Hydrogen be hustlin

Welcome back to the Strawman, the climate newsletter that’s like a tour guide in a foreign country. We’re informed, friendly, and here to show you the sights.

Today we’re diving into the world of green hydrogen - and why it’s worth getting (a little bit) excited about the potential impact it could have.

Let’s dive in.

Wait but why Green Hydrogen?

Every other day it feels like some new snake oil salesman is touting a new energy alternative as the holy grail that will solve all our problems.

Wind. Solar. Nuclear.

The fact is, we got a lot of problems - no single solution is gonna do it all.

One fuel that’s making a name for itself in one corner of the climate fight however is Green Hydrogen.

You can store it, transport it, hell if you ask it nicely you might even be able to take it for dinner (that would be weird).

The reason why everyone gets excited is because it produces no carbon during production. None. The only waste product is water - and calling it a waste is stretching it, because us humans are a thirsty bunch and can always do with more water.

Funding a revolution

Thing is, to bring this Green Hydrogen dream to life, we need money. Lots of it too:

• Renewable electricity for production - $8 Trillion: All is well and good with Green Hydrogen, but you still need the green electricity to produce it. The groundwork to produce the amount of Green Hydrogen we need adds up to ~$8T.

• Electrolysers to electrolyse - $7 Trillion: Again, to produce the Hydrogen you have to break apart water - for this, you need electrolysis (for another day). The actual infrastructure to do this will add a cool $7T to the bill.

• Hydrogen highways - $5 Trillion: You got all this hydrogen but you gotta move it around. Cheapest way? Repurposing old gas pipelines, but this doesn’t come cheap either - that’s another 5 trilly.

Add it all up, and we're looking at a mind-boggling $20tn outlay to fuel this revolution.

It's a tough pill to swallow, especially given the volatile market of the fossil fuels we're trying to replace. But here's the kicker: depending on gas prices, hydrogen could potentially be cheaper than fossil fuels, with no subsidies needed.