Hydrogen: hype or the answer to Germany's energy woes?

AI generated: hydrogen facility with wind turbine in background

Dear Reader,

Hydrogen hasn’t been this popular in Germany since the days of the Hindenburg.

For Energy Minister Robert Habeck, it is “the next big chapter” in the country’s energy transformation.

For Olaf Scholz, it is the stuff of Huxley-esque dreams.

“Ships, planes, steel or chemical production, for all these large machines, factories and engines we need hydrogen - that small molecule without which there would be no life on earth,” he mused on a recent visit to a hydrogen research facility in Hamburg.

Hydrogen has plenty to recommend it. It’s the most plentiful molecule in the universe, it doesn’t absorb infrared radiation, meaning it isn’t going to heat up the planet, and it is highly combustible.

What’s not to like?

Especially since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the promise of a future fuelled by hydrogen rather than natural gas has captured the world’s imagination.

Wasserstoff is particularly crucial to solving Germany’s r…