In 2022, the Netherlands awarded €783.5 million in subsidies to seven major green hydrogen projects. Four have now been cancelled, eliminating 550 MW of the original 1,150 MW. None of the seven is operational. About €151 million has been disbursed, not the full amount awarded. The November 2 parliamentary answers make uncomfortable reading for anyone who believed the hydrogen economy was just around the corner.
The subsidies were based on expectations that green hydrogen would cost around €2/kg by 2030 and become competitive with fossil hydrogen within a decade. Four years later, the minister cannot predict when electrolysis will become commercially viable without dedicated subsidies. Yet another €780 million is reserved for the next electrolysis subsidy round.
In May 2022, I explained why hydrogen could be green but would not be cheap. The electricity-cost and utilization problem was already obvious, as were the limitations of applying manufacturing learning curves to complete industrial electrolysis facilities. My August 2026 reassessment found that new European evidence made even my earlier skeptical learning assumptions look too generous. The physics and economics haven’t changed. What has changed is how much public money, political attention and industrial effort have been committed to an increasingly implausible energy transition pathway.
In February 2024, I wrote about hydrogen advocates becoming increasingly angry as evidence demolished one promised application after another. The Dutch government now illustrates another familiar stage of grief. It is bargaining. It has accepted that much of the original hydrogen vision is economically untenable, but continues trying to preserve the industrial infrastructure and production ambitions built around it.
The interesting question is what the Netherlands would look like if it stopped trying to preserve hydrogen demand and concentrated on preserving industrial value instead. The answer involves smaller refineries, imported green ammonia and iron, electrified industry, and considerably less hydrogen infrastructure than previously imagined.
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