Finland Makes a Name for Itself in the Production of Hydrogen
Northern power.
Lapland, Finland
Outside the occasional visit to the sauna or tuning in to a year-end international hockey tournament, you probably haven’t thought too much about Finland lately. Perhaps it’s time to reconsider that lack of consideration. The well-known, yet often overlooked, northern nation is trying to make a name for itself in a well-known, yet often overlooked, future technology: hydrogen.
In the race to find a greener, cleaner power source for our rapidly warming world, hydrogen has thus far been overshadowed by a multitude of other solutions: wind, solar, hydro, lithium batteries, the nuclear renaissance. But when it comes to CO2-less future, hydrogen has a lot going for it. Unlike electricity from variable renewable sources, it’s easy to store for future use. Unlike lithium batteries, hydrogen’s high energy-to-weight ratio make it a viable solution for aviation and similar applications. And unlike uranium (or oil, for that matter), its ubiquity ensures no one country or region can corner the market, set up a cartel, or use it as a bargaining chip in a high-stakes geopolitical poker game.
As for the business case, advantage Finland: the country’s proximity to an entire continent eager to wean itself off natural gas gives it a huge addressable market. And with over 84 per cent of the country’s electricity already derived from fossil-free sources, using it to extract hydrogen from so-called “green” feedstocks (largely forestry waste and water) shouldn’t be a problem. So much so that the European Union has cheekily renamed Finland’s coastline along the Gulf of Bothnia the “BotH2nia hydrogen valley,” targeting it for over three billion euros of investment in large-scale green hydrogen production over the next several years.
But Finnish scientists and innovators aren’t simply willing to make the stuff: they want to show the world how to use it too. Over 100 startups have banded together to create Hydrogen Cluster Finland, a collection of startups, equipment manufacturers, engineering firms, design service providers, consultants, industry associations, and others that aim to promote the production, distribution, and application of clean hydrogen throughout Europe and beyond.
All in all, a good case study for countries working hard to dig defensible “moats” around the technologies that will power the future. Around the world, nations are aligning big ideas, big business, and big government in service of economic and political interests: Taiwan with semiconductors, China with EVs, Israel with cybersecurity, South Korea and Japan with robotics, Switzerland with pharmaceuticals. Perhaps something another northern nation could learn a thing or two about, as it tries to make a name for itself beyond maple syrup and year-end international hockey tournaments.
