Decarbonize Weekly

About Decarbonize Weekly

Bankable — which hard-tech bets actually pencil out. Due diligence on first-of-a-kind technology commercialization: what it takes, and what it costs, to move hard tech from lab to pilot to bankable infrastructure. Each episode runs one technology through an operator's checklist and ends with a scored verdict: Real Bet, Watch, Not Yet, or Overhyped. Every number cited. Host: P.Eng + MBA, 15+ years commercializing first-of-a-kind technologies on three continents. We judge technologies, never stocks. Not investment advice. Formerly Decarbonize Weekly. Business: hello@bankable.show

Publisher

Bankable

Category

technology

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

22 Mar 2026

Latest episode

26 Aug 2026

Latest episodes

27 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   26 Aug 2026

   Bankable — The Hydrogen Money Map: Which Projects Still Pencil?

   Your hydrogen model makes money for ten years. In year eleven, support ends—and the margin disappears. Did the project ever pencil, or did policy hide the loss? This episode turns the United States, Canada, the European Union, California, and China into one project-screening decision: advance, redesign or relocate, wait, or stop. The analysis keeps unlike instruments separate before normalising them: • U.S. 45V is a lifecycle-carbon-intensity production credit with a before-2028 construction clock. The 2026 maximum is conditional, not the base case. • U.S. 45Q stays in dollars per tonne until placement date, disposition route, labor treatment, verified storage, ownership, and recapture exposure are known. • Canada's Clean Hydrogen ITC stays a percentage of eligible capital until annualized across financed production. • EU RFNBO classification, the low-carbon methodology, selected Hydrogen Bank bids, and CBAM have different gates and recipients. • China's energy-industry standard, performance-based city-cluster pilot, and 2030 terminal-price target are not a national per-kilogram tax-credit clone. The episode also shows what public projects do—and do not—prove. Cloudberry exposes a selected IF25 bid and volume, but not pre-support LCOH. Nine Mile Point is an operating technical anchor, not a merchant model. Kuqa discloses design scale and captive demand, but not one clean cost boundary. Edmonton's public support and scope records do not prove a Clean Hydrogen ITC tier or operating margin. 📊 The editable Hydrogen Policy Resilience Workbook is complete and validated around full eligible support, a 50% finance haircut, and the policy cliff. It preserves native policy units, qualification status, buyer price, support duration, financing tenor, and the single assumption that flips the verdict. Its public download link remains intentionally inactive until release approval. ⏱️ Chapters 0:00 The policy-cliff test 1:18 Start with pre-support economics 2:59 U.S. 45V, 45Q, and LCFS 5:44 Canada: capital support in production units 7:12 Europe: classification, auction bids, and CBAM 9:25 China: standards, pilots, and price targets 10:57 What public projects actually prove 11:44 Worked project: full support, haircut, and cliff 12:49 Re-score every pathway 14:42 Use the policy-resilience workbook 15:36 The hydrogen money-map verdict Tell me in the comments: which hydrogen case would you advance, redesign, wait on, or stop—and which input changes your call? We judge technologies, projects, and economics, never securities. Nothing here is legal, tax, accounting, lending, or investment advice. 🤝 Advisory (feasibility / techno-economics / first-of-a-kind projects): bankable.show/advisory · hello@bankable.show #Hydrogen #CleanHydrogen #HydrogenPolicy #45V #45Q #RFNBO #CBAM #EnergyTransition #TechnoEconomics #Bankable

2. 

   17 Aug 2026

   Bankable — Nuclear Hydrogen: Make Fuel—or Sell the Power?

   📺 Bankable · Real Bet? | ~20 min One reactor megawatt-hour can be sold as clean, firm electricity—or converted into hydrogen. Which buyer should get it? The answer depends on which nuclear-hydrogen project you mean. Nine Mile Point in New York is the strongest operating receipt: a 1.25 MW electrolyser makes hydrogen for the nuclear plant's own cooling system, replacing delivered fossil hydrogen. That is a real niche with an existing reactor, a captive customer and almost no merchant delivery. A new small modular reactor built around hydrogen is a different capital stack. It combines reactor cost and schedule risk, electrolyser performance, plant integration, storage and delivery, policy timing, and a hydrogen contract that still has to beat the value of selling firm electricity. This episode tests four cases: • existing light-water reactor + captive or adjacent low-temperature electrolysis • new small modular reactor + conventional electrolysis + industrial buyer • advanced high-temperature reactor + solid-oxide electrolysis using electricity and heat • sell the clean, firm electricity—the control case The evidence includes Nine Mile Point's operating system, DOE's explicitly dated U.S. demonstration ladder, the 20-year Vistra/Meta agreement that now covers Davis-Besse electricity, Meta/Constellation and other long-duration nuclear-power agreements, Ontario's BWRX-300 under construction at Darlington, U.S. 45V treatment of qualifying existing nuclear electricity, Canada's carbon-intensity tiers, final Regulation (EU) 2025/2359, and China's HTR-PM platform plus a distinct 2026 iodine-sulfur thermochemical hydrogen R&D update. 📊 The free editable Nuclear MWh Allocation Calculator is linked with the episode. Change hydrogen value, power value, utilisation, realised offtake, conversion capital, delivery, heat and policy assumptions. It shows the exact point where making hydrogen beats—or loses to—selling the same reactor megawatt-hour. ⏱️ Chapters 0:00 One reactor megawatt-hour, two buyers 1:33 Four nuclear-hydrogen projects 2:59 The operating receipt replaces a truck 4:25 Capacity factor vs opportunity cost 5:44 What high-temperature electrolysis changes 7:32 The missing demonstration rungs 9:11 Powering AI becomes the control case 10:35 Small modular reactor reality at Darlington 12:24 Run the Nuclear MWh Allocation Calculator 15:08 Policy can move the spread—or miss the schedule 17:33 Four cases, four calls 18:56 The nuclear-hydrogen verdict Tell me in the comments: which of the four paths would you back—existing captive hydrogen, a new modular reactor with a buyer, advanced heat-assisted hydrogen, or direct power sales? What price, contract or operating result determines your choice? Next: a dedicated policy and regulation episode closes the hydrogen arc with eligibility, carbon accounting, certification, expiry and cross-market comparison. Then Bankable moves to the next molecule. We judge technologies, projects and economics, never securities. Nothing here is investment advice. 🤝 Advisory (feasibility / techno-economics / first-of-a-kind projects): bankable.show/advisory · hello@bankable.show #NuclearHydrogen #Hydrogen #NuclearEnergy #SMR #Electrolysis #DataCenters #PoweringAI #EnergyTransition #TechnoEconomics #Bankable

3. 

   9 Aug 2026

   Bankable — White Hydrogen: The Oil Rush for a Fuel Nobody Has Proved

   📺 Bankable · Real Bet? | ~22 min A Kansas exploration well reported mud-gas samples containing as much as 83% hydrogen. Then the company ran a 14-day production test. At the end, the total gas flow was about 100 standard cubic feet per day and the air-corrected hydrogen concentration was 0.4%. On those endpoint figures, that is roughly four cubic metres of hydrogen per year. A 2026 federal-geoscience paper estimates that a commercial natural-hydrogen well may need at least ten million cubic metres per year for two or three decades. That gap is the white-hydrogen story. Natural hydrogen is not fake. A shallow field in Mali has produced roughly 98% hydrogen for local electricity, and researchers report stable pressure consistent with recharge. But one useful well is not yet a repeatable industrial resource class. New mine-scale records sharpen that distinction. A Canadian Shield site discharged more than 140 tonnes of hydrogen per year, while Albania's Bulqizë mine vented at least 200 tonnes per year in gas containing 84% hydrogen. Those are unusually strong records of sustained natural discharge. They are still mine flows, not controlled production wells or proved reserves. This episode follows the evidence from source rock to cash flow: • how rocks generate hydrogen through reactions such as serpentinization and radiolysis • why a source, reservoir and seal still do not guarantee a reserve • what Mali proves, and what it does not • what Canada's and Albania's mine-scale discharge records add to the case • why Europe's research push still has not crossed the production-well gate • why 83% in a mud-gas sample can become 0.4% at stabilized production • how published cost estimates range from $0.54/kg to $6.82/kg without necessarily contradicting each other • the four prospect types worth appraising, combining, using locally or killing The portable tool is two numbers: hydrogen purity at stabilized production, and sustained hydrogen flow with pressure and decline. Ask for those before a prospective resource, an LCOH or a stock chart. 📄 The cited research and one-page white-hydrogen appraisal gate will be linked here before public release. ⏱️ Chapters 0:00 The 83% headline meets a production test 1:39 What white hydrogen actually claims 2:59 Real geology, unproved resource class 3:48 How rocks make hydrogen 5:15 A global endowment is not a reserve 6:44 Mali: the strongest real case 8:54 Canada, Albania and Europe's evidence ladder 10:56 The two numbers that matter 13:17 White hydrogen has assumption curves 15:24 Carbon, policy and the customer 17:24 Four prospects, four decisions 18:53 Scorecard and verdict 19:54 The production-test gate Tell me in the comments: what production-test result would make you fund the next white-hydrogen well, and what result would make you walk away? We judge technologies, projects and economics, never securities. Nothing here is investment advice. 🤝 Advisory (feasibility / techno-economics / first-of-a-kind projects): bankable.show/advisory · hello@bankable.show #WhiteHydrogen #NaturalHydrogen #GoldHydrogen #Hydrogen #Geology #EnergyTransition #TechnoEconomics #Bankable

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Spotify

5.0 / 5

1 ratings