private companies developing hydrogen projects. To compare, in Europe, solar and wind respectively received €25 billion and €15 billion in 2022 (a record-breaking year for low-carbon energy subsidies). This profligacy in allocating public funding is justified by projections indicating at least a fivefold increase in hydrogen demand by 2050 to align with most 1.5-2 oC climate scenarios. And while analysts argue that hydrogen alone could contribute to decarbonise 18% of energy systems and meet 22% of final energy demand, questions linger about how exactly it will be deployed at scale.
Hydrogen production is an energy-hungry process. Each stage of the conversion from power (like electricity) to hydrogen and back dissipates energy. Consequently, the round-trip efficiency of green hydrogen – manufactured via electrolysis using low-carbon sources like wind and solar – currently stands at a modest 20-40%. This is substantially lower than alternatives like pumped hydro, compressed air, and flow batteries.
Despite the hype about its potential for decarbonisation, less than 0.1 % of hydrogen is currently used in energy systems. As shown in the image below, nearly half of the roughly 100 Mt of hydrogen consumed globally each year goes into oil refining. Another 30% is consumed to manufacture ammonia-based fertilisers (NH4) for industrial farming. Interestingly, the recent global fertilisers crisis is also tied to hydrogen production. Since most hydrogen (>60%) is produced using methane and water in a process called steam-methane-reforming (SMR), the 2021-2022 surge in natural gas prices caused the price of fertilisers to skyrocket.
Hydrogen economy in 2022. Source: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2024.100817
The cost of hydrogen is closely tied fossil fuel prices, as 99.9% of it is produced either from natural gas, oil, or coal. Its energy requirements amount to the equivalent of 2 billion barrels of oil per year, roughly comparable to Japan’s final energy consumption. Eliminating current hydrogen uses could spare over 2% of global CO2 emissions annually (900 Mt CO2). Still, this is only part of the picture, because hydrogen production also emits other greenhouse gases (GHGs) along the supply chain, such as methane. Hydrogen from steam-methane-reforming alone uses 6% of world ’s natural gas yearly consumption. Add to this figure methane losses due to leakage rates regularly above 3% during extraction and transportation, and the current ‘hydrogen economy’ emits well over half of Africa’s greenhouse gases emissions.
Industrial Interests
The major challenge facing the hydrogen industry is its dependency on fossil fuels. The answer advanced by oil and gas players is to deploy carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies. However, scientists have seriously cautioned against the paradoxical outcomes of relying on natural gas to produce ‘blue hydrogen’ (from SMR + CCS), besides the ‘moral hazard’ that doubling down on investments on fossil fuel-related infrastructure like CCS would entail. While the debate on the viability of blue hydrogen continues, undoubtedly this approach would benefit certain segments of the industry.
Gas companies, and particularly transmission system operators, fervently advocate for blue hydrogen and the refurbishment of gas grids to accommodate hydrogen transport. This would save them the embarrassment of operating a gradually emptying network of stranded assets. For instance, this is the position championed by the European Hydrogen Backbone (EHB) initiative, a spin-off of the Gas For Climate coalition. The EHB was launched in the summer of 2020 as a consortium of 32 gas transmission system operators managing most of Europe’s natural gas infrastructure. Their campaign has gained traction, with the idea of a “hydrogen backbone” repeatedly appearing in official European Commission communications. The possibility of repurposing methane infrastructure for hydrogen has been endorsed also by other energy developers, including for approving new liquified natural gas (LNG) terminals in Germany since 2020 as well as the now infamous Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, connecting Russia to Europe until it was sabotaged in September 2022.
Fossil fuel companies also control existing hydrogen production facilities, which are most often located next to refineries in coastal areas of oil-producing countries. These are usually owned by oil companies for on-site upgrading of oil and its derivatives. Given these industrial dynamics, to which extent does the emerging ‘clean’ hydrogen economy represent a departure from business-as-usual?
Partnerships and Trade Routes
Intellectual property rights over hydrogen technology are predominantly held by automotive, industrial chemicals, and oil and gas industries. The leading patent holders are private corporations like Linde, Air Liquide, Toyota, Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron, and BASF. Together with other oil and gas majors like Saudi Aramco, ADNOC, Sinopec, and TotalEnergies, these companies (except BASF) are also Steering Members of the Hydrogen Council, an association launched at the 2017 World Economic Forum in Davos to represent global industries shaping the nascent hydrogen economy. In Europe, such lobbying efforts often take the form of public-private partnerships involving European institutions, regional bodies, port authorities, and municipalities. Examples include the European Clean Hydrogen Alliance (the broadest hydrogen network in the world) and Hydrogen Europe. These industrial coalitions wield considerable influence on policymakers, especially when accompanied by promises of multi-billion investments in new hydrogen projects.
Indeed, among the world top twenty low-carbon hydrogen projects under development, the largest one is a public-private partnerships, and eleven of them involve at least one oil and gas company as lead developer. The mining sector too is featured in five of the top ten projects, with the Australian Fortescue Future Industries and its corporate conglomerate leading the charge. Notably, all the largest projects in the Global South focus on exporting hydrogen to high-income countries, risking entrenching their economic policies to the long-term export of low added value commodities. In other words, they would take advantage of weaker labour and environmental standards, instead of developing domestic industrial capacity. These issues have been raised for hydrogen developments in countries like Namibia, Morocco, South Africa, and Argentina.
Moreover, each kg of hydrogen requires 15-20 kg of water at the production site. While this could be addressed by de-salinization projects in coastal areas at an additional energy cost, current practices lack standardized measures to prevent developers from compromising local water resources, especially in arid and semi-arid climates. Nevertheless, the abundant solar radiation of these regions also makes them ideal for green hydrogen production coupled with large-scale solar parks. The growing energy dependency of Europe on African countries is an expression of these trends. So far, low-carbon energies have not challenged the reconfiguration of land and resources for the benefit of core wealthy countries. These trade relationships come with a certain colonial aftertaste, which can be ever more pernicious within an already uneven world market economy.
Moving Forward: What Role for Hydrogen?
In sum, there is broad consensus that hydrogen as an energy carrier represents a suboptimal solution compared to direct electrification. Hydrogen can be reserved as a complementary energy source whenever electrification is technically unfeasible or uneconomical.
This approach only makes sense if hydrogen production itself does not contribute significantly to GHG emissions. Thus, priority should be given to either decarbonise or phase out current hydrogen uses, starting with those related to the oil and gas industry. The second major consumer of hydrogen, the fertiliser industry, can also be challenged on the base that agroecological farming can dispense from its services while providing a host of additional benefits for humanity and the rest of nature.
However, the overlay of private agendas is limiting the array of choices to those that would preserve incumbent corporate power. While solutions exist to mitigate the environmental impact of the hydrogen industry, these will remain out of reach as long as political measures and industrial development do not align with the public interest.
This is also going on in the US, with the US Department of Energy subsidizing seven “hydrogen hubs.” Each one has multiple components–I have been trying to get more information about the one slated for my area, the ARCH2 with several components each in Ohio and Pennsylvania and many in West Virginia. DOE’s Public Engagement team had a Listening Session I participated in–and I heard many intelligent, cogent arguments on why it’s a bad idea. Ours would be a “blue hydrogen” project, where the H would be derived from natural gas, and the CO2 from burning it would supposedly be sequestered. Which means CO2 pipelines, and CO2 piped into old wells in areas where thousands of wells have been drilled, going back a century, with many long forgotten, thus leaks would be likely. But even the “green” ones sound dubious to me. Are they going to use wind-derived electricity, from the windmills that haven’t yet been built off the coast of NJ, to power generation of hydrogen in that project…and then run the hydrogen into power plants to produce electricity? In other words, an expensive, complicated way to get less energy from the windmills?
We were told that in a few weeks DOE would post a summary of our remarks and their responses, and a week ago I got an email with a link that was supposed to be that–but it just led to their slideshow, essentially a long ad for their hydrogen hub scheme, no summary or responses. I sent two emails asking where it was, no response. I think maybe the public engagement is intended to be a one-way communication, unless they can engage mostly with people who want to get in on the action of their local hub.
Among the many reasons I oppose this is that DOE is going to spend billions in taxpayer dollars on this boondoggle instead of a real attempt to address the climate crisis. The last few days, we have been seeing and hearing a big loud helicopter cruising in a loop over our clearing, probably because it’s a remote and hilly place and there is a small airport on the next ridge. This has happened before, training for night landings of medical copters, but these are in daytime and they are big, dark green machines with no markings, some kind of extensions out both sides, and an asymmetrical tail–I suspect military practices, flyers training in case they’re called to go kill nonwhite people somewhere in the world where there is resistance to US hegemony. Again–we’re pouring billions into this hideously immoral, stupid bullshit, using up the last resources on it instead of planning for a real future. And I don’t think will change until the resources are gone.
Agree; it seems that we will do anything to perpetuate the myth that growth – of collective status, when you get right down to it – can continue. I never anticipated the schism between the GND types and we more existential/Systems types; that’s been a sad thing.
I look at my grandchildren – my only yardstick these days – and wonder what I can do for them; teach them ways to think, skills to have… I’ve given up on the idea that the system can be changed from within.
Listening Session is their way of warning against resistance and laying down the rules. (The victims do all the listening.)
Most forums only publish “appropriate responses” except when unruly respondents can be easily held up to ridicule. It works like peer pressure from authority and privilege in high school. I remember the richer kids from the commercial-professional community at my school talked gibberish to one another and then claimed they were speaking a secret foreign language that the rest of us were too stupid to ever understand. When I wrote an article about it I was suspended from the high school newspaper staff, and then labeled “anti-social.” (Yep, I can hold grudges for decades. We can learn from adversity. ) It was administrators and compliant faculty who doxed me, on behalf of their constituency. Have you noticed the triumphant proclamations about Vogtle II opening in Georgia, totally omitting the delays, construction cost overruns and higher rates?
I maybe disagree a bit with your framing. I don’t think STATUS is it really, but wealth, ease, convenience, the feeding of addictions. And the real problem is not “we.” It’s not human nature, which is pretty plastic It’s the ruling class, which is able to distort culture in whatever ways serve their interests–and they perceive their interests to be accruing as much wealth and power as possible, with little concern about the cost to the rest of their societies and the rest of the living world. But yes–the current global ruling class has been so successful that there is little chance of changing anything via policy, we will only be able to after collapse–or as you put it more succinctly, we can’t change it “from within.”
Private equity takeovers using leveraged debt (hospital systems and educational institutions are characterized by predatory violence requiring accessories in courts, enforcers and legislatures. This predatory conquest has been legalized and normalized to a place where the aggressors are lauded and celebrated instead of being forced to make amends. We see it in monopoly utilities where rate increases are justified by bribes paid to office holders, perks and bonuses to executives and frivolous expenses such as retreats and parties, even unjustified dividends for shareholders/bondholders. Many of the business horror stories we see in MSM (doctors unpaid for 6 months, hospital equipment repossessed for nonpayment resulting in patient deaths, convenience store managers left with aisles full of dumped goods and no relief at shift’s end, falsified records in toxic waste handling) are becoming the norm rather than the exception. Corporate profits justify systemic and cascade failure. Corruption implodes under it’s own mass. There is no better proof than pretend elections where candidates are career criminals wealthy investors can depend upon to help raid treasuries and regulations. At present we have two senile celebrities presented as our only choices for president who otherwise would be due for palliative care and hospice (6 months to live).
Meanwhile we are threatened with genocide 24/7/365 and told it is the fault of refugees or the Chinese workforce; refugees used to do dirty work everywhere and a workforce that produces about 40% of consumer goods globally. The Inca could just walk away and make a garden somewhere else, but now there is nowhere to flee. (Sports, gambling and fried chicken ads are popping up as I enter and leave PR on Disqus. Chris Hedges whining about income lost because of not being of use to an Oligarch seems insanely silly under these conditions. I just walked to the grocery store and found them out of the treats my little end of life dog has been crying for. The stocker says we may never see that product again. We have become accustomed to so many superfluous things that are fading fast.) I have gotten used to keying my comments off Mary Wildfire and I would be greatly disadvantaged if she quit posting.
I think it IS we and 100% human nature. From our earliest beginnings WE have always sought to find and develop easy ways to do things. WE have from day one looked to establish status through finery and decoration and ease from drudgery. In inexorable steps through the ages this has led to where we are today.
People I have come across in least developed countries always aspire to having more and not just objects that make life easier. WE have always loved to make ourselves fine and to enjoy unnecessary indulgences.
There have always been individuals that are particularly successful at accumulation of wealth by various means. Those people, as a whole, become the ruling class. But they are just good at exploiting basic human nature for their own ends. We are them and they are us.
But there are indigenous cultures all over the world that have inculcated mores of restraint, respect, belonging. I think it may require small size, a tribe rather than a citystate, for this to hold because small tribes can recognize and restrain the sociopaths among them; in big cities, such people can use anonymity to manipulate their way into power, and gradually bring into being a culture based on domination–of women by men, the people generally by a ruling class, and all the rest of creation by humans. The dominators have taken over the world, where their culture now dominates and influences even the people of the “least developed countries” you mention. This is because the dominators are quite comfortable using violence to achieve their aims, and they get good at it. Peaceable, egalitarian tribes living in harmony with the rest of nature don’t stand much of a chance, once the dominator culture sees something it wants on their lands. It is NOT universal human nature. Those tendencies exist within us all I suppose but so do tendencies toward fairness, justice, nurturing, respect for the weak and the young….one reason humans have been so successful is our adaptability, but because of this dynamic, it will also probably be our undoing We are now up to four or five ways our survival as a species is threatened, all of them of our own making–if this ugly civilization survives a few more decades we’ll probably add a few more.