“Anyone whose business model had relied on buying cheap power from the grid to make hydrogen, most of those projects are dead. Because those electrons, the opportunity cost, the data centers will pay way more. And they'll pay tomorrow.”
The Energy Gang · Climate & Energy · November 2026
Context
Asked whether the new focus on energy security reopens the case for hydrogen, Alex Tancock said the hype cycle is over. He then pointed to data centers, which he says hit everyone from left field in the last year.
Transcript
…security, sort of front and center. We feel that Europe, we'll see more adoption for green ammonia in Europe, certainly compared to other regions. And we feel that in Asia Pacific, you may still see markets for off-taking blue ammonia and then doing the fracking back to hydrogen in the future.
Thanks. So, Alex, what's your take on this? And as you were saying, hydrogen is part of your business model. Do you see new opportunities there being opened up by this focus on energy security? And is hydrogen becoming appealing as an energy security solution?
No, I don't like the term energy transition so much myself anymore. I think when you look at the history, we don't transition, we just add. And so, you know, when I look at hydrogen, when I think about hydrogen, there are niche applications that work today. You know, we see it in refining, we see it at today's ammonia prices in some cases where you can do some retrofits. You know, Ferti Globe has some good examples of that. And we see it, you know, in projects and customers we're talking to where they're close to the production. So there are use cases and it is emerging. And I think the hype is the right term to use. The hype cycle has ended, but the actual deliverable in terms of the projects getting built is accelerating more quickly than wind and solar did when they kicked off. So I think the expectations on hydrogen were far too high. But it is delivering at a pace which is exceeding what wind and solar achieved in the early 80s when they kicked off. So you can, I imagine in the next 5, 10, 20 years, we are going…
And to be clear, that's been reflected in your own business model, right? So you have pivoted to the bottom. Oh, God, it's good for
us. Don't get me wrong. But my point is that we've seen this slow growth of the grid for so long that all of a sudden through electric vehicles, driven and accelerated by what's going on here, and obviously technology out of China, coupled with data centers, has just injected this incredible amount…
It's fascinating.
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