Letters to the Editor: L.A. ‘is clinging to yesterday’s energy system while calling it progress’
Can't read this because it's behind a paywall, but this is the second LA Times article in as many days attacking the hydrogen sector with the same tired combination of ignorance and debunked arguments.
I thought I'd post this one because the bias is practically visible in the title: “Yesterday's energy system.” That pretty much gives away the premise before the article even begins.
Hydrogen has not historically been a significant part of the energy system. That's precisely why the hydrogen economy is being developed now. We're at the beginning of its energy lifecycle, not the end of it.
And, predictably, the first paragraph calls for more U.S. investment in technologies that depend heavily on raw materials and supply chains dominated by China, rather than addressing the obvious strategic issue: why aren't we developing those supply chains ourselves?
Here's the part I find particularly difficult to reconcile with the constant hydrogen criticism:
China is investing in hydrogen production and infrastructure at a scale that dwarfs investment in most of the rest of the world. At the same time, China already dominates the manufacturing and processing of solar panels, batteries, and many of the critical minerals and materials required for those technologies.
If hydrogen is supposedly such a terrible technology, why would the country that already dominates solar, batteries, and critical-material supply chains be investing so heavily in it?
That doesn't prove every hydrogen project will succeed. It doesn't mean every application of hydrogen makes economic sense. But it should at least make people question the simplistic narrative that hydrogen is some obsolete technology that sensible people have already moved beyond.
What continues to amaze me is that these articles almost never seem to ask the larger strategic question: Why is China investing so heavily in hydrogen while the West keeps arguing about whether hydrogen should exist at all?
We've watched this movie before with solar, batteries, and critical minerals.
Maybe we should stop dismissing emerging energy technologies long enough to ask why our biggest strategic competitor is taking them so seriously.
