The Great Hydrogen Hoax » Enrique Dans

A LinkedIn post by Jan Rozenow, Director of European Programmes at the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP), a global team of highly experienced energy experts, about how the gas industry intends to promote the use of hydrogen for home heating, prompted me to write the first comment and, armed with relevant, reliable and illustrative articles, start writing in a slightly more structured way.

The oil industry is eager, no matter who fails, to turn hydrogen into a technology that can save its business model. The question seems simple: given that hydrogen is a by-product of the distillation and production stages of oil and gas, the idea of ​​using its infrastructure to continue selling hydrogen with the idea that it is “clean” seems attractive and potentially interesting. After all, hydrogen is a flammable gas, so it can continue to be used by burning it for many of the same purposes as gas.

What’s the problem? Obviously, if hydrogen is the result of a highly polluting industrial process based on fossil fuels, it automatically ceases to be a source of clean energy. Not only is this not true, but it is highly polluting, a false solution, if not outright fraud or scam. The problem is that currently over 97% of the hydrogen on the market is produced by such processes, which is causing huge interest from oil companies in developing this market.

Hydrogen is a big lie, equivalent to the oil industry changing the name of methane, a fossil fuel, to “natural gas,” which had better marketing in the climate emergency and carried the false idea that it was clean and harmless. Likewise, it is trying to position its hydrogen as a clean and green product, while the great reality, often denounced, is that not only is it not, it is particularly harmful, even worse than coal.

Since this pointless marketing began, numerous pieces of evidence have shown that it is outrageous. We know full well that trying to use hydrogen in the automotive industry is pointless and energy-inefficient nonsense, even for the largest and heaviest trucks. Several traditional car brands have already abandoned their hydrogen projects, either because they were commercial failures or because they could not build the very expensive and dangerous supply infrastructure. The unwary people who believed in these promises continue to wait, becoming victims of a scam, a future that will not come, and watching the very few “hydrogen plants” gradually disappear, leaving them with a virtually useless car.

But beyond cars, transport in general is retreating from these projects: Ikea has already abandoned the idea of ​​a fleet of hydrogen trucks, Germany’s hydrogen trains, launched with great media fanfare, have already been dismantled, and even Maersk has abandoned the idea of ​​fueling container ships with hydrogen. Regardless of how large, medium or small the vehicle, hydrogen is increasingly seen as a pointless alternative to transport.

Hydrogen use cases have been disappearing over the past 25 years as fast as companies have tried to put it into practice, and projections for demand between now and 2100 are for it to fall, not rise, to the disappointment of Big Oil. Heating homes with hydrogen is downright outrageous and inefficient, as Ian Rosenow’s own research shows. But the forces trying to take advantage of heavily subsidized distribution infrastructure as gas consumption declines are powerful, and they have the wherewithal to invest for years.

Yes, hydrogen has a future, but not the one Big Oil wants. We will see hydrogen as energy storage for excess solar and wind power, as a means of correcting their natural intermittency, and for a few other purposes, but certainly not in the way that the companies most responsible – or, better yet, irresponsible – for the climate emergency, they claim. Every time you hear the word “hydrogen” from the mouth of someone trying to sell you something, know this: the oil industry is behind it. And it’s a lie. A big, nasty lie.

This article is also available in English on my Medium page: “Why is the oil industry so eager to promote hydrogen as the fuel of the future?”