I read your article with interest (Blending hydrogen into gas heating ‘could add almost £200’ to UK bills, 11 April). Hydrogen costs are falling in line with investment, similar to the fall in the cost of wind power over the last decade. The prize of green hydrogen – a truly zero-carbon fuel, cheaply produced using wind power – could be within reach, if we get the investment right. Heat pumps are also unsuited to much of Britain’s outdated housing stock.
GMB represents tens of thousands of members in the gas industry. The substitution of hydrogen for natural gas can deliver a just transition in a range of industrial and domestic settings. Writing off such a solution when other countries are investing heavily in the technology threatens the future of those workers’ jobs.
The UK risks repeating the mistakes of the renewables programme, when we failed to build up a domestic industrial base, which has left us reliant on imports (many of them from despotic regimes). There is a historic opportunity here to create a new export-led industry that assists with the decarbonisation of our own economy, and we should seize it with both hands.
Andy Prendergast
National secretary, GMB
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