Hydrogen economy remains a pipedream
TERRY Riordan berates me for numerical hindsight (“Energy needs about making jam tomorrow”, July 17). In order not to annoy Terry by retrospection, let’s make a few observations that are rather more forward looking.
Consider the European Court of Auditors’ Special Report No. 11, entitled “The EU’s industrial policy on renewable hydrogen – time for a reality check”. It was published on July 17, 2024. Here are a few conclusions concerning the commission’s future strategy:
“The commission set unrealistic hydrogen production and import targets - the EU is not on track for achieving them”.
“The legal framework is mostly complete, but its overall impact on the market is as yet uncertain”.
“There are multiple EU funding sources for hydrogen projects, but no guarantee that they will be appropriate for developing an EU-wide market”.
“Insufficient coordination efforts by the commission, both internally and with member states, but also with industry”.
Targets were “…driven by political will rather than being based on robust analyses”.
The report’s lead author stated that the EU executive should scrap its current targets not only because there is too little time for investors to deploy the production infrastructure, but because there is currently no use for such huge volumes of hydrogen. “Demand… will not even reach 10 million tonnes by 2030, let alone the 20 million tonnes envisaged by the commission”.
Contemporaneously, the Australian conglomerate Fortesque axed a target to produce 15 million tonnes of hydrogen by 2030, blaming high costs and weak demand. Hydrogen-heating trials have been cancelled in the UK. France’s Engie and Norway’s Statkraft have delayed green hydrogen production plans.
Hindsight is a valuable attribute, Terry. In the words of philosopher George Santayana, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. In fact, though, whether one looks backwards or forwards, a global hydrogen economy remains a ludicrous, unattainable pipe dream.
Bob Berrisford