An Air Liquide hydrogen plant in Texas. U.S. producers are getting big subsidies to make hydrogen cleanly and build out infrastructure.President Joe Biden’s administration today announced $7 billion in funding for seven regional “hubs” to produce hydrogen, which produces water as exhaust when combusted. If made cleanly, hydrogen could help fight global warming by replacing fossil fuels in the fertilizer and steel industries, and in tricky-to-electrify vehicles such as long-haul trucks.
Hydrogen has had a “chicken and egg” problem, says Keith Wipke, program manager for fuel cell vehicles at DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. “Nobody will start large-scale production until there are customers,” he says. And customers are reluctant to switch to hydrogen without a steady and cheap supply of the gas. “It’s the same story as we’ve seen with solar and wind.
The hubs could help boost demand for electrolyzers, the water-splitting devices that make green hydrogen, which are currently expensive, says Emre Gençer, an energy researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Electrolyzer manufacturers’ production capacity is low, and buyers often have to wait 2 to 3 years to get one delivered, he says. “Ideally the hydrogen hubs will create more demand,” he says, which will help drive down prices.
Environmental advocacy groups are worried that adopting blue hydrogen will serve to further entrench the fossil fuel industry. Julie McNamara, deputy policy director in the climate and energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, says that even if these projects successfully implement carbon capture and storage, starting with natural gas is a problem. “There are high rates of methane leakage,” she says.