Many hydrogen bubbles may burst before getting off the ground!
From an Article by Mike Tony, Charleston Gazette, October 28, 2028
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Flanked by former U.S. Rep. David McKinley, R-W.Va. and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., speaks in praise of federal support for an Appalachian hydrogen hub consortium at the National Energy Technology Laboratory in Morgantown Oct. 16. Pictured is a map of the seven hydrogen hubs selected for awards totaling $7 billion by the federal Department of Energy this month. The map was shown during a virtual community briefing hosted by the agency Tuesday evening on the Appalachian regional hub.
Political and industrial leaders behind a proposed Appalachian hydrogen hub selected for up to $925 million in federal support this month say blue is green. There are warning signs that blue could leave the region in the red instead. The Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub, or ARCH2, is based on “blue hydrogen,” a fossil fuel-enabled approach to energy in which hydrogen is derived mainly from breaking methane into hydrogen and carbon dioxide.
Citing estimates that hydrogen produced by renewably generated electricity known as “green hydrogen” will be cheaper than blue by 2030, Institutional Shareholder Services, an international shareholder advisory firm, declared a “significant risk of stranded assets for blue hydrogen investments” in an analysis last year.
The Energy Transitions Commission, a global coalition of leaders aiming to reach net-zero emissions by mid-century, found in 2021 that green hydrogen production costs still above those of blue hydrogen could decrease drastically, while blue costs weren’t expected to fall significantly.
In its own 2021 analysis, global energy research firm Bloomberg New Energy Finance projected renewable hydrogen would be cheaper than blue by 2030, even in countries like the United States that had cheap gas at the time.
The U.S. Department of Energy, which selected ARCH2 as one of seven hydrogen hubs nationwide for which $7 billion have been allocated, has projected a time frame of seven to 12.5 years for projects to ramp up to operations. That projected time frame would push ARCH2’s launch past the date when analysts have said green hydrogen will sink below blue hydrogen in price.
Institutional Shareholder Services said in its analysis a case could be made that producing blue hydrogen serves to extend the lifetime of the gas industry rather than consistently reducing reliance on the industry. Scientists have said lessening that dependence on a much faster timeline is required to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. “All things considered, there is a significant risk that blue hydrogen assets become white elephants,” Institutional Shareholder Services’ analysis cautioned.
There’s evidence that blue hydrogen is a liability rather than an asset in the fight to mitigate climate change. Researchers from Cornell and Stanford universities found in a study published in 2021 that greenhouse gas emissions from the production of blue hydrogen are “quite high,” especially due to leaked methane. Methane has a 100-year global warming potential 28 to 36 times that of carbon dioxide, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
A report released last month by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, an Ohio-based market research firm that aims to accelerate the transition to renewable energy, said making hydrogen from natural gas “makes no sense.” The report concluded that blue hydrogen is neither clean nor low-carbon. Funding of blue hydrogen projects by federal and state governments and investors could make global warming worse due to projects still emitting significant amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere for decades, the report said.
Warnings that blue hydrogen could fail environmentally while becoming increasingly uneconomic haven’t stopped the region’s leaders from getting behind it. “When you have a visionary and innovative thing like a hydrogen hub that has such a long future to it, this to me says to the next generation, you’re going to want to stay, be here and contribute,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said at an Oct. 16 celebration of ARCH2’s selection by the DOE for federal support.
“This represents economic opportunity for our state. In addition to jobs, it brings investment that will have a spin-off effect,” Marshall University President Brad D, Smith said at the celebration held at a National Renewable Energy Laboratory site in Morgantown.
The project will rely on its buildout and use of carbon capture technology unproven at commercial scale to support an energy solution in hydrogen for which energy experts say there often are safer and cheaper alternatives.
>>> Swiss Army knife eyed
Suzy Baker, the DOE’s engagement lead on hydrogen hubs, observed during a DOE-hosted virtual community briefing that hydrogen is often referred to as a “Swiss Army knife” among climate solutions.
Energy experts view hydrogen as especially valuable in lowering emissions from hard-to-decarbonize processes like production of ammonia fertilizer or improving low-quality gas oils in making jet fuel and diesel. But energy is lost when hydrogen is made, stored and converted into end uses like electricity, which experts say makes electrification a more cost-effective energy solution.
A study by Princeton University researchers published last year in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications observed it was largely unknown how much hydrogen will leak in a more hydrogen-based economy because the hydrogen molecule is very small and hard to contain. Although hydrogen isn’t a greenhouse gas, it can impact atmospheric composition and allow an increase in greenhouse gases.
The researchers said that indirect greenhouse effect of hydrogen “calls for a detailed scrutiny of the global H2 [hydrogen] budget and the environmental consequences of its perturbation,” calling hydrogen emissions “far from being climate neutral.”
In its 2021 report, the Energy Transitions Commission noted hydrogen poses “significant storage and transport challenges” because of its small molecule size and extreme flammability. The report observed that although ammonia, as hydrogen-derived fuel, doesn’t face the same transport and storage challenges, it’s toxic and requires strict safety procedures.
The commission’s report noted hydrogen didn’t exceed 7% of projected 2050 final energy demand or 18% in four of five energy analyst forecasts, with projections of 6-7% in scenarios set by the International Renewable Energy Agency and the International Energy Agency.
>>> Vulnerable communities in our region
The 9 million metric tons per year the DOE says ARCH2 intends to lower carbon dioxide emissions by represent 1.8% of the 495.9 million metric tons ARCH2 states West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania emitted in 2021.
Pursuing that goal will create 3,000 permanent and 18,000 construction jobs, ARCH2 has said. But many key ARCH2 project areas are in communities where heavy industry has contributed to or failed to prevent environmental health risks and socioeconomic challenges.
The area around the Chemours Company’s chemical facility in Belle is above the 95th percentile nationally in low-life expectancy and heart disease as well as flood risk, and above the 80th percentile in asthma, according to EJScreen, the EPA’s mapping and screening tool that combines environmental and demographic indicators. The area ranks above the 80th percentile in toxic releases to air and above the 90th percentiles in wastewater discharge.
The area around Chemours’ chemical facility in Washington is above the 90th percentile in heart disease and asthma, and above the 80th percentile in toxic releases to air, persons with disabilities, persons over age 64 and flood risk.
As part of ARCH2 and in collaboration with pipeline and storage facility operator TC Energy, Chemours is looking to develop two water electrolysis-based hydrogen production facilities at or near its manufacturing sites in Belle and Washington. Electrolysis is use of electricity to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen.
Although Chemours says its project won’t rely on natural gas for hydrogen creation and wouldn’t require carbon capture or sequestration, Chemours has worked with TC Energy to conduct hydrogen blend testing to demonstrate the feasibility of feeding a hydrogen-natural gas blend fuel to existing fired boiler equipment at its Washington Works and Belle sites.
The Fairmont area, where an ARCH2 spokesperson said Hope Gas will provide hydrogen blending and fuel cells to assist in powering residential customers in the region, ranks above the 95th percentile in low-life expectancy, heart disease, asthma and persons with disabilities, and above the 90th percentile in low-income population.
ARCH2’s key production nodes come in communities throughout West Virginia with high socioeconomic and environmental vulnerabilities, raising the stakes for achieving a large-scale, commercially viable hydrogen network.
Jim Kotcon, chair of the West Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club, is among the many renewable energy proponents who predict the billions of taxpayer dollars being invested in hydrogen hubs will require billions more in follow-up support. “The [DOE’s] goal is a zero-greenhouse gas emissions economy, and fossil fuels, even with carbon capture, simply cannot get us there,” Kotcon said.
The North Point Pleasant area, where Houston-headquartered energy transition company Fidelis New Energy plans a hydrogen production facility in the ARCH2 network, ranks above the 90th percentile in heart disease and above the 80th percentile in toxic releases to air and asthma.
Fidelis New Energy’s hydrogen production plans demonstrate how much more skin taxpayers have in the game than just the $925 million maximum set by the DOE.
In August, the West Virginia Economic Development Authority approved a forgivable, performance-based loan for Mountaineer GigaSystem, a Fidelis subsidiary. Mountaineer GigaSystem subsidiaries have acquired the rights to buy four contiguous properties totaling over 1,000 acres in the area for the project.
Fidelis plans to locate a carbon-neutral hydrogen production facility in Mason County, with data centers to be powered by net-zero carbon hydrogen. The loan from the Department of Economic Development is to be forgiven if Mountaineer GigaSystem meets preconstruction, employment and investment benchmarks. Mountaineer will implement proprietary technology that enables hydrogen production with zero lifecycle carbon emissions from a combination of natural gas; carbon capture, use and sequestration; and renewable energy, according to state officials.
But Mountaineer indicated in a project fact sheet obtained by the Gazette-Mail it anticipated a $50 million ARCH2 grant allocation and was eyeing an investment of another $8.5 billion to 16 billion in investment indirectly enabled by federal tax credits for carbon oxide sequestration.
Carbon capture, use and sequestration is an umbrella term for technology that removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and uses it to create products or stores it permanently underground.
The potential for a regional carbon dioxide pipeline buildout has raised concerns due to risks of induced seismicity and carbon dioxide leakage during storage.
Heather Sprouse, Ohio River coordinator for the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, was disappointed the DOE didn’t respond to her organization’s question about how water quality impacts will be mitigated for those who live near hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, waste water storage sites. “Frontline communities face the most severe health consequences of the fracked gas industry,” Sprouse said, “and the ARCH2 blue hydrogen hub means fracking.”
West Virginia’s gas and oil industry-linked cancer risks are among the highest in the country, according to a recent analysis of EPA data by Clean Air Task Force, an environmental nonprofit.
Katy Delaney, director of media relations for Battelle, ARCH2’s program manager and the prime recipient of DOE funding for the hub, said there’s enough natural gas being produced in the Appalachian region to not require activity to meet anticipated demand not already planned by operators.
Battelle is an Ohio-based applied science and technology company. State officials teamed up with Battelle, Pittsburgh gas producer EQT Corp., Illinois energy research firm GTI Energy and Bridgeport energy technology consulting firm Allegheny Science & Technology last year to create ARCH2, which will be headquartered in Morgantown.
ARCH2 skeptic Sean O’Leary, senior researcher at the Ohio River Valley Institute, a Johnstown, Pennsylvania-based pro-renewable energy think tank, finds it implausible the hub isn’t likely to result in added demand for gas and fracking, given EQT is one of the main partners behind ARCH2.
The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection has issued EQT Production Company, an EQT Corp. subsidiary, 16 notices of violation since the start of 2021 for infractions including water pollution control permit and water quality standard violations, off-lease drilling, not giving proper notice of aboveground storage tank system closure and a facility lacking a combustor to control vapors from storage vessels.
“We must ensure that the communities historically left behind by energy development will be first in line to receive benefits from these historic government investments,” Sprouse said.
>> Mike Tony covers energy and the environment. He can be reached at 304-348-1236 or mtony@hdmediallc.com. Follow @Mike__Tony on Twitter. (FrackCheckWV.net recommends subscriptions to the Charleston Gazette. DGN)
SOURCE: https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/energy_and_environment/warning-signs-loom-over-future-of-fossil-fuel-powered-appalachian-hydrogen-hub/article_092f0c91-a577-5582-933c-57a7e984d364.html
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• HYDROGEN HUB ANNOUNCEMENT, October 16, 2023, National Energy Technology Laboratory video, https://youtu.be/oixs7kxjsdc
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DOE hydrogen hubs: 4 issues to watch
By David Iaconangelo | April 7, 2023
The Department of Energy is set to begin reviewing dozens of proposals to build the nation’s first “hubs” of low-carbon hydrogen, a critical step that could help determine how much the fuel cuts emissions and which companies benefit from its deployment.
Funded with $8 billion in the 2021 infrastructure law, the hubs are meant to demonstrate the production, storage, transport and consumption of “clean” hydrogen made with less than half the carbon emissions associated with natural gas-derived production of the fuel.
On Friday, DOE will stop accepting full proposals from hydrogen hub applicants, kicking off a review that will culminate in the first $6 billion to $7 billion of award announcements this fall. Many of the proposals are backed by state governments and industry coalitions that include oil and gas companies and renewable developers.
Under the infrastructure law, DOE is required to select a mix of hubs that use a variety of fuels in the production process, including renewables and fossil fuels. Six to 10 projects are expected to be selected this year.
Hydrogen advocates ultimately hope the competition will plant the seed of a broader clean industry, in tandem with the Inflation Reduction Act’s new tax credits for the fuel’s production. Yet DOE’s hydrogen hub process is facing tough questions, particularly on whether the fuel will really prove to be as cheap, clean and abundant as its backers say.
Nichole Saunders, a senior attorney at the Environmental Defense Fund, said the hydrogen hubs “will represent the U.S.’s first attempt at demonstrating what quote, unquote clean hydrogen might look like. So all eyes are watching. Both in the U.S. and globally,” she added.
Hydrogen is a focus for the Biden administration, which sees clean production of it as a must for achieving climate goals — especially for the decarbonization of manufacturing and other hard-to-electrify processes.
Federal subsidies are also an olive branch to the oil and gas industry. Administration officials like Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm often describe clean hydrogen as a new business opportunity for oil and gas companies that would align with U.S. net zero goals. Natural gas companies are eager to blend hydrogen into existing pipelines.
The hubs’ designs are likely to draw intense scrutiny from environmentalists, emissions researchers and pipeline safety advocates, however. Many of those groups are wary that publicly funded hubs could still emit significant amounts of greenhouse gases, endanger residents when hydrogen is stored or transported, suck up scarce water resources, prolong the burning of natural gas, or release pollutants that exacerbate respiratory illness.
Federal watchdogs and House Republicans also are watching public spending on the hubs and developers’ ability to meet targets. DOE’s Office of Inspector General has questioned whether the department is ready to efficiently disburse billions of dollars for clean energy demonstrations while controlling for fraud and waste (Energywire, Aug. 22, 2022).
Some of the nation’s largest energy companies have sponsored research finding that the hydrogen hubs program may not blossom into a nationwide industry for the fuel — at least not without new forms of help from the federal government (Energywire, Feb. 9).
>>> Here are four things to watch as DOE selects the hubs:
1. Who’s chasing the money?
Governors, state energy officials and even federal lawmakers have expressed eagerness to lure a share of hydrogen hub funds to their districts. State officials in every region of the country have backed industry coalitions that participated in an earlier phase of the hub competition, DOE said late last year (Energywire, Jan. 3).
They include Democratic governors in New York and California, who want to promote “green” hydrogen made from renewable electricity and water, and Alaska’s Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who has backed using natural gas and carbon capture to make “blue” hydrogen. They also include federal lawmakers like Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), the chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
On Tuesday, Manchin’s office announced plans for what it described as a multibillion-dollar “anchor project” for a West Virginia hydrogen hub — an ammonia production facility that would use carbon capture. The hub, which is also supported by the state’s Republican governor, Jim Justice, and a coalition of natural gas, chemical and ammonia producers, is expected to apply for DOE funds.
But so far, the identities of many applicants to the DOE program — and the details of what they want to do — remain a mystery. After receiving a flood of 79 “concept papers” outlining ideas for a hydrogen hub, DOE whittled down the field in December by encouraging the authors of 33 concept papers to submit a full application. But DOE has declined to reveal which companies and states were behind those concept papers. And many of the industry coalitions that have advertised their participation in the competition have not offered key details on their plans, such as the production methods for their proposed hub and their expected rate of CO2 emissions.
In March, environmental justice and climate advocates in California issued a news release that accused state officials of shutting out community groups from hydrogen hub planning.
Bahram Fazeli, policy director with Communities for a Better Environment, said a state-backed hub coalition “has not met even the most basic standards of transparency and meaningful community engagement.” Fazeli’s group was joined by others like the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment and state chapters of the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Heather Purcell, a spokesperson from the California Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development, said that her office had invited community and environmental justice leaders to participate in several workshops in addition to holding “over two dozen in-person and virtual meetings.”
DOE has faced similar criticisms. In a March 29 letter to Granholm, the Environmental Defense Fund wrote that “DOE’s early actions … suggest a tendency toward project secrecy.” The group urged DOE to undertake several actions — including disclosing details from last year’s concept papers — to make sure that local communities are allowed to take part in hubs’ planning.
“The lack of transparency, we think, is a real problem,” said Alan Krupnick, a senior fellow at the nonprofit Resources for the Future, which has tracked early developments in the hub competition. “The public demands that these activities be scrutinized. And DOE is erring on the side of secrecy.”
During a press event hosted by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists on Wednesday, Granholm said that details on the hydrogen hub proposals would be made public after the department makes its selections this summer.
“Obviously we’re still in the process of selections,” she said. “The question is, after that, at what point does it become fully available? And we will make the information available that we can, exempting confidential information. We want to be transparent, but it will likely be after the selections, obviously,” she added.
Jeremy Ortiz, a DOE spokesman, defended the department’s practices, pointing out that applicants were required to include a plan describing their engagements with community and labor groups, as well as their work to bring benefits to disadvantaged groups.
“DOE will support successful applicants and host communities in ongoing community engagement as reflected in the Community Benefits Plans throughout the full project scope,” he added in an email.
Some lawmakers in the Republican-controlled House, meanwhile, are turning new attention on oversight of clean energy demonstrations. One bipartisan bill introduced in February by leaders of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee would require DOE’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, which oversees the hydrogen hubs, to deliver a report to Congress that includes contracts struck by DOE with award recipients, a list of project milestones and “any material modifications” to the project.
2. What comes after the deadline?
Department officials will judge the hub proposals on five basic criteria, comprising technical merit, financial viability, the envisioned speed and strength of construction, the qualifications of the applicants, and plans to bring benefits to local communities and disadvantaged areas.
According to the infrastructure law, at least one of the hydrogen hubs should use fossil fuels as a feedstock. Another must produce its hydrogen from renewable energy. A third must use nuclear power. Two of the hubs must be sited in natural gas-producing regions.
DOE is also required to pick at least one hub that demonstrates hydrogen’s consumption within the power sector, heavy industry, residential and commercial heating, and transportation, respectively.
Once DOE selects the winners, the money will flow out slowly and in phases, meaning the department’s support isn’t guaranteed over the long term.
Over the first year to 18 months, for instance, DOE and the hub coalitions will undertake planning and analysis aimed at making sure the concepts are “technologically and financially viable,” with input from local groups, according to DOE’s funding announcement last year. No more than $20 million will be available for each hydrogen hub during that first phase.
In subsequent phases, hydrogen developers will finalize engineering designs and agreements with offtakers and local communities, followed by construction and installation. The final phase will include the collection and analysis of data on the hubs’ operation and performance, according to DOE.
In other words, the hard work has scarcely begun for hydrogen hub coalitions. “We’re on the first major step of a very long journey,” said Krupnick of Resources for the Future.
3. How clean will the hubs be?
Perhaps the most contentious question surrounding DOE’s process is what level of greenhouse gas emissions the department will enforce in exchange for federal funds. Last summer, DOE issued a draft of a clean hydrogen production standard, with what it described as nonbinding “guidance” on the hubs’ emissions (Energywire, Aug. 23, 2022). The hubs’ production facilities should aim to emit no more than 2 kilograms of CO2 for every kilogram of hydrogen, DOE recommended. That was in line with the emission limits laid out in the bipartisan infrastructure law.
On a life-cycle basis, when factors outside the production facilities are considered, the hubs should try to limit CO2 emissions to 4 kilograms, DOE’s guidance added. That expanded accounting could include emissions derived from extracting natural gas that would later be used as a feedstock for hydrogen production, for instance. The 4-kilogram limit is less than half of the 9-kilogram benchmark level typically associated with “gray” hydrogen production, where the fuel is extracted from natural gas. Four kilograms is also the maximum amount of life-cycle carbon emissions allowed for companies wanting to claim production tax credits for clean hydrogen under the Inflation Reduction Act.
The climate law’s limits are likely to become a benchmark for the DOE hubs’ participants, if they want to be financially viable over the long term, according to observers. “I think a lot of these hubs would want to take advantage of that tax credit,” said Aaron Bergman, a fellow at Resources for the Future. But there is still no single methodology that “clean” hydrogen companies must use when they measure and report their emissions.
The closest thing to such a methodology is being developed by the Treasury Department. Officials there are due to release guidance in coming months for the Inflation Reduction Act’s hydrogen tax credits. For hydrogen hub coalitions, access to those tax credits could hinge on the Treasury Department’s guidance.
The Treasury process has also generated controversy. For instance, many developers want to use emissions-intensive grid electricity to derive hydrogen from water molecules. Environmentalists and emissions researchers say that practice could be bad for the climate and disagree with developers about when Treasury should allow it (Energywire, Dec. 23, 2022).
Others have said “blue” hydrogen tied to natural gas use and carbon capture should not be supported, considering it involves continued use of fossil fuels. The process is favored by the oil and gas industry but opposed by some green groups.
Then there are questions about how hydrogen produced by the hubs could be used. Emissions researchers point out that burning hydrogen in power plants, for example, could generate nitrogen oxide emissions in large enough volumes to inflame respiratory illness in residents. Some environmentalists also say that using the fuel for building heat would be unreliable, expensive and possibly unsafe.
“It’s really hard to predict right now” how clean the hydrogen hubs will prove to be, said Saunders of the Environmental Defense Fund. “It’s a genuinely difficult question. I think it’s too early to say,” she added.
4. Where will all the hydrogen go?
Currently, nearly all of the hydrogen made in the U.S. is derived from fossil fuels using emissions-intensive processes.
But some hub coalitions say that shrinking hydrogen’s carbon emissions isn’t their biggest challenge — rather, it’s figuring out what to do with the fuel after they’ve made it.
“Production isn’t the hard part,” said Anja Richmond, program director at the Wyoming Energy Authority, which is part of a four-state alliance seeking to win hydrogen hub funds. “Building up that supply [of clean hydrogen] is important, but we need to make sure that supply has a place to go.”
Outside of the Gulf Coast, few regions of the U.S. have pipelines that are ready to transport hydrogen or facilities where the fuel could be stored, for instance.
A lack of connective infrastructure could make it harder to slash the cost of decarbonized hydrogen to levels that would interest buyers.
The hydrogen hubs will only have to resolve that problem on a medium scale, since the fuel’s production, storage, transport and consumption must all be demonstrated within a single region under DOE’s program.
Richmond said some participants in her coalition, known as the Western Interstate Hydrogen Hub, would consume some of the hydrogen in their own facilities. Xcel Energy, for instance, is planning to blend the fuel into its natural gas networks, she said. Other participants include Avangrid, Dominion Energy Utah and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
Others have highlighted the challenge of building up demand for clean hydrogen — particularly to a degree that would turn the regional hubs into a national industry.
One February report published by the Energy Futures Initiative, a group led by former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, concluded that the federal government should step in as a guaranteed buyer of low-carbon hydrogen, among other steps (Energywire, Feb. 9).
But the DOE competition is also driving planning activities that may lead to hydrogen projects even if the applicants fail to win a share of federal funds, said Brett Perlman, CEO of the Center for Houston’s Future. Perlman’s group is a convener of the HyVelocity Hub, a Texas-based coalition that comprises oil majors Chevron and Exxon Mobil, hydrogen producer Air Liquide, and renewable developer Ørsted, among others.
Members of the coalition would “absolutely” move forward with smaller pieces of the larger hydrogen hub vision “irrespective of the DOE money,” he said. “The transition is already happening.”
Friday’s deadline for full applications marks only the “end of the beginning” for the hydrogen hubs program, added Perlman. “This is a long process. We’re just getting started.”
SOURCE: https://www.eenews.net/articles/doe-hydrogen-hubs-4-issues-to-watch/
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‘So many ways hydrogen can go wrong’: Hub announcements viewed with caution
BY: ROBERT ZULLO, STATES NEWSROOM, NEBRASKA EXAMINER, OCTOBER 16, 2023
The Friday announcement that seven projects had been selected to receive $7 billion in seed money to kickstart the production of clean hydrogen across the country was billed by President Joe Biden’s administration as a major step toward slashing carbon emissions, creating thousands of domestic jobs and positioning the U.S. as a clean energy leader.
“I’m here to announce one of the largest advanced manufacturing investments in the history of this nation,” Biden said during an appearance in Philadelphia. “Seven billion dollars in federal investments that’s going to attract $40 billion in private investments in clean hydrogen.”
However, there’s also criticism over a lack of transparency by the Department of Energy around the application and selection process and those who are dubious about the ways some of the newly minted “hydrogen hubs” intend to produce the gas, which the administration called “crucial to achieving President Biden’s goal of American industry powered by American clean energy.”
Hydrogen, which releases no carbon emissions when burned, is seen broadly as a key part of cutting emissions from hard-to-decarbonize sectors of the economy, such as steelmaking and cement manufacturing, aviation, shipping and other areas. There’s more controversy around uses like blending it with natural gas to burn in power plants or for heating. How climate-friendly hydrogen is depends on how it’s produced. Currently most hydrogen in the U.S. is produced using natural gas, so-called “gray” hydrogen. “Green” hydrogen is produced by an electrolysis process with clean energy. “Blue” hydrogen is fossil-fuel derived but coupled with carbon capture, in which CO2 is filtered out of emissions and stored.
Four of the projects (the Appalachian, Gulf Coast, Heartland and Midwest hydrogen hubs) that the DOE announced as winners will use fossil fuels to produce hydrogen. (In the bipartisan infrastructure law, Congress required that at least one hub “demonstrate the production of clean hydrogen from fossil fuels.”)
“There are so many ways hydrogen can go wrong. … We’re really concerned with the number of projects that rely in part or in whole on fossil fuel-based hydrogen production,” said Julie McNamara, a deputy policy director at Union of Concerned Scientists’ climate and energy program. “For hydrogen to be a clean energy solution, it has to be cleanly produced and it has to be strategically used.” In some scenarios, environmental groups worry the hydrogen could actually increase U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
‘Overly optimistic and unproven assumption’ ~ A report last month by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, an Ohio nonprofit, found that the U.S. government “significantly understates the likely impact of producing hydrogen from fossil fuels on global warming.” The assumption that 1% of the methane being used to produce hydrogen will be emitted into the atmosphere is “far less than recent peer-reviewed scientific analyses have found and that has been identified by airplane and satellite emission surveys,” the report says. It also notes that using fossil fuels to make hydrogen cleanly depends on the “overly optimistic and unproven assumption that hydrogen production projects will be able to capture almost all of the carbon dioxide they create.”
In short, said David Schlissel, one of the report’s authors, blue hydrogen is not a great idea when you consider emissions from the entire process, from producing natural gas to shipping and storing the hydrogen and the unknowns of trying to use carbon capture and storage at scale.
“That’s the concern with all of this hydrogen hype” ~ We fear, and it’s based on our analysis, that the money the government is going to spend on blue hydrogen production is going to result in the continued emission of greenhouse gases for decades,” he said. “We worry about the waste of money. But we really worry about the waste of time and giving fossil fuel companies the opportunity to build infrastructure that depends on their continued operation. That’s the real concern, to keep the world addicted to fossil fuels.”
Schlissel and other critics also questioned the lack of details released by the Department of Energy about the projects, noting that much of the application materials have been treated as trade secrets by the states and the DOE. It’s unclear how the DOE scored the projects for funding, he added.
“How much hydrogen is going to be produced? What are going to be the CO2 emissions? How much CO2 is going to be captured? Then, where is it going to be used?” he said. “DOE and the applicants have taken the position that everything is confidential.”
The department’s press office did not respond Friday to a list of questions, including one about how projects were evaluated. “We would encourage the DOE to be as transparent as they possibly can, especially for the communities where they’ll be proposed,” said Patrick Drupp, director of climate policy for the Sierra Club, one of the nation’s largest environmental groups.
‘This is not trivial’ ~ Perhaps even more important than the hub applications that were selected, Drupp and McNamara say, are the debates ongoing at the Internal Revenue Service around the final rules for the hydrogen tax production credit created by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
“While these hubs are large and there is a significant amount of money on the table, the hydrogen production tax credit could potentially dwarf that amount of money,” McNamara said. “That makes it all the more critical that how the administration determines what is truly clean energy is rigorously done.”
The final shape of those rules, which are linked to the intensity of greenhouse gas emissions of the hydrogen source, could be the difference between a boon and a boondoggle on the scale of the biofuels industry, a pair of climate economists wrote in a recent Washington Post op-ed.
“Using fossil-generated electricity or siphoning off renewables subsequently back-filled by fossil power to operate electrolyzers — which would occur under loose guidance — generates at least twice the carbon emissions that status-quo gas-derived hydrogen emits,” a coalition of environmental groups, developers and other organizations wrote to the Treasury Department in February. “Weak guidance could therefore force Treasury to spend more than $100 billion dollars in subsidies for hydrogen projects that result in increased net emissions, in direct conflict with statutory requirements and tarnishing the reputation of the nascent ‘clean’ hydrogen industry.”
Groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Rocky Mountain Institute say the final rules should incorporate a “three pillars” approach. The first is “additionality,” meaning a new hydrogen electrolyzer that is connected to the electric grid is responsible for ensuring the added electric demand they are creating is being met by new low-carbon generation. The second is “time-matching,” requiring electrolyzers’ electric consumption to match its hydrogen production. The third pillar, deliverability, would require hydrogen producers to get clean electricity from within their region.
McNamara said the guidance is expected to be finished by the end of the year. “This is not trivial,” she said. “Hydrogen can be a valuable tool for the clear energy transition but it is not a given … and getting it wrong comes with enormous consequences for climate and public health.”
SOURCE: https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2023/10/16/so-many-ways-hydrogen-can-go-wrong-hub-announcements-viewed-with-caution/