Hydrogen’s Brutal Month: Billions Misplaced As Mega-Tasks Collapse

The final 30 days marked a very tough interval for hydrogen advocates, with a putting sequence of cancellations and undertaking halts across the globe. The cumulative scale of those selections underscores how difficult and economically susceptible the hydrogen-for-energy sector has turn into. Over the span of roughly 4 weeks, tasks valued at tens of billions in a number of nations have collapsed or been shelved indefinitely, erasing vital deliberate hydrogen manufacturing capability. These reversals are usually not merely remoted incidents. They symbolize a broader recognition by business leaders and governments that hydrogen, significantly for transportation and power export, is confronting elementary financial and technical limitations that optimism alone can not overcome.

Right here’s a structured abstract desk with estimated hydrogen manufacturing values (annual tons), based mostly on typical scale for tasks of comparable dimension and said objectives from public plans:

Complete estimated annual H₂ manufacturing capability canceled: ~1 million tons/12 months

Australia’s high-profile CQ-H2 inexperienced hydrogen export undertaking at Gladstone grew to become essentially the most notable casualty in the beginning of July. Initially slated as a AUD$12.5 billion (US$8.13 billion) enterprise geared toward offering substantial hydrogen exports to Japan and South Korea, the undertaking shortly unraveled when Stanwell Company withdrew assist, citing ballooning prices and questionable market viability. Gladstone was positioned to turn into Australia’s hydrogen export flagship, however now serves as a stark image of hydrogen’s broader financial uncertainties. The cancellation eradicated deliberate annual hydrogen manufacturing of a number of hundred thousand tons, dealing a extreme blow to Queensland’s ambitions to turn into a renewable power export powerhouse.

It’s on this context that different Australian information is of curiosity. Fortescue lately pulled again from hydrogen with vital retrenchment and management modifications in its hydrogen group. In Could, roughly 90 positions in hydrogen-related roles throughout Perth and Gladstone had been eradicated as the corporate refocused away from large-scale manufacturing towards analysis and improvement geared toward enhancing effectivity and lowering prices. Mark Hutchinson, CEO of Fortescue Hydrogen Programs, retired forward of his sixty fifth birthday after lower than two years within the place, transitioning to a senior adviser position with advertising obligations. Cameron Smith, who beforehand led the hydrogen techniques division, additionally departed amid these cuts. CEO Dino Otranto has now absorbed operational accountability for hydrogen and electrification, whereas Agustin “Gus” Pichot, previously head of worldwide development, took on the position of CEO Development and Power efficient July 1. These modifications mirror a major recalibration, abandoning the sooner bold goal of manufacturing 15 million tons of hydrogen per 12 months by 2030, in favor of a extra cautious, research-driven method amid weaker-than-expected market circumstances.

Germany confronted equally harsh realities. ArcelorMittal, one among Europe’s largest metal producers, deserted plans to transform its Bremen and Eisenhüttenstadt vegetation to hydrogen-based direct diminished iron and electrical arc furnaces. Every of those inexperienced metal vegetation was to price roughly €1.3 billion (US$1.52 billion), with projected hydrogen consumption amounting to tons of of 1000’s of tons yearly. ArcelorMittal cited hovering power prices and inadequate financial incentives as key causes for pulling the plug.

This abandonment was a part of what prompted my latest evaluation of various new metal approaches, which discovered that hydrogen-based iron and steelmaking stays basically deprived in comparison with rising alternate options. With hydrogen usually priced round $5 to $8 per kilogram, even optimistic eventualities of $3 to $4 per kilogram nonetheless render it uneconomical for metal manufacturing at scale. Direct discount processes counting on hydrogen incur substantial power losses by means of electrolysis, storage, compression, and dealing with, inevitably inflating metal manufacturing prices past aggressive thresholds. Molten oxide electrolysis, alternatively, turns into viable with electrical energy at $0.03 to $0.05 per kWh, delivering metal at prices approaching $170 to $250 per ton assuming it reaches full commercialization.

Equally, biomethane-based direct discount mixed with carbon seize might be economically engaging the place biomass is considerable and sequestration websites are close by. Flash ironmaking paired with pure fuel and carbon seize achieves metal prices comfortably beneath $200 per ton. Hydrogen is thus hampered not by technological maturity, however by structural financial limitations that various processes inherently keep away from. For metal decarbonization methods, it’s clear the long run belongs to strategies that supply basically superior price constructions and power efficiencies.

Germany’s struggles didn’t finish there. E.ON, a serious utility, canceled its deliberate 20-megawatt inexperienced hydrogen facility in Essen and in addition withdrew from the regional H₂ Ruhr pipeline initiative. These actions additional diminished Europe’s deliberate hydrogen capability and infrastructure, once more pushed by unmanageable financial realities.

In India, the Photo voltaic Power Company of India (SECI) abruptly terminated its ₹2 billion (US$23.3 million) inexperienced hydrogen hub tender in early July. The undertaking’s cancellation included the refunding of all tender charges, highlighting how quickly India has reversed course amid rising doubts about hydrogen’s financial competitiveness. Whereas India’s authorities had beforehand heralded hydrogen as a key part of its decarbonization technique, financial pragmatism now seems to have overshadowed earlier enthusiasm.

Spain’s once-promising Repsol and Hydric Energy three way partnership at Puertollano equally collapsed. The inexperienced hydrogen undertaking, valued at greater than €100 million (US$117 million), confronted rapid shelving in July as a consequence of each technical and financial infeasibility. Spain had touted Puertollano as a cornerstone of its inexperienced hydrogen ambitions, but the undertaking’s failure indicators extreme underlying structural issues in hydrogen deployment even inside supportive coverage environments.

The UK additionally noticed main hydrogen initiatives retreat. Air Merchandise scrapped its £2 billion (US$2.72 billion) inexperienced hydrogen import terminal undertaking in Immingham on the Humber Estuary. The power, initially seen as important for the UK’s hydrogen provide and industrial decarbonization plans, fell sufferer to coverage uncertainty and insufficient governmental monetary backing. This cancellation underscores the dangers inherent in hydrogen infrastructure investments that rely closely on steady coverage and subsidy assist.

In the USA, the image was equally bleak. BP indefinitely paused its blue hydrogen and carbon seize undertaking at its refinery in Whiting, Indiana. As soon as thought of a possible multi-billion-dollar flagship for blue hydrogen in America’s Midwest, the undertaking stalled amid rising skepticism over carbon seize’s viability and shifting political priorities. Cleveland-Cliffs canceled its $500 million hydrogen-based metal facility deliberate for Middletown, Ohio, depriving the business of one other main hydrogen shopper. ExxonMobil’s $330 million clear hydrogen initiative at its Baytown, Texas refinery was additionally halted after federal funding evaporated below new political realities, leaving substantial deliberate hydrogen manufacturing capability stranded.

Taken collectively, these undertaking cancellations symbolize billions of {dollars} in misplaced funding and one million tons of deliberate hydrogen manufacturing capability that won’t materialize. The ripple impact on hydrogen-based transportation and infrastructure tasks is critical. With out dependable, economically viable hydrogen provides, many downstream initiatives from heavy vehicles and marine vessels to industrial warmth and inexperienced steelmaking face considerably elevated operational dangers and diminished credibility. The cancellations of June and July reinforce what has turn into more and more clear all through 2025: hydrogen’s financial mannequin, significantly for transportation and export, stays fragile and closely depending on exterior subsidies, steady coverage frameworks, and optimistic assumptions about market uptake.

It’s in context of those billions in evaporating hydrogen performs that I up to date my hydrogen deathwatch listing at the moment, discovering extra corporations that had given up the ghost, both by means of full fiscal meltdown or by quietly pivoting away from hydrogen. Over 20% of the corporations on my listing, 33 of 162, have both gone into receivership or pivoted to one thing helpful.

These widespread reversals ought to function a important wake-up name for policymakers and industrial strategists nonetheless vainly hoping to leverage hydrogen as a central pillar of power transition efforts. Electrification and battery storage options, in contrast, proceed gaining momentum, attracting funding and attaining dependable price reductions 12 months over 12 months. Hydrogen proponents should grapple realistically with the elemental economics at play.

Keep in mind, that is solely 4 weeks price of failures. They’ve been ongoing because the starting of 2025, with Michael Liebreich placing up #HydrogenSouffle LinkedIn posts virtually each day. BNEF simply reported on its database of hydrogen contracts and nonetheless solely 13% of the 299 hydrogen contacts of their database have agency off takers. It is a radically small variety of contracts and a homeopathic variety of agency agreements given the large ambitions for 2030, in addition to the large bulletins of the previous few years.

This disastrous month underscores that guarantees alone can not maintain a hydrogen financial system. Realism, pragmatism, and a clear-eyed method to economically sustainable power options should now prevail if significant progress is to be made. Meaning hydrogen will likely be reserved for what it’s completely required for, virtually fully industrial feedstocks, and nothing else.