As I have been mentioning on this site, I am working on piece about Anti-hydrogen activist Michael Barnard who is the author of the linked post.  As I research Michael's publication history at Cleantechnica many patterns emerge.  The overarching principle of Michael's fake news journalism is to promote the "Tesla Anti-hydrogen Narrative".   Here seem to be the core tenets of the narrative that guides Michael Barnard's more than 1,000 articles published at Cleantechnica:

1) Always promote Tesla and spin any negative news about Tesla.  This is evidenced in dozens of articles.  Prime examples go back 10 years to blaming Tesla's first self-driving death on anything but Tesla's software.  This is the overarching goal of Cleantechnica who's chief editor, Zachary Shahan, is an early investor in Tesla stock and has profited handsomely from promoting the company.

2) Always attack hydrogen and say it can't be used for transportation or energy.  Over the past 10 years MB has made some slight concessions for steelmaking and ammonia production but has recently found a way to weave alternative solutions for steel & ammonia so he can attack hydrogen no matter what no matter the sector.

3) Never say a bad word about China and always promote China.  In over 1,000 posts with more hydrogen bashing than any other topic, not a single post about China's hydrogen progress or ambitious initiatives.  China leads the hydrogen economy in every single category:  FCEV cars on the road, FCEV trucks on the road, FCEV buses on the road, hydrogen refueling stations, electrolyzer production, green hydrogen, hydrogen blending with natural gas for turbines, and more.  There is not a single category that China simply doesn't dominate with regard to hydrogen.  If you add all the hydrogen buses in every country together and multiply that number by 5 it would not be as many buses has China has in operation.  It doesn't stop there.  China is in the last year of its 14th Five-Year Plan and is gearing up to publish it's 15th Five-Year Plan which begins next year.  China's energy agency the NEA has promulgated dozens of reports gearing up for the scaling of hydrogen from the embryonic stage to the growth stage.  23 provinces in China have their own hydrogen strategy policies.  MB ignores all of this. When he writes about hydrogen buses in China he dismisses them as a just a small percentage of other buses even though it's about the same percentage in Western countries.

4)  You must hurry to buy more batteries, solar panels, and windmills to save the world, you don't have time to build a domestic supply chain.  You must act now!   All of the technologies MB promotes all have upstream supply chains globally dominated by China.   Polysilicon & lithium-ion battery supply chains are perhaps the most stark.  No Western country can make solar panels or batteries without Chinese raw materials & refined metals.  MB never addresses this concern with ties to #3 above.

I have shared this article today to demonstrate how easy it is to see MB's posts fit MB's "Tesla Anti-hydrogen Narrative".  Every post he makes follows the four tenets listed above.  In this article, he promotes the government of his own country to close the doors on the industry that has given and continues to give Canadians thousands of good paying jobs without a single mention of his countries many concerns with Chinese spying and IP theft.  Just last week, the Canadian government ordered Hikvision to cease operations in Canada over espionage concerns.  MB even finds a way to trash New Flyer (a Canadian bus maker) and say that Canada's Prime Minister should bring in Yutong to make buses and let New Flyer die; it's a traitor's diatribe.  

Don't get me wrong, I want to be a friend and trading partner with China, but I want fair competition and think it's imperative we have diverse supply chains to protect more than just the air we breathe but keep American and Canadian jobs safe from Chinese predation & unfair business practices.  We have already seen what China's control and leverage of rare earth & refined metals can do recently when China required all dysprosium to have an export license.  China controls 99% of the dysprosium market.  This one flex brought critical US manufactures to their knees instantly.   We have seen China do the same when anyone tries to enter the lithium-ion battery upstream supply chain.  China has flooded the market with supply of metals (like graphite for example) to kill off any entry into this supply chain.  These are major concerns for national energy security that you will never read about in >1,000 MB articles.

Michael Barnard is dishonest and publishing journalism that is not objective and seriously lacks integrity.  His entire objective is to ironically be not objective.  Everything he does starts with the narrative and seeks out evidence to support it.  If something doesn't fit the narrative, he attacks it.  Simple as that.

Time For Canada To Dump The Big Three & Go Electric With China - CleanTechnica Fake News