Tag: electrolyzers
From Optimistic Models To Empty Pipelines: The Intellectual History Of Germany’s Hydrogen Backbone
Germany’s hydrogen backbone now exists as steel in the ground and pressurized pipe, but the more important infrastructure was laid long before any trench was dug. That infrastructure was intellectual. A long sequence of studies, models, and policy-facing analyses created the impression that large scale hydrogen for energy use was … [continued]
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Pressurized Steel, Missing Demand: Germany’s Hydrogen Backbone In Energy Flows
The German hydrogen backbone without customers or suppliers—a pipeline from nowhere to nowhere—is real steel in the ground, pressurized and defended as inevitable, yet it is being built for an energy system that does not need it. That claim sounds provocative until the energy flows are laid out in full. … [continued]
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Same Length, Different Logic: China’s Industrial Hydrogen Pipeline Versus Germany’s Backbone
The comparison between Germany’s hydrogen backbone from nowhere to nowhere and China’s reported 1,000km-plus hydrogen pipeline keeps resurfacing, often framed as evidence that Germany is simply early rather than wrong. It is a fair question, because at a distance both projects appear similar. Both involve long-distance hydrogen pipelines. Both are … [continued]
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How Early Climate Leadership Locked Germany Into The Wrong Hydrogen Bet
Germany’s hydrogen pipeline from nowhere to nowhere did not emerge from ignorance or indifference. It emerged from good intentions formed early, when climate risk was clear and credible solutions were scarce. In the 1990s and early 2000s, jurisdictions that accepted climate science faced a thin menu of options. Wind and … [continued]
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Europe Built Hydrogen Infrastructure Instead of the Power Grid It Needed
The most important policy lesson from the 400 km European hydrogen backbone segment with no suppliers and no offtakers—a pipeline from nowhere to nowhere—I wrote about recently is that decarbonization succeeds or fails on demand realism, not technological aspiration. Europe knew, as early as the late 2000s, that deep electrification … [continued]
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