Charley - why do you think tiny wind farms, which will supposedly be producing "green" hydrogen, are located adjacent to the largest LNG (Liquified Natural Gas) ports in the world?

Above: Shell's Eemshaven facility in the Netherlands. Note natural gas storage tanks, lower right.

Does importing natural gas in the shadow of Eemshaven's six wind turbines necessarily mean Shell's hydrogen from Eemshaven won't be "green"? From 2018:

"Equinor Energy AS has awarded Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. a feasibility study contract to evaluate building a hydrogen production plant, including carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and export facilities, in Eemshaven, the Netherlands, Jacobs reported Wednesday.

'Getting the opportunity to work with Equinor to study the possibilities of gas-to-hydrogen conversion and contribute to a significant CO2 reduction is meaningful to Jacobs in many ways,' David Zelinski, Jacobs senior vice president and general manager EMEA, said in a written statement. 'This award enables us to leverage our expertise in gas processing and aligns perfectly with our vision to deliver innovative and sustainable solutions to our clients.'”

https://www.rigzone.com/news/equinor_taps_jacobs_for_gastohydrogen_conversion_study-11-jul-2018-156257-article/

Yes, it does.

It pains me to see this presented as if it were good news for clean energy and the environment. It's the opposite. A swing in favor of green hydrogen is bad news, driven mainly by the influence of electrolysis equipment manufactures. Their concern is for their financial bottom lines rather than what makes sense for mitigating climate change. 

Not that I expect they'd see it that way. It's easy to rationalize whatever is in one's own interests. Convincing yourself that you're on the side of the angels is tremendously valuable for convincing others. The issues are complicated. Enough so that it doesn't even take much willful blindness to see a swing toward green hydrogen as good. Nonetheless, there's no question that large scale production of green hydrogen in this decade will lead to higher carbon emissions and higher environmental impact.

For anyone not so put off by that last statement that they've stopped reading, I strongly recommend Oxford Energy's white paper, Blue hydrogen as an enabler of green hydrogen: the case of Germany. It's key point is that until Europe's power grid is fully decarbonized, any renewable energy that is generated is best used to offset fossil-fueled generation, not production of green hydrogen. Hydrogen is great for low-carbon backing generation when production from renewables can't meet demand, but it should initially be blue hydrogen (generated from fossil fuels with CCS), not electrolytic hydrogen. Until the grid is fully decarbonized, "green" hydrogen isn't green. The extra energy demand for its production raises carbon emissions substantially, relative to blue hydrogen.

I won't try to reprise a 54 page whitepaper in a few lines here, but the point I wanted to make is that the Oxford Energy report is neither anti renewables nor anti green hydrogen. It's just saying that a big push for green hydrogen before the grid is fully (or almost fully) decarbonized is premature. 

The first electrolyzer gigafactories are being built

Can you share more about the gigafactories, Charley? I'm only familiar with the term in the context of Tesla's Gigafactory for energy storage-- what's the size for these electrolyzer factories for them to be considered 'giga' and what's the expected time table before they may be up and running?