<\/p>\n
After many false dawns, all eyes are on hydrogen.\u00a0Europe, Australia, China, Japan, South Korea are making big bets on hydrogen, and the EU alone estimates up to 470 B\u20ac of investments by 2030 to achieve its hydrogen targets as part of its Green Deal.\u00a0The private sector is bustling with alliances and announcements of new hydrogen frontiers and applications.\u00a0But even the greatest enthusiasts agree that this is a colossal experiment:\u00a0can we really jump-start the hydrogen transition, or are we investing hundreds of billions of euros into what will turn out to be yet another bubble?\u00a0This time around we have to get it right, and doing so requires less hype, more science and targeted capital allocation.<\/p>\n
The advantages to hydrogen are huge when it is made with renewable energy (\u201cgreen hydrogen\u201d), because it simply emits water.\u00a0In \u201chard-to-abate\u201d sectors like steel, cement, shipping and aviation, where green alternatives do not exist, replacing fossil fuels with hydrogen could not only drastically eliminate the world\u2019s CO2 emissions by 15%\u00a0but also spark a virtuous demand for electrolyzer capacity (+ 5500 GW) which, in turn, would boost renewable electricity capacity by about 8 times the amount installed today, or the entire electricity produced globally in 2019.<\/p>\n
But the hydrogen hype also rests on the debatable assumption that hydrogen is the solution in other sectors like cars and heating.\u00a0Electric cars are simply more efficient than their hydrogen counterparts, and recent advances in battery technology make the range and charging speed of electric batteries much more competitive.\u00a0In long-haul heavy-duty trucks or any other high energy capacity application with very limited charging range, the jury is still out.<\/p>\n