I remember when a very “SMART” individual in the early 1900’s said; “EVERYTHING THAT CAN BE INVENTED, HAS ALREADY BEEN INVENTED”. In my opinion, at some time in the future, there will be a manor a woman, will invent, in his or her garage, a machine that will run on hydrogen. He or she will figure out a way to make it cheaply. I will remind everyone, that in the recent past (100+ years or so) aluminum was more expensive than silver, because there was no way to extract aluminum cheaply. I will also remind everyone, that a man, in his garage, invented a method to extract this metal very cheap. The rest is history
I tend to agree with you.
As long as we stay free.
That’s a bad comparison, because aluminum is not a fuel. There are endless uses for a versatile material like aluminum, and many of them can make aluminum more valuable than any extraction process. For example, in aviation, the properties of aluminum would make it worthwhile to use even if it cost triple to extract it, because there isn’t a less expensive replacement material that is readily available.
Hydrogen, on the other hand is just fuel. There aren’t many other purposes (at least not where you need pure hydrogen) that can make it cost-effective to use if you can only extract it with an inefficient process. Even in the few cases you could think of, say using it as buoyant gas in dirigibles, there are alternatives that can be used and the technology isn’t very profitable in the first place.
Read or watch “The Water Engine” by David Mamet. Exactly your proposition and the disastrous results for the inventor.