Hydrogen, a strategic choice that requires more than subsidies

The President of the Republic is convinced of this: the development of hydrogen is a battle for industry, for ecology and for the sovereignty of France. By replacing petroleum and coal, hydrogen should enable heavy industry to reduce its CO2 emissions.

Until now, industrial hydrogen has been produced for the most part from fossil resources, natural gas or coal. It is the so-called “gray” hydrogen, unlike the so-called “green” hydrogen produced with the electrolysis of water, which uses nuclear electricity, and which does not release CO2. The technology is mastered in particular by groups such as Air Liquide, the European leader, or Alstom, which markets trains powered in this way. But we have to move up a gear.

The company visited in Béziers by the Head of State is a young shoot resulting from public research. Can large industrial groups generalize this initiative? Hydrogen is still a small market which remains expensive to produce. The real question is that of demand. On this point, the public authorities have an essential role to play.

For there to be demand from a downstream customer, there needs to be an upstream market. The demand may come from carriers with cleaner trucks running on hydrogen, but today this would make the goods transported more expensive.

The solution is to produce large volumes to lower costs, so build large production plants (gigafactories). But above all, therefore, create a market so that customers are there. This requires real regulation at European level, but can we run several hares at the same time? A massive first choice was made in favor of the electric battery, a choice today irreversible. The public authorities are now relying on hydrogen. Of which act. But more than billions of euros put on the table in subsidies, this deserves a real industrial strategy … which remains to be built.