S1E106: Green hydrogen: All hype or real hope for our planet?

This nascent industry holds much promise but needs to manage the giddy ambitions of some investors and governments. 

Synopsis: Every first and third Monday of the month, The Straits Times analyses the beat of the changing environment, from biodiversity conservation to climate change.

Everyone is talking about green hydrogen as the fuel of the future. It’s regarded as a key way the global economy can transition away from polluting fossil fuels to create a cleaner and greener future. 

Huge projects have been announced worth many billions of dollars. And more and more governments say they see the promise of using renewable energy to create hydrogen that can power factories, generate electricity and even fuel ships and planes. 

But is this all just more hype or is there real promise in rapidly scaling up green hydrogen production? To find out the challenges ahead, ST's climate editor David Fogarty hosts Mr Alex Tancock, chief executive officer and co-founder of InterContinental Energy, a developer of large-scale hydrogen projects in some of the sunniest places on Earth. 

Highlights (click/tap above):

1:34 What is green hydrogen? Why is it attracting so much interest from investors and governments?

4:21 Main uses for green hydrogen

16:40 More than 1,000 green hydrogen projects have been announced recently, yet very few have reached financial close: What's holding the industry back?

20:27 Mr Alex Tancock: "The challenge we have is to scale-up and scale-up very quickly. And I see that as more of an opportunity."

21:46 Costs of green hydrogen

Produced by: David Fogarty (dfogarty@sph.com.sg), Ernest Luis, Hadyu Rahim & Paxton Pang

Edited by: Fa'izah Sani & Hadyu Rahim

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