, Columnist
There Won’t Be a Saudi Arabia of the Green Hydrogen Age
It can be made almost anywhere, so a worldwide trade in the net-zero era will never rival the oil industry.
No rivals.
Photographer: Simon Dawson/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
If you want a symbol of how energy is a global industry as fundamental as the trades in metals or government bonds, one image has held sway for decades: The monumental black-and-red hull of a crude oil supertanker.
It’s only natural, then, that a world transitioning to cleaner sources of energy should seek out a comparable emblem for the net-zero era. A prime candidate to replace petroleum is another substance that can be moved around in tankers: green hydrogen (so-called because it’s produced by using renewable energy to split apart water molecules.1)