Interchange Recharged Is the world giving up on green hydrogen? | Hydrogen energy is having an identity crisis but who’s to blame?
Mar 11, 2025
Bridget Van Dorsten, a principal analyst at Wood Mackenzie specializing in hydrogen market trends, and Carl Cho, director of Clean Energy Finance at Citibank with over a decade of clean energy experience, dive into the identity crisis facing hydrogen energy. They discuss the U.S. transition toward blue hydrogen and the lag in green hydrogen project advancements. Roadblocks like financing, offtake uncertainty, and scaling challenges are explored. The duo also debates localized projects versus large-scale infrastructure, pondering hydrogen's future role in energy.
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Building Big is Hard
- Constructing large-scale hydrogen plants is complex, even with established technologies like SMR and electrolysis.
- Cost overruns can be substantial, posing binary risks for newer technologies like hydrogen.
Green Hydrogen's Identity Crisis
- Pairing electrolyzers with renewable energy for green hydrogen production is a relatively new concept.
- Green hydrogen faces a challenge between achieving economies of scale through large centralized plants or economies of production via smaller distributed generation.
Blue vs. Green Hydrogen
- Blue hydrogen is gaining traction in the U.S., but the industry is not abandoning green hydrogen.
- Green hydrogen projects face delays due to the political environment and policy differences compared to Europe or China.