There are two big markets for hydrogen: 1. It is needed to make fertilizer and in other industrial processes. This need is constant, more or less, and is not g

There are two big markets for hydrogen: 1. It is needed to make fertilizer and in other industrial processes. This need is constant, more or less, and is not going away. We need plants to eat. 2. It can be used as a fuel (for motors, heating, whatever). This need is currently low, but may grow. But so far, this area has been mostly a dud. As far as innovation, the next big innovation is figuring out less polluting ways of creating hydrogen. Most hydrogen is currently created as a by-product of fossil fuel production. There's a need to figure out a cleaner way to make it that isn't so incredibly energy inefficient. Learn about the "colors" of hydrogen to see what options currently exist: https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/energy-explained/hydrogen-colour-spectrum https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/energy-explained/hydrog... The problem with hydrogen as a fuel is that it is much less efficient (from a pure physics perspective) than just storing electricity directly in a battery. If you generate 1 kilowatt hour of electricity, by the time you send it to a house, charge a car, and use it, about 75%-80% of the power makes it to your wheels. If you instead use hydrogen, only about 30% of the power makes it to your wheels. See: https://www.volkswagenag.com/content/dam/online-kommunikation/brands/corporate/world/presence/stories/2019/08/wasserstoff-oder-batterie/Website_Wasserstoff_vs_Batterie_Vergleich_EN_1163.png https://www.volkswagenag.com/content/dam/online-kommunikatio... This creates the paradox that clean hydrogen produced from renewable energy is currently a net loss to meeting renewable energy goals. Any renewable energy you are putting toward creating clean hydrogen would be doubly efficient just used as electricity directly without the hydrogen step in the middle. In a world with infinite green energy, hydrogen would be great. But we aren't in that world. The advantage that hydrogen has over batteries is that it can work in some circumstances where batteries are not yet practical - places where you need near-instant recharging or where where weight/total capacity is a big factor (i.e. maybe some airline applications, maybe ocean shipping, who knows). So there are probably places where hydrogen will grow and be profitable. But it has pretty much completely failed in the automotive sector because batteries are just better and more efficient. Also note that a lot of the push for hydrogen over electricity is coming from the major hydrogen producers, which happen to be fossil fuel companies that want to stay in business and who happen to already sell hydrogen.