“There will be no real energy transition as long as coal powers the present and the future remains just a promise for export.”
Chile wants to become a green hydrogen powerhouse. The government says it, companies repeat it, and the media celebrates it. Solar panels in the desert, wind turbines in Magallanes, and a promise: to produce the fuel of the future without polluting the present. But while international agreements and billion-dollar bids are being announced, there is one detail no one wants to look at. Chile’s energy matrix still depends on coal, on gas, and on an electric system where the so-called green transition coexists shamelessly with the same fossil darkness as always.
They talk about hydrogen as if it were already in homes, buses, and exports. But today, green hydrogen in Chile is not a reality—it’s a PowerPoint. There are no operational industrial-scale plants. No pipelines. No market. There are intentions, there is lobbying, there are headlines. And meanwhile, the coal plants remain active. Ventanas keeps smoking. Mejillones keeps burning. The air remains sick, but the discourse is clean. In this country, green energy always arrives as a promise, not as transformation.
Energy companies know it. Forestry companies know it. Mining companies celebrate it. Because green hydrogen allows them to announce climate commitments without changing their business models. It’s enough to declare that they’ll be carbon neutral by 2040. No one monitors, no one demands consistency. A signed protocol is enough. A photo is enough. And meanwhile, lithium continues to be extracted with water pumps in the salt flats, copper continues to be smelted with coal in Caletones, and pollution continues to be exported in the name of sustainable development.
The press doesn’t question either. It repeats. It circulates press releases. Talks about development hubs. Talks about unique opportunities. But it doesn’t explain that producing green hydrogen requires colossal amounts of water and electricity. Where will that water come from in the dry north of Chile? From already overexploited underground aquifers? From the sea, with desalination plants that consume even more energy? Who will control water use in an area where the State cannot even guarantee it for local communities?
And the most uncomfortable question: what kind of energy will power the electrolyzers that produce hydrogen? Because if fossil sources are used, the result isn’t green hydrogen, but gray, blue, or simply smoke with a fancy name. In a country where coal still represents more than 20 percent of the electricity matrix, talking about clean energy without shutting down thermal plants is pure hypocrisy. The same hypocrisy that calls it “energy justice” when large corporations control the transition.
They say Magallanes will be the epicenter of this green revolution. But Magallanes is also one of the coldest regions, with the highest demand for firewood heating, one of the largest per capita carbon footprints, and where subsidized gas is still used. Are we really going to produce green hydrogen to export it to Europe while our people burn wet wood and live in homes without thermal insulation? Who designed this energy transition? Who profits from it?
Chile could lead a real transformation. It has sun, it has wind, it has copper, it has lithium. But it lacks one thing: political will to confront those in power. Because as long as the narrative is dictated by generators, mining companies, and energy consultants, there will be no transition—just window dressing. Green hydrogen will be just another business, extracted from sacrificed territories, with public subsidies, to supply Germany’s electric cars and China’s steelworks.
And when there is no water left, when the glaciers retreat further, when the sea is full of brine and communities are denied their right to consultation, maybe someone will remember that all this was done in the name of the future. A future that doesn’t include everyone, that doesn’t correct inequalities, that doesn’t repair damage, that doesn’t decentralize decisions. A future packaged in a sustainability narrative that smells more like marketing than oxygen.
Green hydrogen has potential, yes. But it also has traps. It can be emancipatory or extractivist. It can mean transition or continuity. It can be sovereignty or subordination. It all depends on who controls it. And in Chile, for now, it’s controlled by the same as always: those who turn air into business, water into product, and energy into excuse.
And yet, there is still time. If the country decides that energy is a right, not a commodity. If the energy transition is built with communities, not against them. If resources are directed toward well-being and not speculation. Then green hydrogen could stop being a deception and become a tool for justice, development, and real sovereignty.
