Cheap Clean Hydrogen? Not so Fast, Energy Giants Say.
by David Iaconangelo (E&E News) … The report throws cold water on the idea that low-carbon hydrogen soon will become a cheap fuel source for a range of polluting industries and argues that the federal government needs to do a lot more to make it a viable product.
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The group’s research was sponsored by two of the nation’s largest utilities, Duke Energy Corp. and National Grid PLC; automaker Toyota Motor Corp.; oil and gas producers Exxon Mobil Corp. and Tellurian Inc.; Gates’ clean-energy innovation group Breakthrough Energy through its support of the AFL-CIO’s Work for America Foundation ; the philanthropic Hewlett Foundation; and the Arlington, Va.-based nonprofit Center for Energy and Climate Solutions (C2ES). EFI, a nonprofit think tank led by Moniz, maintains that it has editorial independence from its public and private sponsors.
The researchers calculated the cost of making hydrogen while keeping life-cycle emissions within limits laid out by the Inflation Reduction Act, which created the first production tax credits for “clean” hydrogen. The climate law defines clean hydrogen as involving no more than 4 kilograms of carbon emissions for every kilogram of hydrogen.
The tax credits would help immensely in bringing down the cost of hydrogen — but not enough in most cases to convince power plants, oil refiners and ammonia and steel producers to begin using low-carbon versions of the fuel instead of emissions-intensive ones, the report said.
“The IRA is the most significant policy for clean hydrogen ever,” said Kizer. “But it will not create a market — that’s what our analysis shows.”
The findings underscore some of the strongest disputes about hydrogen following the climate law’s creation of a production tax credit and the infrastructure law’s $8 billion allocation for the nation’s first regional hubs of hydrogen production, storage, transport and consumption.
Many environmental justice groups, for instance, have been critical of any policy that supports growth of “blue” hydrogen — which is made from natural gas and carbon capture. EFI treated blue hydrogen as being among a variety of relevant production methods. READ MORE
Green hydrogen market to be four times larger than blue by 2033 (Windpower Monthly)
Global blue hydrogen industry will be about four times smaller than the green H2 sector in ten years’ time: analyst (Hydrogen Insight)
