Hardly a day goes by without controversy over hydrogen and its role in making Australia a renewable energy exporting superpower. It’s not surprising, given that there is a $2 billion Hydrogen Headstart program and the $6.7 billion Hydrogen Production Tax Incentive as part of the Albanese Government’s Future Made in Australia initiative up for grabs.

The fossil fuel lobby want to add these taxpayer funds to their bag of subsidies from the Federal government. ‘Australia’s subsidies to fossil fuel producers and major users from all governments totalled $14.5 billion in 2023-24,’ reported the Australian Institute following the Federal Budget in May this year. This includes funds provided to mining companies to use dirty diesel fuel when green alternatives are readily available.

Researchers Howarth from Cornell University and Jacobson from Stanford University published their peer reviewed paper ‘How green is blue hydrogen?’ in 2021. “Far from being low carbon, greenhouse emissions from the production of blue hydrogen are quite high, particularly due to the release of fugitive emissions,” they wrote.

This is consistent with analysis by Longden and team at our own Australia National University.

“We find that emissions from gas or coal-based hydrogen production systems could be substantial even with CCS [Carbon Capture and Storage], and the cost of CCS is often higher than assumed,” wrote Londen et al.

The proposition that the carbon intensity of CCS-derived (AKA ‘blue’) hydrogen could be as low as 0.8 kilograms CO2 per kilogram hydrogen produced is misleading and fanciful.

The federal and state governments have been investing over a billion taxpayer dollars in CCS technology for decades and we have zero to show for it. ‘Gorgon’ is the only operating CCS project In Australia, developed by United States oil and gas giant Chevron, has been a dismal failure operating at just a third of its capacity.