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Do you have actual knowledge of their motives? Or is this speculation, confidently stated as fact? Another possible motive, mentioned in the the paragraph you

Do you have actual knowledge of their motives? Or is this speculation, confidently stated as fact? Another possible motive, mentioned in the the paragraph you quote, is that the oil companies see an energy transition coming and are trying to get aboard the hydrogen train to diversify their future revenue sources. And that sounds like a reasonable motive; the sort of thing that people who don't see themselves as evil villains – i.e. the supermajority of people – could embrace.

mixermachine 2y ago
One can extract hydrogen from fossil fuels. So if a hydrogen break through is coming, they already have a cheap source for the material. Not really green though...
- m463 2y ago
  not really cheap either. I remember natural gas vehicles (busses and cars, like the honda civic). You could actually fill up at home if you had natural gas, but the electricity just to compress the natural gas for the car cost as much or more than the compressed fuel in the car. For hydrogen, it is even harder. take a look at cars running compressed hydrogen. I remember $17 for the equivalent of a gallon of gasoline. I think it is even more expensive now. Easier to burn CH4 than use energy to split out the H2, then compres it, then store it. I actually think solar is better.
  - baq 2y ago
    Dollars are fake, or more accurately, a social construct, remember that. You can always tax the cheaper fuel and subsidize the more expensive one.
    - rocqua 2y ago
      Dollar costs of physical things (pre tax) quite accurately measure how much effort it takes to produce/acquire that thing. Hydrogen being more expensive than X quite stronly suggests that it is much more effort to get than X.
      - baq 2y ago
        I agree, that’s why I say tax the right things and subsidize the right things.
        AlexandrB 2y ago
        All well and good until you have producers burning (or otherwise using) the cheap, taxed fuel to produce the expensive, subsidized one while creating more net pollution in the process. It's hard to get this stuff right at the best of times.
        baq 2y ago
        Carbon credits should also fix that. The bigger problem is getting everyone to agree something needs to be done.
  - mixermachine 2y ago
    Most of the Hydrogen that is currently being produced is "gray". Meaning that it is produce with steam reforming from natural gas. This is currently the cheapest and most used method (around 60%). Coal (around 20%) and oil (around 20%) are also used for hydrogen production. Green hydrogen is below 1%. So fossil fuels are still currently the cheapest option there. Just not a green one.
whalesalad 2y ago
Oil companies, vehicle manufacturers, tire companies and other powerful lobbyists have been doing this for decades so it’s an unsurprising theory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp... It’s why we don’t have rail in the US like you see in Europe. At one point in time we had a ton of rail and streetcar networks but these groups destroyed it all because it was a threat to their business. For oil companies, so is hydrogen.
- andrepd 2y ago
  Plenty of this in Europe. In my country there's less km of rail now than there was in 1910.
  - newuser94303 2y ago
    which country?
    - masklinn 2y ago
      Pretty much all of them. At least in the west, less sure about the east. France had 70000km of rail around ww1, now it has about 30000. The main (though not only) casualty was the rural narrow gauge lines ("local interest network") which got obliterated by car and low productivity (about 20000km progressively closed from about 1930 to 1960, a handful survive as tourist attractions).
    - rkosk 2y ago
      Dunno which country they are in but this has happened in a lot of places. This is a an infamous example in the UK: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_cuts https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_cuts Which this politician who owned a major road engineering company was quite involved in https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Marples https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Marples
- staunton 2y ago
  > ... a threat to their business. For oil companies, so is hydrogen. Hydrogen is no threat to oil and gas companies, quite the contrary, as discussed by comments all around. For example, they can produce hydrogen from fossil fuels and justify expanding gas infrastructure while talking about some "future transition".
xbmcuser 2y ago
The current US administrations moves against renewables should make you realize how powerful the oil gas lobby is. They got some pushback from local politicians so were slowed down but the way they started they were looking to end all wind and solar for a false promise of nuclear tomorrow.
- nyokodo 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - gibolt 2y ago
    We are already on the path to have the grid converted to majority green energy over the next decade. Solar is by far the largest of New deployments and growing annually. Grid batteries are just starting to scale up. These are cheaper than any other option by far, with the shortest payback period.
  - jiggawatts 2y ago
    You're being downvoted because you're wrong, but sadly about 20-30% of the population shares your views and this needs to be addressed. The people telling you that green energy "can't happen" are precisely the same group of people that will lose the capital they've invested in non-green energy technologies. That's it. That's the reason you believe this. You've been told over and over, by very loud and very well funded people to not even bother trying to replace legacy non-renewable energy sources with renewable energy sources. One hundred percent of the funding for this messaging comes from non-renewable energy companies, their shareholders, employees, and others with vested interests. None of these people have your personal interests at heart. Interest such as "having a livable planet" or having... you know... energy that won't run out in like a hundred years because... drumroll... they're literally advocating for energy sources that are NOT renewable. Finite. Expiring. Running dry. "Oil baron with crushing loan repayments says the remaining drops of crude must be pumped out, no other option for the world. News at 11."
  - csomar 2y ago
    That could have been an argument for a suspicious individual but China has showed otherwise. China came late to the green transition and now they are ahead of anybody else. And they are big and not relatively rich.
ryanmcbride 2y ago
This just sounds intentionally naive.
- namaria 2y ago
  I think you mean disingenuous
  - ryanmcbride 2y ago
    yeah that's a better word for it
dwaltrip 2y ago
It'd be reasonable if hydrogen was competitive with electric, but it's not.
- Guthur 2y ago
  Electricity is a by product of some source of energy, it doesn't just materialise unless your taking about capturing lightening in a bottle.
  - Retric 2y ago
    Hydrogen is also a byproduct of some source of energy, it doesn’t just materialize. The difference is batteries are vastly more efficient at storage and doing useful work with that stored energy. There’s use cases where that’s fine like rocketry, but efficiency or energy density is usually a dealbreaker.
    - Guthur 2y ago
      What the hell are you talking about, a. batteries weren't mentioned and b. hydrogen is on the periodic table and exists as an element, and can actually be found in its pure form.
      - zejn 2y ago
        While hydrogen can be found in its pure form, the reserves are not really developed. Hydrogen is generally considered a storage, not a resource. Same as battery.
      - Retric 2y ago
        Pure hydrogen is not found in meaningful quantities on earth. There’s a huge demand for hydrogen in industry and it’s almost exclusively met with steam methane reforming there’s some methane pyrolysis and a little green hydrogen but not much. If people could just drill for it, they would happier do so as being so light it’s easy to separate out from other gasses.
iamthemonster 2y ago
I work for an oil and gas company. It has been specifically stated by my company that they are seeking support for hydrogen as a fuel because it adds value to their gas reserves - natural gas is roughly 75% hydrogen on a molar basis. The idea is to stimulate demand for "green-ish" hydrogen (that is by grid-connected electrolysis); once demand for the hydrogen is there, it can be supplied by blue hydrogen. The O&G companies aren't super keen on green hydrogen made by dedicated renewables off grid, and they LOVE the approach of "we'll start off with grey hydrogen then we'll move to blue and green in the future". This is very specifically a strategy to increase the amount of natural gas that can move from resources to possible reserves to probable reserve to proven reserves. That's how you increase the value of your company, which is how you get a fat bonus as a CEO. You don't get a fat bonus by telling the truth or being right.
- thaumasiotes 2y ago
  > natural gas is roughly 75% hydrogen on a molar basis I thought it was methane. Wouldn't that be 80% hydrogen on a molar basis? (Or... 67%, if we're counting moles of molecular hydrogen?) Is the discrepancy coming from impurities, or different types of fuel, or what?
  - D_Alex 2y ago
    Natural gas is a mixture of methane and heavier hydrocarbons, the composition varies by region, depending largely on how the LPGs (propane and butane) are used. Ethane usually ends up in natural gas, unless there is a petrochemical complex nearby. So, 80% is a theoretical maximum, which is never achieved in practice. 75% hydrogen looks pretty right.
    - thaumasiotes 2y ago
      I'm still curious about the measurement "on a molar basis". If you have 20 moles of methane, and you process that to separate out the carbon, you'll end up with 20 moles of some form of carbon and 40 moles of hydrogen gas, right?
navane 2y ago
"trying to get aboard the hydrogen train to diversify their future revenue sources" sounds very close to what op claims. For them, the goal is to get aboard, not to get to a destination.
danaris 2y ago
Given how hard and how long the fossil fuel industry has been fighting tooth and nail to suppress science, kill public and private projects, and fund bogus studies, all to avoid ever losing even a fraction of their ironclad control of the energy market, I think it's fair to deny them the benefit of the doubt at this point. If they're saying or doing something that would stand in the way of or compete with the existing rise of renewable energy, even without any specific evidence, I believe it is fully justified to say they are doing it for selfish reasons that will harm literally every other human being on the planet.

mixermachine 2y ago

One can extract hydrogen from fossil fuels. So if a hydrogen break through is coming, they already have a cheap source for the material. Not really green though...

m463 2y ago
not really cheap either. I remember natural gas vehicles (busses and cars, like the honda civic). You could actually fill up at home if you had natural gas, but the electricity just to compress the natural gas for the car cost as much or more than the compressed fuel in the car. For hydrogen, it is even harder. take a look at cars running compressed hydrogen. I remember $17 for the equivalent of a gallon of gasoline. I think it is even more expensive now. Easier to burn CH4 than use energy to split out the H2, then compres it, then store it. I actually think solar is better.
- baq 2y ago
  Dollars are fake, or more accurately, a social construct, remember that. You can always tax the cheaper fuel and subsidize the more expensive one.
  - rocqua 2y ago
    Dollar costs of physical things (pre tax) quite accurately measure how much effort it takes to produce/acquire that thing. Hydrogen being more expensive than X quite stronly suggests that it is much more effort to get than X.
    - baq 2y ago
      I agree, that’s why I say tax the right things and subsidize the right things.
      - AlexandrB 2y ago
        All well and good until you have producers burning (or otherwise using) the cheap, taxed fuel to produce the expensive, subsidized one while creating more net pollution in the process. It's hard to get this stuff right at the best of times.
        baq 2y ago
        Carbon credits should also fix that. The bigger problem is getting everyone to agree something needs to be done.
- mixermachine 2y ago
  Most of the Hydrogen that is currently being produced is "gray". Meaning that it is produce with steam reforming from natural gas. This is currently the cheapest and most used method (around 60%). Coal (around 20%) and oil (around 20%) are also used for hydrogen production. Green hydrogen is below 1%. So fossil fuels are still currently the cheapest option there. Just not a green one.

whalesalad 2y ago

Oil companies, vehicle manufacturers, tire companies and other powerful lobbyists have been doing this for decades so it’s an unsurprising theory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp... It’s why we don’t have rail in the US like you see in Europe. At one point in time we had a ton of rail and streetcar networks but these groups destroyed it all because it was a threat to their business. For oil companies, so is hydrogen.

andrepd 2y ago
Plenty of this in Europe. In my country there's less km of rail now than there was in 1910.
- newuser94303 2y ago
  which country?
  - masklinn 2y ago
    Pretty much all of them. At least in the west, less sure about the east. France had 70000km of rail around ww1, now it has about 30000. The main (though not only) casualty was the rural narrow gauge lines ("local interest network") which got obliterated by car and low productivity (about 20000km progressively closed from about 1930 to 1960, a handful survive as tourist attractions).
  - rkosk 2y ago
    Dunno which country they are in but this has happened in a lot of places. This is a an infamous example in the UK: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_cuts https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeching_cuts Which this politician who owned a major road engineering company was quite involved in https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Marples https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Marples
staunton 2y ago
> ... a threat to their business. For oil companies, so is hydrogen. Hydrogen is no threat to oil and gas companies, quite the contrary, as discussed by comments all around. For example, they can produce hydrogen from fossil fuels and justify expanding gas infrastructure while talking about some "future transition".

xbmcuser 2y ago

The current US administrations moves against renewables should make you realize how powerful the oil gas lobby is. They got some pushback from local politicians so were slowed down but the way they started they were looking to end all wind and solar for a false promise of nuclear tomorrow.

nyokodo 2y ago
[flagged]
- gibolt 2y ago
  We are already on the path to have the grid converted to majority green energy over the next decade. Solar is by far the largest of New deployments and growing annually. Grid batteries are just starting to scale up. These are cheaper than any other option by far, with the shortest payback period.
- jiggawatts 2y ago
  You're being downvoted because you're wrong, but sadly about 20-30% of the population shares your views and this needs to be addressed. The people telling you that green energy "can't happen" are precisely the same group of people that will lose the capital they've invested in non-green energy technologies. That's it. That's the reason you believe this. You've been told over and over, by very loud and very well funded people to not even bother trying to replace legacy non-renewable energy sources with renewable energy sources. One hundred percent of the funding for this messaging comes from non-renewable energy companies, their shareholders, employees, and others with vested interests. None of these people have your personal interests at heart. Interest such as "having a livable planet" or having... you know... energy that won't run out in like a hundred years because... drumroll... they're literally advocating for energy sources that are NOT renewable. Finite. Expiring. Running dry. "Oil baron with crushing loan repayments says the remaining drops of crude must be pumped out, no other option for the world. News at 11."
- csomar 2y ago
  That could have been an argument for a suspicious individual but China has showed otherwise. China came late to the green transition and now they are ahead of anybody else. And they are big and not relatively rich.

ryanmcbride 2y ago

This just sounds intentionally naive.

namaria 2y ago
I think you mean disingenuous
- ryanmcbride 2y ago
  yeah that's a better word for it

dwaltrip 2y ago

It'd be reasonable if hydrogen was competitive with electric, but it's not.

Guthur 2y ago
Electricity is a by product of some source of energy, it doesn't just materialise unless your taking about capturing lightening in a bottle.
- Retric 2y ago
  Hydrogen is also a byproduct of some source of energy, it doesn’t just materialize. The difference is batteries are vastly more efficient at storage and doing useful work with that stored energy. There’s use cases where that’s fine like rocketry, but efficiency or energy density is usually a dealbreaker.
  - Guthur 2y ago
    What the hell are you talking about, a. batteries weren't mentioned and b. hydrogen is on the periodic table and exists as an element, and can actually be found in its pure form.
    - zejn 2y ago
      While hydrogen can be found in its pure form, the reserves are not really developed. Hydrogen is generally considered a storage, not a resource. Same as battery.
    - Retric 2y ago
      Pure hydrogen is not found in meaningful quantities on earth. There’s a huge demand for hydrogen in industry and it’s almost exclusively met with steam methane reforming there’s some methane pyrolysis and a little green hydrogen but not much. If people could just drill for it, they would happier do so as being so light it’s easy to separate out from other gasses.

iamthemonster 2y ago

I work for an oil and gas company. It has been specifically stated by my company that they are seeking support for hydrogen as a fuel because it adds value to their gas reserves - natural gas is roughly 75% hydrogen on a molar basis. The idea is to stimulate demand for "green-ish" hydrogen (that is by grid-connected electrolysis); once demand for the hydrogen is there, it can be supplied by blue hydrogen. The O&G companies aren't super keen on green hydrogen made by dedicated renewables off grid, and they LOVE the approach of "we'll start off with grey hydrogen then we'll move to blue and green in the future". This is very specifically a strategy to increase the amount of natural gas that can move from resources to possible reserves to probable reserve to proven reserves. That's how you increase the value of your company, which is how you get a fat bonus as a CEO. You don't get a fat bonus by telling the truth or being right.

thaumasiotes 2y ago
> natural gas is roughly 75% hydrogen on a molar basis I thought it was methane. Wouldn't that be 80% hydrogen on a molar basis? (Or... 67%, if we're counting moles of molecular hydrogen?) Is the discrepancy coming from impurities, or different types of fuel, or what?
- D_Alex 2y ago
  Natural gas is a mixture of methane and heavier hydrocarbons, the composition varies by region, depending largely on how the LPGs (propane and butane) are used. Ethane usually ends up in natural gas, unless there is a petrochemical complex nearby. So, 80% is a theoretical maximum, which is never achieved in practice. 75% hydrogen looks pretty right.
  - thaumasiotes 2y ago
    I'm still curious about the measurement "on a molar basis". If you have 20 moles of methane, and you process that to separate out the carbon, you'll end up with 20 moles of some form of carbon and 40 moles of hydrogen gas, right?

navane 2y ago

"trying to get aboard the hydrogen train to diversify their future revenue sources" sounds very close to what op claims. For them, the goal is to get aboard, not to get to a destination.

danaris 2y ago

Given how hard and how long the fossil fuel industry has been fighting tooth and nail to suppress science, kill public and private projects, and fund bogus studies, all to avoid ever losing even a fraction of their ironclad control of the energy market, I think it's fair to deny them the benefit of the doubt at this point. If they're saying or doing something that would stand in the way of or compete with the existing rise of renewable energy, even without any specific evidence, I believe it is fully justified to say they are doing it for selfish reasons that will harm literally every other human being on the planet.