The Biden administration is giving $7 billion to develop hydrogen energy. Why some environmentalists are unhappy.
President Biden on Friday afternoon announced the selection of seven regional hubs for manufacturing hydrogen, a cleaner energy source than fossil fuels.
But environmentalists aren’t all cheering.
With $7 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act, the hubs will produce hydrogen that can be used in everything from agriculture to heavy industry without creating pollution when burned.
“We’re building a clean energy future here in America, not somewhere else,” Biden said at the announcement in Philadelphia. “The emission reductions from these hydrogen hubs will be the equivalent of taking 5.5 million gas-powered vehicles off the road — 5.5 million.”
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How hydrogen turns into energy
Liquid or gaseous hydrogen can be burned, in place of oil, in a gas-turbine engine to generate power, and the only byproduct is water vapor.
So hydrogen is seen by energy experts as a promising avenue for replacing fossil fuels in sectors that will be harder to switch to running solely on electricity — like aviation and trucking, for which batteries are too heavy. Being relatively easy to store and turn on means hydrogen could be used as a backup for intermittent clean power sources like wind and solar.
Hydrogen is the “Swiss Army knife of zero-carbon technologies,” Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm told reporters in June. “If we get it right, it can do just about everything.”
The many colors of hydrogen
Hydrogen doesn’t actually have any color. But the names for it, depending on how it was manufactured, do.
“Green hydrogen” — so-called because of its minimal environmental footprint — is made by putting an electric current through water to separate molecules. But it’s really “green” only if it uses electricity created by a clean source like solar energy rather than coal or gas.
“Gray hydrogen” is the dirtiest form, made by breaking apart methane — a powerful planet-warming gas — using high-pressure steam, which creates other greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide.
Then there’s “blue hydrogen,” which is essentially gray hydrogen with equipment to capture the greenhouse gas emissions from the production process. Some environmental experts are skeptical of this route, noting that it doesn’t address the emissions from obtaining methane in the first place.
So climate change experts want government support for hydrogen production to focus on green hydrogen, with strong requirements that it not be made from dirty electricity.
“This move to support fossil hydrogen is a disappointing first step from the Biden administration,” Sarah Lutz, climate campaigner for Friends of the Earth, said in a statement. “We need an ambitious transition away from dirty energy, not another taxpayer subsidy that enables Big Oil to repackage fossil fuels as so-called clean energy.”
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The hubs
Philadelphia’s Tioga Marine Terminal, where Biden and Granholm made the announcement, will make hydrogen from renewable energy and nuclear power. Some other hubs will use clean energy sources — two in the Midwest will use wind or nuclear energy. But some are making hydrogen from fossil fuels, such as hubs in Appalachia and Texas that will use methane from the natural gas reserves in those areas.
Environmentalists jeer...
Though green groups applauded the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act for its massive investments in green energy, they don't support having some of the funds go to hydrogen made from fossil fuels.
“It is extremely disappointing to see the Biden administration provide funds for hydrogen hubs which will be based on fossil fuels, even with the carbon capture,” Robert Howarth, a professor of ecology at Cornell University, told CNN.
...while local politicians cheer
But representatives of the areas where the hubs will be located celebrated the recent announcement. On Monday, West Virginia Sens. Joe Manchin, a Democrat, and Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican, were joined by Granholm in Morgantown, W.Va., to take a victory lap for the creation of the Appalachian hydrogen hub in that city.
“We are here today to show the rest of the world what we can do for the energy this country needs and the world needs,” said Manchin, chair of the Senate Energy and Commerce Committee. “The innovation and creation will start here.”
