Mumbai: The next wave of sustainability reforms and global decarbonisation will be even more politically and socially fraught, as cleaner alternatives may no longer be cheaper than the fossil fuels they are meant to replace, sustainability leaders warned at the Mumbai Climate Week.Subranshu Patnaik, Partner (Govt and Public Sector) at Deloitte India, and Will Symons, Deloitte’s Asia Pacific Sustainability Leader, told TOI the rapid global uptake of renewables over the past decade was underpinned by favourable economics. In several markets, solar power became cheaper than traditional hydrocarbons, creating a positive cost benefit to a consumer that accelerated adoption across sectors.However, that advantage may not extend to the next stage of reforms, particularly in hard-to-abate sectors such as hydrogen. “Blue hydrogen will always be more expensive than grey hydrogen because of the inherent nature of the process that goes into making it, so it will be harder and harder to convince people, govts to adopt such fuels and technologies,” Symons said.Grey hydrogen is produced from fossil fuels, typically natural gas, through steam methane reforming, with all CO₂ emissions released into the atmosphere. Blue hydrogen follows the same production route but incorporates carbon capture and storage (CCS) to trap and store most emissions, making it a lower-carbon alternative — but also increasing costs. “Unless we see improvements in learning rates or a major technological breakthrough, blue hydrogen will remain more expensive for the foreseeable future,” he said. As decarbonisation deepens globally, Patnaik cautioned reforms will be “more tenuous” and could generate greater resistance as they will no longer be cheaper.
