Letter from London: Hydrogen’s souffle moment

One of the sector’s harshest critics calls for a change of course, but the industry insists it is on an upward trajectory

Renowned clean hydrogen sceptic Michael Liebreich stunned an industry conference in London in late June with perhaps his most damning assessment of the sector’s prospects. He told a room full of project developers that they have failed to do the basic arithmetic when drawing up their business plans and called some of the planned new applications for hydrogen “insanely stupid”.  Liebreich, chairman of advisory firm Liebreich Associates, said he struggled to see viable use cases for green hydrogen. Hydrogen is not a good fuel; it is not good for heating and will not work for transport applications, he told the FT Hydrogen Summit 2025. “I have never seen an industry where the divide betwe