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Many hydrogen strategies for energy-intensive industries do not adequately address geopolitical risks. Instead, they often assume stable trading relationships and reliable alliances – assumptions which are increasingly questionable in light of recent conflicts and sanctions. Policymakers and businesses should therefore give greater consideration to alternative future scenarios. This is the key finding of a new study published in Nature Reviews Clean Technology.
Energy-intensive industries such as the steel and chemical sectors are under pressure to drastically reduce their CO2 emissions and are increasingly turning to green hydrogen. This raises a strategically important question: Will this also lead to shifts in global supply chains? Will energy-intensive production move to locations where renewable hydrogen can be produced cheaply – or will it remain in today’s industrial centres, which will then import hydrogen?” explains lead author Laima Eicke from the Institute for Sustainability (RIFS) at GFZ. The researchers investigated how key factors with high levels of uncertainty – including transport infrastructure, investment conditions, and industrial policy – interact under different geopolitical conditions. The study analyses three possible scenarios and their implications for the environment and global equity.
The Fuel Switch scenario is currently the most widely discussed in Europe and underpins many national hydrogen strategies. In this scenario, infrastructure in existing industrial centres is converted to operate on hydrogen, which, to an extent, would need to be imported, altering global industrial geography only slightly. However, the success of these strategies will depends to a large degree on the construction of extensive transport infrastructure, stable trading relationships, and limited efforts by hydrogen producing countries to develop their industrial value chains.
The latter seems unlikely: significant differences in the cost of hydrogen production around the world, and growing industrial policy ambitions in resource-rich countries, could redirect investment and production towards these countries to a greater extent than previously assumed. Relying exclusively on this scenario risks misdirected investment in infrastructure that would ultimately prove unsuitable.
In the Industrial Relocation scenario, energy-intensive industries shift production capacities to locations where renewable energy is abundant and inexpensive, often in low- and middle-income countries. Transport distances, costs, and emissions would fall, and these countries could see opportunities for industrial development. Established industrial regions would face new challenges in managing the social impact of economic restructuring. The study also shows that many countries in the Global South would still likely require external partnerships and support to realise these opportunities.
The hybrid Dispersed Production scenario offers a middle ground in which hydrogen is produced and processed on-site into intermediates such as ammonia or directly reduced iron, which are then transported to existing industrial centres for use in the manufacturing of end products such as steel. The study shows that this scenario can deliver many of the cost benefits of relocating production while also spreading value creation across more regions. This could make it attractive to both producing and importing countries.
The authors conclude that hydrogen and industrial strategies should explicitly consider alternative geopolitical futures, rather than tacitly assuming the continued existence of stable alliances and liberal trading conditions. For economies reliant on imports, this means weighing which industries should be strategically supported and making infrastructure decisions that will remain viable under different scenarios. For resource-rich countries in the Global South, it means creating suitable policy and regulatory environments, coupled with regional cooperation, to ensure they actually benefit from the transition.
Dr. Laima Eicke
laima.eicke@rifs-potsdam.de
Eicke, L., Goldthau, A., Quitzow, R. et al. Geoeconomic scenarios of renewable-hydrogen-based industrial production. Nat. Rev. Clean Technol. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44359-026-00164-3
Scenarios for renewable-hydrogen-based industrial production
Quelle: Eicke et al. (2026)
Copyright: RIFS Potsdam
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