Pipeline transportation strategy and key technological breakthroughs for high-quality development of hydrogen energy industry under the dual carbon goals

China’s hydrogen scale-up hinges on resolving midstream bottlenecks that move volumes from resource-rich northern and western basins to demand-dense coastal corridors. A structured synthesis of policy, engineering practice, and techno-economic evidence compares compressed gas, liquefied hydrogen, chemical carriers, and dedicated or repurposed pipelines under distance, throughput, and utilization constraints. Two findings dominate: persistent geographic (and water-resource) mismatch creates a durable need for bulk cross-regional logistics, and once flows are continuous and large, pipelines minimize levelized transport cost relative to trucking or liquefaction, while carrier routes remain case-dependent for maritime chains. System integrity depends on materials, sealing, metering, and leak detection, with hydrogen embrittlement setting design and operating limits. International benchmarks underscore China’s early stage of pipeline build-out relative to European backbone plans, highlighting urgency for standardization and coordinated development. A staged roadmap emerges: near term—local distribution and limited blending; medium term—interprovincial trunk lines supplied mainly by renewable hydrogen; long term—a meshed pure-hydrogen backbone coupled with power and gas networks to provide seasonal flexibility and industrial offtake at scale.