Hydrogen Is Booming: 3 Things Investors Need To Know To Reduce Their Risk

Hydrogen Is Booming: 3 Things Investors Need To Know To Reduce Their Risk

A steel mill's blast furnace: Hydrogen holds promise to reduce carbon emissions from steel ... [+] manufacturing. The role proposed for hydrogen in the EU's climate transition plan lays the groundwork for a surge of investment there as well. And China is in the race, too, with plans to make hydrogen a key plank in the country's energy transition plan. How can investors boost the potential of their hydrogen stakes? Hydrogen has a number of strengths as an energy carrier and decarbonization pathway. Its ability to generate both heat and electricity, its high energy content relative to its weight and its potential for storage either as a liquid or a gas make it particularly attractive for hard-to-abate sectors such as steel, cement, shipping and aviation. Its most important climate claim to fame is that it can theoretically be produced, stored, transported and used without generating carbon dioxide emissions, potentially making it a low-carbon alternative to fossil fuels. Yet there are important unknowns to deploying hydrogen at scale. Since hydrogen as a large-scale climate solution is so new, stakeholders must rapidly identify and deploy science-based best practices to avoid unintended consequences that could negate the intended benefits. Investors will need to