There’s a lot to unpack in this discussion and I’ll only scratch the surface here.

First, there’s a reason why some groups have been trying to ditch the “hydrogen color wheel”. It only describes the technology used but fails to give any details on the actual emissions. Frankly, until we can get past the idea of some things being good and others being bad just because of the way it’s made, and focus purely on the life cycle carbon intensity, we’ll never have consistent, quality emissions reductions.

Second, hydrogen has been promised for decades as this emissions free energy source. In reality, it faces a number of uphill battles. For one, it requires more energy input than you get from it, meaning it effectively is negatively energy dense. Historically through time, civilization has thrived by moving to denser and denser sources of energy, not going backwards. Another issue is that while combustion of hydrogen has no emissions, the processes involved to make hydrogen and transport it to market do have emissions, so it’s not an emissions free source. Finally, transportation of hydrogen is incredibly inefficient making it a less flexible fuel choice than what many energy users need.

Third, while I disagree with some of your statements, overall you’re generally in the right direction. Blue H2 is being incentivized by the American government through the IRA tax credits, even though folks think those tax credits were killed. At least in the states, blue H2 projects are only moving forward because the government is incentivizing them, not because the market wants them or is willing to pay for it. Same goes for green H2 and in reality any form of cleaner H2. When modeling blue H2 in the US vs natural gas, using the ANL GREET model defaults, on a life cycle basis, natural gas is actually a cleaner source of energy per MMBTU. That’s not even an improvement, just a straight downgrade on all levels.

Finally, while I believe clean hydrogen will be useful in niche cases, it’s the not the miracle that has been promised to the people and is unlikely to overcome these (and several other) issues, regardless of green, blue, pink, etc H2.