Price-Flooring Green Hydrogen Production and Geological Carbon Sequestration

Full-scale green hydrogen production (GHP) and geological carbon sequestration (GCS) implementation projects are currently receiving massive public funding. Simultaneously, a ballooning volume of publications has evolved, routinely overstating the technological readiness of these climate mitigation remedies. We combine a Scopus-based bibliographic analysis of publication trends with a brief techno-economic appraisal, stressing the importance of separating research momentum from demonstrated deployment readiness. While the research momentum is undeniably real, as is the climate crisis, our assessment concludes that the economic viability of GHP remains a distant hope. Separately, the technical readiness of GCS in depleted oil and gas fields and saline aquifers of the North Sea also remains largely unproven. We assert that the serious techno-economic challenges associated with both GHP and GCS cannot demonstrably be assumed solvable anytime soon. In truth, no commercial party would presently participate in any of these speculative and excessively costly GHP and GCS ventures without public funds comprehensively price-flooring these initiatives. Predictably, with technical and economic foundations falling short, many of the projects will falter quietly, without delivering the promised benefits.