Hydrogen – it’s in the news everywhere you look. Hydrogen to power zero-emission cars and trucks, green steel, renewable fuels and environmentally friendly fertilizers. Many believe that hydrogen could be the key to ridding the world of the scourge of fossil fuels. But how do you get it? Although it is a primary component of water and fossil fuels, it bonds so tightly to other atoms that it takes a lot of energy to break those bonds. In most cases, the energy needed comes from burning fossil fuels, which rather defeats the whole “zero-emissions” nature of hydrogen. The Biden administration plans to promote hydrogen with $3 per kilogram of production tax credit , which is incorporated into the inflation reduction law. The problem for environmentalists is that producing green hydrogen by passing an electric current through water requires a huge amount of energy. They fear that the new hydrogen electrolyzers will absorb most of the available renewable energy, forcing businesses to resort to heat generation to make up the difference. (Steve Hanley)