Hydrogen, Fuels and Emerging Molecules

Hydrogen is already a ~100-million-tonne-a-year industry, but almost all of it is made from natural gas or coal and used where it has been used for decades: oil refining, ammonia for fertiliser and methanol (IEA, Global Hydrogen Review, 2024–25). The idea of the 2020s was to make it clean, from renewable electricity ("green") or from gas with carbon capture ("blue"), and to use it to decarbonise steel, shipping, aviation, heavy trucks and seasonal power storage. Governments committed tens of billions of dollars: the US Inflation Reduction Act's 45V credit of up to $3/kg and seven regional hydrogen hubs with $7bn of federal grants (October 2023), the EU's Hydrogen Bank and renewable-fuel mandates, Japan's ¥3tn contract-for-difference scheme, and Gulf and Australian export projects measured in gigawatts. By 2024–25 the boom had turned into a cull. Announced projects were cancelled or shelved across Europe, Australia and the US because buyers would not pay several times the price of grey hydrogen; Air Products, the industrial-gas company that bet most heavily, replaced its chief executive after a proxy fight and wrote down US projects (February 2025); Plug Power warned on going concern (2023) and Nikola filed for Chapter 11 (February 2025); the US 2025 budget law cut 45V short to projects that begin construction before 2028 (reported, verify); and the Energy Department cancelled the two West Coast hubs' grants in October 2025 (reported). The one giga-scale export project actually under construction, NEOM Green Hydrogen in Saudi Arabia (ACWA Power with Air Products and NEOM, ~$8.4bn), is targeted to start around 2026–27 (reported) with no confirmed buyer beyond its sponsor. This section explains the colours of hydrogen and their costs, electrolysers and China's lead, the US credit and hubs and their 2025 reversal, Europe's and Asia's policy, the export projects, why so many projects failed, and the derivative molecules — ammonia, methanol, e-fuels, sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and renewable natural gas (RNG) — that often make more sense than hydrogen itself.