Energy that is hailed as clean demands a vital resource that is missing: water.

The world applauds green hydrogen as the clean energy that will save the planet. It is sold as the invisible gold of the twenty-first century. But there is a truth buried under the propaganda. To produce every kilo of hydrogen, liters and liters of pure water are needed. On a planet already suffering historic droughts, where millions of people lack drinking water, that promise turns into a threat.

The geopolitics of the twenty-first century will not only revolve around minerals and fuels. It will also revolve around water. The same countries that are pushing green hydrogen megaprojects are the ones watching their people dry up. Chile announces plants in Atacama, one of the driest deserts in the world. Namibia and Mauritania hand over land for gigantic projects while their populations still carry buckets of water. Saudi Arabia builds complexes with desalination plants that generate more brine than energy.

The contradiction is brutal. They speak of clean energy, but they hide the water cost. They proclaim the fight against climate change, but they risk deepening the water crisis. What should be a path toward sustainability can become a new form of plunder. Green hydrogen not only divides the world into producers and buyers. It also divides it between those who will have water to live and those who will give up theirs to export molecules.

The water cost of hydrogen

Green hydrogen is produced by electrolysis. A process that splits water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen using renewable electricity. The equation is simple in theory, but brutal in practice. To produce one kilo of hydrogen, between nine and twelve liters of pure water are needed, free of salts and minerals. That water must be treated and demineralized before entering the electrolyzers, which makes the process even more expensive.

The numbers escalate at industrial scale. The International Energy Agency estimates that if the world produces the 530 million tons of green hydrogen projected for 2050, more than five billion cubic meters of water per year will be required, equivalent to the annual consumption of a nation of one hundred million people. In other words, the energy transition based on hydrogen demands a new sacrifice: turning water into exportable energy.

The contradiction is obvious. Projects rise in arid regions where water is scarcest. Chile announces complexes in Atacama and Magallanes. Namibia and Mauritania promise massive exports from the desert. Saudi Arabia pushes its futuristic city Neom based on hydrogen, with desalination plants that generate millions of tons of brine discharged into the sea. They call it progress, but for local communities it is another form of dispossession.

The water cost of green hydrogen opens a new political question. Should water be used to feed electrolyzers or to secure life and agriculture? What right do corporations have to drain rivers and aquifers in the name of an energy that will not even remain in producing countries? At its core, green hydrogen risks being clean only in appearance. Clean in Europe’s and Asia’s carbon accounts, but dirty in the thirst it leaves behind.

Latin America: green energy in dry lands

Latin America is presented as the new Saudi Arabia of green hydrogen. Governments and corporations announce gigantic projects that promise billion-dollar exports to Europe and Asia. But behind the discourse of progress lies a paradox: many of these megaprojects are being built in territories where water is scarce and where millions of people still lack access to the most basic resource.

Chile leads the regional map. In Magallanes, world-scale plants are planned to produce green ammonia and export it to Germany and Japan. In Atacama, the driest desert on the planet, solar parks are being built to power electrolyzers that require thousands of cubic meters of pure water every day. The same country where more than 400,000 people suffer chronic water scarcity is handing over its water to corporations that will generate energy for European ships.

Argentina is not far behind. In Río Negro, the Australian company Fortescue is projecting an $8.4 billion investment to install a green hydrogen hub that will need water resources in a province already under stress. Patagonia, with its wind potential, is turning into the epicenter of a clean energy that risks drying up agricultural valleys.

Brazil and Mexico are moving forward with pilot projects in Ceará, Bahia, and Yucatán—regions where water is limited and contested between human consumption, agriculture, and mining. Figures projected by the International Energy Agency indicate that producing just one million tons of green hydrogen per year consumes more than nine million cubic meters of water, enough to supply a medium-sized city.

The warning is clear. Latin America is giving up water and territory to produce energy it will not consume. Green hydrogen is sold as the key to the future, but in practice it threatens to repeat the history of plunder: cheap raw materials for the north and thirst for the south.

Africa: the desert as a testing ground

Africa is the new laboratory of green hydrogen. In the midst of energy poverty and lack of drinking water, megaprojects are rising that promise to save the planet but may condemn local communities. Namibia is the most brutal example. There, the company Hyphen Energy is pushing a $10 billion complex on the southern coast, aimed at exporting green ammonia to Germany and the Netherlands. The project will use desalinated water, but that desalination will generate tons of brine discharged into the ocean, altering already fragile marine ecosystems.

Mauritania has become the other epicenter. The consortium CWP Global is planning a $40 billion megaproject, one of the largest in the world, also geared toward exports to Europe. The Mauritanian desert, where communities survive with minimal water and electricity, will be converted into an energy extraction zone to supply foreign trains and ships. The paradox repeats itself: countries where more than 40 percent of the population lacks regular access to electricity are giving up their water resources to produce energy they will not consume.

South Africa and Morocco have joined the race. Pretoria announced a hydrogen corridor in Northern Cape, while Rabat signed agreements with the European Union and Germany to be a key supplier in the next decade. Both rely on desalination to sustain production. That technology raises the cost of hydrogen and generates a hidden problem: millions of tons of brine dumped into the sea, impacting fisheries and biodiversity.

The figures are stark. Producing one million tons of green hydrogen per year requires more than nine million cubic meters of water. Namibia, Mauritania, and Morocco aim to multiply that figure tenfold over the next twenty years. On a continent where more than 300 million people lack access to safe drinking water, green hydrogen risks becoming water plunder disguised in green labels.

Asia and the Middle East: water or energy

Asia and the Middle East concentrate the paradox of green hydrogen at its most extreme. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates announce gigantic hydrogen plants in the middle of the desert. The flagship project is Neom, the futuristic Saudi city presented as a model of sustainability, which includes the installation of one of the largest hydrogen plants on the planet. Production depends on massive desalination, a process that requires additional energy and discharges millions of tons of highly polluting brine into the Red Sea. Clean energy in theory, but with a toxic environmental trail.

India faces an even more direct dilemma. The government launched a national green hydrogen plan with the goal of producing five million tons annually by 2030. However, much of that production would be located in the arid regions of Rajasthan and Gujarat, where water is already insufficient for agriculture and human consumption. One kilo of hydrogen means ten liters less of water for farmers already enduring chronic droughts. In a country with more than 100 million people without secure access to drinking water, hydrogen can become more of a threat than a solution.

China is also betting big. Its hydrogen megaprojects are concentrated in the north, in areas such as Inner Mongolia, rich in wind and solar power but poor in water. The challenge is obvious: while China leads in electrolyzers, it must guarantee water to sustain large-scale production. The risk is that the energy meant to decarbonize the global economy will end up worsening local water stress.

The figures don’t lie. According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, 60 percent of green hydrogen projects in Asia and the Middle East are located in regions with high or extreme water stress. The question becomes unavoidable: what is worth more—water for life, or water turned into fuel for global trade?

Potential conflicts

Green hydrogen is not only an energy bet, it can also become a new motive for water wars. Where historical tensions already exist, the arrival of HV megaprojects threatens to deepen conflicts. The Nile River is a clear example. Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia have spent years disputing control of the Grand Renaissance Dam. If hydrogen production is added in Ethiopia and Sudan, the waters of the Nile will become fuel for export and not a vital resource for 150 million people.

The Indus River in Asia faces a similar situation. India and Pakistan dispute its flow under a fragile sharing agreement. India’s decision to push hydrogen projects in arid regions using Indus water could ignite a new conflict front. The same is happening in the Amazon, where there is already talk of exploring HV projects in Brazil and Peru, in a basin that holds 20 percent of the world’s freshwater and already suffers from deforestation and pollution. Turning that river into an energy input for export would be repeating plunder under another guise.

The numbers put the contradiction in black and white. More than 400 million Africans and 100 million Asians today lack secure access to drinking water. Producing one million tons of green hydrogen per year consumes more than nine million cubic meters of water, enough to supply a city of half a million inhabitants for a year. Water colonialism is taking hold in silence. The north buys green molecules, and the south gives up the water it needs to live. They call it energy transition, but it smells like the same old story: exporting life and staying with thirst.

Alternatives and solutions

Green hydrogen does not have to be a water plunder. There are technological and political alternatives that could prevent the energy of the future from being built on the thirst of the people.

The first option is to look to the sea. New electrolyzers designed to operate directly with seawater reduce dependence on freshwater sources. The technology is still expensive, but it is advancing quickly. Researchers in China and Australia have already tested prototypes that produce hydrogen without the need for desalination.

The second alternative is the reuse of wastewater. Cities that today dump millions of liters of treated water into the sea could redirect part of that flow to hydrogen production. Germany and Japan are already developing pilots along these lines. The cost is lower than desalination and avoids tensions with agriculture and human consumption.

The third solution is not technical but political. Water justice must be a principle of the energy transition. No hydrogen project should advance if it compromises access to drinking water for local communities. The priority must be clear: life first, export second.

The numbers show viability. Using wastewater could cover up to 15 percent of the projected water demand for hydrogen by 2030. Direct seawater electrolysis could reduce operating costs by 20 percent if scaled up industrially. These are figures that prove this is not science fiction, but political will and real investment.

The dilemma is clear. Hydrogen can be the excuse to deepen water colonialism, or it can be the impulse for a just and sustainable energy transition. It all depends on who sets the rules: the banks and corporations of the north, or the peoples who put their water at stake.

Green hydrogen is announced as the key to a clean future. But behind every electrolyzer beat the rivers, the aquifers, and the communities that feed it. There will be no just transition if water becomes a commodity to produce molecules destined to light up distant cities while entire peoples continue carrying jugs just to drink.

The history of energy colonialism may repeat itself in another disguise. First it was gold, then oil, now it may be water turned into hydrogen. The discourse changes, the logic remains. The south delivers what is vital, the north keeps the benefit. They call it green energy, but it may end up being blue plunder, hidden in liters of water evaporated in silence.

And yet, not everything is written. Technologies exist that can use seawater and urban waste. Social movements already raise their voices to demand water justice. Governments could still put sovereignty above contracts signed on their knees. Hope is not naivety, it is memory. The peoples who survived past colonialism know they can resist the colonialism of the future.

Green hydrogen can be a mirage or a real opportunity. It can dry out the planet or give it a breath. The decision is not in tanks or ports. It is in the hands of those who must choose between selling the water of life or defending it as a human right.

And that choice will define whether the energy of tomorrow will be liberation or condemnation.

Bibliography of hard figures

  • International Energy Agency (IEA). Global Hydrogen Review 2023.
  • International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). Global Hydrogen Supply Chain Report 2022.
  • BloombergNEF. Hydrogen Market Outlook 2023–2050.
  • International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). Renewable Energy and Jobs Annual Review 2023.
  • World Resources Institute (WRI). Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas 2023.
  • General bibliography
  • Rifkin, Jeremy. The Hydrogen Economy. Penguin, 2002.
  • Ball, Michael & Wietschel, Martin. The Hydrogen Economy: Opportunities and Challenges. Cambridge University Press, 2009.
  • Van de Graaf, Thijs & Overland, Indra. “The Geopolitics of Hydrogen.” Energy Research & Social Science, 2020.
  • Sovacool, Benjamin. Energy and Ethics: Justice and the Global Energy Challenge. Palgrave, 2013.
  • OME (Observatoire Méditerranéen de l’Énergie). Hydrogen Mediterranean: Opportunities and Risks. 2021.