Hydrogen-based fuels are already expensive, and while there’s also research to suggest that a growing demand could enable cheaper prices, even a large-scale swap isn’t going to create the infrastructure needed to distribute hydrogen on a large scale. Demand also isn’t going to immediately solve hydrogen’s other main issues: that you get less energy per unit volume than other fuels, that liquefaction (as in, the simple ability to easily refill a fuel tank at a pump) is challenging and costly, and hydrogen’s volatility. You’re going to face the same exact problems you currently have with the meager electric charging infrastructure, but things are amplified.

But perhaps the biggest issue is the fact that hydrogen could enable us to stick with the same fossil fuels that we’re trying to eradicate. In other words, if hydrogen turns out to be scarce and we still have a combustion engine in our car, we’re likely to just turn back to gasoline. //

Basically, the research found that it took six to 14 times more electricity to power in-home gas boilers with hydrogen-based fuels than with other fuels. I’ll let the experts explain:

The research, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, calculated that producing and burning hydrogen-based fuels in home gas boilers required six to 14 times more electricity than heat pumps providing the same warmth. This is because energy is wasted in creating the hydrogen, then the e-fuel, then in burning it. For cars, using e-fuels requires five times more electricity than is needed than for battery-powered cars.