At the heart of Origin Energy’s decision to abandon its Hunter Valley Hydrogen Hub is the collision of three crucial elements: hope, time and risk.

In the long term, Australia and the rest of the world needs green hydrogen to work if we are to decarbonise heavy industry and make the energy transition that gets more urgent by the day. But what’s becoming very clear is that optimism, ambition and government support are not enough to compensate for the huge risks that developers like Origin would have to take to get a project like this off the ground any time soon.