Hydrogen can play a critical role in the clean energy transition. However, hydrogen is not, and never will be, the core of the clean energy economy. Despite that, the littlest molecule has lately claimed the largest space in seemingly every climate conversation—and is increasingly grabbing an outsized share of climate funding, too.
Severe consequences will follow from a reckless start to the clean hydrogen economy. That’s because missing on hydrogen by a little actually means missing by a lot, quickly flipping the gas from a valuable tool for climate progress to an outright reverser of climate gains. As the Biden administration finalizes the details for these two policies, which could fundamentally shape whether and how hydrogen contributes to the clean energy transition in the time ahead, it must get them right.
Here’s why. Today, hydrogen is nearly exclusively produced from natural gas in a heavily polluting process called steam methane reforming. But hydrogen’s climate credentials require its low-carbon production. Today’s fossil fuel–based approach could be coupled with systems to capture and store some of the resulting climate pollution. Or, to fully sidestep carbon emissions, renewable electricity could split water into hydrogen and oxygen through a process called electrolysis.
First, upstream methane leakage. The fossil fuel industry is lobbying hard to use outdated assumptions about low rates of natural gas leaking from throughout the extraction, processing and gas transport system.
Tools are readily available to address each of these tax credit implementation risks; the Biden administration must simply stand up to industry and apply them.
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