A perspective on the fallacy of climate responsibility
A 2024 study by McKinsey portrays gas plants as the unturned key to the German energy transition. This claim was understandably met with disapproval from the renewable industry and climate experts. In absolute numbers, McKinsey proposes to build 50 GW of hydrogen-ready gas plants instead of the planned 9 GW as well as a reduction of renewable generators from 506 GW to 350 GW by 2035. Their hypothesis propagates this shift in direction as a way to save costs while still delivering climate targets. You might wonder how exactly. This is where the misrepresentation of the hydrogen-ready label becomes evident.
The absurdity of solving our emissions problem with more emissions is so obvious it’s borderline comical. Fighting fire with fire, an eye for an eye, all that jazz. But the flawed logic is not really the bottom line here. What’s most striking about the McKinsey publication is the blatant relativization by means of the hydrogen-ready label. Let’s be clear: nobody in their right mind is saying hydrogen-ready gas plants have no place in the energy transition. They are very much needed – in a backup capacity together with batteries, not as the main actor.
The three most common types of hydrogen are typically identified as grey hydrogen (fossil-based without carbon capture and storage), blue hydrogen (fossil-based with carbon capture and storage) and green hydrogen (renewables-based). A recent report on the future trading dynamics of hydrogen, issued by IRENA (International Renewable Energy Agency) in December 2023, highlights the environmental harm caused by the current hydrogen production. Globally, it amounts to 95 megatons a year, of which an overwhelming majority is derived from fossil fuels without carbon capture and storage. The utilization of that hydrogen primarily occurs in industries like oil refining, fertilizer manufacturing and downstream chemical processing. In plain English, this means that less than 1% of the hydrogen available in the world is green and that the production of it is a massive net contributor to climate change, not a bringer of decarbonization. Addressing the cost factor stressed by McKinsey in their promotion of hydrogen-ready conventionals as the messiahs of sustainability, green hydrogen is two to three times more expensive to produce than its fossil-based counterparts. Through simple multiplication, you arrive at the conclusion that the proposed plants will largely run on imported gas and only marginally on green hydrogen.
Selling gas plants as facilitators of the energy transition is the wrong way of endorsing them. Especially since McKinsey’s credibility on climate protection suffered in the past, when leaked documents proved that they used their influence and status as a key consultant to the UN’s COP28 climate conference to push the agenda of their oil and gas clients. The wording in their study leaves a bitter aftertaste of pseudo-environmentalism to manipulate the perception of the presented research.
Public comments on the study are split, arguing in some cases that the damage is done. That the man-made effects on our climate have gone too far and that the consequences, at this point, are unstoppable. That Germany alone can’t save the world and that the planet will be fine. That it will outlive us and recover. Those are fair points. But do they mean that we should not exhaust all options at our disposal to stall and mitigate this untimely end of the world?
The reason we need to phase out conventional energy sources and intensify our efforts to limit the carbon we put into the atmosphere now is that we won’t have time to keep up with the colossal infrastructural demands of the energy transition if we wait much longer. Renewables, storage and V2G (vehicle-to-grid) are the most promising assets of our current technological reality. And this is the only reality in which a future worth preserving for generations other than our own can evolve.
We are not talking about the 250-million-year scenario of Pangea Proxima. We are talking about the geographical ramifications of climate change in the much shorter term. If we continue down this path, we will render parts of Africa, South Asia, South America and the Persian Gulf uninhabitable as early as 2050, causing a chain reaction of mass migration, political upheaval, social disruption and societal rifts that will pose a threat to democracy as we know it. Think of it as a perpetual global panic attack.
The McKinsey report, in essence, prioritizes short-term expenses over long-term sustainability, and hydrogen-ready is little more than a clever marketing trick. A narrative to feed the public in order to keep criticism at bay and undermine its legitimacy. ‘Hydrogen-ready’ is greenwashing, a diversion tactic, a formal apology for a mistake– whatever you want to call it. The apology is not accepted.
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