Nicholas Cupps

Hydrogen in the United States already operates as two very different economies.  One is large, centralized, and mature.  The other is distributed, fragile, and poorly served by the infrastructure it depends on.  The first economy was built to serve giant industrial consumers with enormous, concentrated demand.  The second consists of everyone else who needs hydrogen but does not live next door to a large plant, or consumes enough volume to justify dedicated production or 100% reliable supply.  

Because in the real world, customers do not buy hydrogen at the production source. They buy it after compression or liquefaction.  After storage.  After transport.  After transfer.  After scheduling.  After inventory management.  After all the friction and physics and logistics that stand between a promising molecule and delivering usable product.

The modern hydrogen supply chain was not built for transportation, energy storage, or distributed industrial demand.  It was built primarily to serve oil refineries, chemical, plastics and fertilizer production.  Most of the hydrogen produced in the United States and around the world is generated for these sectors.  The petrochemical industry produces some hydrogen; however, a refinery can either be a net hydrogen producer or a net hydrogen consumer depending on the type of feedstock