Several ambitious green and blue hydrogen projects in British Columbia have been shelved or paused, highlighting the gap between policy ambitions and economic realities. The most notable casualty is Fortescue Minerals Group’s $2 billion Coyote green hydrogen project in Prince George, which was withdrawn in September 2024 after failing to secure sufficient clean power. The project, which aimed to produce green hydrogen for domestic use and green ammonia for export, would have required nearly the entire capacity of the Site C dam—a resource B.C. cannot spare.

This setback reflects a broader trend. Six other hydrogen proposals in the province—four green and two blue—have also been paused, according to reports. Sustainability consultant Paul Gris of the Bolden Group attributes this to "optimism getting ahead of the economics." The challenges are twofold: green hydrogen requires vast amounts of renewable electricity, while blue hydrogen depends on costly carbon capture and storage (CCS) infrastructure, neither of which B.C. currently possesses in sufficient scale.

Globally, hydrogen demand projections have been scaled back. The EU Court of Auditors recently labeled hydrogen targets as "unrealistic," and the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates hydrogen will account for just 10-12% of global energy by 2050, far below earlier federal estimates of 24%. Barry Penner, chairman of Energy Futures, noted after visiting a Danish wind-to-hydrogen plant that the process is energy-inefficient, with six megawatts of electricity yielding only four megawatts of hydrogen.

Despite these hurdles, one project in North Vancouver is advancing. HTEC’s $472 million plant, which will capture and liquefy 15 tonnes of hydrogen daily from a sodium chlorate byproduct, recently secured $49 million in federal funding. This smaller-scale initiative underscores the potential for hydrogen in niche markets, particularly hard-to-abate sectors, but signals the need for policymakers to recalibrate expectations.