Michael Barnard’s TFIE Strategy Briefing

Michael Barnard’s TFIE Strategy Briefing

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What Drove The Hydrogen Madness? The Detour Was Avoidable
The problems were known long before the latest hype cycle.
 • Michael Barnard
Hydrogen Has Narrative Density. Electrification Has Deployment Density.
Media and PR make hydrogen look far more prevalent and commercially mature than the physical economy says it is.
 • Michael Barnard
Poland’s Coal Transition Has Become A Capacity Problem
Coal fell to 52.7% of generation in 2025, yet high-emitting plants remain eligible for capacity-market support through 2028.
 • Michael Barnard
Hydrogen Is A Tonnes Market. MWh Invents An Energy Market Around It.
Heat, power and storage are other markets; until they create material hydrogen demand, industrial buyers set the denominator.
 • Michael Barnard
Methane Thermolysis Couples Two Markets That Don’t Scale Together
Hazer provides a useful industrial-scale example: every ton of hydrogen creates roughly three tons of solid carbon, whether nearby customers need it or…
 • Michael Barnard
As Geopolitics Fragments, Electricity Interconnection Gains Strategic Value
Four years after I argued for strategic energy interdependence, the HVDC pipeline shows security value joining markets, renewables and adequacy.
 • Michael Barnard
My Technology Warnings Could Have Saved Investors About $100 Billion
Across a conservative set of hydrogen, eVTOL and SMR stocks, about $95B of $119B in exposed value was erased. Adding X-energy takes the tally to roughly…
 • Michael Barnard
Freight Electrification Won’t Follow One Global Template
China, India, Europe and the U.S. start with very different mixes of road, rail and water, so falling battery costs produce different freight pathways.
 • Michael Barnard
The US Vehicle Fleet Turns Over One Vehicle at a Time
A 1995 Dodge Ram shows why affordable electric pickups and targeted scrappage incentives belong together
 • Michael Barnard
HVDC Is Becoming Standard. The Grid Around It Isn’t.
A conversation with GE Vernova CTO Cornelis Plet on 2 GW building blocks, grid-forming controls, multi-vendor interoperability, China, Europe and the…
 • Michael Barnard
Industrial Policy in Canada After Market Fundamentalism
The useful question is not whether government should intervene, but how it can set strategic direction while preserving competition, price discovery and…
 • Michael Barnard
Hydrogen Gets The Headlines. Batteries Charge The Ships.
GeoPura’s floating hydrogen charger turns one demonstration into a maritime story. The scalable system emerging behind it is much less photogenic…
 • Michael Barnard
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