If you asked EU leaders how to save the climate in the last few years, they sounded like a broken record: "...it is the dawn of the clean hydrogen era..." "...on the hydrogen..." "...Europe's hydrogen economy..." "...because hydrogen rocks!" "...clean hydrogen trailblazer..." "...and with hydrogen, we can make it happen!" Ok, I think you get the gist. Europe is getting pretty ambitious about cleaning up its economy. By 2050, the continent plans to reach net zero emissions. This means: replacing the oil that powers European cars. The natural gas that heats European homes. And the coal that's still burnt in European power plants. To achieve all this, the continent is betting big on hydrogen, the miracle fuel-slash-buzzword in the world of energy. Let's unpack why that's a mistake – and who stands to profit from it. Remember 2020? Strange times. But as we were struggling to unmute Zoom and binging Tiger King, Brussels was busy. Or, to be precise, the European Commission which proposes new laws for the bloc. It tried to figure out how to save its economy – while also nudging it towards becoming climate-neutral. Part of what they came up with was: a hydrogen strategy. It talked about how the element "does not emit CO2" when used, can "replace fossil fuels" and "will foster sustainable growth and jobs". How it "did not take off in the past" but how we're "now close to a tipping point." And yeah, on the surface, hydrogen sounds pretty great. By the way, you might want to check
out our previous video on hydrogen, covering a lot of the basics. In short: You can make it from renewable electricity with no greenhouse gas emissions. And then, theoretically, use it to clean up all kinds of things – from cars and trucks and planes and ships to steel-making and electricity production to heating. "This is in principle a very good story from a European perspective." This is Matthias Buck, who heads the Europe team at a leading energy transition think tank. And he says, apart from its climate credentials, there was another reason the EU fell in love with hydrogen. "We have used up our own fossil fuels in the past and now we are highly dependent on fossil fuel imports to keep the European economy running. Renewable hydrogen has for some time been part of climate neutrality scenarios. But it also has the benefit that we can most likely produce it domestically." Skip to 2022, when this became even more relevant. Russia invaded Ukraine and ended up cutting much of its natural gas supply to Europe. Brussels got to work again and lifted its hydrogen targets... "...to 10 million tons of renewable hydrogen produced annually in the EU by 2030. And another 10 million tons in annual imports." "And this is a huge amount of hydrogen to come out in a very short span of time." Silvia Pastorelli is an energy and climate campaigner with Greenpeace in Europe. "So the question is how realistic all this is...?" On paper, a lot is happening. There are industry plans for tens of thousands of kilometers of dedicated hydrogen pipelines. Many of which made it onto the EU's projects of common interest list – which means they're eligible for subsidies and fast-tracked planning. In fact, 65 of the 166 projects on that list are hydrogen-related, including quite a few electrolyzers, which you need to make hydrogen from renewable electricity. And then there's the European Commission's "Hydrogen Bank", handing out hundreds of millions of euros in subsidies to producers. But... despite all this: not much is actually happening. Work has started on only a few pipelines, for example in the port of Rotterdam. And in terms of production capacity: In 2023, there were around 230 megawatts of operational electrolyzers, according to an industry study. To produce the envisioned 10 million tons by 2030, we'd need about 600 times more. Reality is lagging behind the EU's big plans. And there's a reason for that: Hydrogen is not the miracle solution EU leaders would like it to be. As we've established, green hydrogen is made from renewable electricity. "This means that we need to also build a lot more renewables. We need to have a lot more solar panels, wind farms, being put in place." The problem is this, though: Hydrogen is not the most efficient way of using this energy. Take cars. To power a hydrogen car, you first need to convert renewable energy into hydrogen. Then transport this hydrogen to a refilling station and pump it into the car that uses a fuel cell – a device that converts it back to electricity that drives the vehicle. Some energy is lost with every step along the way. And only about 30% of the energy you put in makes it to the wheel. Battery-electric cars are just much more efficient, using close to 80% of the energy that goes in. The same goes for hydrogen boilers to heat buildings. By the time the hydrogen has been produced, transported and burned, you've lost half of the energy. An electric heat pump on the other hand moves around three times more heat than energy you put in – making it 270% efficient. To run these things on hydrogen, we'd have to build way more wind turbines and solar panels. And this means... "It's a relatively expensive process compared to the direct use of electricity." This doesn't mean hydrogen is completely useless, though. "We need some hydrogen in some parts of the transition. We don't need hydrogen across the board." So, where possible, directly using electricity is the way to go. And where it struggles, we can fall back on hydrogen. But we should use it as sparsely as possible. "Hydrogen has been defined as the 'champagne of energy'. It's something expensive. It's not for every day. It's for the special occasions." This makes the EU's plans look pretty overblown. But it's not the only problem with them. Another is that switching things over to hydrogen is hard. "We don't have very much experience in large-scale long-distance hydrogen transportation. So we need more experience on that." This is Satu Lipiäinen, who's co-authored a study on how hydrogen can be moved from A to B. A popular idea is to simply push it through existing natural gas pipelines. But that's not as easy as it sounds. "Hydrogen is a different gas than methane, so it has very different properties. Hydrogen is a very small molecule and that can cause challenges for pipeline materials." In fact, it's the smallest molecule on earth. That means it can slip into tiny cracks in the pipeline's steel, make it more brittle and, in the worst case, crack it. So pipelines need to be tested – and potentially refurbished – before carrying hydrogen. That's quicker and cheaper than building new dedicated hydrogen pipelines. But it's still a big investment. "Even if the pipeline itself is compatible with hydrogen, there is always a need for some upgrades. So we need to change valve compressors, metering, gas detection devices." You might have heard the term "H2 ready" in relation to this – but also to other pieces of gas infrastructure, like LNG terminals or power plants. It suggests they can be easily switched to run on hydrogen in the future. But there are actually huge differences how much hydrogen they can handle. "Now some of the definitions that are floating around of hydrogen-ready are anywhere between 1% and 100%. So at this point, we don't have an established common understanding what hydrogen-ready means and stands for." Depending on where on this scale a piece of equipment sits... it might need substantial refitting after all before it can carry pure hydrogen. "Like, if you have a diesel car, you wouldn't call that 'electric-ready' car, just because you can use the shell of the car if you have to end up gutting the entire car. And that's the same principle. And of course you wouldn't do it and that's the same for hydrogen." And even if something's 100% hydrogen-ready... that doesn't mean it'll be running on hydrogen any time soon. Or... at least not on green hydrogen. That's because there's close to no green hydrogen available and that's not likely to change soon. Across the European Union, only 0.2% of dedicated production is made from electrolysis. Almost the entire rest is gray hydrogen made from... fossil fuels, mainly natural gas, which creates lots of CO2 emissions. And this lack of green hydrogen opens up two scenarios in which hydrogen could actually end up hurting the climate – rather than saving it. The first is that Europe keeps building gas infrastructure that's supposedly "H2-ready". But since there's no green hydrogen available, it keeps getting used for natural gas, which should be on its way out. And the second is that... "There's a very high risk that we will be using hydrogen which is either gray or not properly blue." Now, blue hydrogen is also made from natural gas. What's different is that producers claim they... "...capture carbon on a massive scale..." ...before it reaches the atmosphere and then store it. Matthias called it "not properly blue" because the technology behind this hasn't been proven to properly work at scale. "At this point in time, there is very, very limited technical capacity to capture carbon and to actually produce blue hydrogen that is acceptable from a climate protection perspective." Meaning: if we rely on blue hydrogen, we extend the life of natural gas and create emissions in the process – once again exactly what hydrogen was supposed to help avoid. We wanted to hear what the industry had to say about this, so we contacted Hydrogen Europe, an association that counts fossil fuel majors like Shell, BP and TotalEnergies among its members. Unfortunately, they never responded. Keep them in mind anyway, they'll make another appearance in a second. It's the natural gas industry that's been pushing the idea of building more infrastructure and making blue hydrogen. "The Shell Blue Hydrogen process..." And it's easy to see why. "They see in hydrogen the lifeline of their business. While everyone is talking about decarbonizing and how to live without fossil fuels, they see this as the perfect way of continuing their business." And that leads us to one big reason why the EU went so big on hydrogen: Fossil fuel companies have been making the case for it in Brussels – or in other words: lobbying. "It clearly played a role, yeah, played an important role." Corporate Europe Observatory, an
NGO, combed through lobby registers. They found that out of the 100 biggest lobby groups in the EU, 25 have in one way or another – advocated for hydrogen in Brussels. Among them, you find many fossil fuel majors. But also some trade groups and organizations. Hydrogen Europe – the one who didn't get back to us – is considered the most influential, representing more than 500 members. Many of these included. This is its CEO, Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, sitting next to Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the European Commission. "...represented by Hydrogen Europe – we know each other very well." And this is him bragging on a podcast how the Commission, in 2020, adopted the 2x40GW production target Hydrogen Europe was pushing for then, 1:1 into their hydrogen strategy. "They went through all the figures and we explained: 'Yes, this is not just a fantasy. We have a whole bunch of industrial
partners who would underpin this.' They after 3 months only, they presented the strategy and you will find the 2x40GW enshrined in that strategy." Brussels loves hydrogen. And hydrogen loves Brussels. "European decision makers, commissioners, they're very, very happy to meet with them. The general excuse is: 'They have the expertise, they're stakeholders, we need to talk to them.' But of course, they're there to serve their own interests." So where does all that leave us? Well, hydrogen is part of the solution – but no silver bullet. If its role gets overhyped, it can lead to expensive, inefficient and even climate-damaging choices. And the European Commission does seem to be backtracking. In their most recent climate scenario, they predict 3 million tons of green
hydrogen will be produced in the EU in 2030. Which is a lot less than the 10 million tons they set as the official target. This could be a sign that the hydrogen hype is starting to crumble – and reality is taking over. "What do you think? Is betting big on hydrogen the way to go – or just a distraction? Let us know in the comments and don't forget to hit subscribe because we have more videos like this for you every Friday."
