What happened Shares of rising hydrogen fuel cell stock Plug Power (NASDAQ: PLUG) is rocking Friday afternoon, up 3.5% as of 12:50 p.m. EDT. And Plug peers FuelCell Energy (NASDAQ: FCEL) and Ballard Power Systems (NASDAQ: BLDP) are coming along for the ride, rising 4.6% and 5.7%, respectively. If you own any of the big fuel cell names, you can send your thank-you notes to Investor's Business Daily. Image source: Getty Images. So what In a report this morning, momentum stock-trader guide IBD declared that hydrogen fuel cells "may be near a big breakthrough," citing an announcement from Chevron and Toyota on Wednesday that the companies have formed a "strategic alliance" to "build out hydrogen fuel cell infrastructure." In addition, IBD noted that governments appear to be "getting behind [hydrogen fuel cells] at a national level," a trend that would obviously be good news for Plug, which produces hydrogen gas for fuel and manufactures the fuel cells that convert that fuel into electricity. In a perfect scenario in which everything goes right, and hydrogen costs fall below $2 per kilogram, IBD says hydrogen could supply as much as "25% of the world's energy by 2050." Now what IBD notes that "gray hydrogen," produced from natural gas (and thus a greenhouse gas contributor) already costs about $2 per kilogram. The real key to Plug (and its peers) running away with the energy market, however, is getting the cost of green hydrogen (produced by using electricity from wind and solar power to split off hydrogen atoms from water via electrolysis) down below $2 a kilogram. Currently, green hydrogen costs about $5 or $6 per kilogram to produce, says IBD, but it's already halved from where it once was, and IHS Market predicts that the current price will continue to fall, hitting perhaps $4 by 2025. Thus, the real question for determining Plug's long-term success may be: Can the price of green hydrogen drop another 50% from there? (And if so, how long will that take?) 10 stocks we like better than Plug PowerWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.* David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the ten best stocks for investors to buy right now... and Plug Power wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys. See the 10 stocks *Stock Advisor returns as of February 24, 2021 Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.Source