Mega Hydrogen Projects Could Make or Break the New Fuel Agenda

This week, RWE withdrew from a $10 billion Namibia green hydrogen project, the latest example of companies considering such investments.

The German power utility said on Monday that it had withdrawn from Namibia's Hyphen green ammonia project because demand for hydrogen and hydrogen derivatives such as ammonia is developing slower than expected in Europe.

The lack of new fuel availability for shipping is a problem that Accelleron has tackled in its newly released report Deadlock: What’s stopping shipping’s carbon-neutral fuel transition?

The report centers on one “guiding truth” - green hydrogen is the foundation of shipping’s net zero future. “To produce hydrogen at even remotely competitive costs, a single green hydrogen hub could span up to 30 times the landmass of Singapore or one-tenth the size of the United Kingdom,” states the report. Green hydrogen is the building block for e-fuels, and no industry can scale green hydrogen to those proportions alone.

“The production of future carbon-neutral fuels in international shipping cannot depend on tapping into new renewable power plants built for the public grid. It will require the development of additional, dedicated renewable energy facilities.”

The report highlights five deadlocks currently holding back adoption of carbon-neutral fuels in shipping:

1. Uncertainty over the long-term success of any carbon-neutral fuel pathway is fragmenting shipping’s already limited demand, preventing the scale up and reliability of any single carbon-neutral fuel.

2. Fuel availability constraints threaten to fracture shipping’s traditional operational flexibility and reshape the industry’s fundamental business model.

3. Green finance capital remains inadequate and inaccessible due to fundamental mismatches between shipping’s commercial structures and investor requirements.

4. The misalignment between ambitious regulatory frameworks and the reality of implementation creates investment uncertainty.

5. Even if capital and regulatory clarity align, fuels cannot flow without infrastructure. Ports, pipelines, storage, power grids, renewable energy, and bunkering facilities put extreme stress on port resources and logistics, requiring more support from a broader cross-section of industries.

Undaunted, Accelleron CEO Daniel Bischofberger says reaching net zero is not only about fuels or systems but about forging a new paradigm of partnership. “Fortunately, partnership has always been one of shipping’s greatest virtues.”

To kickstart ample production of affordable carbon neutral fuels, Accelleron says shipping needs to aggregate demand with other hard-to-abate sectors such as the steel, fertilizer, and power generation industries. Rather than competing for carbon neutral fuels, as many narratives assume, these industries could join forces to transform competition into critical mass of demand, lowering the risk for mega hydrogen projects and allowing them to attract sufficient financing.

Bischofberger is not alone in his commitment to a carbon-neutral future. According to Reuters, Australian miner Fortescue’s Executive Chairman Andrew Forrest said in an interview last week that he was not willing to give up despite mounting criticism of climate-driven initiatives, and he challenged U.S. President Donald Trump's claim that climate change is the "greatest con job" in the world. Forrest has offered to debate Trump.

Fortescue’s Green Pioneer was the world's first green ammonia dual-fuel vessel. "I sailed (the Green Pioneer) into the middle of the lion's den to make the point that I'd much rather be getting my fuel from the air, from the sun, from the wind, which is going to be infinite, than I would from drill, baby, drill," Forrest said.

Fortescue has attributed the cancellation of a green hydrogen project in Arizona in part to a shift in U.S. policy away from green energy. However, the company recently acquired Spanish wind technology company Nabrawind and signed an agreement for the purchase of wind turbines from Envision Energy. Those deals will help accelerate the deployment of renewable energy across Fortescue's operations. The miner is likely to exceed its target of reaching 2 to 3 gigawatts of renewable energy generation and storage in its domestic iron-ore operations by 2030.

"We will probably do more than that because we're getting more people wanting to join in," Forrest said.

Earlier this month, Chinese company Geely offered an example of how shipping and road transport might collaborate on carbon-neutral fuels. The company launched the world’s first methanol-hydrogen electric multi-purpose riverboat Yuanchun 001, marking the expansion of Geely Holding Group’s methanol-hydrogen electric drive technology to the marine sector.

With over 20 years of experience in methanol, Geely has partnered with companies across multiple sectors to establish a comprehensive green methanol ecosystem encompassing carbon capture, green methanol production, methanol transportation, refueling, and various methanol vehicle applications.

As the methanol-hydrogen ecosystem continues to grow in China, the methanol refueling network around the country has also expanded rapidly with Geely’s assistance. By the end of June 2025, over 800 methanol refueling stations had been established in China with over 4,000 expected to be built by 2027. To date, there are 120,000 gasoline and diesel refueling stations in China which can be retrofitted for methanol.

Geely says the new ship opens the door to a scalable and practical path towards the green transformation of the maritime sector and global shipping.

This week, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries commenced a study on how to optimize its decarbonization value chain using green hydrogen and ammonia from India. India is promoting production of the fuels for export, and Japan, and various Southeast Asian countries, see it as a way forward for their medium- to long-term decarbonization strategies.

Sentiment for this is strong in Europe too. This week is European Hydrogen Week, and industry body Hydrogen Europe says hydrogen is Europe’s path to resilience. “Resilience is sovereignty: Europe must produce, store, and refine much of its own fuels while strengthening strategic partnerships to diversify its energy imports,” says Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, CEO, Hydrogen Europe.