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US to Cancel Billions for West Coast Hydrogen Hubs Amid Shutdown
(www.bloomberg.com)
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this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2025
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There are both processes which need it to decarbonize like nitrate fertilizer manufacturing, and things like cars where you can get the same outcome more cheaply via other methods, leaving hydrogen based systems as greenwashing.
On the whole, this is not great.
And I'm unwilling to ditch Bloomberg; they're doing a meaningful chunk of the environmental tech reporting right now, and gift links like this one enable almost everyone to access it.
You should let go of your BEV obsession too. Hydrogen cars will be very cost effective once the technology get scaled up. FCEVs can be cheaper than ICE cars to make, and green hydrogen can get cheaper than fossil fuels. They will be valid options in the future.
People have been saying that for 20 years. Meanwhile battery-electric actually became practical. We aren't in a place where we can wait another 20.
H2 is complimentary to batteries. You can discharge battery capacity that will recharge to full the next day. It's affordable enough to make already, and as a fuel, is tradeable/exportable power. Making H2 is needed to support more renewables so that surpluses aren't wasted.
Making H2 just doesn't stop you from using BEVs today or tomorrow. Faster charging for more range using a fuel that was made when, and priced because, it was conveniently sunny.
The world can get there without the US, and energy sabotage was always a GOP magnet. But anti-H2 sentiment, based on genuine disinformation, but ok perhaps overhyped Toyota prototypes prior to infrastructure maturity, has made adoption/progress slower, if only because renewables adoption has been slower than what was possible.
We've already waited decades for BEVs to be ready. It's hypocritical to say we cannot wait for anything else. And besides, hydrogen cars are in production right now, so we don't have to wait much longer for it be mainstream.
And given that the BEV is simply not going to the universal solution, there will be many people that will have to wait anyways. So we should be open to other options regardless.
What are you actually advocating for here? Not electrifying and waiting another few decades for hydrogen? You come off as excessively defensive of the practically nonexistent H2 industry and excessively critical of electrification, which is basically the Shell and Exxon position. We don't have time wait for anything, we need to use the tech we have now to reduce warming. Where do we get the hydrogen in your world? Is it blue or green? Blue is just fossil fuels with extra steps and green doesn't make sense until we have significant excess renewables and already electrified the easy stuff (buildings) and then it might still make sense only for industry/shipping and niche stuff. H2 itself has a GWP of 11 or so, and we will leak quite a bit. So again, what are you actually arguing for? I can't buy hydrogen, period. I can't buy a hydrogen vehicle, or a hydrogen furnace, or a hydrogen anything. What do you actually think we plebs should be doing here? I already want green steel as much as you do.
The first point to make is that hydrogen is not decades off. Green hydrogen is happening now, and its production is rapidly expanding alongside the expansion of renewable energy production. Many sectors can rapidly adopt green hydrogen right away. This is similar to the conversation we we had about solar power about a decade ago. Critics of solar power back then were being Luddites (and sometimes secret fossil fuel industry stooges). They were convinced that solar could not be cost-effective or scale, based off of very outdated understandings of the issue, but they were wrong. This conversation is repeating with green hydrogen.
On a related note, pro-electrification crusaders are being hypocrites on this subject. They themselves are demanding that we wait decades for miracle batteries or multi-decadal long electrification programs. Because they want "perfect" solutions rather than "good" solutions. A good example is how they demand we fully electrify all rail, a process that will take decades, rather than doing something faster like switching diesel trains to hydrogen trains. In reality, adopting hydrogen now, alongside more reasonable forms of electrification, will be a faster path for reducing CO2 emissions.
Also note that most "fearmongering" types of argument against hydrogen originated from the fossil fuel industry. They are always spreading propaganda intended to undermine green energy projects, and make similar claims about all green technologies. Claims that hydrogen is dangerous, or a GHG, or will leak, etc., are all fear tactics created with minimal amounts of evidence. In reality, hydrogen has very few problems, and adopting it will drastically make transportation and industry safer and more green. It is unfortunate that many environmentalists have fallen for this tactic, but I suppose every green idea had to overcome it.
Finally, you can buy hydrogen and hydrogen-related products. Sure, we are still a bit early on the adoption curve, but that is true of every new idea. Someone can buy a hydrogen car, or a furnace, or whatever right now. Many more are also capable, but don't know it yet. So rather than demonizing something for not being able to basically time travel, environmentalists should promote green ideas in order to accelerate their adoption.
Yes, hydrogen cars exist in tiny numbers...but there is wildly inadequate fueling infrastructure, and no sign that it will be built out. Meanwhile, you can charge at home, and there is a massive buildout of fast chargers underway in most of the world. I don't expect hydrogen for ground surface transportation to be meaningful as a result.
That's closed-minded thinking. There is nothing stopping the rapid deployment of hydrogen cars. The obsession with only one type of green car is a major detriment to the green car movement. For many people, green transportation is a threat to their lifestyle, since they are not allowed to look at any option other than the BEV.
Its literally driven by economics and practicality. People dont buy them because its cheaper and more convenient to use battery-electric.
If there had been a huge green hydrogen build out earlier, it might have been different, but it isn't
The case for H2 is just to make it (electrolysis). The case for consumer FCEVs comes well after the production capacity is abundant, but then also after heavier transport refueling is deployed sufficiently.
Also to compress it, chill it, transport it, and store it, while avoiding leaks and fires. You're absolutely right though, first comes renewables (and a shit ton of batteries), hopefully in parallel some green steel and chemical processes, then heavy transit and the harder edge cases to electrify, assuming electrification hasn't already solved those issues by then. Talking about regular folks buying fuel cell cars is not realistic.
That is the exact opposite of reality. BEVs are heavily subsidized globally. Without enormous government support, the market for them would be very small.