1 gennaio 2024 – Hydrogen is a versatile clean energy carrier that offers the global economy the flexibility to rapidly decarbonize existing industries as well as the scalability to transition to new energy pathways. These properties make hydrogen a critical option for reaching economywide net-zero emissions.
While hydrogen is used mostly in the petrochemical and fertilizer industries, there is growing investment and policy activity in several regions—including the United States, Canada, the European Union, the U.K., Japan, and China—to expand clean hydrogen production and end use. These countries represent over half of the global hydrogen market today and have policy targets for up to 40 million metric tons per year (Mt/yr) of clean hydrogen production by 2030.a, 1
The level of global interest in hydrogen has never been higher. One industry association tracked more than 1,000 clean hydrogen project proposals as of January 2023, representing.

38 Mt/yr of new clean supply.2 The EFI Foundation is tracking 440 clean hydrogen projects in the United States alone.3 However, only a handful of projects have reached final investment decisions –one estimate finds roughly 0.06 Mt/yr of clean hydrogen production in operation today—because of market uncertainty, high technology costs, and a range of other issues that will be discussed below.