Debunking The Myth: Hydrogen Is Not A Good Energy Carrier For Heating Buildings

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The notion that hydrogen will replace natural gas for residential and commercial heating has been promoted heavily by segments of the gas industry. Yet the weight of independent, peer-reviewed research points in the opposite direction. Hydrogen, while technically combustible and capable of generating heat, is simply not a practical or economic choice for this application. It suffers from a trifecta of disadvantages: low volumetric energy density, high costs of production and distribution, and fundamental inefficiencies compared to readily available alternatives. The metaphor often cited by energy experts—that using hydrogen for heating is like using a sledgehammer to hang a picture—is apt. It’s not that it doesn’t work. It’s that it’s wildly inappropriate for the task.

This is a companion article to the Cranky Stepdad vs Hydrogen for Energy material. In a similar manner to John Cook’s Skeptical Science, the intent is a rapid and catchy debunk, a second level of detail in the Companion to Cranky Stepdad vs Hydrogen for Energy, and then a fuller article as the third level of detail.

Hydrogen for heating is like using a sledgehammer to hang a picture—heat pumps are the precision tool for the job.

Hydrogen’s lower energy density by volume compared to natural gas means that far more of it must be compressed and transported to deliver the same heat output. This alone introduces a cascade of technical and economic problems. Unlike natural gas, hydrogen embrittles standard steel pipelines, necessitating expensive replacements or retrofits. Storing it at high pressures or cryogenic temperatures is energy-intensive, costly, and fraught with technical risks. And then there’s the production problem. Most hydrogen today is made from fossil fuels, specifically methane, through steam methane reforming—a process that emits carbon dioxide unless paired with costly and energy-intensive carbon capture. Green hydrogen, made via electrolysis using renewable electricity, avoids these emissions but suffers from staggering inefficiencies. As Staffell et al. (2019) demonstrate, heat pumps use between three and five times less energy than hydrogen boilers to deliver the same thermal output.

Jan Rosenow of the Regulatory Assistance Project surveyed 54 independent studies comparing hydrogen heating with heat pumps. The result was unequivocal: none of them found hydrogen to be a viable primary option for residential or commercial heating. As Rosenow (2022) notes, hydrogen’s poor conversion efficiency and distribution losses render it far less attractive than existing electrified solutions. His meta-analysis found that not a single study positioned hydrogen as a serious competitor to heat pumps in the decarbonization of building heat.

This pervasive misframing of hydrogen as a viable home heating solution falls squarely into the False Hope fallacy. It offers a hypothetical future technology as a justification for delaying or diluting commitments to proven and deployable solutions. The UK Climate Change Committee (2021) has been blunt on this point: hydrogen for heating is a dead-end solution. It would require a massive, prohibitively expensive retrofit of the existing gas network, and even then, it would not match the performance or affordability of electric heat pumps. The International Renewable Energy Agency (2022) goes further, stating that hydrogen should be reserved for hard-to-decarbonize industrial sectors, not diverted into applications like residential heating where better alternatives exist.

Heat pumps are already scaling rapidly, particularly in Europe and North America. They leverage ambient heat from the air or ground, amplify it using electricity, and deliver warm air or hot water with remarkable efficiency. The International Energy Agency (2022) emphasizes that heat pumps are not only more efficient and cost-effective than hydrogen, but also more compatible with existing residential infrastructure. Moreover, their deployment avoids the safety risks posed by hydrogen’s high flammability. A UK government study reported by the Financial Times (Pickard, 2021) estimated that hydrogen boilers could cause up to four times more explosions than conventional natural gas appliances. That alone should be disqualifying for any residential use case.

The argument for hydrogen heating is, at its core, an exercise in strategic delay. By pretending that an expensive and inefficient option might someday be made viable, the gas industry can create enough political and public confusion to forestall the electrification of heat. This tactic has precedent. Similar strategies were deployed in the past to stall action on tobacco, leaded gasoline, and climate change itself. But unlike those cases, we already have the superior solution ready to go. Heat pumps require no speculative innovation, no exotic infrastructure, and no gambling on technology cost curves. They work, they scale, and they decarbonize heating far more effectively than hydrogen ever will.

The sober conclusion of every independent study is clear: hydrogen for heating is not just suboptimal—it’s a costly distraction. Clinging to it delays the adoption of electrified solutions that could decarbonize homes today. The faster policymakers, utilities, and the public recognize that the future of heating is electric, not hydrogen, the better equipped we’ll be to meet climate targets without wasting time, money, or political capital on dead-end technologies.

References:

• Cebon, D. (2023). Why hydrogen is unlikely to decarbonize heating. Energy Policy, 174, 113440.
• European Commission. (2022). Hydrogen in Buildings: Feasibility and Alternatives. Brussels: EU.
• International Energy Agency (IEA). (2022). The Future of Heat Pumps and Hydrogen in Residential Heating. Paris: IEA.
• International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). (2022). Hydrogen in the Built Environment: A Costly Decarbonization Strategy.
• Pickard, J. (2021, August 17). Hydrogen boilers in homes could cause four times more explosions than gas, says study. Financial Times.
• Rosenow, J. (2022). Is heating homes with hydrogen all but a pipe dream? Joule, 6(7), 1475–1479.
• Staffell, I., Brett, D. J., Brandon, N. P., & Hawkes, A. D. (2019). A review of the efficiency and economics of hydrogen technologies for heating. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 44(33), 17936–17958.
• UK Climate Change Committee (CCC). (2021). Hydrogen for heating: A dead-end solution? London: CCC.