𝗛𝘆𝗱𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗲𝗻: 𝗕𝗹𝗼𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗢𝗳𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗙𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗵, 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗲𝗲𝗿’𝘀 𝗦𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗚𝗼𝗼𝗱

When Fortescue scrapped two green hydrogen projects and BP quietly stepped away from the massive AREH scheme in Australia, the usual pundits started humming the funeral march. Another “hydrogen bubble” burst, they said. A nice dream, too expensive, too hard, too late.

They’re missing the point by a country mile. This isn’t a failure of hydrogen. It’s a much-needed correction of the business models built around it. Frothy assumptions are being skimmed off the top. What remains is a cleaner, leaner industry with a clearer sense of what works—and what doesn’t.

Let’s be honest: a lot of early hydrogen plays were driven more by press releases and subsidy timelines than customers or cashflows. Projects were designed to catch political momentum or market optics, rather than to serve real, paying industrial users. But just like nanotechnology twenty years ago, the hype cycle was always going to burn off. Nanotech started with dreams of miracle cures and molecular self-assembly, but ended up delivering coatings, catalysts and sensors—technologies that embedded themselves deep into existing value chains, quietly doing what they do best. No fireworks. Just results.

Hydrogen is following a similar arc. The pivot from promise to practicality is happening in real time. Fortescue is refocusing on decarbonising its own operations—an area where hydrogen actually makes commercial sense today. BP’s retreat has less to do with a lack of long-term faith and more to do with short-term capital discipline. When markets tighten, even good ideas get shelved if they can’t pay their way fast enough.

That’s not the end of the story. It’s the industry growing up.

We’re finally moving past the idea that you build a sustainable hydrogen business by simply producing hydrogen. The winners will be those who understand what hydrogen enables—who use it to solve problems that can’t easily be solved with electrons alone. Making zero-carbon steel, storing renewable energy seasonally, fuelling long-haul transport—these are the use cases that justify the infrastructure, the investment, and the risk.

Every new technology goes through this moment. The smart money stops betting on the tech and starts backing the application. Hydrogen’s not dying. It’s just shedding the costumes and learning to work for a living.

So no, I’m not raising a glass to the death of hydrogen. I’m toasting its adolescence. The froth’s gone. The beer’s good. And it’s finally ready to be served.