Politics
Blue Hydrogen Blues
Slippery slope: Vehicle manufacturer Nikola was caught in a notorious promotional stunt in 2018 when it rolled a motorless semi downhill to fake functionality of its “clean hydrogen” vehicle. (AP Images)

Blue Hydrogen Blues

So-called clean hydrogen and its dependence on carbon capture amount to a minefield of risks for taxpayers, but a bonanza for companies grifting off federal subsidies. ...
Rebecca Terrell
Article audio sponsored by The John Birch Society

Blue hydrogen is a green boondoggle. Those who grift government handouts call it “clean” and say it’s the death knell of the fossil-fuel era — the harbinger of a Net Zero, hydrogen-based economy. In reality, it’s a sad gas with high risks to both life and the economy, and zero market potential in terms of energy generation.

“Hydrogen energy will cease to become viable when the subsidies provided to it by governments of the world dry up,” writes David Legates of the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation.

Reality proves him correct. Four years ago, the United Kingdom’s Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy announced plans to “kick start [a] world-leading hydrogen economy” by “investing” £4 billion. Only two years later, return on the investment was so poor that the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee reported, “We do not believe that it will be the panacea to our problems that might sometimes be inferred from the hopes placed on it.”


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