Hydrogen energy industry thrives in Zhangjiagang, Eastern China

[NNadir]

2. Hydrogen, to repeat for the thousandth time, is made in China from dangerous fossil fuels by steam reforming.

In China, as in most places on the planet, it's a filthy fuel.

Subsidizing Grid-Based Electrolytic Hydrogen Will Increase Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Coal Dominated Power Systems Liqun Peng, Yang Guo, Shangwei Liu, Gang He, and Denise L. Mauzerall Environmental Science & Technology 2024 58 (12), 5187-5195

The text is clear enough.

From the introductory text:

... Currently, nearly all hydrogen in China is either produced directly from fossil fuels (55% from coal gasification and 14% from steam methane reforming (SMR)) or as a byproduct of petroleum refining (28%), with only 1% coming from water electrolysis. (2) Producing 1 kg of coal- or SMR-based hydrogen emits roughly 19 and 10 kg of CO2, respectively. (3) In 2020, hydrogen production from fossil fuels in China emitted ?322Tg of CO2, equivalent to 25% of total CO2 emissions from industrial processes, a number expected to rise with increasing hydrogen demand. (4) Industrial processes include production of nonmetallic mineral products, chemical, and metal products, as well as production and consumption of halocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride. (4)

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The bold, italics and underlining is mine.

EST: Chinese Hydrogen Production Is Making Climate Change Worse.

Calling hydrogen "clean," particularly in China, where it responsible for the release of 322 million tons of CO₂, dominated by the steam reforming of coal, according to the paper cited above, is a fucking lie.