If you produce it using a clean, zero emissions source, like electricity from wind or solar, you’ve mostly eradicated that specific problem.
As I wrote in a thread last week, the infamous Victorian ‘Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain’ project serves as an incredible package of the worst, most alarming efforts to preserve the lifespan of fossil fuels and delay decarbonisation for as long as possible.
For now, it’s “offset” through the purchase of carbon credit certificates, which do not really neutralise the climate impacts of the greenhouse gases.
So, I gathered up every single piece of coverage – including RenewEconomy’s – and checked each one to see if either the headline or the first paragraph mentions that the hydrogen being shipped out from Australia is fossil hydrogen.
The reason this matters is that the project was – infuriatingly – reported as a major milestone for clean energy by many outlets.
Both the Australian Federal government and the Victorian government talked up the role of CCS and underground geologic storage of captured carbon, linking HESC to climate targets, ambition and innovation.
Look directly at it though and you see a major new pathway for expanding emissions from coal use.
“On background” generally means information provided to a journalist that they are free to use in their article, but cannot declare where they’ve received that information.
While in energy and climate ‘backgrounders’ don’t often contain anything too controversial, as above, they’re an invisible and troubling part of the broader problem.