It’s fair to say that this year has been nothing short of a challenge for hydrogen enthusiasts. In July, the European Court of Auditors, the EU’s independent external auditor, criticized the European Commission’s hydrogen targets as being overly ambitious about the 10 million tonnes of both production and import of renewable hydrogen by 2030. A month later, Danish renewable energy producer Orsted announced it is no longer moving forward with its FlagshipOne hydrogen project, which aimed at producing 55,000 metric tons per annum of e-methanol from green hydrogen, in what would have been a key milestone for decarbonizing the shipping industry.
This series of setbacks continued this week as Bloomberg reported on Monday that Masdar, Abu Dhabi’s leading renewables energy company, has pushed back its initial target of 1 million tonnes of green hydrogen production from 2030 to “within the next decade.” Whilst the news came amid a backdrop of Masdar and Emsteel’s green steel inauguration project, which uses green hydrogen to extract iron from iron ore, they declined to specify hydrogen production volume. This poses the following questions: What is driving the hesitancy around hydrogen development? Perhaps more concerning is that the fuel’s future is at risk.
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