Hydrogen has been called the fuel of the future since the 1970s. Technical and cost challenges certainly remain, and an awful lot of infrastructure needs to be built for hydrogen to meet its potential but, in the last year or two, something seems to be very different. Governments and companies have become very serious about their pledges, and hydrogen is frequently cited as a crucial factor in achieving their goals. And there’s certainly excitement. The share prices of hydrogen firms have gone through the roof, often multiplying several times over the course of the past year.

After a few false starts, the hydrogen economy now seems to be on the verge of becoming reality. So what is now different?

Mr. Alverà said he went from being a skeptic to being a fan, and now thinks it’s hydrogen’s time because countries responsible for 60% of pollution are now committing to net zero.

Snam has launched a project with six partners and a target to make green hydrogen at $2/kg in the next five years.

“I think what has changed is fundamentally public opinion,” said Mr. Ghasemi, “People are believing in climate change, especially the younger generation.” He feels $2/kg is a misrepresentation of when hydrogen becomes competitive. “That is $2/kg to produce hydrogen gas. It is going to cost a lot more to take that hydrogen gas and get it to somebody’s gas station to deliver it to a truck, that would be more like $9 or $10 a kilo.”

Mr. Padmanathan said a big difference now is that with renewables, we are now able to generate electricity at a lower cost than ever in the past with any fossil fuel. So we can use that very cheap carbon-free electricity to run electrolysis and produce green hydrogen. “It is a hugely compelling value proposition, and it serves this massive need that we have not been able to fulfill.”

Mr. Knight said what’s different this time is that the interest in hydrogen is driven by industry appreciation for its value, whereas passing interest in the past was primarily driven by frustration with periods of high oil prices. “So, at the moment, what we’re dealing with is a commitment to using hydrogen as a key energy vector to address some of those hard-to-abate sectors. And this has impetus from major corporations. It has impetus from governments and, very importantly, as referred earlier, impetus from the younger generation.”

Where do you see the opportunities in your respective markets?

With 60 years of hydrogen experience, Mr. Ghasemi sees the opportunity for Air Products to be end-to-end, just as it is now.

Mr. Knight said Hyzon Motors is shipping hydrogen-fueled heavy trucks to customers on four continents in 2021. “I think this is a really important consideration because this shows the global appeal.”

Mr. Padmanathan sees the immediate opportunities for green hydrogen in markets like Korea, Japan, and California, which already have visionary policies in place. “That will then allow more capacity to get built, more innovators to jump into the sector, and keep driving the cost down” at which point it can be used more widely in steel, synthetic fuels, chemicals, etc.

Mr. Barrera Lopez says his team has done analyses that show using green fertilizer (from green ammonia enabled by green hydrogen) in corn production can reduce the carbon footprint of a loaf of bread with 30% for an added cost of just one Euro cent. He sees many similar opportunities where the end customer can cover such a low incremental cost. “But shipping is one we think is also particularly interesting.”

Mr. Knight agreed that Japan and Korea will be key early markets, along with China where there’s been a major drive towards taking diesel out of the very high-utilization vehicles that make a major contribution to the air pollution problems in the big urban centers.

“But we are very strongly of the view that Western Europe and Northern Europe will be the major driving force in our business model for heavy mobility transition to hydrogen. And California is obviously a very interesting market in the North American context. And we feel under the new administration that we’ll see a lot more California-type support in other parts of the US evolve in the next 12 to 24 months.”

Marco Alverà said there will eventually be two separate markets: one for hydrogen liquid produced where there are good sun and wind resources, and another for hydrogen gas. “And then there is something that’s not often discussed, but a huge opportunity around storage. We will need to store very significant quantities of hydrogen for winter heating.”

What are the main barriers to mass adoption? And what misconceptions we might need to overcome?

“If we do not recognize that there is a carbon emission cost,” said Mr. Padmanathan, “it’ll take much longer for a market for blue and green hydrogen to develop simply because markets are ultimately driven by price.” So he believes policy support is desperately needed in order to really unlock this and move it along faster. He also said that, while a lot of focus is on reducing costs, we need to start working on transportation and storage solutions.

Mr. Barrera Lopez responded by saying “nothing can store or carry a hydrogen like ammonia,” so he sees that as a vital component. “But in addition to the storing in the transport, cost is obviously an element today. Green, green ammonia is maybe twice as expensive to build and four times as expensive feedstock wise. So obviously something needs to happen on the cost side.” And he feels there’ll be a small cost gap that should be covered by end-users.

Mr. Knight thinks one of the greatest challenges is mentality, or mindset. “Whenever you have a government talking about sponsoring a hydrogen roadmap at the same time as being a major global coal exporter like Australia, you have a problem with mindset.”

Mr. Alverà was intrigued by Mr. Barrera Lopez’s earlier ideas about consumerization of CO₂. “I’m sure if you did the same effort to work out a pair of jeans moved with a ship across the ocean running on green ammonia instead of fuel oil, you probably still only get to a few extra cents for a pair of jeans. And so we need to start introducing CO₂ labels on products. So long as we talk about gigatons of CO₂, people can’t relate to that. But if we start talking about grams or kilos of CO₂, the same way we talk about calories, people can really start paying attention.”

Mr. Ghasemi feels there are no barriers. “We have the technologies. We can produce this stuff at the right cost. We know how to transport it.” But he disagreed with the notion of widespread local production. “Hydrogen will become like oil in some countries where they have the infrastructure, they have the sun and the wind are going to produce it. And the countries that they do not have, it will be imported.” He said the key thing is “companies like us need to put our money where our mouth is and start building these facilities and giving people the assurance that they will have the supply if they go and commit and buy the trucks and all of that.”

Will it be blue or green or both?

Mr. Barrera Lopez said the answer is both. “I think some of these projects, to build that scale we need on green will take a bit of time. And that’s why we believe that, in the near term, blue can also have a relevance because you can use that as a transition into greener fuels.”

Mr. Knight agreed but restated his earlier point about distributed hydrogen: “I disagree that the future of hydrogen is a copy of the current reality of oil, because it’s fundamentally different than with oil. You can only get petroleum, gasoline, and diesel out of crude oil. But, with hydrogen, you can get it from many, many things and there are many ways to release the hydrogen.”

Mr. Alverà said both will develop because it will always be cheaper to produce blue hydrogen where there’s a lot of cheap upstream gas. And it will always be cheaper to produce green hydrogen where there’s a lot of wind and solar. “But there’s so much to do that we need all hands on deck and we need the demand side to really start growing fast.”

Mr. Ghasemi proposed that there will be three kinds of hydrogen—blue, green, and gray, which is produced from hydrocarbons. He said gray will be driven by countries that are less concerned with carbon and more concerned with cleaner air in their cities.

“My personal belief,” said Mr. Padmanathan, “is that in reality blue hydrogen is a transitionary fuel into green hydrogen” and the industry has to keep working to drive down the costs of producing and transporting green hydrogen.