Only because natural gas is so damn cheap it almost isn't worth selling.
If you're a natural gas producer, it makes a lot of sense to pump hydrogen fuel. Ignorant* people think it is green, so it is an easy sell to the populous. Since it is actually made from NatGas, the success of hydrogen would be a significant boon to a substance that has been teetering on the edge of being industrial waste for years.
In theory you can capture the carbon at the point source. It would be far cheaper than capturing it directly from the air.
Although I think turning natural gas into hydrogen is wasteful it still proves that current usage of fossil fuels is not sustainable by showing that a "sort of" sustainable way of using fossil fuels exists.
Are you sure? It’s 5 years after that Million ‘Murican Hydrogen bet was lost, and we’re still 2 full orders of magnitude away. (In spite of massive subsidies for fuel cell in California.)
At least 8,890 FCEVs are on the road today, a far cry from the 53,000 the California Fuel Cell Partnership projected by the end of 2017. "I don't see a lot of automaker interest in hydrogen," DeShazo argued. "Most automakers are betting on battery electric vehicles for the passenger market and delivery trucks."Dec 12, 2020
Where from? I've seen a couple of big government grants announced (which honestly smell more of pork than genuine technology) but nothing approaching a useful prototype that's in any way competitive with battery EVs.
