Hydrogen, Ammonia & Sustainable Fuels

1783 · 243 years ago

Jacques Charles launched the first crewed hydrogen-filled balloon

The French physicist's flight near Paris was an early practical demonstration of the gas's lifting power, long before anyone considered hydrogen as an energy carrier for power or transport.

1800 · 226 years ago

William Nicholson and Anthony Carlisle split water into hydrogen and oxygen

Using Volta's newly invented battery, the two British scientists demonstrated electrolysis for the first time, the reverse of the reaction every hydrogen fuel cell depends on.

1839 · 187 years ago

William Grove built a device combining hydrogen and oxygen to generate electricity

The Welsh scientist's apparatus demonstrated the basic fuel cell reaction more than a century before it found any practical application in vehicles or power generation.

1913 · 113 years ago

Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch developed the industrial process for synthesising ammonia

Their process, built in Germany to combine nitrogen and hydrogen gas, won Haber a Nobel Prize and remains the technological basis for the vast majority of ammonia produced today.

• The process was developed first for fertiliser and wartime explosives

1923 · 103 years ago

J. B. S. Haldane theorised a society using hydrogen as its primary energy store

Anticipating the exhaustion of Britain's coal reserves, the geneticist proposed a network of wind turbines producing hydrogen and oxygen by electrolysis for long-term energy storage. This was the first articulation of hydrogen as a carrier to smooth the variable output of renewable power, the founding idea of the hydrogen economy.

1937 · 89 years ago

The Hindenburg caught fire while landing

The hydrogen-filled airship's destruction in New Jersey killed 36 people and became, fairly or not, the defining image of hydrogen's dangers for much of the twentieth century.

1960s · 66 years ago

NASA used fuel cells to power the Gemini and Apollo spacecraft

Fuel cells supplied electricity and drinking water aboard the missions, the technology's first major practical application and proof that hydrogen-based power generation could work reliably outside a laboratory.

1970 · 56 years ago

John Bockris coined the term "hydrogen economy" at the GM Technical Center

Speaking at General Motors, Bockris described an economy in which hydrogen, underpinned by nuclear and solar power, served as an energy carrier for end-uses unsuited to electrification. He framed it as an answer to fossil fuel depletion and environmental pollution, giving the concept its enduring name.

1970 · 56 years ago

Lawrence W. Jones, University of Michigan published the technical report that launched modern hydrogen interest

Jones echoed the dual rationale of energy security and environmental protection, but focused solely on nuclear power as the electrolysis energy source and on transport applications, prioritising aviation and heavy goods movement. Modern interest in the hydrogen economy is generally traced to this report.

1974 · 52 years ago

IEA and the International Association for Hydrogen Energy were established as institutional advocates for hydrogen energy

Both bodies were founded in 1974 and pursued initiatives including advocacy for national hydrogen strategies. Their creation gave the emerging hydrogen economy permanent international institutional backing and visibility.

2000s · 26 years ago

Hydrogen economy investors lost money in a speculative hydrogen bubble

A spike in attention to the hydrogen economy during the 2000s was widely described as hype by critics and by proponents of rival technologies, and investors lost money when it deflated. The episode shaped later, more cautious framings of hydrogen's role.

2002 · 24 years ago

Iceland produced 2,000 tonnes of electrolytic hydrogen for ammonia

The output was generated by electrolysis and used primarily to make ammonia for fertiliser. It was an early instance of renewable-powered hydrogen feeding industrial ammonia synthesis.

2004–12 · 22 years ago

Turkish Ministry of Energy and UNIDO created the International Centre for Hydrogen Energy Technologies in Istanbul

UNIDO-ICHET operated from 2004 until 2012 as an internationally backed hydrogen technology centre. Turkey later published a Hydrogen Technologies Strategy and Roadmap in 2023.

2004–07 · 22 years ago

United Kingdom ran a fuel cell bus pilot programme in London

Two fuel cell buses operated on route 25 from January 2004 until December 2005, then on route RV1 until January 2007. The trial was among the early European demonstrations of hydrogen public transport.

2006 · 20 years ago

Florida commissioned a hydrogen bus infrastructure project in Orlando

The project first opened in Orlando as public bus transportation, with Ford Motor Company announcing a fleet of hydrogen-fuelled Ford E-450 vehicles. US hydrogen refuelling infrastructure otherwise remained underdeveloped outside parts of California as of February 2020.

2010–2024 · 16 years ago

Electrolyser manufacturers saw costs fall 60% then rebound 50%

Electrolyser capital costs fell by 60% between 2010 and 2022 before rising 50% between 2021 and 2024. The reversal undercut assumptions that green hydrogen production costs would decline steadily.

2014 · 12 years ago

Toyota launched the Mirai

The first mass-produced hydrogen fuel cell car moved the technology from demonstration fleets to a commercially available vehicle, though sales remained a small fraction of the wider electric vehicle market.

2017 · 9 years ago

Japan adopted the world's first national hydrogen strategy

Japan published a strategy to become the world's first "hydrogen society", the first national hydrogen strategy adopted by a major economy. It committed Japan to a hydrogen-based economy spanning power generation, transport and industry rather than isolated pilot projects, setting out infrastructure goals and guiding private investment, and began a wave of comparable strategy documents from other governments.

• Several other governments published their own national hydrogen strategies within a few years

2017 · 9 years ago

Global industry leaders formed the Hydrogen Council

The Council's formation marked the resurgence of interest in hydrogen as an energy carrier after the 2000s bubble. Its creation coincided with commercial releases of fuel cell cars and with plans by Toyota, Hyundai and Chinese industry groups to scale production.

2019 · 7 years ago

A €150 million Green Hydrogen Plan was established to build hydrogen production and distribution infrastructure

The plan funded creation, storage and distribution infrastructure and the use of hydrogen to power local buses and trains. It represented early public capital for integrated hydrogen supply chains.

2020 · 6 years ago

The European Union launched its hydrogen strategy

The strategy set continent-wide targets for electrolyser capacity and renewable hydrogen production, becoming the reference point against which most subsequent European and national hydrogen policies were measured.

2020 · 6 years ago

European Union launched the European Clean Hydrogen Alliance

The Alliance was created to coordinate industrial actors around clean hydrogen deployment. It preceded the bloc's formal hydrogen strategy adoption.

2021–24 · 5 years ago

National governments expanded published hydrogen strategies from 28 to 60

By 2021 some 28 governments had published hydrogen strategies; by 2024 the count reached 60. Most were characterised as "scale first, clean later", adding regulations to improve green hydrogen viability without mandating its use, and economic analysis suggests few can meet their 2030 goals.

2021 · 5 years ago

ITM Power opened the world's largest electrolyser manufacturing facility in Sheffield

Graham Cooley, appointed CEO in 2009, raised almost £500 million for the company before the Sheffield plant opened. Mass electrolyser manufacturing capacity is the bottleneck for green hydrogen supply.

August 2021 · 5 years ago

UK Government published what it claimed was the first national Hydrogen Strategy

The government issued a strategy document and asserted primacy in doing so. In the same month the chair of the UK Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association resigned, alleging oil companies had inflated blue hydrogen cost projections to maximise future government support payments.

August 2021 · 5 years ago

Chris Jackson resigned alleging inflated blue hydrogen cost projections

The chair of the UK Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association quit, claiming UK and Norwegian oil companies deliberately overstated blue hydrogen costs to maximise technology support payments from government. The episode exposed the contested politics of fossil-derived low-carbon hydrogen.

2050

Iceland committed to becoming the world's first hydrogen economy by 2050

Despite the commitment, Iceland continued as of 2024–26 to import nearly all the petroleum products powering its transport and fishing fleet. Its earlier hydrogen output, 2,000 tonnes by electrolysis in 2002, went mainly to ammonia for fertiliser.

2045

Intermountain Power Plant is being retrofitted to run on pure hydrogen by 2045

The plant is being converted to a natural gas/hydrogen facility capable of 30% hydrogen blending, with full hydrogen firing scheduled for 2045. It is a leading example of hydrogen combustion for grid electricity.

2031

US Department of Energy set a $1 per kilogram green hydrogen target under Hydrogen Hotshot

The Hydrogen Hotshot Initiative aims to cut green hydrogen costs to $1 a kilogram by 2031. The target is complicated by electrolyser costs rising 50% between 2021 and 2024.

April 2026

Pingdingshan salt cavern project opened million-cubic-metre-scale hydrogen storage

The demonstration project in Henan Province began operations at million-cubic-metre scale. Large geological storage addresses one of hydrogen's principal weaknesses as a long-term energy store.

2026

Chinese manufacturers exported hydrogen mining trucks to Australia, Indonesia and South America

Shipments included over 350 units to mining conglomerates in Australia's Pilbara region, over 200 to Indonesia and 120 to Chile and Peru. The exports marked China becoming a supplier of hydrogen heavy vehicles to other nations.

2026

China launched comprehensive hydrogen application pilot programmes

The pilots focus on establishing hydrogen-dedicated highways alongside wider deployment. They accompany fleets of hydrogen heavy trucks, buses and mining trucks moving from trials to commercial operation.

Early 2026 · this year

Namibia's Hyphen green hydrogen project moved slowly toward a final investment decision

The flagship project, intended to produce green hydrogen and ammonia for export toward Europe, continued pre-development work, though repeated delays illustrated the financing and infrastructure challenges facing large hydrogen export ventures in Africa.

• German buyers kept an early interest in the project's future output

Early 2026 · this year

Chinese electrolyser manufacturers kept driving down global equipment costs

Large domestic manufacturing capacity, built by firms already dominant in solar and battery equipment, continued to undercut Western and Japanese electrolyser prices, while state-linked green hydrogen projects such as Sinopec's Xinjiang plant expanded output.

2025 · 1 year ago

India recorded discovered green hydrogen and ammonia prices

Green hydrogen was priced at US$3.9–4.67 per kg in mid-2025 and green ammonia at US$641 per tonne in July 2025. Price discovery through auctions established reference costs for one of the largest prospective markets.

2025 · last year

The European Hydrogen Bank ran further subsidy auctions for renewable hydrogen

Additional funding rounds offered per-unit subsidies to bridge the cost gap between renewable hydrogen and fossil alternatives, drawing bids from producers across multiple member states, though total awarded capacity remained well short of the bloc's own production targets.

2025 · last year

The United States narrowed its clean hydrogen production tax credit

Treasury rules finalised in early 2025 set strict conditions on how green hydrogen projects had to source clean electricity to qualify, and subsequent tax legislation shortened the window for new projects to begin construction and claim the credit.

• Several planned US hydrogen hubs reassessed project timelines

2025 · last year

Several large Australian hydrogen export projects were cancelled or scaled back

Developers, including major domestic energy companies, shelved or delayed planned green hydrogen and ammonia ventures as rising costs and weaker-than-expected buyer demand forced a broad reassessment of the sector's earlier, more optimistic timelines.

2025 · last year

South Korea ran early auctions under its Clean Hydrogen Portfolio Standard

The mechanism required power utilities to source a share of electricity from hydrogen or ammonia, with initial contracts awarded to fuel cell and co-firing projects as the country built a policy-driven domestic hydrogen power market.

2025 · last year

The NEOM Helios green hydrogen project continued construction behind its original schedule

Saudi Arabia's NEOM Helios green hydrogen and ammonia project, backed by Saudi and international partners, targeted about 1.2 million tonnes of green ammonia a year, among the largest such facilities planned anywhere, with production originally scheduled to begin in 2025; construction continued through 2025 but the start-up date slipped well beyond what was first announced. Green ammonia is the principal proposed vehicle for shipping hydrogen energy internationally.

• Air Products remained the project's offtake and technology partner

2025 · last year

India continued disbursing incentives for green hydrogen and electrolyser manufacturing

Awards under the National Green Hydrogen Mission's production-linked scheme advanced several projects toward construction, part of a target to build several million tonnes of annual production capacity by the end of the decade.

November 2024 · 2 years ago

China promulgated an Energy Law conferring "energy" status on hydrogen

The Energy Law of the People's Republic of China, effective 1 January 2025, formally classified hydrogen as an energy source rather than merely a hazardous chemical. The reclassification removed a longstanding regulatory obstacle to hydrogen production and distribution.

2024–25 · 2 years ago

German government announced tenders for 5.5 GW of hydrogen-ready gas plants

Berlin planned tenders for 5.5 GW of new hydrogen-ready gas-fired power plants plus 2 GW of comprehensive H2-ready modernisations of existing stations. The programme positioned hydrogen combustion as a future dispatchable power source.

2024–26 · 2 years ago

Foshan and Guangzhou suffered a wave of hydrogen bus service suspensions

Local subsidies expired, forcing operators to buy hydrogen externally at higher cost, while fuel cell stacks reached the end of their operational lives. The suspensions showed how dependent deployed hydrogen transport remained on continuing public support.

Late 2024 · 2 years ago

Germany approved a nationwide hydrogen pipeline network

Regulators signed off on a multi-billion-euro core pipeline network running several thousand kilometres, intended to connect future domestic production, storage and import points as the country built infrastructure ahead of confirmed demand.

Late 2024 · 2 years ago

JERA completed a large-scale ammonia co-firing demonstration

The Japanese utility burned a 20 per cent ammonia blend alongside coal at its Hekinan power station, one of the largest such tests to date, though international energy analysts argued co-firing mainly prolonged coal plant life rather than delivering deep emissions cuts.

2023 · 3 years ago

Turkish Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources published a Hydrogen Technologies Strategy and Roadmap

The document set out Turkey's national direction for hydrogen technology development. It followed the closure of the UNIDO-ICHET centre in Istanbul.

2023 · 3 years ago

Laura Maersk became the first container ship to run on methanol

The vessel's entry into service demonstrated hydrogen-derived fuel use in deep-sea shipping. Shipping is among the priority long-haul transport end-uses envisaged for green hydrogen and its derivatives.

2022 · 4 years ago

International Energy Agency published a Net Zero Emissions Scenario apportioning hydrogen demand

The 2022 NZE forecast hydrogen supplying about 30% of heavy truck energy demand and 2% of rail energy demand in 2050. Such scenarios shaped which end-uses governments and investors treated as hydrogen's future markets.

2022 · 4 years ago

China released its Medium- and Long-Term Plan for hydrogen (2021–2035)

The plan set development targets for the Chinese hydrogen sector over the following 15 years. It aligned provincial and municipal hydrogen strategies with a national framework.

2022 · 4 years ago

Fuel cell vehicles reached only 70,200 cumulative sales worldwide

By the end of 2022 just 70,200 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles had been sold globally, against 26 million plug-in electric vehicles. The gap marked the effective loss of the light-duty road market for hydrogen and narrowed the capability's expected end-uses to heavy industry, long-haul transport and storage.

2022 · 4 years ago

Goldman Sachs projected green hydrogen reaching cost parity with grey by 2030

The bank's analysis anticipated global cost parity between green and grey hydrogen by 2030, and earlier if a global carbon tax were applied to grey production. Such projections underpinned the investment case for electrolytic hydrogen.