Hydrogen has been pitched as a clean superfuel that can decarbonise our heavy industry, power our vehicles and heat our homes — but its producers are finding that new projects are taking far longer to approve than expected.In 2021, the International Energy Agency estimated that the world would need about 150mn tonnes of low-carbon hydrogen per year by 2030 to be on course to cut global emissions to net zero by the middle of the century.
“For sure, there was too much of a hype and, for sure, the hype is coming down,” he says, comparing the situation to the dotcom crash in 2000, when a series of early internet companies failed. “The fact that these tiny start-ups are crashing on the stock market doesn’t mean that you’re not going to see the Amazons and the Googles come out in five or six years.