Saudi Arabia is planning to invest $10 billion in green hydrogen, Bloomberg reported earlier this week. The report cited the usual unnamed sources, who also told the publication the Saudis were going to set up a special new company for the investment.
Interestingly enough, the report came on the heels of another, also in Bloomberg. That one carried a different tune: it said that Abu Dhabi’s Masdar was delaying its own green hydrogen plans, from 2030 to 2035 or thereabouts. Naturally, the company didn’t say what necessitated the delay. But the FT did. Bloomberg did, back in August. Uniper did. Fortescue’s Andrew Forrest did. And Fortescue’s Andrew Forrest was for green hydrogen what the IEA’s Fatih Birol is for the whole transition.
The hype around green hydrogen has been massive. Making hydrogen from water using energy from the sun and the wind, how cool is that? Well, it’s so cool that Schroders’ head of commodities called it “rubbish”, that’s how cool it is. Green hydrogen is still too expensive, still too much of a headache to transport, and it still makes sub-zero sense for anyone but the energy illiterate climate crusaders.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Irina Slav on energy to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.