Hydrogen is devilishly hard to transport and store. Hydrogen packs a lot of energy per gram, but the density is so low. You need a huge tank if you compress it as a gas, you can liquefy it but the density is still not great, it takes a lot of energy, and you have to deal with this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_isomers_of_hydrogen

freshly liquefied hydrogen contains a lot of stored energy in that form which will be released over time and cause quite a bit to vaporize, for long term storage you have to release that energy.

Thus people have looked at all sorts of schemes for storing hydrogen such as absorbing it in metals like palladium, metal hydrides, chemical carriers such as ammonia, methane, etc.

Sodium would be a much better proposition. With NaOH, you can create a closed cycle. The electrolysis of NaOH is the well known Castner process, a consumable metal anode fuel cell with sodium is also well known (expired Patent: US3730776A by Lockheed) More details and overlap with other approaches: https://orgpad.com/s/5BfLP-cxj-7

Sodium has higher energy density (3.5 kWh/L) than liquid hydrogen, there is no energy needed to store it and no catalyst is needed for the fuel cell because sodium is so reactive with water. The fuel cell is rather easy to construct (I know somebody, who has done it in a garage). NaOH solution is very caustic but also neutralizes well naturally without long term effects at least in comparison to crude oil that seems to be the better proposition. And of course sodium is everywhere, where NaCl - table salt is.