I think it’s important to frame it within the sociotechnical frameworks that nations are able to operate under.

Introducing this technology will require incremental changes across industry, infrastructure and communities. Today, green hydrogen is out of reach for many economies. Building H2 ecosystems, will almost certainly require initial investment in brown/black hydrogen by burning fossils fuels, which is currently under development in Australia and Japan.

The transition to blue (renewable>LNG>H2) and eventually towards green (renewables>H2O>H2) hydrogen will be slow and will take decades to achieve. Purple (nuclear) hydrogen may be a next logical step for Japan.

It’s simply not possible to replace everything everywhere all at once. We should have gotten onto this two decades ago, so we unfortunately have to make compromises that seem cynical and small on the outset, but are still very difficult to implement and gain consensus.

If battery material costs go high (it they're otherwise hard to come by) then it seems like hydrogen could find its niche?

That is no different than a battery car. You are just shifting pollution to whatever is making your electricity. And if anyone comes in and says "I spent tens of thousands of dollars getting green electricity!" then it should be obvious that the same level of spending could make upstream hydrogen production vastly greener.

And no, it is not "less cost effective" because batteries involve dramatically higher upfront production costs. The argument is really just a troll argument and virtually identical to the same arguments used against battery cars.