Keep hydrogen legislation pragmatic

All forms of hydrogen production must be encouraged initially to scale up infrastructure and demand

Legislation to scale up hydrogen production should be pragmatic and address the whole value chain simultaneously, according to panellists on a Hydrogen Economist roundtable in association with Air Liquide. In practice this will mean not restricting hydrogen production to blue hydrogen in the short term, according to Thorsten Herdan, director-general in Germany’s energy ministry. “If we start not going the pragmatic way and trying to be as green as possible from the very beginning, trying to be as strict as possible with the offtakes, then we will never succeed,” he says. “What we need to do in Europe is to bring down the cost” Castelein, Port of Rotterdam Herdan adds that taxpayers’