News & Articles on Hydrogen
Hydrogen is not a renewable resource. It is an energy carrier. As such, I don’t normally write about hydrogen. However, others do and I’ve chosen to add this page to highlight the articles on hydrogen I think are important. For many years hydrogen has been seen as a panacea by those who are not energy aware, and those who use hydrogen as a cover for continuing to burn fossil fuels. It is very inefficient to convert electricity to hydrogen and then to convert the hydrogen back into electricity. It’s much more efficient to use electricity directly to power an electric vehicle than to convert electricity to hydrogen and back again in a fuel cell. Hydrogen is only useful in the energy transition if it is created by renewable energy such as by wind or solar and used for purposes that require it. Nearly all hydrogen produced in 2024 was made from fossil fuels. Thus, it makes no sense to burn fossil fuels to make hydrogen and then use hydrogen to drive a car for example.
Ballard Averaging $55 Million Annual Losses While Pushing Hydrogen Rock Uphill With Grants
By
Michael Barnard
There are three long running supporting cast members in stagings of the sad farce that is trials of hydrogen for fleets, FuelCell Energy, Plug Power and Ballard Power Systems. All of their market capitalizations peaked roughly 99% above their current stock valuations in 2000. They’ve all participated in innumerable hydrogen fleet trials, yet none of the trials has resulted in hundreds or thousands of vehicles operating on hydrogen. Quite the opposite, most have resulted in hydrogen being abandoned entirely.
More Hydrogen Fleets That Reached The End Of The Tragicomedy Including Iceland
By
Michael Barnard
One thing that the chorus is bad at is even acknowledging, never mind keeping track of, acts 4, 5 and 6, where the governmental taps are shut, leading to the fleet operators scrapping the hydrogen vehicles and getting battery electric vehicles instead, something that they should have started with.
Ontario’s Hydrogen Approach Will Be A B-School Case Study In Failure
By
Michael Barnard
Not to be left behind as the world is spun in circles by hydrogen hype, Ontario published a hydrogen strategy in 2022. Recently it announced the first approved significant project, one that involves truckloads of hydrogen leaving Niagara Falls to be burned in a gas generator over 100 kilometers away. Multiple layers of energetic and economic nonsense are involved in this.
Hydrogen Is Just Another Hole for Natural Gas to Fill
By
External Source
As the grand ambitions for that last endeavor have begun to show signs of waning, the industry has once again pivoted, this time to embrace its potential as part of America’s climate future. When the Biden administration announced this year that its build-out of facilities for hydrogen—a fuel that could help reduce emissions from heavy industry—would have a starring role for natural gas, it was hardly a surprise: The industry appears to have worked hard to ensure its place.
The Odyssey Of The Hydrogen Fleet: A Tragicomedy In Six Acts
By
Michael Barnard
But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a legacy left behind. In the case of nuclear energy, it’s people like Michael Shellenberger, a man whose commitment to nuclear energy is so absolute that he’s become a climate change denier and anti-renewables campaigner because renewables are so obviously a better wedge against global warming. He made his career in California around the same time as hydrogen for transportation sunk its hooks into the state deeply. Sometimes it’s better to be a follower than a leader, and while California’s heart was in the right place, it’s head was stuck in a place devoid of oxygen.
Adventures In Failed Technology: Small Modular Reactors & Hydrogen Buses
By
Michael Barnard
Small modular nuclear reactor and hydrogen for energy proposals and trials are all zombie proposals sucking time, effort, and willpower away from the necessary decarbonization of our economy. This little roundup is just an appetizer course for the absurd feast of riches to come with canceled projects and crashing dreams.
IKEA Follows In The Footsteps Of Organizations Abandoning Hydrogen For Energy
By
Michael Barnard
IKEA will figure it out, just as everyone who goes down this pathway does. It’s remarkable that people keep making the mistake when it’s so obviously a mistake with tiny amounts of number crunching and the slightest awareness of battery energy density improvements.
Hydrogen Pipelines Studies Keep Making The Same Mistakes
By
Michael Barnard
Recently a variety of studies and memes have been expressing an odd distortion of reality, supported strongly by oil and gas industry lobbying and PR groups. The claim is that gas pipelines move a lot more energy a lot more cheaply than high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission.
Latest “Hydrogen Economy” Round Is Hype, But There Is A Place For Hydrogen
By
Michael Barnard
There’s a $120 billion global hydrogen industry that we have to kick the fossil fuel companies out of. 3-4% of global petroleum use is for long-haul shipping and aviation. About 8% of CO2e emissions globally are from steelmaking. That’s more than enough for CleanTechnica to report on. Boosterism for hydrogen outside of those spaces is just perpetuating the wrong industry.
Hydrogen cars won’t overtake electric vehicles because they’re hampered by the laws of science
By
Tom Baxter
Hydrogen has long been touted as the future for passenger cars. The hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV), which simply runs on pressurised hydrogen from a fuelling station, produces zero carbon emissions from its exhaust. It can be filled as quickly as a fossil-fuel equivalent and offers a similar driving distance to petrol. It has some heavyweight backing, with Toyota for instance launching the second-generation Mirai later in 2020.
