How Hydrogen Will Reshape Global Power Dynamics

Peace in the Middle East may be fostered by natural gas, beginning with Israel's new-found energy leverage, but that peace will simply be shifted to a war of different alliances on the Eastern Mediterranean exploration and development front…

But if natural gas promises to upset the global balance of power, the widespread race to secure hydrogen as the real bridge to a renewable energy future promises a geopolitical shakeup of far greater significance. 

Many of the “haves” and “have nots” will be the same, as they always are because much of “having” is to do with infrastructure and smooth-running market forces, whether they’re state-run or free. 

But they won’t all be the same. 

The Middle Eastern oil giants, for instance, risk getting left out of the hydrogen power re-balance. 

So, imagine a Saudi Arabia existing and held hostage to a Hydrogen OPEC, while the new kings of energy export shape up to be the United States and Australia, first and foremost. 

As we speak, Australia is fast-tracking approval for a massive wind and solar project that would produce hydrogen. It’s expected to go online in the latter part of this decade. The Australians understand what is at stake here… and how vast the export market would be. 

“Green” Hydrogen, the preferred eco-friendly version of hydrogen, is produced using electrolysis of water, again, preferably with the electricity coming from renewable sources.  

The Saudis are low on water. Saudi money would always find a way to latch onto this, but it wouldn’t give it the same type of control it has now, with oil. At the same time, a loss of fossil fuel power in the Middle East could be a highly destabilizing force. Especially in countries that have little else to offer--most notably, Iraq. 

Likewise, Russia could lose the leverage that it’s held over Europe due to its supply of natural gas to the continent. That’s exactly why Russia is eyeing joint hydrogen projects with EU partners right now. Moscow is also very clear on the stakes here. 

The sudden spike in interest in hydrogen and all the government and other big money pouring into ensuring that the technology is fully in place to scale this up is about much more than a clean energy source from the Earth’s most abundant element--it’s a balance-of-power shifting notion that will upset markets, trade relations and alliances on a massive, global scale. 

Will it upend the entire fossil fuels industry? Not necessarily. European big oil is already investing big (think: Shell, BP, Repsol) precisely because mass scale hydrogen requires big facilities and distribution networks that big oil already has...