Clean hydrogen will get pragmatic

The culture of the clean hydrogen sector will settle in 2026 into a pragmatic rhythm of project-based progress. It will be a good year for the many companies working at this interface of chemistry and energy—not as exciting as the boom years of 2022–24, but not as discouraging as 2025, a year of rapid retraction of government support for the sector.For a few golden years, companies working on hydrogen were scaling up and working hard to get new technologies ready with the idea that customers wanting to make sustainable chemicals and fuels would start buying once low-carbon hydrogen was readily available. Now the dynamic is reversed, and most firms that make clean hydrogen or the equipment used to generate it say they’re ready to deliver projects—but only if a customer will sign long-term offtake agreements. Still, several firms in that supply chain completed factories recently. In green hydrogen—made by splitting water with renewable electricity—Topsoe inaugurated a solid-oxide electrolysis cell plant in Denmark in November, and Sunfire is mass-producing alkaline cells in Germany. In fossil fuel–derived blue hydrogen, carbon dioxide sequestration wells are coming on line in Europe and the US. Meanwhile, start-ups like Etch Materials as well as multinationals like Huntsman are advancing turquoise hydrogen reactors, which catalytically convert methane into hydrogen and solid elemental carbon. New technologies that offer lower overall costs or additional income streams will slot into a 2026 investment environment that will be open mainly to projects that make sense without subsidies.“The clean hydrogen sector is neither