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As of June 2025, McPhy Energy—the once-prominent French electrolyzer manufacturer—stands on the brink of liquidation, a sobering indicator of the tightening margins, delayed revenue cycles, and capital shortfalls impacting Europe’s hydrogen technology firms.
HyTerra’s Nemaha Project in Kansas has entered a critical new phase with the company confirming expansion of its drilling program to three firm wells, supported by early signs of a viable natural hydrogen and helium system. The Blythe 13-20 well, completed on time and budget, is the most recent development, with mud gas readings and geological data reinforcing initial findings from the earlier Sue Duroche 3 well. The decision to add a third well, McCoy 1, reflects growing confidence in a play that remains high-risk but potentially transformative for the emerging natural (white) hydrogen market. Deep Drilling, Deeper Expectations Drilled…
Spain’s Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) has released €524 million in aid to five renewable hydrogen projects, boasting a combined electrolyser capacity of 425 MW and targeting 55,200 tonnes of annual green hydrogen output. While the figures are impressive, expert assessments reveal a growing disconnect between funding ambitions and the regulatory and logistical framework needed to make these industrial-scale projects economically viable. State Aid Meets Stagnant FrameworksThe selected projects—Green H2 Los Barrios, Asturias H2 Valley, Bilbao and Cartagena Large Scale Electrolyzers, and Ver-Amonia—benefit from IPCEI (Important Projects of Common European Interest) status, allowing them to…
Replacing global hydrogen production with green alternatives would demand the entire output of the U.S. electrical grid. This stark reality underscores a fundamental truth Joseph Romm, physicist and former U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) official, has emphasized for two decades: hydrogen’s crippling inefficiency as an energy carrier makes it unfit for mass decarbonization. WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW Romm’s initial DOE work in the 1990s involved boosting hydrogen R&D, driven by apparent advances in fuel cell technology and political momentum. Early promises—like onboard gasoline reformers enabling hydrogen vehicles without new infrastructure—proved illusory. “Arthur D. Little said they’d crack on board reforming.…
In a year when Europe is under increasing pressure to accelerate climate action, the Northern Lights CO₂ storage project—Norway’s high-profile bid to commercialize carbon capture and storage (CCS)—is preparing to launch operations. Hailed as a cornerstone for Europe’s future CCS market, the project is set to begin storing industrial emissions beneath the North Sea this summer. But beneath the surface, analysts warn of mounting logistical constraints, underwhelming capacity, and ballooning costs that challenge the project’s promise as a scalable climate solution. A Pioneering Project Under Pressure Northern Lights, backed by oil majors Equinor, Shell, and TotalEnergies, and funded in part…
Air Products’ staggering $1.7 billion quarterly loss, driven primarily by a $2.3 billion write-down on abandoned hydrogen projects, serves as a stark wake-up call for an industry grappling with the chasm between ambition and economic reality. This retreat, including the cancellation of a green liquid hydrogen plant in New York and a sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) project in California under new CEO Eduardo F. Menezes, starkly contrasts the Hydrogen Council’s 2024 report touting over 1,500 announced global hydrogen projects representing $680 billion in potential investment through 2030, with a record $75 billion reaching Final Investment Decision (FID). This dissonance is…
A stark market reality: industrial sectors remain notoriously difficult to decarbonize, often reliant on intensive hydrocarbon combustion. Cambridge-based Levidian is advancing a methane pyrolysis technology, dubbed LOOP, that aims to address this by converting methane into low-carbon hydrogen and high-value graphene, potentially altering the economic equation for emissions reduction. The company reports a 20-fold increase in graphene yield per nozzle over the past two years, a critical factor for its business model, which hinges on graphene sales subsidizing hydrogen production. WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW Levidian’s core proposition lies in its patented nozzle system, which utilizes microwave-generated plasma to crack methane…
China now claims half of the world’s green hydrogen production capacity, upending the global balance in a sector that Western governments hoped would become a linchpin of their decarbonization roadmaps. Fueled by aggressive policy targets and state-backed financing, China’s annual green hydrogen output recently crossed 125,000 tonnes, out of 36.5 million tonnes of total hydrogen production, delivered through 35 new green projects commissioned in 2024. This scale eclipses incremental gains elsewhere and underscores a widening technology gap. The heart of China’s competitive edge lies in its patent race. Since announcing carbon neutrality goals in 2020, Chinese firms have filed more…
Europe’s plan to scale up clean hydrogen—targeting 10 million tonnes of domestic production and 10 million tonnes of imports by 2030—faces fresh uncertainty as two senior European People’s Party (EPP) MEPs label the Commission’s draft “low-carbon” hydrogen criteria “restrictive and unworkable.” Restrictive Definition of Risks in Investment Under the delegated act circulated to member states in late April, hydrogen produced from non-renewable sources must achieve a minimum 70 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared to conventional fossil-fuel methods to qualify as “low-carbon.” By excluding nuclear-derived electricity and imposing tighter methane-based production rules, the draft effectively sidelines established producers and…
Global temperatures have surged past 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, yet carbon emissions continue to rise at 1.1% annually, defying net-zero pledges. Against this backdrop, nuclear energy—responsible for 10% of global electricity and 25% of low-carbon power—faces a paradox: its potential as a climate solution clashes with entrenched policy short-termism and public skepticism. Dr. Alistair Miller, a 60-year veteran of nuclear research, dissects these challenges with unflinching pragmatism. WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW The Cost of Short-Termism in Energy Policy Miller’s critique of institutional myopia is sharp: “The reluctance to address humanity’s crucial problems has never been worse.” While uranium-fueled reactors dominate…
