Petroleum is in the ground. It's waiting to be "harvested", sure we have to refine it but it's there for us to grab. Hydrogen isn't like that. There are no hydrogen mines. You really have to extract hydrogen from something.
So, what's the "something" -- it seems like the "something" is a resource that must be harvested, so I'm not sure that's progress.
And then you have "extract" the hydrogen, and what is that process? I suspect it's more got an energy cost which is higher than refining petroleum, so I'm not sure we're making progress.
And then there's the problem with storage and transport. I suspect that's more costly than gasoline tanks and tanker trucks, so I'm not sure we're making progress.
Um, I don't know about you, but I don't use petroleum, even as a jelly. I use gasoline. producing gasoline from raw petroleum (assume sweet crude) is a intensive process requiring lots of energy.
There are no hydrogen mines. You really have to extract hydrogen from something.
Well, there are a few naturally occuring Hydrogen deposits that can be tapped in the same manner as tapping into petroleum, and that would be pretty pure hydrogen, but it's not available in commercially desirable quantities in gaseous form.
There are ton's and tons of hydrogen stored in naturally occuring hydrates in various locations and you have to work at it to keep it from escaping once you remove it from the rather extreme conditions under which it forms (usually as methane hydrate under the ocean floor). But you don't even have to go that far. There's lots of relatively easy ways to get hydrogen out of perfectly mundane stuff for less energy input (compared to gasoline/petroleum) than you get back.
So far as I know it's never been an energy budget problem, but always a storage problem.