There are hundreds of companies and projects around the globe currently working of producing GREEN hydrogen to drive the costs down.
Green Hydrogen is where solar panels were 15 years ago, at the top of the capex cost curve. Innovation will drive these costs lower and lower, and once under $2.5 a kg they become cost competitive with fossil fuels.
We are seeing left field innovation like H2pro and Sun Hydrogen that are early in the R&D process, but could build breakthrough commercial innovations. Then there are industry incumbents like Shell building the green 10 MW Refyyne PEM Electrolyzer that will be operational this year.
Then there are companies like Nel who are continually driving the costs of the PEM's lower.
The amount of capital required to get a coal gasification and CCS project operational is expensive.
Gorgon's CCS cost $2 billion and it is still vetting co2 into the atmosphere. https://sequestration.mit.edu/tools/projects/gorgon.html#:~:text=The%20CO2%20Injection%20project%20investment,Technology%20Demonstration%20Fund(LETDF).
If CCS fails at this project the hydrogen is grey and virtually worthless. Then they need to build a huge pipeline out of a material that won't be embrittled by the hydrogen (think really expensive). Then they need to build the gasification plant in the middle of no where (really expensive). They will need to prove up a jorc resopurce, do a SS, then a PFS and then a DFS. This is a decade long project from here, if it gets off the ground. In the meantime Green hydrogen will slide down the cost curve like solar panels have done and there will be capital raising after capital raising.
Look at the legislation in the EU for EV cars, because this is where everything is headed. If it's not green, no one will buy it and governments will put a dirty tax on it. Most banks will not fund thermal coal companies, I don't think it will be easy getting funding for a blue hydrogen project from coal.
