We shouldn’t pretend green hydrogen is the future just because Europe is wasting billions on it. Department of Energy Secretary Wright said concerning hydrogen, “it’s time to look at the facts.” Facts don’t favor green hydrogen, which is why the DOE will examine “co-financing, offtake agreements and good engineering” in deciding whether to continue spending $7 billion on hydrogen hubs.
Let’s start with the basics: today, 99% of hydrogen is produced from fossil fuels, and more specifically natural gas and coal. Green hydrogen is less than 1% of our energy use, and it requires an expensive, inefficient process.
Green hydrogen is energy intensive. It needs 13 times more water than hydrogen yields, and it must be heated to 2,000°F degrees and split with electricity.
Then, the hydrogen must be chilled to nearly absolute zero – about minus 460°F – and compressed to 10,000 psi. That’s three times the pressure of compressed natural gas (CNG), or a scuba tank. This process is what we consider a “40% energy loser.”
Hydrogen is also problematic to store and transport, because hydrogen molecules are tiny and escape containment easily, leading to a 10% storage loss.
It weakens metals – causing embrittlement – and presents explosion risks even in open spaces. We don’t have the infrastructure to use hydrogen safely or efficiently at scale, as there are few hydrogen vehicles, fewer fueling stations, and even fewer reasons to force this square peg into a round hole.
A European engineer once quipped that using hydrogen for energy is like “burning Louis Vuitton bags for fuel.” It’s a great analogy—extravagantly expensive and ultimately wasteful.
What’s more, in Delta, Utah, on the edge of the desert, the Biden administration greenlit a hydrogen hub, offering a $500 million low-interest loan to store hydrogen in a giant salt dome. But here’s the kicker: the hydrogen they wanted to store doesn’t even exist.
Water is scarce in the desert, so where exactly will they get the vast quantities of water needed for hydrogen production? Only 2% of Utah’s electricity comes from wind and solar, so where will the green power come from? These are all questions without answers.
Green hydrogen gets even more absurd the more you investigate it. The idea is to use intermittent wind and solar power to make hydrogen, store it, and then use it later to generate electricity, just to make more hydrogen. When you tally up the energy losses at each stage, this cycle quickly becomes a black hole of inefficiency, while the second generation of hydrogen from stored hydrogen-powered electricity will yield virtually nothing. Only a green fantasy world addicted to subsidies could allow such circular logic to pass as policy.
In contrast, natural gas is a proven, reliable, and abundant energy source. It doesn’t need to be manufactured – it exists in nature. We already have the infrastructure: over 1,500 CNG fueling stations nationwide, many co-located with gas stations. Municipal buses, school fleets, and other vehicles already run on CNG, and existing gasoline or diesel vehicles can be converted for CNG use. Not so much for hydrogen.
Natural gas is easier to handle too. It needs to be compressed to just 3,500 psi and doesn’t require supercooling. It doesn’t embrittle metals or pose the same explosion risks, and it works with our existing systems.
What’s more, gas and diesel are working just fine, and there are ways to increase efficiency, like with gas and battery hybrid vehicles that are gaining in the marketplace without subsidies.
Even including government subsidies, hydrogen is a financial black hole. Big oil companies, once hopeful about hydrogen’s potential, are backing out. We saw this when a $470 million hydrogen project in Australia that was recently canceled without explanation, while the accompanying $3 million feasibility study was never released—likely because it revealed the economic nonsense behind the effort.
Green hydrogen is a political fantasy, not an energy solution. Whether the hub is in a red state or a blue state, the boondoggle remains the same, and unless there is a true, immediate need to reduce CO₂ emissions, there’s no rational argument for investing in hydrogen. If there ever becomes a need to reduce emissions, our efforts won’t mean much, as countries like China continue to build hundreds of new coal plants, each designed to last 50 to 75 years.
Energy policy shouldn’t be based on subsidies, political trends, or what Europe is doing. It should be based on facts, science, and practicality. Natural gas meets those criteria, while hydrogen doesn’t.
Let’s hope Secretary Wright pulls the plug on this hydrogen fantasy before we waste billions chasing a mirage. America can’t afford to invest in ideas that don’t hold up under basic scrutiny – no matter how trendy they may seem overseas.
This article was originally published at www.thecentersquare.com
