Yet another hydrogen start-up has burst onto our radar this week, claiming that its production cost will be next to nothing. The fact that H Quest, a US startup, is using natural gas to produce hydrogen would normally be enough to put us off the idea, but the company’s approach of making it as a ‘co-product’ with other carbon-based products may provide the fossil-fuel industry’s only real opportunity in the sector. This should only be the case, however, if upstream methane emissions can be eliminated and misleading carbon accounting can be avoided. The process that H Quest is in the early stages of developing is an emission-free version of microwave plasma pyrolysis. Here, renewable electricity will be used to generate…