Hydrogen Production Pathways: Cost & Carbon Race

Market Conditions

Natural gas price $6.0 /MMBtu

Electricity price $50 /MWh

Grid renewable share 40%

Carbon price $30 /tCO2

Cheapest Pathway

Right now, — hydrogen wins at —/kg.

Levelized Cost & Emissions

Pathway	$/kg H₂	kg CO₂/kg

How it works

The "hydrogen economy" is really a race between production routes, each named by an industry colour code:

Grey — steam methane reforming (SMR): natural gas + steam → H₂ + CO₂, vented.
Blue — SMR with ~90% carbon capture & storage (CCS) bolted on.
Green — water electrolysis powered by the grid, clean only if the grid is.
Turquoise — methane pyrolysis: CH₄ → H₂ + solid carbon, no CO₂ at all from the reaction itself.

Each pathway's levelized cost of hydrogen (LCOH) is a simplified model of published DOE/IEA cost curves:

Grey:      LCOH = 0.90 + 0.17·P_gas + 10.0·P_C /1000
Blue:      LCOH = 1.60 + 0.20·P_gas +  1.5·P_C /1000
Green:     LCOH = 0.60 + 0.051·P_elec + E_grid·0.051·P_C /1000
Turquoise: LCOH = 1.00 + 0.012·P_elec + 0.5·P_C /1000

E_grid (grid CO2 intensity) = 0.70 · (1 − renewable share)  [t CO2/MWh]
P_gas = $/MMBtu, P_elec = $/MWh, P_C = carbon price $/tCO2

Grey emits ~10 kg CO₂ per kg H₂ from the reformer alone; blue keeps a small residual after capture; green's footprint tracks the grid mix (near zero on a 100% renewable grid, worst on a coal-heavy one); turquoise stores its carbon as a solid rather than releasing it, so its process emissions stay low regardless of the sliders. Move the carbon price up and grey/blue get taxed while green gets cheaper by comparison — that crossover is the real-world lever governments use to steer the transition.

The towers below carry gas molecules (yellow) or grid electrons (cyan) up into each reactor, and smoke particles rise above a tower in proportion to its CO₂ output — more smoke, dirtier pathway. Bar height on each tower tracks its live $/kg; the gold crown marks the current winner.

Grey (SMR) Blue (SMR+CCS) Green (electrolysis) Turquoise (pyrolysis)

⚠ Couldn't load the 3D engineThree.js failed to load from the CDN. Check your connection and reload.