The biggest issue with fuel-cells is it will prolong the rein of hydrocarbon [natural gas], from which ~95% of hydrogen is extracted. Which everyone now knows is both dangerous and unsustainable.
The same could be said about electric cars which are powered to a large degree by electricity from fossil fuels.
The key aspect is that electricity decouples production from consumption.
The same can be done for hydrogen, i.e. one group of people can work on optimizing the hydrogen-electricity conversion while another group of people focuses on optimizing the renewable-hydrogen conversion.
Disagree. There's no point in wasting time refining the process of burning natural gas into the process of cracking it into hydrogen, when you can simply cut out natural gas entirely and use solar, wind, hydro, and utility scale battery storage.
Fuel cells are a dead end, except possibly in space travel.
I did. You didn't mention a fuel source. There is no fuel source on Earth that can be converted to hydrogen other than natural gas (unless you're speaking of water, which is terribly less efficient than using a battery directly).
What fuel source are you suggesting for fuel cells?
If we were creating an energy infrastructure from scratch today, nuclear plants could be used in off-peak periods to split hydrogen to fuel both fuel cells and peaker plants for peak daytime use.
That isnt a reality which will actually play out. If your cheapest source of hydrogen comes from natural gas, you wouldn't be using a fuel cell to begin with, you'd just burn the natural gas directly.
The key aspect is that electricity decouples production from consumption.
The same can be done for hydrogen, i.e. one group of people can work on optimizing the hydrogen-electricity conversion while another group of people focuses on optimizing the renewable-hydrogen conversion.