June 2025, Vol. 252, No. 6

Guest Perspective

Why Hydrogen Will Thrive No Matter Who’s in Office

By Nick Gaines, Regulatory Affairs Specialist and Robert Shelton, CEO, H2 Safety Pipe, Inc. 

(P&GJ) — Environmental groups have long championed hydrogen as a quintessential “clean energy” solution. Hydrogen’s ability to act both as a fuel and an energy carrier offers a promising pathway to a zero-emissions future, making it a favored topic among proponents of climate action.

For these reasons, in 1875, Jules Verne published his book “The Mysterious Island,” in which he envisioned a civilization fueled by water and a sole fuel source for his Nautilus submarine. Since then, hydrogen has captured the imagination of visionaries and environmentalists alike. 

Over the past decade, this enthusiasm has extended to government policymakers and businesses for a critical component of the world’s clean energy future and a promising alternative to fossil fuels. 

The Inflation Reduction Act included billions of dollars directed toward stimulating a robust hydrogen industry. Other significant financial incentives have been adopted by governments all across the globe as components of their respective decarbonization initiatives. 

Winds of Change 

However, the recent U.S. election has introduced winds of change, leaving one to wonder whether hydrogen initiatives in the United States, and perhaps more broadly, will be swept out by a changed political climate. 

President-elect Trump has already tapped several fossil fuel industry executives and lobbyists to lead the Interior, EPA and Energy Departments, as well as serve in other key roles within the incoming administration. 

As New York Times wrote, “… some of Donald Trump’s first steps on climate change when he enters the White House will send a message that the federal government no longer cares about the issue. He will pull out of the Paris Agreement [and remove] the phrases “climate change,” “clean energy” and “environmental justice” from every agency website.” 

So how will hydrogen fare in this pro-fossil fuel, anti-woke climate? 

Our answer is simple: hydrogen will survive — and has the potential to thrive — 

regardless of the changed political climate. The reason for our optimism is that hydrogen’s appeal extends well beyond its environmental benefits. 

Hydrogen is deeply integrated into the oil and gas industry, where it has been used for decades in refining and petrochemical processes. Fundamentally, it is a molecule rather than an electron, making it part of the core business of traditional oil and gas companies worldwide, from ExxonMobil to SoCalGas. Currently, the most cost-effective technology to produce hydrogen originates from natural gas, through steam reforming of methane to extract pure hydrogen. 

Increasing uses are being developed for clean-burning hydrogen in hard-to-abate sectors like steel, cement and aluminum smelting. Zero-carbon emission hydrogen fuel cells have been powering bus fleets for more than a decade and have recently provided power for 18-wheel trucks, particularly in Switzerland. 

The $50 billion-plus annual global sales of hydrogen are over 95% sourced by fossil fuel companies. This has already proven to be a good source of incremental revenue that will likely grow exponentially, once fossil fuel companies are able to bring down their costs for production and distribution to competitive levels. 

This broad-based support from traditional energy sectors and environmentalists creates a unique opportunity for hydrogen as a versatile and essential energy resource. Thus, despite the significant shift in U.S. energy policy with the incoming administration, hydrogen’s multifaceted utility positions it as a resilient component of our energy mix. Despite the predicted changes, hydrogen’s role is likely to endure, due to its established value in both traditional and renewable energy applications. 

For hydrogen to expand its influence, it must fulfill four essential market-driven requirements: affordability, reliability, availability and safety. These criteria echo the insights of ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods, who noted that a “collection of needs” dictates the viability of alternative energy sources to partially replace conventional oil. 

While Woods did not specifically address or include safety in his criteria, these principles fully apply to hydrogen’s potential to transform the energy landscape. In fact, by meeting these benchmarks, hydrogen can do more than merely survive; it can thrive, irrespective of the political climate. 

Reliability Essential 

Affordability is crucial, particularly in hard-to-abate sectors and heavy transport, where hydrogen is widely acknowledged as the best path to decarbonization. Gold, green and blue hydrogen — its cleanest forms — face competition from cheaper fossil fuels and fossil fuel-based hydrogen. 

There are a handful of locations, such as Morocco, the Iberian Peninsula and Scotland, where renewable energy prices are uncommonly low, meaning that hydrogen sourced in those places will require further advances in electrolyzer and carbon capture technology to be competitive. In addition, this hydrogen will require increased production to unlock economies of scale, as well as targeted incentives to bridge the cost gap during the transition. 

Until then, connecting these end-use markets with fossil fuel-based hydrogen affords a way to achieve many of the desired benefits, while scaling back the levels of public investment. 

Reliability is also essential. To make the switch, industrial facilities, transportation networks, energy storage applications and other end-users need confidence in a stable, uninterrupted hydrogen supply. This requires robust and redundant production sources and a distribution and storage infrastructure that consistently delivers hydrogen, a current gap in the supply chain. 

Today, with the exception of refineries along the U.S. Gulf Coast, delivery systems for hydrogen feature supply chains without steady sources of supply and an installed means of distribution. 

This weakness encourages producers and distributors to prioritize short-term pricing strategies, as recently seen in hydrogen pump prices in California reaching nearly $40/kg for a commodity that costs less than $2/kg to produce. Overcoming these barriers requires developing new hydrogen pipelines, storage facilities and distribution networks. Initially, connecting these new pipelines with the lowest-cost producers of hydrogen will be a boon to the oil and gas industry and off-takers. 

Abundance of supplies from multiple sources is also critical. Ironically, the fastest way to achieve abundant hydrogen supplies is to produce it from natural gas feedstocks. 

Early bilateral agreements, similar to those that supported the natural gas industry before LNG became globally traded, can provide reliable long-term off-take commitments necessary for substantial capital investments to be made in constructing new production and storage facilities as well as distribution infrastructure. 

With relatively minor changes in existing tax incentives, such as the 45V production credits program and the DOE Loan Programs Office, the government can encourage these capital investments by industry to enable new production, off-take, storage and pipelines connecting them to be developed in tandem. This represents the surest way to promote hydrogen’s successful integration into the energy economy at zero, or near-zero, net cost to the U.S. taxpayer. 

Finally, hydrogen must be safe for people, property and the environment. As a highly flammable gas, hydrogen poses unique production, storage and transport challenges. Safety concerns and leakage must be addressed through appropriate regulations, adopting best practices, such as a “Zero-Leakage” standard for all pipelines and valves, and public education to build trust and ensure hydrogen’s safe adoption on a mass scale. 

Hydrogen’s ability to align key priorities of environmental advocates with those of major energy companies uniquely positions it as a prime candidate for sustained bipartisan support, capable of boosting profits across multiple industry sectors. 

The essential benchmarks of affordability, reliability, availability and safety are all currently achievable with fossil fuel-derived hydrogen, and these same benchmarks are likely to be feasible from renewable feedstocks in the future. Hydrogen as a commodity is poised to transcend transient political climates. 

This hydrogen is positioned to profitably align with and propel long-term global energy security and sustainability initiatives. 


Authors: Robert Shelton is the co-founder, president and CEO of H2C Safety Pipe, Inc. He brings extensive experience in alternative energy, real estate development, software development and technology licensing. 

Nick Gaines is a regulatory affairs specialist at H2 Safety Pipe, Inc. He brings over a decade of experience at the intersection of technology, policy and community development. 

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