In November, when MEPs had just finished their lunch, the EU’s climate chief Frans Timmermans roused them out of their midday slump with a speech on hydrogen.
“My task is to help you through your after-lunch depression today,” he joked.
“I’m looking forward to doing that because, as many of you know, I am a great believer in the potential of hydrogen to help us decarbonise our economy.”
The matter at hand was the first European Hydrogen Week, meant to broadcast the commission’s ambition to make the energy source a “cornerstone of EU climate policy.”
Future investment plans with Bill Gates were teased. An €8.5bn collaboration with South Africa and the United States was also on the menu.
Its aim? To help set up Europe’s “neighbourhood” with hydrogen capacity for export to the EU.
US climate envoy John Kerry said he “could not name a country that hasn’t expressed excitement about hydrogen.”
Not mentioned were the costs: to ship liquified hydrogen to the EU would be five-to-seven times more expensive than liquified natural gas (LNG).
Since then more and more scientists and industry experts have sounded the alarm, warning that hydrogen is too inefficient to replace natural gas as a source of heating and energy.
Despite this, the EU has now decided to give hydrogen a central role in its…
