Quote:
Originally Posted by Fuzz
I dunno, I think you are imagining a system that might exist, I don't see any words there that say what you are saying. What I see is they want to add a bunch of renewables, and use all that generation to make hydrogen, while continuing to use coal for the rest of the needs of the country. They have a massive need for clean energy in the country, so dedicating green energy to hydrogen seems silly. Financially I don't doubt it will make them money, but I don't see it being a net benefit to the environment, and I'm with you that hydrogen looks to be a good fuel for long haul trucking.
If somewhere like Iceland wanted to do this with geothermal, that would make all the sense in the world, because they have near endless supplies, it's green, and the alternative isn't coal.
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I still think you're missing the point. This is explicitly designed to create markets for hydrogen
in the future. It's debatable whether hydrogen is the panacea for emissions reductions some are claiming, but this has nothing to do with pre 2030 and even that is early for what they're trying to accomplish. It's more an economic bet than a green wash.
Many countries are doing similar things (China, EU, US, Canada, many African nations, etc). If you can push the growth of a nascent industry such that scale leads to cost reductions that trigger profitability, then you've steered the industry towards your country. If they plan on getting off of coal and being net zero by 2070, they absolutely need to start building those industries now.
Would you suggest they wait? What happens when China and the west hold all of the industry for hydrogen production and you're starting from zero when you actually can start using it? This is a 2B bet on creating an industry that will be important globally in the future. It's a 2B bet from the world's (soon to be) largest country by population and they'll need an economy.