Unicorn Fuel and the Hydrogen Delusion
So here we are again. Hydrogen’s failure, we are told, is not technological. Not physical. Not economic. No, the only thing standing between us and the glorious hydrogen utopia is—wait for it—unsuitable regulation.
If only the wording were smarter. If only the drafts were more imaginative. If only policymakers would sit down, furrow their brows, and craft the perfect paragraph. Then the molecules would behave, the balance sheets would blossom, and the laws of thermodynamics would nod approvingly and step aside.
Right.
Let me add two further ingredients to this alchemy: a shipload of magic dust and several tankers brimming with unicorn piss. Because that is roughly the scale of intervention required to turn hydrogen into the universal energy savior its apostles promise.
We are not merely wrestling with stubborn accountants here. Though the economics alone are ghastly enough. Hydrogen is expensive to produce, expensive to compress or liquefy, expensive to transport, expensive to store, and energetically wasteful at almost every step of its journey. In a world of tightening budgets and voters who are already groaning under the weight of inflation, taxes, and energy bills, the appetite for subsidizing this vanity project is shrinking rapidly.
Cash-strapped politicians sense the mood. They know that poking an already hurting electorate for the sake of a molecule that has yet to prove its worth is not a vote-winner. But they cannot openly retreat. Not yet. The narrative must hold. The speeches must continue. The brochures must still glow with blue flames and glossy electrolyzers.
Yet even if we pretended that the economics could be massaged into submission with subsidies and creative accounting, that would still be the smaller problem.
The larger one is physics.
Hydrogen is not a polite molecule. It is the smallest of them all, a slippery, restless speck that resents confinement. It seeps. It leaks. It infiltrates. It does not ask for permission. It does not respect seals. It does not honor your carefully drafted regulatory framework.
Consider the Artemis program. A space rocket. Unlimited budgets by mortal standards. Some of the finest engineers on the planet. Materials science at the bleeding edge. Endless testing. Redundancy upon redundancy.
And what delayed the scheduled test flight? A hydrogen leak.
If NASA, with all its expertise and funding, cannot reliably keep hydrogen where it is supposed to be for the duration of a test, what exactly are we expecting from municipal storage terminals and continental pipeline networks that are supposed to operate for decades?
Hydrogen embrittles metals. It sneaks into microscopic imperfections and weakens structures from within. It is highly reactive, eager to bond, eager to explode under the right conditions. It does not simply sit quietly in a tank like crude oil or even natural gas. It distorts the very materials meant to contain it.
With rockets, at least, the concept is brutally honest: use once and discard. If something degrades, you replace it. If something cracks, you redesign it. The lifecycle is short and the stakes are understood.
But an energy system is not a disposable launch vehicle. Pipelines are expected to last generations. Storage caverns and tanks are capital-intensive infrastructure built with multi-decade horizons. You do not want to rebuild your storage facilities every six months because the molecule you chose has decided to gnaw its way out of captivity.
And it will leak.
Not maybe. Not hypothetically. It will. The only questions are when, where, and how violently.
Hydrogen has a wide flammability range and a low ignition energy. It forms explosive mixtures with air more readily than many other fuels. Invisible flames. Rapid dispersion. And when things go wrong, they do so decisively. You do not want to be standing nearby when a significant hydrogen leak finds a spark. And in the real world, sparks are plentiful.
Yet we are told that the solution lies in regulatory finesse. That with better standards and more enlightened oversight, the molecule will suddenly behave like a well-trained Labrador rather than the feral, hyperactive creature it is.
This is magical thinking masquerading as policy.
It is easier to blame paperwork than to admit that perhaps we have fallen in love with an idea that flatters our technological vanity. Hydrogen sounds futuristic. It feels clean. It conjures images of sleek tanks and water vapor drifting harmlessly into the sky. It allows politicians to speak of bold transitions without grappling with the gritty reality of materials science and thermodynamic loss.
But the universe is not impressed by press releases.
Hydrogen’s properties are not up for negotiation. No committee vote will enlarge its molecule. No directive will persuade it to stop embrittling steel. No regulation will repeal its tendency to leak through the tiniest pathways.
You are not simply designing a new market. You are attempting to outwit physics.
And physics, unlike voters, does not tire. It does not forget. It does not get swayed by hopeful rhetoric. It waits patiently and then enforces its rules without mercy.
This is not to say hydrogen has no niche. It does. It has always had one—in chemical processes, in specific industrial applications where its quirks are managed within tight boundaries. But the fantasy of a hydrogen-saturated energy system powering cities, industries, transport fleets, and heating networks as a universal solution? That requires more than clever drafting.
It requires faith.
Faith that costs will miraculously collapse. Faith that materials will stop degrading. Faith that leak rates will be trivial. Faith that voters will cheerfully foot the bill. Faith that nothing catastrophic will occur when vast volumes of the most elusive molecule in the universe are pressurized, liquefied, transported, and stored at scale.
Faith is a theological virtue. It is not an engineering principle.
So yes, we can continue pretending that the bottleneck is merely regulatory. We can commission white papers, convene panels, and draft ever more elegant frameworks. We can chant about “unlocking potential” and “enabling innovation.”
But until someone figures out how to rewrite the periodic table, hydrogen will remain what it has always been: powerful, volatile, difficult, and profoundly unwilling to sit quietly inside the boxes we build for it.
And when it leaks—and it will—you will not want to be there.