Communities on the frontlines of the emerging ‘green’ hydrogen economy are less convinced. To many, the dispossession of communities from their lands, and diversion of water and energy away from local consumption towards export oriented production, supposedly in the name of decarbonisation, is merely the latest frontier in a centuries old pattern of colonial exploitation.

99% of the world’s hydrogen is currently produced using fossil fuels, with ‘green’ hydrogen making up just 0.1% of global production. ‘Green’ hydrogen is produced through an electrolysis process, where electricity is used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. It is branded as ‘green’ given the electricity used could be produced from renewable sources. Yet the process creates huge demands for water, energy, and platinum, a metal needed to produce the electrolysers for the electrolysis process.

72% of the world’s platinum is mined in South Africa, and the United Kingdom is heavily dependent on South Africa for its platinum supply, a fact highlighted by the UK Government’s Critical Minerals Intelligence Centre (CMIC), a research centre funded by the UK’s Department for Business and Trade. The CMIC have warned that “the growth of a UK hydrogen economy will see a sharp increase in electrolyser demand”, creating “a significant – and unsustainable – increase in demand for these materials, which are highly geographically concentrated in South Africa”.

British mining companies have long held interests in South Africa’s platinum resources. Anglo American, a British multinational mining company born out of British colonialism, owns 40% of the world’s platinum group metals at the Mogalakwena, Amandelbult, and Mototolo mines in South Africa and the Unki mine in Zimbabwe.

Increasing green hydrogen production would need eye-watering quantities of energy and water. A report by Friends of the Earth Scotland raised concerns with producing green hydrogen in Scotland that “Scotland’s renewable energy could be diverted from its crucial role in cutting climate pollution from our electricity grid to instead make green hydrogen”. Using green hydrogen to meet Scotland’s heating demands, for example, “would require 180% more renewable energy than Scotland currently produces”.

In South Africa, where plans for green hydrogen production are being developed primarily with the aim of being exported to meet European energy demands, the Government’s plans would need around 13,680 Olympic swimming pools of water every year. These water demands would divert clean drinking water away from drinking needs and farming in a country already confronted with water scarcity.

Given these material demands and costs, many are skeptical that green hydrogen can be delivered on the scale being pushed by governments and industry, and see the hype around the industry as giving cover to maintain and expand gas infrastructure, through the branding of ‘blue’ hydrogen as low-carbon. Blue hydrogen is produced through fossil fuel gas with carbon capture and storage. In the UK, 84% of ‘low-carbon’ hydrogen projects supported by the Government are for blue hydrogen production.

Two recent reports, published by our partners to amplify the experiences and demands of communities in South Africa impacted by platinum extraction and green hydrogen production, expose the dangers of a European ‘green’ hydrogen scramble that once again ignores the voices and demands of communities on the frontlines of climate injustice.

In “The Scramble for green hydrogen in South Africa: How frontline communities are impacted by the EU’s green extractivism”, Corporate Europe Observatory warns, ‘will have a devastating impact on local communities’, undermining land rights, exacerbating water scarcity, and worsening energy poverty and the lack of energy access.

Mining Affected Communities United in Action (MACUA) released a report last month which warns that “while governments and companies see a positive future for hydrogen, communities around some mine sites face a very different reality”. The report, written with ActionAid Netherlands, highlights community concerns regarding Anglo American’s planned hydrogen production facility around the Mogalakwena platinum mine in Limpopo province, where the ‘development of green hydrogen’ risks exacerbating the negative impacts of mining.

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