Hydrogen Hype Meets Hard Costs: Europe’s Pipeline Plan in Trouble – CleanTechnica

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The molecules for energy industry has been working hard for years to make it seem as if transporting hydrogen by pipeline is going to be cheap and easy, cheaper and easier than moving electrons in fact. I’ve been tracking this set of bad studies and assessing realities for years.

Three years ago, I published a study funded by European NGOs looking at Europe’s attempts at hydrogen energy colonialism in northern Africa. I assessed the strategies and proposed initiatives in Morocco, Algeria, and Egypt. A big part of the plans was to put the hydrogen in the Maghreb–Europe natural gas pipeline, in blended or pure form.

As I noted at the time, repurposing existing natural gas pipelines for hydrogen presents significant technical risks. The metallurgical properties of current pipelines make them vulnerable to microfractures, allowing hydrogen, the smallest molecule, to escape more readily. Leakage concerns are heightened by hydrogen’s 12–37 times greater global warming potential than CO₂, as it’s an indirect greenhouse gas due to slowing the decomposition of methane in the atmosphere. As a note, three years ago we thought it was only 8 times as bad as CO2.

Hydrogen also demands three times the energy to transport over the same distance compared to natural gas, tripling costs. If Algeria was to replace natural gas exports with hydrogen using the Maghreb–Europe pipeline, estimated annual transport costs would surge from $1.8 billion to $5.5 billion.

Making pipelines hydrogen-ready would require new sealants, costly compressor replacements, and upgrades to sensors and control systems — all significant additional expenses.

Also three years ago, I assessed a pair of studies comparing hydrogen pipelines to HVDC transmission, a common type of study funded by the hydrogen lobbies, pipeline lobbies, and fossil fuel lobbies. The two studies — Saadi et al. (2018) and deSantis et al. (2021) — ignored the real-world costs of producing and transporting hydrogen. Their narrow system boundaries assumed cheap hydrogen supply, overlooking the need for massive new renewable infrastructure, which would also require HVDC. Cutting out the hydrogen step is cheaper.

Hydrogen is far less efficient than electricity. Electrolysis wastes at least 20% of energy, fuel cells lose 40–50%, and pipelines require three times the energy to move hydrogen vs. gas. Meanwhile, HVDC lines lose only 1% to 3.5% per 1,000 kilometers. These losses make hydrogen far more expensive and inefficient to transport.

A widely shared meme from economist Lion Hirth claimed Nord Stream 1 moves 30× the energy of an HVDC line, but it used misleading math. Real-world HVDC lines, like China’s 6,400 MW Xiangjiaba–Shanghai link, deliver 56 TWh per year with minimal losses.

Two years ago, I dug through a DNV report comparing offshore manufacturing of hydrogen at wind farms with delivering energy through HVDC. The report claimed offshore hydrogen production from wind energy would be the cheapest form of green hydrogen, despite estimating costs at €3.21/kg in 2050 at the end of the transmission pipeline — twice as expensive as LNG but with much more expensive distribution costs. The report skewed comparisons by overstating HVDC losses at 6.5% over 150 km, while downplaying hydrogen pipeline losses at just 1.5%, contradicting industry data. It asserted that nonexistent underwater hydrogen pipelines are cheaper per MW/km than HVDC, citing unverified cost estimates that favor hydrogen transport.

Despite pipelines requiring extensive maintenance, the report claimed HVDC is more expensive to operate, ignoring that offshore hydrogen platforms need 24/7 staffing while HVDC requires none. It further inflated offshore hydrogen’s appeal by undervaluing onshore solar, assuming offshore wind will cost just €32.12 per MWh while assigning an unrealistically low 11% capacity factor to onshore solar.

The study, funded by pipeline operators GASCADE and Fluxys, dedicates 19 pages to the nonexistent European hydrogen backbone, pushing thousands of kilometers of pipelines despite hydrogen demand shrinking.

A year ago, I assessed an Arup study for a UK–Europe hydrogen pipeline which remarkably found that making hydrogen onshore in the UK and putting it in a pipeline to Europe was economically sound. The report, funded by the UK’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), claimed to assess green hydrogen export routes from the UK to Europe but appeared to be a blue hydrogen pipeline study in disguise. The report never explicitly mentioned blue hydrogen, despite recommending export hubs in Teesside and Humber, UK oil and gas strongholds home to BP, Kellas, and Equinor’s fossil hydrogen projects.

The report also ignored HVDC transmission as a cheaper alternative to shipping hydrogen. The Dogger Bank and Sofia offshore wind farms are closer to Europe than the UK and could send electricity directly to the mainland, but instead, the report proposes transporting it to the UK, converting it to hydrogen, then sending it back — a costly, inefficient detour. Data from H2Med suggests hydrogen transport costs twice as much per kWh as HVDC, yet the report fails to compare them directly.

Arup, which pledged in 2022 to avoid hydrocarbon projects, claimed hydrogen pipelines would carry “electrolytic hydrogen,” avoiding the reality that most projects in its study regions are fossil-based. The vague wording shielded Arup from breaking its public commitment while helping DESNZ push blue hydrogen subsidies.

A year ago, a slightly better study comparing HVDC to hydrogen transmission was published. The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies improved on past efforts by considering electrolysis energy losses, but it still missed key costs and failed to challenge hydrogen’s viability as an energy carrier.

Like previous reports, it assumed a massive, centralized source of green hydrogen, ignoring the cost of building extra wind farms and transmission needed to support offshore electrolysis. It overstated HVDC losses, understated pipeline costs, and ignored hydrogen’s distribution expenses, all while failing to account for hydrogen’s inefficiency compared to direct electrification.

Even using its own numbers, the report finds that only 40% of the original energy would remain after hydrogen transport, while HVDC would retain 87%. That means hydrogen costs 2.5 times more per unit of energy at the very best, yet the authors still conclude that both technologies are “complementary,” lacking the courage to state what the data clearly shows.

Also a year ago, I reviewed an EU Joint Research Centre (JRC) study on green hydrogen transmission. The JRC is supposed to be a respected scientific body meant to provide independent advice, but it released a deeply flawed hydrogen transport report. While its policy brief suggested green hydrogen could be delivered from Ukraine or North Africa for €3/kg, a closer look at the assumptions revealed real costs would be closer to €8/kg for industrial users and €14/kg for transport — before taxes and profits. The report systematically downplayed costs to present hydrogen as a viable energy carrier, misleading policymakers.

Unlike industry-funded studies from DNV or ARUP, the JRC is a government-backed, peer-reviewed institution, making its errors more concerning. The study assumed unrealistically cheap electricity (€0.01/kWh at production sites), massive cost reductions in electrolyzers, and radically underestimated maintenance costs for compressors and pipelines. It also ignored hydrogen distribution costs, making pipeline transport seem far cheaper than it is.

More credible studies from Technische Universität Berlin and the IEA estimate Northern African hydrogen production at €7–11/kg, far above JRC’s claims. Hydrogen pipeline costs are also drastically underestimated, with JRC suggesting €0.55/kg for 2,500 km transport, while the IEA puts it at €2/kg. Meanwhile, hydrogen trucking costs — known to be exorbitant — are entirely omitted, likely because including them would invalidate the entire study.

All of this is to say that I wasn’t at all surprised by news out of the Netherlands. Gasunie, the Dutch state-owned gas infrastructure company, is planning to develop a 1,200-kilometer national hydrogen pipeline network to support the Netherlands’ theoretical transition to a hydrogen-based economy. The proposed network, known as the Dutch Hydrogen Backbone, would connect major industrial clusters, storage facilities, and ports, and link to hydrogen infrastructure in Germany and Belgium. Approximately 85% of the pipeline system was supposed to be repurposed natural gas pipelines, reducing costs and environmental impact compared to building entirely new infrastructure.

The network was projected to have a capacity of 10–15 GW, capable of transporting hundreds of thousands of tons of hydrogen per year. Gasunie aimed to complete the first sections by 2027, with full implementation by 2033. The project is a key part of the Netherlands’ hydrogen strategy, supporting domestic production and import ambitions while integrating with the broader European hydrogen infrastructure.

Initial cost estimates for the project were €1.5 billion, but in today’s news, Gasunie has revised this to €3.8 billion, citing higher material costs, supply chain price increases, and the need for additional new pipelines because not nearly as much existing infrastructure can be reused as originally proposed.

That’s not even baked in stale marshmallow. Sophie Hermans, the Minister of Climate and Green Growth, in her memo to the country’s government said (in automated translation from the Dutch):

“This new cost estimate remains uncertain, as the spatial planning procedures for the transport network are still ongoing, and many costs have yet to be incurred.”

In other words, the costs are going to go up, likely a lot. Is this a deal at the price? The rule of thumb for natural gas transmission pipelines is a million euros per kilometers, and this is already about £3.2 million euros per kilometer.

The business case for this pipeline also depends on hydrogen going in at one end being cheap, and BNEF recently acknowledged what has been obvious to those of us doing technoeconomic assessments in the space for a while, that it won’t be, tripling its cost projection for hydrogen 2050 (and still likely to optimistic in my opinion). The updated forecast now places green hydrogen prices between $1.60 and $5.09 per kilogram by mid-century, up from earlier, more optimistic predictions. The revision reflects higher-than-expected future costs for electrolyzers, the key technology used in hydrogen production, as well as ongoing challenges in scaling up renewable energy infrastructure.

Currently, green hydrogen costs between $3.74 and $11.70 per kilogram, making it significantly more expensive than gray hydrogen, which is derived from fossil fuels and ranges between $1.11 and $2.35 per kilogram. BNEF predicts that only regions with abundant cheap renewables, such as China and India, may achieve cost parity between green and gray hydrogen by 2040.

And, of course, it’s going to cost more to operate. For the same energy output at the delivery point, hydrogen pipelines require about 3 to 4 times more energy for compression and transport compared to natural gas.

The Netherlands and Europe’s hydrogen economy plans are facing pipelines that cost more than three times as much as business cases estimated, with hydrogen that will cost three times what business cases estimate and energy costs for transmission three to four times current energy costs for natural gas.

There is no business case for hydrogen in Europe. The Netherlands, as they dig through to try to get to real costs and plans, are finding out that the studies from the past that they relied on were just as bogus as was obvious to people like me who worked through them and did the energy and math work.

The energy of the future is electrons and the pipeline of the future is HVDC.