India: ‘Hydrogen Mission’ must not become expensive greenwash

By Pritam Singh and Simon Pirani

The National Green Hydrogen Mission adopted by the Indian government in January is a major policy initiative, and it is a sign of the poverty of Indian politics that it remains so election-obsessed that has not been subjected to the public debate it deserves.

The absence of any critical evaluation by India’s opposition parties of this initiative, which has major implications for India’s development path, is staggering.

Student climate protesters in Delhi, 2019. Photo by Vikas Choudhary

The Indian government is poised to offer energy companies subsidies to set up hydrogen “hubs” – but  how this fits with climate policy and social justice goals remains unexplained.

As part of the  Hydrogen Mission, companies such as Reliance and Indian Oil will be invited to bid for cash from a 20,000 crore rupee ($2.4 billion) fund.

There will also be money for manufacturing electrolysers, needed to make “green” hydrogen, and subsidies for fertiliser and steel makers to buy it.

But the Hydrogen Mission has been surrounded by hype that raises unjustified expectations.

Prabhat Kumar, an external affairs ministry official, claimed recently that hydrogen could be “our main source of energy in future”. But that will never happen.

Even if the government meets its ambitious target of producing 10 million tonnes of “green” hydrogen each year, that would still only provide about one-fifteenth of the energy that India gets from coal.

The very idea that India will become a major exporter of hydrogen, which runs through all the government’s documents, is questionable.

India may need 6 million tonnes/year of “green” hydrogen to displace the “grey” hydrogen it uses now, for fertiliser manufacture and in oil refineries.

India: ‘Green Hydrogen’ project could undermine climate and social justice goals

By Pritam Singh and Simon Pirani

Given the climate emergency our planet earth is facing, with accelerating global heating and devastating biodiversity loss, any initiative by a government which proclaims its aim as “greening the economy” deserves critical examination for both its importance and limitations.

Adivasi people starting a 300 km march to the state capital, in October 2021, to protest at proposed coal mines in the Hasdeo forests, Chhattisgarh, India. Photo from Adani Watch web site

Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s announcement, on India’s 75th Independence Day, of the government’s plan to launch a National Hydrogen Mission is one such initiative by an emerging economic power in the global economy.

Its stated purpose was to make India a production and export hub for green hydrogen. This is also believed to be linked to India’s aim to reduce its reliance on oil from Russia and the Middle East which has come into the limelight during the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

That hydrogen is a problematic green energy resource as an alternative to fossil fuels is not generally recognised. This obfuscation characterises Indian government’s “green” hydrogen mission too.

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Different types of hydrogen

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, but for commercial use on earth it is produced either (i) from fossil gas, usually by steam reformation, or (ii) by the electrolysis of water. Electrolysis technology splits the hydrogen from oxygen in water.

More than 98% of hydrogen used commercially is “grey” – produced from gas. Left-over carbon is joined with oxygen and released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. Global hydrogen production’s carbon footprint is about four-fifths the size of the aviation sector’s.

Communities question hydrogen hype

The UK government’s climate-trashing plans to use hydrogen for home heating are starting to come up against resistance by communities.

Residents of Whitby on Merseyside – one of two sites the government is considering making an experimental “hydrogen village” – protested last week about the tide of greenwash from Cadent Gas in support of the plan.

Whitby residents’ protest last week. All photos from HyNOT twitter feed

The villagers demonstrated in the freezing cold at Cadent’s Hydrogen Experience Centre, against the proposal to turn their homes over to hydrogen heating without proper consultation.

Louise Gittins, leader of Cheshire West and Chester council, told the crowd: “I don’t want anyone forced into doing this. I’ll take what you’ve said on board.”

Cadent, which owns the local gas distribution network, plans to convert 2000 Whitby households to hydrogen for heating – despite opposition to such uses by engineers and energy researchers. They say that fitting electric heat pumps, and retrofitting insulation, is more energy-efficient, and contributes far more effectively and rapidly to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The government supports hydrogen for home heating – in line with energy companies’ wishes, and against the advice of engineers and scientists in numerous reports. It will decide next year which residents to use as guinea pigs for its “hydrogen village” experiment; its two options are in Whitby and Redcar, north Yorkshire.

The government has also funded studies for Northern Gas Networks’ H21 project, which would convert more than 15 million homes from gas to hydrogen. And just this week it has launched a consultation about offering “hydrogen-ready” boilers to homes – which would damage more effective, electricity-based routes to decarbonisation.

Europe’s hydrogen greenwash is the last thing Ukraine needs

The European Commission, cheered on by fossil fuel companies, is promoting a plan to put exporting hydrogen to Europe at the centre of Ukraine’s post-war recovery. The plan reeks of greenwash and neocolonialism, and should be scrapped, Simon Pirani writes.

Tripilska heat and power plant near Kyiv. Photo by Matvey Andreyev / Creative Commons

Hydrogen is extracted from fossil gas and is used in oil refining and industrial processes. It has a huge carbon footprint, as left-over carbon is released into the air.

Hydrogen lobbyists say that in future the gas will be “blue” (with the left-over carbon captured and stored) or “green” (made by electrolysis – passing an electric current through water). But even “green” hydrogen, the only carbon-free kind, gulps down huge quantities of renewable electricity. Plans to export it from Ukraine – which will need that clean electricity itself for decades to come – are little more than cynical profiteering in wartime.

Hydrogen may be used in future in industrial sectors that are hard to decarbonise, such as steelmaking, fertiliser production and long-distance transport. But the picture painted by lobbyists, of its widespread use for residential heating and urban transport, is dangerously counter-productive.

It undermines effective climate policies in the interests of fossil fuel companies – who see hydrogen as a survival strategy, because it can be made from gas, and uses similar infrastructure and technologies.

Where the plan came from

The European Commission’s Fit for 55 decarbonisation policy, published in 2021, featured a plan to generate “green” hydrogen from thousands of electrolytic cells in Ukraine and north Africa, and export it to European countries. This idea was lifted wholesale from a plan proposed by Hydrogen Europe, an industry lobbying group, the year before.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, far from offering pause for thought about plunging resources into a speculative technology, accelerated the hydrogen import plan.

Hydrogen: green gas or greenwash?

In this 8-minute video from the Sheffield Festival of Debate, Harpreet Kaur Paul, Tom Baxter and Simon Pirani talk about whether hydrogen can play a part in the transition away from fossil fuels, and why it is being pushed by companies who want to slow that transition down.

To read more, try these People & Nature articles:

■  The hydrogen hoax (December 2020)

■   Hydrogen for homes is a terrible idea. We should fight it (October 2020)

■  Leeds trades unionists: zero-carbon homes can help tackle climate change (September 2020)

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