La. Legal Showdown May Preview National Battle over Hydrogen

by David Iaconangelo (E&E News) The developer of a $4.5 billion hydrogen project in Louisiana is in a legal battle with local lawmakers in a case that analysts say could preview conflicts around the country.

Air Products and Chemicals Inc., the developer, announced a year ago that it would build its sprawling Louisiana Clean Energy Complex across multiple parishes in the Baton Rouge area. One site would make hydrogen out of natural gas, while capturing up to 95 percent of the resulting carbon dioxide emissions — a process characterized as “blue” production.

The captured carbon would then be piped into a permanent storage facility located deep beneath Lake Maurepas, a destination for local sportspeople and commercial fishing that also borders a protected swamp.

But this October, the council of rural Livingston Parish threw Air Products’ plans in doubt by approving a one-year moratorium on well-drilling and seismic testing on its territory. That affected surveying activities that the company had begun in order to better understand the geology of its carbon storage site.

Council members say the moratorium will provide time for local review of the project and cite the need to prevent pollution of the parish’s freshwater aquifers and Lake Maurepas’ ecosystems.

On Oct. 18, Air Products sued the parish in U.S. District Court, arguing that the moratorium was preempted by state and federal law and demanding a permanent injunction against its enforcement.

Livingston and its neighbor, St. Helena Parish, have also passed ordinances barring Class VI injection wells used to store CO2 — something that Air Products will likely seek to drill in later stages of development, although its lawsuit did not address the topic. Louisiana environmentalists say they are preparing to contest permits for carbon pipelines sought by Air Products and other energy companies in the state.

The state, in conjunction with manufacturers and federal officials, should launch demonstrations of hydrogen, identify potential sites for carbon storage and carry out feasibility studies for future carbon pipelines, it (Louisiana’s climate action plan) said.

Supporters of carbon capture say pipelines carrying the greenhouse gas have operated in the United States without incident for years.

Many international energy and climate modelers have also included carbon capture infrastructure as important for reaching net-zero emissions, said Xan Fishman, director of energy policy and carbon management at the Bipartisan Policy Center.

“All the climate modeling shows that there is a role and a need for carbon capture. And along with carbon capture comes the need to utilize it or store it,” said Fishman.

One example of such modeling is last year’s Net-Zero America report, led by Princeton University researchers, which mapped out multiple pathways to a net-zero United States in 2050.

It concluded that the United States may need to transport twice as much CO2 by pipeline in 2050 as it currently does for oil.

Somewhere in the range of 900 million to 1.5 billion metric tons of CO2 would need to be stored away every year by then, the report found. By comparison, the United States’ entire industrial sector emitted 1.37 billion metric tons last year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. READ MORE