Hydrogen’s New Reality: Minerals, White Hydrogen, and the Shift Beyond “Green”

In this episode of The Hydrogen Podcast, we trace a global shift in hydrogen strategy—one that goes beyond net-zero headlines and dives into the new security, jobs, and supply chain realities shaping the sector.

🌍 Key Highlights:

• America’s $1B minerals push: Why energy security is now as critical as emissions cuts.
• France’s Lorraine Basin: White hydrogen discoveries worth up to $12B investment and 15,000 jobs.
• Japan’s pragmatic vision: Balancing climate goals with reliability in a $100B national plan.
• Germany’s hydrogen backbone: €19B pipeline megaprojects and underground storage for resilience.
• Global white hydrogen boom: Exploration up 300% since 2023, with ExxonMobil, BHP, and TotalEnergies entering the race.
• The economics: Why blue and turquoise hydrogen are outpacing paused green projects, and why natural hydrogen could soon be $1/kg—the cheapest hydrogen fuel in the world.

This isn’t the end of green hydrogen—but it’s clear that a multi-color, onshore, security-first hydrogen strategy is the future.

Transcript

Today’s journey takes us from America’s billion-dollar minerals push to regulatory reforms in France’s Lorraine, from Japan’s pragmatic hydrogen vision to Germany’s logistics megaprojects. We’ll unpack why the momentum is shifting away from exclusively “green” strategies to a robust, onshore, multi-color hydrogen future—anchored in national security, jobs, and new supply chains.

Let’s begin by reframing the conversation. The current U.S. minerals strategy—headlined by a $1 billion package to reshore mining, refining, and battery materials—reflects a sweeping change: energy isn’t just about net-zero, it’s about never-again being held hostage by foreign suppliers. This is where hydrogen makes its strongest case.

Hydrogen can be produced domestically from a wide array of sources: not just renewables, but abundant U.S. natural gas, coal with carbon capture, methane pyrolysis, and now newly discovered geological hydrogen. By building hydrogen capacity onshore, nations can break their dependency on volatile foreign markets. A robust domestic hydrogen economy creates local jobs (tens of thousands forecast for the U.S. by 2030) and underpins energy-intensive sectors such as steel, chemicals, data centers, and fertilizer plants. Government documents, from the U.S. Clean Hydrogen Strategy to Germany’s National Hydrogen Strategy, are now explicit: hydrogen underwrites energy system resilience, industrial competitiveness, and national security. 

Similar thinking is driving regulatory and financial reforms in the EU and Asia. It’s not about abandoning climate goals, but about ensuring that clean hydrogen projects also build industrial independence—preferably by developing new domestic basins of supply.

The intersection of hydrogen and food security is coming into sharp focus as natural hydrogen discoveries multiply. Most ammonia, the main fertilizer feedstock for global agriculture, is made from hydrogen derived from natural gas—a process highly vulnerable to price shocks and geopolitics. Spiking gas prices in Europe during 2022 doubled fertilizer costs, underlining the fragility of globally connected supply chains.

Recent scientific breakthroughs suggest this dependency could soon be mitigated. France’s Lorraine region, once a coal and steel hub, is now home to giant white (natural) hydrogen discoveries. If developed, investments in Lorraine alone could top $12 billion by 2030 and create 15,000 new jobs across extraction, processing, and logistics. Recent draft legislation aims to levy a 5-8% royalty on extracted hydrogen, turning geological riches into a cornerstone of regional economic revival. Analysts predict that France’s hydrogen reserves could slash the nation’s natural gas imports by up to 30% before 2035—replacing not only fossil feedstocks in fertilizer, but also mitigating exposure to global energy crises. 

Globally, following France’s lead, exploration has skyrocketed (as much as 300% globally since 2023), with active projects in Australia’s Perth Basin, Mali, Canada, and the U.S. Midwest. These finds may be replenishable, suggesting that with careful management, hydrogen could become a renewable commodity, unlike finite fossil fuels. 

Should this play out, as Goldman Sachs forecasts, the white hydrogen market alone could reach $1.2 trillion by mid-century and displace as much as 15% of current fossil demand, especially in hard-to-abate sectors and local fertilizer production. This would bring not only climate gains but also a fundamental rebalancing of energy geopolitics: fertilizer created “at the source,” closer to farms, with lower transport emissions and higher resilience to shocks. 

Despite the early policy push to make all new hydrogen “green,” the realities of cost, scale, and reliability are leading to a visible investment shift. Recent reports confirm that more than $22 billion in green hydrogen projects have been paused or cancelled this year alone in Europe and the U.S.—due to high capital costs, slow permitting, and tepid developer offtake agreements. In Germany, sources expect new green hydrogen output to fall as much as 70% behind targets by 2030 if grid congestion and volatile power markets persist. 

Meanwhile, blue hydrogen—produced from gas with CCS—remains in strong favor because it leverages legacy infrastructure and supply while offering lower per-unit costs (currently $1.50–$2.50 per kg, versus $3–$6+ for most green hydrogen). The prospect of methane pyrolysis—known as turquoise hydrogen—is drawing attention and funding: new venture rounds, such as Tulum Energy’s $27 million capital raise, are accelerating North American projects that produce hydrogen with solid carbon byproduct. In the U.S. Appalachian region, a $1.3 million Virginia Tech grant is funding regional methane pyrolysis and hydrogen fertilizer pilots, aligning energy, industry, and food with security needs. 

Natural hydrogen is drawing not just geologists, but also major energy and mining companies. ExxonMobil, TotalEnergies, and BHP have all announced new exploration divisions for white hydrogen. In Australia alone, dozens of exploration licenses have been issued, staking out the world’s first natural hydrogen rush. The U.S., Mali, and Canada are also actively mapping their reserves, and global consulting houses now forecast natural hydrogen will be priced at or below $1 per kg—potentially making it the world’s cheapest hydrogen fuel within years. 

Let’s detail the international landscape. In France, the Lorraine-Moselle region’s natural hydrogen reserves are projected to create up to 15,000 jobs and attract up to $12 billion in hydrogen infrastructure and extraction investment. Rochelle, France’s new hydrogen hub, is now offering usage incentives for ammonia, mobility fuels, and grid backup, accelerating the timeline for local fertilizer plants. 

Germany, Europe’s industrial powerhouse, has updated its National Hydrogen Strategy (NHS) for 2024 and moved quickly to ensure energy resilience. Key features include a €19 billion, seven-year buildout of over 9,000 kilometers of hydrogen pipelines, using a combination of native green/blue hydrogen and imports. Germany recognizes it can only meet about 30–50% of its hydrogen needs domestically. Its import strategy, released in July 2024, is a clear pivot to guaranteeing diversified, stable, and secure hydrogen supplies from selected partner states, rather than relying on a single global supplier. Parallel to this, Germany is investing in underground salt cavern storage—migrating legacy natural gas infrastructure to support hydrogen’s role in grid and industrial resilience. 

Japan remains a unique case study: it pioneered the world’s first national hydrogen strategy in 2017 and has evolved to prioritize energy security over pure environmental goals. Japan’s latest “Safety + 3E” energy plan, underpinned by a public-private investment of 15 trillion yen ($100 billion), emphasizes hydrogen infrastructure, domestic production, grid resilience, and broad sector integration—not just for hard-to-abate industries, but also for electric power generation, passenger transport, shipping, and aviation. Policymakers recognize that early reliance on green hydrogen was optimistic and now include blue and low-carbon hydrogen as keystone technologies, prioritizing partnerships with the U.S., Australia, and Middle East nations. The IEA estimates Japan will import at least 10 million tons of low-carbon hydrogen annually by 2040, but the country’s supply chains are being routed through reliable allies and onshore facilities wherever possible. 

Australia and Mali are also doubling down on natural hydrogen, aiming for regional fertilizer hubs and industrial clusters. In Mali, natural hydrogen is already powering communities at project scale, while Australian mining and energy giants are adapting legacy exploration and production techniques to hydrogen, with regulatory royalty frameworks now under review. 

From Riyadh to Richmond, governments are grappling with the reality that clean energy must now be reliable energy. Investors are shifting from grand green hydrogen visions—especially when they rely on fragile, faraway supply chains—to practical onshore and near-shore projects that can deliver jobs, resilience, and energy independence.

The economic impact is enormous. Natural hydrogen, if proven scalable, stands to disrupt a $1.2 trillion global hydrogen market and redefine industrial feedstocks for fertilizer and heavy industry. Blue and turquoise hydrogen projects are increasingly securing priority public and private capital, riding the tailwinds of security-minded policy. Royalty regimes, regional jobs, strategic alliances, and grid modernization are now as important as emissions targets—and often the very mechanisms making climate gains politically and economically feasible in the first place.

Ultimately, the new national security paradigm does not reject hydrogen-but is already reshaping which hydrogen projects get built, who profits, and how investment is allocated within countries and across borders.

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