Author: Arnes Biogradlija

In 2023, nearly all hydrogen consumed in the European Union was still produced from fossil fuels, despite four years of increasingly ambitious hydrogen strategies and tens of billions of euros in pledged public support. This single data point captures the core tension shaping today’s hydrogen geopolitics: political momentum has accelerated faster than technology deployment, cost reduction, and demand formation. Across major economies, hydrogen is no longer framed merely as a decarbonisation tool. It has become an instrument of industrial policy, energy security, and geopolitical positioning. Yet the strategies outlined by governments reveal structural contradictions between climate ambition, fiscal capacity, and…

John Risley’s World Energy GH2 has abandoned plans for a green hydrogen and ammonia plant in Stephenville, Newfoundland, acknowledging that clean hydrogen production costs remain prohibitively expensive for consumers compared to natural gas-derived alternatives. The billionaire developer now proposes a $16 billion subsea and overland transmission network connecting Atlantic provinces to Quebec, targeting wind power exports to northeastern United States markets through Hydro-Québec. The project collapse follows a pattern documented across the hydrogen sector where promotional announcements, government subsidies, and high-profile political endorsements precede acknowledgment of fundamental economic unviability. Then-German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited Stephenville in 2022 to sign a…

China’s electrification rate in final energy consumption reached 28.8% in 2024, representing a 0.9 percentage point annual increase and surpassing levels observed in major developed economies across Europe and North America, according to the China Electricity Council’s annual report. The country projects total electricity consumption exceeding 13 trillion kilowatt-hours by 2030, with the electrification share in final energy consumption climbing approximately one percentage point annually during the 15th Five-Year Plan period to reach 35% by decade’s end. Final energy consumption, defined as energy used in everyday activities and industrial production rather than transformation losses, serves as a key metric for…

Renewable energy sources are projected to comprise 46% of global electricity generation by 2030, up from 30% in 2023, according to International Energy Agency forecasts. Solar and wind are expected to account for nearly all of this expansion. This rapid deployment trajectory creates control system challenges for microgrids integrating intermittent generation, particularly as global renewable capacity is expected to expand by over 5,520 GW during 2024-2030, representing 2.6 times the deployment achieved during 2017-2023. A recent academic study examines hierarchical control architectures that combine droop-based primary control, adaptive centralized secondary regulation, and battery energy storage systems to address frequency instability…

Thyssenkrupp’s hydrogen subsidiary Nucera recorded a 77% decline in green hydrogen segment orders during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2024/25, with new business contracting to €3 million compared to prior-year levels. The company reported that additional orders in this division will not significantly impact revenue until subsequent years, while the traditional chlor-alkali business demonstrated relative resilience with only a 6% quarterly decline and €107 million in new orders. The order collapse extends deterioration visible throughout the fiscal year ended September 2025, with total order backlog falling from €1.1 billion to €606 million. This 45% backlog reduction reflects both project execution…

The Federal Network Agency has approved 9,040 kilometers of hydrogen pipeline infrastructure across Germany, representing €18.9 billion in planned investment through 2032. The first 400 kilometers are operational. Industrial customers have signed exactly zero transport contracts. This discrepancy reveals the central tension in Europe’s energy transition: infrastructure precedes markets by design, but the gap between technical readiness and economic viability threatens to derail the entire hydrogen economy before it begins. The Lubmin-based pipeline, converted from the Nord Stream 1 natural gas route, exemplifies this challenge. Gascade has invested hundreds of millions in conversion costs, yet the facility remains unutilized as…

The United States’ renewable power capacity is forecast to expand from 414.5 GW in 2024 to approximately 1.06 TW by 2035, more than doubling over the period, despite federal policy shifts emphasizing energy security and domestic manufacturing over climate objectives, according to GlobalData analysis.

Global electricity generation investment reached $1 trillion annually, while grid spending climbed to only $400 billion, creating infrastructure asymmetry that manifests acutely in the United Kingdom, where operators paid generators £2.3 billion in the year through March to curtail output due to transmission constraints. This curtailment expense, likely to escalate in the coming years according to reporting, reflects fundamental misalignment between renewable capacity deployment concentrated in Scotland and grid infrastructure sized for the coal-centered generation geography that dominated through 2024. The UK closed its final coal plant in 2024, concluding 142 years of coal-fired generation after opening the world’s first…

Global hydrogen demand currently consumes close to 100 million tonnes annually for refining and ammonia production, creating a potential market for natural hydrogen if technical and commercial challenges can be resolved. A December panel discussion featuring three experts with divergent perspectives revealed fundamental disagreements about resource assessment methodologies, recovery mechanisms, and timelines to commercialization that expose the nascent sector’s uncertainty. WATCH THE FACE 2 FACE HERE Douglas Wicks, former ARPA-E adviser now working with natural hydrogen developers, emphasized engineering solutions and stimulation potential, arguing that subsurface hydrogen generation through serpentinization and other mechanisms can be controlled and enhanced. Arnout Everts,…

Type One Energy aims to achieve first plasma from its Infinity-1 validation device by decade’s end, positioning construction of the commercial-scale Infinity-2 stellarator for the early 2030s with mid-2030s grid connection at Tennessee Valley Authority’s Bull Run site. The timeline depends on resolving tritium breeding and handling challenges that remain at low technology readiness levels across the fusion sector, according to chief technology officer Thomas Sunn Pedersen, as well as demonstrating that high-temperature superconductor magnets can achieve the required field strengths and tolerances. WATCH THE WEBINAR HERE The stellarator approach eliminates the plasma current requirements inherent to tokamaks, avoiding the…