The "Hydrogen economy", in which hydrogen will be a main carrier of energy from renewable sources, is a long term prospect. In the near and medium term increasing demand for hydrogen-also as an energy carrier in special niches- will probably be covered by hydrogen from fossil sources, mainly natural gas. This can be acceptable from an environment as well as an economical point of view, since hydrogen can be produced from natural gas at acceptable costs, without release of CO2 to the atmosphere. There are two main options for this: (1) hydrogen from natural gas by conventional technology (e.g. steam reforming) including CO2 sequestration; (2) high temperature pyrolysis of natural gas, yielding pure hydrogen and carbon black. Technologies for industrial scale realisation of these options have been developed and evaluated in Norway, which is a large producer and exporter of natural gas. The economy and market opportunities are discussed in the paper. It appears that renewable energy costs must come down considerably from present levels before hydrogen from renewables can compete with hydrogen from natural gas without release of CO2 to the atmosphere.