Net zero investing: the new hydrogen economy

Net zero investing: the new hydrogen economy

Global energy companies are shifting to ESG investing; but what role can hydrogen play in the new energy economy? In this new series, Mike Scott takes the temperature of the industry’s response to date, as well as the challenges ahead that this shift will present.

There are few fields where the world is changing quite so rapidly as the hydrogen economy.

Hydrogen gas has become all things to all people, in part because of its versatility as a potential sustainable energy source for transport from cars to rockets, as well as heat, electricity, and hard-to-abate industries such as steel, glassmaking and cement. On top of that, Hydrogen energy could be the solution for long-term energy storage – and it has none of the pollutants associated with other fuels at the point of use.

What is hydrogen energy?

Hydrogen energy can be produced cleanly, either as blue hydrogen (capturing carbon when stripping hydrogen from methane) or green hydrogen, which uses renewable energy and an electrolyser to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.

“Nearly everything has doubled already this year in the world of clean hydrogen, and we expect the momentum to continue in the months ahead,” says Martin Tengler, lead hydrogen analyst at BloombergNEF. More than