Member-only story
Should Blue Hydrogen Be Part of Our Green plans?
Is blue hydrogen a transition technology or a dead end?
Hydrogen, hydrogen, hydrogen! The world is obsessed and by now I think I might be too. I started analysing and writing about hydrogen technologies because I wanted to understand the hype surrounding green hydrogen — that’s hydrogen made using renewable electricity to split water — but along the way I came to realise that green hydrogen isn’t the only flavour that governments are including in their “clean” hydrogen plans. Many hydrogen roadmaps also include blue hydrogen — hydrogen made from fossil fuels with most of the CO2 captured — either as a transition fuel or as part of their zero-emissions energy mix.
I will admit that I used to dismiss blue hydrogen purely because it is so enthusiastically embraced by fossil fuel companies, and I am used to being on the “other” side to fossil fuels. It seemed obvious to me that blue hydrogen was a simple “bait and switch.” It allows governments to make a case to expand fossil fuel capacity, and call it a renewable energy policy because they…
