Hydrogen made a surprising comeback in 2022 — but it’s still not the green fuel of the future
Even in the best case, hydrogen is a low-emission fuel, but not zero-emission. When combusted, it creates oxides of nitrogen. Even when used in fuel cells, climate risk remains. If leaked as a fugitive gas, hydrogen is itself a greenhouse gas, and it also interferes with the processes by which methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, is broken up and neutralized.
Turning green hydrogen into methane and then regenerating power in a turbine wastes 80% of the energy originally captured from the sun or wind. Hydrogen fuel cells might be a niche long-term electricity storage technology, but not a power mainstay.
Using a hydrogen-derived liquid fuel to power a truck takes five times as much renewable electricity as charging the batteries needed to transport an equivalent amount of freight. Almost all trucking will be better off powered with batteries than hydrogen fuel cells.
