Saudi Arabia Takes Steps to Lead a Potential $700 Billion Global Hydrogen Market

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:

Saudi Arabia takes steps to lead the $700B global hydrogen market:

As governments and industries seek less-polluting alternatives to hydrocarbons, the world's biggest crude exporter doesn't want to cede the burgeoning hydrogen business to China, Europe or Australia and lose a potentially massive source of income. So it's building a $5 billion plant powered entirely by sun and wind that will be among the world's biggest green hydrogen makers when it opens in the planned megacity of Neom in 2025.

[...] Hydrogen is morphing from a niche power source - used in zeppelins, rockets and nuclear weapons - into big business, with the European Union alone committing $500 billion to scale up its infrastructure. Huge obstacles remain to the gas becoming a major part of the energy transition, and skeptics point to Saudi Arabia's weak track record so far capitalizing on what should be a competitive edge in the renewables business, especially solar, where there are many plans but few operational projects.

[...] Saudi Arabia is setting its sights on becoming the world's largest supplier of hydrogen - a market that BloombergNEF estimates could be worth as much as $700 billion by 2050.

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