Community and environmental justice advocates say the Biden administration is failing to deliver promised transparency and public engagement around its $7 billion clean hydrogen hub initiative.

“Engagement isn’t merely leading people into a process that’s going to happen with or without them,” said Tom Torres, hydrogen program director for the Ohio River Valley Institute, a nonprofit serving one of the regions where federally funded partnerships are trying to lay the groundwork for new local hydrogen economies. “It means meaningfully involving people in the decisions about the project.”

The U.S. Department of Energy announced funding in October 2023 for seven regional clean hydrogen hubs — clusters of interconnected projects meant to kickstart production of the fuel with little or no greenhouse gas emissions. Since then, the department has held online briefings and virtual listening sessions for each hub, but advocates say they are not getting the kind of information necessary to assess who will be impacted by the projects and how.

Torres and others say they want more than just dots on a map. They want to know how hydrogen will be produced, how it will be used, and how it will get to end users. For projects that depend on carbon capture, they want to know how and where the carbon will be captured, transported and stored. And once the specifics are known, they want a chance to have meaningful input on the final projects.

Spokespeople for the Department of Energy and regional hubs said the answers to those questions are still being worked out and that more engagement is on the horizon.  Advocates are increasingly frustrated and fear that community input will come too late to affect how the hubs are developed.

“It doesn’t make sense … on one hand to say there’s not enough on paper to tell the public about, but on the other hand there is enough to allocate almost $1 billion for these companies,” Torres said.

Are events just ‘checking a box’?

When burned as a fuel source, hydrogen does not emit carbon dioxide, but its production today almost always comes from fossil fuels. Some see a potential for hydrogen to replace natural gas in certain hard-to-electrify sectors such as industry or heavy duty transportation, but the benefits for addressing climate change hinge on whether it can be produced cleanly and at scale.

The Biden administration’s hydrogen hub program, part of the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, aims to ramp up production of hydrogen made with low-carbon energy, including renewables, nuclear power, and fossil fuels paired with carbon capture. 

“It is literally like building the natural gas infrastructure that we have all over the place again for hydrogen,” said Shawn Bennett, energy and resilience manager for Battelle, the project manager for the Appalachian Regional Hydrogen Hub, ARCH2, which includes projects for Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. A majority of its projects will use steam methane reforming to make hydrogen from natural gas, along with carbon capture and storage. Other projects in the hub plan to make hydrogen from waste gases or from electrolysis, which uses energy to split water molecules. 

In May, dozens of groups urged the Department of Energy to suspend funding discussions for the ARCH2 project until the public receives detailed information beyond general maps and short project descriptions. On July 31 the Department of Energy formally committed the first $30 million of federal funding to ARCH2, with a total of up to $925 million to be spent over the next decade or so.

Last month, the Department of Energy committed up to $1 billion for the Midwest Alliance for Clean Hydrogen, MachH2, which spans Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Iowa and plans to produce hydrogen from a mix of nuclear power, wind energy and natural gas. The department will hold a December 9 briefing on MachH2.

In response to the Energy News Network’s questions about community groups’ complaints about a lack of outreach, a Department of Energy spokesperson provided a statement saying it “has been actively engaged with these communities in support of the economic playbook” of the Biden-Harris administration.

The ARCH2 project held a community outreach session in West Virginia in November, and additional meetings will be held in Ohio and Pennsylvania early next year, Bennett said. Some community group members protested outside at the West Virginia session but then came inside for a good discussion, he added.

Torres said there was no general presentation at the West Virginia meeting, and company representatives were present for only a handful of the hub’s projects. Even then, project information was still sparse. 

“It wasn’t an opportunity for people’s voices to be heard,” he said. “What is the value of these events other than checking a box for these companies?”

Advocacy groups focusing on the MachH2 project said months went by without getting updates or details. Then last month, they got less than 24 hours’ notice for a briefing with general descriptions about the MachH2 hub projects.

During that session, representatives for the Department of Energy said a decision on the hub’s funding commitment would come soon, “probably next week sometime,” said Susan Thomas, the legislative and policy director and communications manager for Just Transition Northwest Indiana. Minutes after the November 20 session ended, the Department of Energy announced the MachH2 funding commitment. 

“Our jaws were on the table,” Thomas said.

Details remain to be worked out

Groups have been trying to get answers from the Department of Energy for more than a year, said Chris Chyung, executive director of Indiana Conservation Voters. In his view, the agency’s approach “is just flouting the law.” According to the Department of Energy’s website, engagement with communities and labor is a key principle required in hubs’ community benefits plans, which are part of hubs’ contractual obligations for funding.

Community groups learned in the November 20 briefing that the MachH2 community engagement would not address concerns related to any pipelines associated with the hub. Instead, those would be handled by a separate office within the Department of Energy. 

But a pipeline for northwestern Indiana “is absolutely part and parcel of [a] dirty hydrogen project that is part of MachH2,” and the community should get a say on it, said Lauren Piette, an attorney with Earthjustice, which does not consider hydrogen made with natural gas to be climate-friendly, even with carbon capture.

The Department of Energy spokesperson did not respond to the Energy News Network’s question about how community benefits for hub projects can fully be assessed if they don’t include consideration of issues and input related to necessary pipelines.

Representatives of the MachH2 and ARCH2 hubs who spoke at an Ohio Fuel Cell & Hydrogen Consortium program last month said they couldn’t practically engage in community outreach until funding commitments had been negotiated with the Department of Energy. Until then, it wasn’t certain whether each hub would move forward.

Also, as a practical matter, “there was no budget for these things,” Bennett said. Details for each hub’s projects are still being worked out, and ARCH2 is still trying to add additional project partners.

Even then, details for projects won’t be finalized until review under the National Environmental Policy Act, according to Neil Banwart, who is the chief integration officer for the MachH2 hub and also the managing director for hydrogen at Energy Systems Network. 

“It’s not a certainty that all of the projects will get built in the locations that we shared on a map,” he said.

Chyung said he felt the comments about funding were “a complete dodge on behalf of these extremely wealthy national corporations that have said since 2023 they were eager to get started on community outreach.”

Advocates frustrated by lack of transparency, engagement on regional hydrogen hub projects is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Hydroelectric energy is the “backbone of clean power,” but an urgent need to improve efficiencies is driving engineers to explore a whirlwind of options Among alternative energy solutions, wind, solar, and hydrogen capture the majority of attention. Yet the combined output from these sources pales in comparison to that of hydroelectric power. Producing more than …

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The latest multi-energy platform from Stellantis, the STLA Frame, has been unveiled, showcasing the kind of powertrain flexibility that carmakers increasingly need to stay relevant. Designed to support basically everything from internal combustion engines (ICE), hybrids, hydrogen, battery-electric (BEV), and range-extender vehicles, the STLA Frame is Stellantis’ response to an industry undergoing rapid technological transformation.

This modular platform serves as the foundation for the Ram 1500 REV and Ram 1500 Ramcharger, purpose-built for full-size, body-on-frame pickup trucks and SUVs. According to Stellantis, range-extender variants using the STLA Frame can achieve up to 690 miles (1,100 km) of range, while BEV models are capable of 500 miles (805 km) per charge. The platform is also engineered to handle up to 14,000 lbs (6,350 kg) of towing and a payload of 2,700 lbs (1,224 kg).

Read: 2025 Ram 1500 Ramcharger Is An Electric Truck That Actually Makes Sense, Thanks To A V6 Engine

At the heart of the STLA Frame is a high-strength steel structure, with a floor-integrated battery pack designed to lower the center of gravity and enhance rigidity. All models based on this architecture also come with a full-length belly pan to reduce aerodynamic drag, and it supports water fording of up to 24 inches (610 mm), which is important for pickups and SUVs.

To hit that 500-mile range, Stellantis equips the STLA Frame with liquid-cooled battery packs ranging from 159 kWh to 200 kWh. Charging times also get a technological boost. Thanks to an advanced 800-volt electrical architecture, BEV models can gain up to 100 miles of range in just 10 minutes on a 350 kW DC fast charger. Range-extender versions, which use a 400-volt system, manage a respectable 50 miles in 10 minutes using a 175 kW charger.

Rounding out the charging tech is bi-directional functionality, allowing these vehicles to power homes, charge other EVs, or even feed energy back into the grid.

Power Meets Performance

Big trucks with big batteries demand equally big power. The STLA Frame accommodates electric motors mounted at both the front and rear axles, each capable of delivering 335 hp. Combined, they promise brisk performance with a 0-60 mph (96 km/h) in as little as 4.4 seconds. That’s high-end sports car speed for what are essentially rolling power tools.

The Missing Pieces

Interestingly, Stellantis has yet to specify timelines for ICE, hybrid, and hydrogen-powered iterations of the platform. For now, the focus remains on BEVs and range-extender setups, as seen with the Ram 1500 REV and Ramcharger. This emphasis on electrification feels deliberate, but it leaves questions about how soon the other powertrains will make their debut.

As Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares explained, the STLA Frame delivers “best-in-class range, payload and towing for our customers who need reliable and powerful trucks and SUVs.” Tavares positioned the platform as a “no compromise” solution for buyers hesitant to embrace EVs, emphasizing its role in the company’s upcoming Jeep and Ram product blitz.

A prospective buyer’s recent commitment to reinvest in a Gary, Indiana, steel plant sought to address union and government leaders’ worries about the sale’s potential impact on jobs and U.S. steelmaking capacity.

The plan to extend the life of the country’s largest and most carbon-emitting coal-fired blast furnace, however, has also heightened concerns from Northwest Indiana residents most affected by the facility’s air pollution.

“This is not acceptable,” said Susan Thomas, director of legislation and policy for Just Transition Northwest Indiana. “We now have technology for doing this much more sustainably.”

A study released Monday quantifies the public health threat highlighted by local clean air advocates, linking the Indiana plant to dozens of annual emergency room visits and premature deaths, as well as thousands of asthma attacks. 

Japan-based Nippon Steel is seeking approval from U.S. regulators for a $15 billion acquisition of U.S. Steel, the storied domestic steelmaker whose facilities include the Gary Works plant in Northwest Indiana, along with others in Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania, key battleground states where the proposed sale has been a subject of presidential campaigning. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump oppose the sale, as does President Joe Biden.

Much of the public discussion around the proposed sale has centered on its economic and national security implications, but those living near the plant have different concerns and demands. They say they’ve suffered for too long from steel industry pollution, and they only want Nippon as a neighbor if the company installs a new type of furnace that burns with lower or even zero emissions. 

“I would love to see Gary Works transform to green sustainable steel, bringing more jobs, cleaning up the area, that would be an amazing win-win,” said Libré Booker, a librarian who grew up near the mill. “The people have lived under these conditions for far too long. It’s definitely time for a change.”

Gary Works is the largest integrated steel mill in North America, employing about 2,200 people. Northwest Indiana is also home to two other steel mills — Burns Harbor and Indiana Harbor — and two coke plants that turn coal into the high-density raw material for steel. 

The populations in a three-mile radius of the Gary Works and Indiana Harbor steel mills are 96%-97% people of color, and almost two-thirds low-income people. The new study by Industrious Labs, a nonprofit focused on emissions reduction, used the EPA’s COBRA model to find emissions from the Gary Works plant likely are linked to 57-114 premature deaths, 48 emergency room visits and almost 32,000 asthma attacks each year.

The report cited the mills’ and coke plants’ emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, particulate matter, and lead, all pollutants with direct impacts on public health. Gary Works is the number one emitter of PM2.5 particulate matter in the state, according to the company’s self-reported data analyzed by Industrious Labs. 

Industrious Labs steel director Hilary Lewis said the results bolster the demands of clean steel advocates, who want to see coal-fired blast furnaces replaced by direct-reduction iron, or DRI, furnaces powered by hydrogen made with renewable energy, known as green hydrogen. 

Booker was among 15 locals who participated in a recent “Sustainable Steel Community Cohort” run by Industrious Labs, attending five workshops learning about the science and policy of cleaner steel. 

Green hydrogen, green steel 

Green hydrogen is still not produced in large quantities anywhere in the U.S., and all the hydrogen currently produced in the country would not even be enough to power one steel mill, noted Seth Snyder, a partner in the Clean Energy Venture Group, at a recent conference in Chicago focused on clean hydrogen. 

But DRI furnaces can be powered by natural gas, which results in much lower emissions than coal. Cleveland Cliffs — which owns the Indiana Harbor and Burns Harbor mills — is transforming its Middletown, Ohio steel mill to gas-burning DRI with the help of a $500 million incentive under the Inflation Reduction Act. The company says the conversion will make it the steel mill with the lowest emissions in the world. 

With some modifications, DRI furnaces can burn a blend of natural gas and hydrogen or almost entirely hydrogen, experts say, meaning investment in a gas-burning DRI furnace could be a step on the way to “clean steel.” Lewis and other advocates, however, say gas-burning furnaces are not their goal, and they want the industry to transition off fossil fuels entirely. 

Hydrogen can be blended into fuel for traditional blast furnaces too, but the maximum emissions reductions that can be achieved that way are 21%, according to a paper on hydrogen-powered steel production in Europe by the Norwegian non-profit science organization Bellona. 

Nippon has announced it would invest $300 million in restoring the aging blast furnace at Gary Works, keeping it running for another 20 years. Installing a DRI furnace, meanwhile, typically costs over $1 billion.

“There is a gap,” said Lewis. “But these companies have the funding available. They have the money to make these decisions, they’re just choosing not to.” 

Incentives for change 

The IRA incentives tapped by Cleveland Cliffs are no longer available, but this summer California U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna introduced the Modern Steel Act, which would provide $10 billion in low-cost loans and grants, plus tax breaks and other incentives for new and revamped low-emissions steel mills, including hydrogen-fueled DRI.

Separately, lucrative tax credits soon to be available for “clean hydrogen” under the IRA could also make hydrogen-powered steel more financially viable. The specific rules for the tax credit — known as 45V — are still being finalized, amid controversy over what should qualify a project’s hydrogen as “clean.” 

“There are a number of different incentives in the IRA that can help steel companies build out their own green hydrogen infrastructure,” Lewis said. “Everything should be on the table. Steel companies would be such huge off-takers for green hydrogen, they can build their own economy here.”

At the BP Whiting oil refinery, 10 miles from Gary Works, there are plans underway for production of blue hydrogen, or hydrogen made with natural gas followed by capture and sequestration of the emissions. The plan is a marquee part of the Midwest (MachH2) hydrogen hub, one of seven planned hubs nationwide slated to receive $7 billion total in federal funding. Such blue hydrogen could be used to power a steel mill, with theoretically no resulting greenhouse gas or public health-harming emissions.

However, local environmental and public accountability leaders are strongly opposed to blue hydrogen production in the region, since carbon sequestration has not yet been done successfully on a large scale in the U.S., and it would entail pipelines carrying carbon dioxide from the refinery to a sequestration site. 

“The carbon capture component makes us very nervous, it seems to me they’re rushing into this without really taking the time to study it more seriously,” said Northwest Indiana resident Connie Wachala, another graduate of the sustainable steel program. “That might be because of all the money DOE is making available to industry. I wish our elected and industry officials would start thinking more creatively about how to make [green hydrogen] happen, how to make things better for the people in the neighborhoods and around the steel mills as well as for the shareholders.”

A different future 

All four of Wachala’s grandparents came from Poland to work in the steel mills. 

“Growing up in the 1950s, I remember my mom hanging the laundry up in the yard on a clothes line. If the wind was blowing a certain way, you’d get black particles on the clothes,” remembered Wachala, who worked as a creative writing teacher before retiring. “My dad’s car was always covered with that soot.”

Booker’s mother worked as a crane operator at the now-closed Bethlehem Steel mill in Burns Harbor, Indiana — among the first wave of women of color to be hired.

“I was proud she worked in the mill and took care of us, but I did not want [that job] whatsoever, seeing her come home every night after the swing shift, with the big old boots and jacket,” said Booker. “I wanted to go to college. It was a source of contention with my mom and I for some years.” 

That was in the days when locals largely believed, “if you want a good partner, you’ve got to get one that works in the mill,” she continued. “It was like a prestigious job and position. People looked up to people who worked in the mill.” 

Now, Booker laments, “Gary is like a joke,” scorned for its economic decline since the steel industry automated and shrunk — hemorrhaging jobs, and for the pollution that is still emitted. If the merger with Nippon does not go through, it’s widely believed U.S. Steel would eventually close the mill, as it closed its South Works plant in Southeast Chicago decades ago. At their height, the South Works and Gary Works plants together employed about 40,000 people in the Chicago area. 

Thomas wrote a frustrated rebuttal to the Chicago Tribune editorial board opining that the Nippon merger was crucial to Gary’s future. She and other local leaders say they don’t want the mill to close, but they can demand better than the extension of heavily polluting industry. 

“It’s just perpetuation of this as a sacrifice zone,” said Thomas. “‘This is what you’ve always been, this is how we’re going to keep you.’ But that’s not going to fly anymore.”

Steelmaker’s bid to buy U.S. Steel would extend life of Indiana plant — along with its emissions is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

A year ago, the U.S. announced ambitious plans to build large-scale clean hydrogen hubs. Now, 12 months later, those plans have advanced little and are still shrouded in uncertainty.

Last October, the U.S. Department of Energy picked seven consortiums across the country to receive up to $7 billion in federal grants. The goal of this startup money? To help the hubs attract tens of billions more in private-sector investment to pay for construction costs. These projects, located around the country, aim to bring together a wide array of organizations to scale up the production, storage, and transport of low- and zero-carbon hydrogen, which some experts view as a way to replace fossil fuels in industries such as steelmaking and aviation.

There’s still little publicly available information to indicate whether these ​“clean hydrogen hubs” are likely to attract the needed private sector investment, however. Just as opaque are their potential community and climate impacts.

Environmental groups, community advocates, and energy experts have grown concerned that the projects are off track — and increasingly dismayed that the DOE and the hub projects are not giving them the transparency needed to confirm or deny these worries.

This puts the DOE’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, the agency responsible for the H2Hubs program, in a tricky position.

The $7 billion in H2Hub awards is being doled out in phases, over the course of many years. It’s OCED’s job to make sure the hubs are hitting the technical, financial, and community-benefit milestones needed to earn these disbursements.

The hydrogen hubs are a cornerstone of not only the Biden administration’s clean hydrogen strategy, but its overall approach to clean energy. Without the hubs, the U.S. may not be able to supply the tens of millions of tons per year of clean hydrogen needed to decarbonize key industries in the decades to come.

“We know that jump-starting a new clean energy economy in the U.S. is going to take time and public and private sector investment,” Kelly Cummins, OCED’s acting director, told Canary Media in an October interview. ​“To do that right and make sure it’s sustainable, we need to engage communities in a new way.”

However, community and environmental groups hounding the hydrogen hubs and DOE for information over the past year say that engagement isn’t happening. The Natural Resources Defense Council reported in May that ​“environmental justice advocates and frontline communities have largely been kept in the dark on key details and basic information about many of these projects.”

Since then, relatively little additional information has emerged. ​“We’re still struggling at this point to understand what’s really going on with the hubs,” said Morgan Rote, director of U.S. climate at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), another nonprofit group that’s been tracking the disconnect between hydrogen hubs and communities.

“I don’t think DOE is sitting on a whole wealth of information they’re not sharing,” Rote said. ​“But that makes it even more challenging — and it’s no wonder communities feel like they don’t have information, if the DOE doesn’t have information.”

Cummins acknowledged these frustrations.“The tension here is that we’re still in early days,” she said. ​“We’ve been working to engage communities and special interest groups. But we’re just at the start of this learning process.”

The initial planning grants are just the first step in what OCED expects to be an eight- to 12-year pathway to full-scale ramp-up and operations. Each stage will involve its own series of ​“go/no-go” decisions, with a ​“long list of deliverables and criteria,” Cummins said.

To date, only three hubs have been awarded first-phase planning grants of about $30 million each: the ARCHES hub in California; the Pacific Northwest Hydrogen Association(PNWH2), which includes Oregon, Washington, and Montana; and the Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub (ARCH2), which includes Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. The remainder are still in the process of negotiating final approval for their first-phase funding.

“We’ll go through a review of all that — the financing, the technology, the community benefits — and then make a decision if they’re ready to move from Phase One to Phase Two,” she said. ​“And there are some instances where we might decide they are not moving to Phase Two.”

Measuring progress on first-of-a-kind hydrogen hubs

Less than 1 percent of global hydrogen production today is low-carbon. Of the roughly 90 million tons per year produced globally and 10 million tons per year in the U.S., almost all is derived from fossil gas.

Right now, the two main methods for making low- or zero-carbon hydrogen are far more expensive than dirty hydrogen — and also untested at scale. Those include so-called ​“blue hydrogen,” which is made from fossil gas combined with carbon capture, and ​“green hydrogen,” which is made by splitting water in electrolyzers powered by zero-carbon electricity.

The hydrogen hubs need about $40 billion in private-sector investment to match DOE’s $7 billion. That’s a tough sell for investors, given the uncertain economics involved both for would-be clean hydrogen producers and for the industries that must invest in retrofitting facilities, building new infrastructure, and reconfiguring how they do business in order to use it.

What’s more, the rules for a subsidy that could make clean hydrogen cost-competitive with dirty hydrogen — the 45V production tax credits created by the Inflation Reduction Act — have yet to be finalized.

Last December, the U.S. Treasury Department proposed rules that would require green-hydrogen producers to source newly built and consistently deliverable clean electricity — restrictions that energy analysts say are vital to ensure hydrogen production doesn’t end up increasing carbon emissions.

But those proposed rules are being challenged by a number of industry groups and politicians who say they’ll stifle the nascent industry — including the seven hydrogen hubs themselves. The Treasury Department aims to finalize the rules by January.

The regulations for blue hydrogen remain another point of contention. Only the California and Pacific Northwest hubs have pledged to not make hydrogen from fossil gas. Some hubs, such as the Appalachian hub, have made blue hydrogen a focus. But blue hydrogen has yet to be proven to be cost-effective at scale, and in some cases could lead to more carbon emissions than simply using fossil gas.

The unresolved nature of these regulations — and the projects themselves — makes it impossible to tell at this point whether the hubs will actually help fight climate change.

In a May letter to DOE, U.S. Representatives Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) and Donald S. Beyer Jr. (D-Virginia) complained that the agency has touted the potential for hydrogen made by the hubs to reduce carbon emissions by 25 million metric tons per year, but has ​“yet to publish the projected lifecycle emissions linked to the production of hydrogen.”

That information is ​“overdue and critical for us to fully understand the precise climate and public health impacts of the H2Hubs program,” the lawmakers wrote. ​“Scientists have warned that high levels of lifecycle emissions from hydrogen production could entirely cancel out any climate benefits from replacing fossil fuels with hydrogen.”

Cummins noted that DOE has responded to this request for information. ​“But the response was focused on the fact that we are evaluating every aspect of the production and use of hydrogen so that we can understand the impact on the environment,” she said — and much of that work remains to be done.

Are the hydrogen hubs living up to their community commitments? 

Though it may be early days for the hubs, advocates say the projects could be operating in a much more transparent way.

OCED released summaries of each hub’s commitment to community benefits immediately after the hubs were selected last October. Since then, OCED has held more than 70 meetings with more than 900 individuals and groups participating, Cummins said. The office has also briefed about 4,000 individuals and groups, including community members, environmental justice organizations, labor and workforce organizations, first responders, local businesses, energy professionals, elected tribal leaders, and local, state, and federal government officials.

The feedback from those meetings has led OCED to add new requirements for the hubs. The projects now must create public data reporting portals to share information as it’s finalized. They must develop community advisory structures that allow groups to provide feedback on plans as they’re developed. And they must ​“jointly evaluate or pursue negotiated agreements” on labor, workforce, health and safety, and community benefits plans.

“We’re really focused on three-way communication” between OCED, hub participants, and affected communities and other groups ​“to make sure anything we’re hearing back from the community is adequately addressed,” Cummins said. ​“That will determine whether we move forward to the next phase of the process.”

Environmental and community groups worry these requirements may still not prevent hub participants from running roughshod over communities, however.

In particular, many fear that participants — including oil and gas giants such as bp America, Chevron, Enbridge, EQT, ExxonMobil, Sempra Energy, and TC Energy — will subject communities already burdened with fossil fuel pollution to further harms from hydrogen production.

Communities have ​“questions around the transparency for the selection and planning process, how to monitor and evaluate community benefits plans, and to ensure there are sustained community benefits after the duration of the grants,” said Cihang Yuan, a senior program officer at the environmental nonprofit World Wildlife Fund. Other concerns include ​“more local impacts, such as hydrogen leakage or chemical disasters,” she said. ​“It’s definitely important for these hubs to have a solid plan for safety of operations.”

The secretive approach that hubs have taken to sharing information with potentially affected communities has added to these concerns. In California, the ARCHES hub requires meeting participants to sign non-disclosure agreements barring them from sharing information about the hub’s activities under threat of legal penalties.

“That’s something we can’t do,” said Theo Caretto, associate attorney at California-based environmental justice group Communities for a Better Environment (CBE), since it would bar community groups from sharing information with their constituents.

Those non-disclosure rules have remained in place at ARCHES and other hubs despite continual protests, forcing groups like CBE to wait for public information to dribble out. But one year in, ​“we’re having difficulty getting specifics on which projects are being funded,” Caretto said. ​“They’ve given out fact sheets and publications,” such as the map and chart below in a May report from ARCHES to DOE. ​“But those are still quite general and don’t give specifics about what each project is.”

The Ohio River Valley Institute has raised similar concerns about the ARCH2 project in Appalachia. In a May letter to DOE signed by 54 nonprofit and community groups, Tom Torres, the institute’s hydrogen campaign coordinator, said communities have had ​“no substantive opportunity to shape this proposal while negotiations continue behind closed doors.”

The saving grace, he wrote, is that ​“nothing so grievous has been done that cannot be undone. Money has yet to flow to these projects and ground has not been broken.” 

Giving communities authority over how major energy infrastructure is planned and built would be a departure from how large industrial projects have historically been pursued.

“There is this dichotomy, this tension, between the project development deadlines and long-term robust engagement processes that will be needed to meet these community benefits plans obligations and gain community trust,” said Mona Dajani, global co-chair of energy, infrastructure and hydrogen at law firm Baker Botts and lead counsel for the HyVelocity hub in Texas.

DOE’s commitment to ensuring that hubs will meet the Biden administration’s Justice40 Initiative — its pledge to direct at least 40 percent of climate-related federal spending to communities ​“historically impacted by energy development and burdened with policies of exclusion and disinvestment,” as Dajani put it — heightens the importance of community involvement.

This will ​“add a lot of complexity to development processes. But they’re doing their best. 

It’s definitely going to be challenging to be transparent when it’s not all finished,” Dajani said.

Will private-sector players commit to spending the money? 

Amidst questions around community benefits and lifecycle carbon emissions, much of the hype that fueled oversized clean-hydrogen projections in the past few years has started to deflate. Major project announcements have been delayed or put in limbo, leading analysts to question whether ambitious government clean-hydrogen production targets can be reached in the coming decade.

This retrenchment is also a threat to U.S. hydrogen hubs, which must convince companies and their financial backers to commit to the tens of billions of dollars of investment needed to scale up clean hydrogen to compete against the fossil fuels it is meant to displace.

That challenge is already rearing its head at the Appalachian ARCH2 hub, a pet project of a lawmaker key to getting the hydrogen hub program passed as part of the 2022 Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill — retiring Democratic U.S. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

Manchin praised the ARCH2 hub’s potential to revitalize the economy of his home state and the greater Appalachian region at an August event marking DOE’s approval of its first-phase grant. ​“I’m happy to know that I was able to play a part in this to be able to have a future for my children and grandchildren,” he said. 

But, as is true for all of the hub projects at this point, it’s far from clear that ARCH2 will deliver on its promise of becoming a clean energy economic engine for the region.

In a report released this week, the Ohio River Valley Institute noted that several projects initially identified as part of the ARCH2 plan have since dropped out. Those include Canadian gas producer and pipeline owner TC Energy and industrial chemicals giant Chemours, which canceled plans to develop two green hydrogen production sites in West Virginia.

“The various hydrogen hubs and their individual projects are much more tenuous than many people imagine,” Sean O’Leary, senior researcher at the Ohio River Valley Institute and the author of the report, told Canary Media. ​“These projects are still heavily dependent on private markets to come up with the funds.”

In an attempt to fill the gap left by those departures, ARCH2 recently issued a call for companies to propose projects, which could receive up to $110 million if selected. ​“Originally you could argue that we had projects that were seeking federal funds,” O’Leary said. ​“Now, we have federal funds seeking projects.”

Cummins said that OCED has anticipated that hub participants may drop out or be added throughout the early stages. ​“That’s OK. We don’t want a company that for any reason doesn’t want to participate to be stuck in something they don’t see as economically viable.”

At the same time, OCED will vet new entrants on the same criteria applied to those that initially applied: ​“Are they technically feasible? Do we see a path to financial viability? What does their workforce plan look like? And finally, what do their community benefits look like?”

In an email to Canary Media, T.R. Massey, spokesperson for Battelle, the research organization managing the ARCH2 hub, echoed a key refrain about the projects: ​“The important context to remember is these new hydrogen hubs, including ARCH2, have just entered the first phase.” 

One year in, U.S. clean hydrogen hubs face questions — and have few answers is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

The momentum behind green hydrogen has notably decelerated, with developers being hit with some hard home truths. Far fewer projects have taken the...

The post Investing in Green Hydrogen 2024: Tackling Green Hydrogen’s Growing Pains appeared first on Cleantech Group.

Current methods used to process hydrogen into a usable fuel are cost-prohibitive, but several new innovations are promising to open the door to cost-competitive green hydrogen. Hydrogen is well positioned to be the fuel of the future. However, a commercially viable transition to green hydrogen – the environmentally friendly version of the fuel – seems …

The post Fueling the Future: Unlocking Low-Cost Green Hydrogen appeared first on Alternative Energy HQ.

The following commentary was written by Bill Hayes, a finance executive who focuses on
electricity and environmental markets, and Joe Tedino, a Chicago-based writer focusing on the environment and sustainability. See our commentary guidelines for more information.

Last month, 13 senators — including the two representing our state of Illinois — sent a strongly worded letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen calling out rules around the proposed tax credits for the green hydrogen industry as  “inconsistent with the intent and requirements” of the legislation they approved. 

They noted that the tax credits can be vital for incentivizing the production and market-viability of renewable hydrogen power, but the current proposed guidance could undermine the intent of the Inflation Reduction Act and hinder the green hydrogen economy.

We applaud this Senate effort and are pleased to see Illinois Democrats Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth were onboard in calling for revising the Treasury’s overly stringent rules. Both have been strong advocates of the Midwest’s MachH2 clean hydrogen hub, and they recently secured $1 billion in federal funding for this project.

The green hydrogen production tax credit in the IRA — the largest investment to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in U.S. history — has the potential to secure a significant role for clean, zero-carbon hydrogen energy in the U.S. by providing a tax credit of up to $3 for each kilogram of fuel produced. 

Yet as the Treasury Department grapples with how to implement rules for awarding the tax credit to hydrogen producers, there are warning signs that overly restrictive regulations may stifle the growth of what had been projected to be a $515B global market by 2035, according to global consultant Research Nester.  

We support the position led by Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) that asked for a host of changes to the rules in the interest of boosting a burgeoning energy supply that will achieve the intended carbon reduction in a less burdensome way.

At issue are the so-called “Three Pillars,” which are the standards adopted by the Treasury Department for determining whether hydrogen producers are entitled to receive the tax credit. The standards specify how, when, and where renewable electricity must be added to the grid to match the electrical load drawn to power the hydrogen electrolysis operations.

One of these pillars requires that hydrogen producers add renewable generation to the grid that matches their hydrogen load on an hourly basis, instead of an annual basis. The other two add specific location and facility requirements that further limit the flexibility for how and where hydrogen producers add renewable generation to the grid. 

Here’s the problem:  the standards are overly restrictive, leading to unnecessarily excessive costs for achieving the targeted carbon reduction impacts in the hydrogen sector, according to new research published in response to the Treasury guidelines. 

With regard to the extra costs, energy data analytics firm Wood Mackenzie analyzed the impact of just one of the pillars — hourly matching — and found that this requirement alone would raise the total costs of green hydrogen by 68 to 175%, compared to annually matched generation. 

Other researchers found that there is no additional carbon reduction benefit to this fine-tuned hourly matching. Comprehensive research by the consulting firm Energy and Environmental Economics, also known as E3, found that both annual and hourly matching have similar impact on CO2 emissions, across a wide range of scenarios and geographies. The Open Energy Outlook Initiative of Carnegie Mellon has come to the same conclusion. It’s not surprising, since both annual matching and hourly matching lead to identical increases in new renewable generation, and hydrogen producers have a clear incentive to generate their new renewable electricity in times and locations that maximize the amount of displaced fossil fuels.

In short, the hydrogen industry and the good jobs it will support will simply not grow as planned by the U.S. Energy Department if their costs double unnecessarily.

We hope the Treasury Department will look at this research and feedback closely, in order to achieve the targeted carbon reduction in the hydrogen sector at a competitive cost with environmental concerns in mind. Growth in the hydrogen sector is needed to clean up hard-to-abate sectors like steel and airlines, and it is also vital to address climate change.

There’s a global consensus that we need to urgently decarbonize to address the impacts of climate change. The Biden Administration’s goal to reduce GHG’s by 50% by 2030 and become net-zero by 2050 requires robust incentives to develop green energy industries as fast as possible. Without a viable hydrogen sector, we run the risk of being unable to fully decarbonize our economy.

Business leaders and individuals should call or write to the White House and to their representatives in Congress, urging them to revise the tax credit eligibility rules for hydrogen production to ensure the economic viability of this vital emerging industry.

Commentary: Strict regulations threaten the green hydrogen industry is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.

Solid oxide electrolyzers (SOECs) are emerging to be a hot topic in the world of energy. They use a solid ceramic material to...

The post High Efficiency, High Costs: Is There Space for Solid Oxide Electrolyzers in the Hydrogen Industry? appeared first on Cleantech Group.

Snaking under city streets, behind residential drywall and into furnaces, ovens and other appliances, natural gas pipelines are a ubiquitous presence in U.S. buildings. The question of what to do with them as the planet warms has become a serious debate — dozens of U.S. cities and states have crafted plans to reduce reliance on natural gas, and more than 20 other states have passed laws to preempt that type of regulation.

Now, utilities around the nation have begun testing a controversial idea aimed at reducing the carbon footprint of gas lines, while keeping them in place. Nearly 20 utilities have laid out plans to inject lines with a blend of gas and hydrogen, the latter of which emits no carbon dioxide (CO2) — a major greenhouse gas — when combusted. Testing such blends, these companies say, is an essential step towards understanding the practice, which they argue will help reduce emissions and fight climate change.

Deploying more hydrogen is also a federal priority — the Inflation Reduction Act created a tax credit for hydrogen production, and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law set aside $9.5 billion to support hydrogen development.

But a federal hydrogen strategy released last year suggests blending hydrogen into gas infrastructure should focus on industrial applications. Many environmental and customer advocates agree; they argue that the use of hydrogen blends in buildings — rather than to power industries that are hard to electrify — makes little sense.

“Every dollar you’re reinvesting into the gas system could be a dollar you’re using to electrify the system,” said Nat Skinner, program manager of the safety branch of the California Public Advocates Office, an independent state office that advocates for consumers in utility regulation. “Finding the right uses for hydrogen is appropriate. But I think being really careful and thoughtful about how we’re doing that is equally important.”

Nearly 30 projects focused on blending hydrogen into gas lines that serve homes and businesses have been proposed or are in operation in more than a dozen states, Floodlight found, and many more utilities have hinted at future proposals. If all are approved, the projects as proposed would cost at least $280 million — and many utilities are asking that customers pay for them.

As regulators consider the proposals, advocates are calling for them to weigh the prudence of the investment. In California — where electric rates have climbed steeply in recent years — the Sierra Club has argued that the projects are “an inappropriate use of ratepayer funds” and “wasteful experiments.”

Blending brings, risks, rewards

Hydrogen blending can be undertaken in a section of pipeline isolated from the rest of the gas network or in a larger “open” system that serves homes. Utilities can inject it in large transmission lines, which ferry gas from processing and storage locations to compressor stations, or into distribution lines, the smaller pipes that bring gas to buildings.

Because hydrogen releases only water vapor and heat when it’s burned, it’s considered a clean fuel. And unlike traditional wind and solar energy, it can produce enough heat to run industrial furnaces. Utilities have framed the fuel as a clear way to slash the emissions associated with their operations.

“These demonstration projects are an important step for us to adopt hydrogen blending statewide, which has the potential to be an effective way to replace fossil fuels,” said Neil Navin, the chief clean fuels officer at Southern California Gas (SoCalGas), in a March statement on its application for hydrogen blending pilots.

Burning hydrogen, particularly in homes, also presents certain risks. Hydrogen burns hotter than natural gas, which can increase emissions of nitrous oxide (NOx), a harmful air pollutant that can react with other elements in the air to produce damaging pollutants including small particulates and ozone.

Hydrogen is a smaller molecule than methane, the main ingredient in natural gas, and can leak more readily out of pipelines. Hydrogen is also flammable. And when certain metals absorb hydrogen atoms, they can become brittle over time, creating risks of pipeline cracks, depending on the materials the pipelines are made of.

There are also outstanding questions about how much hydrogen blending actually reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

Of the utilities that have offered details about the hydrogen source they plan to use for their pilot, roughly half plan to use “green hydrogen,” which is produced using clean electricity generated by renewable sources such as wind and solar. Today, fossil fuels power more than 90% of global hydrogen production, producing “gray hydrogen.”

Most utility blending pilots are targeting blends of up to 20% hydrogen. At those levels, research has shown that hydrogen would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by less than 10%, even when using hydrogen produced with clean manufacturing processes.

Some utilities have estimated the emissions impacts of their pilots. A CenterPoint Energy pilot in Minneapolis using blends of up to 5% green hydrogen was estimated to reduce carbon emissions by 1,200 metric tons per year, which is the approximate energy use of 156 homes. A project in New Jersey testing blends of 1% green hydrogen was estimated to reduce emissions enough to offset the energy use of roughly 24 homes.

Blending gray hydrogen may show no carbon benefit at all, according to some research. That’s in part because hydrogen produces one-third less energy by volume than natural gas, meaning three times the amount of hydrogen is needed to make up for the same unit of natural gas.

And hydrogen requires more energy to manufacture than it will later produce when it’s burned. For these reasons, some environmental groups say hydrogen is an inefficient way to decarbonize homes and businesses; some analysts have called the process “a crime against thermodynamics.”

“There are much better, readily available, more affordable ways to decarbonize buildings in the form of electrification and energy efficiency,” said Jim Dennison, a staff attorney at the Sierra Club.

Advocates including Dennison also worry that investing more in the natural gas system will delay electrification and allow utilities to keep their core pipeline businesses running. “I can see why that’s attractive to those utilities,” he said. “That doesn’t mean it makes sense for customers or the climate.”

‘We’re not sure’ of right mix

While the climate benefits are debated, some research and active projects indicate that burning blended fuel at certain levels can be safe. For decades, Hawaii Gas has used synthetic natural gas that contains 10-12% hydrogen. Countries including Chile, Australia, Portugal and Canada have also run hydrogen blending pilots.

And although pipelines can weather when carrying hydrogen, that’s less likely for distribution lines that reach homes because those pipes are often plastic, said Bri-Mathias Hodge, an associate professor in energy engineering at the University of Colorado-Boulder.

Hodge helped author a 2022 review of technical and regulatory limits on hydrogen and gas blending. With blends below 5%, Hodge said customers are unlikely to face risks or notice a difference in how their appliances or furnaces function.

More uncertainty exists around higher blends. “I think we’re not sure if below 20% or say, from 5 to 20% is safe,” said Ali Mosleh, an engineer at the University of California-Los Angeles who is spearheading hydrogen blend pilot testing with 44 partners, including utilities, to address knowledge gaps in the state.

Although Hodge at UC-Boulder thinks electrification is the more efficient choice for homes, he said the pilots can help utilities get comfortable with blending, which may eventually be applied elsewhere. “It’s not going to really move the needle in terms of decarbonization long term, but it’s a step in the right direction,” he said.

Steven Schueneman, the hydrogen development manager at utility Puget Sound Energy, which serves about 1.2 million electric and 900,000 gas customers in Washington, said incremental approaches like utility blending pilots will signal that hydrogen is a “real industry.” That could help the fuel gain a foothold in other areas, like industrial heat and aviation.

But Schueneman also acknowledges there remains uncertainty around whether hydrogen is the most cost-effective way to decarbonize buildings.

“It’s not clear that blending hydrogen is going to be a prudent decision at the end of the day,” he said.

Puget Sound Energy has conducted two small-scale blending pilots at a test facility. In the future, the utility plans to focus its hydrogen efforts on how blends may function in power plants, rather than in buildings. The nearly 30 blending pilots Floodlight tracked include only projects focused on use in buildings, but other utilities have proposed blending hydrogen at natural gas power plants, where the blend will be burned for electricity.

‘Cost is an essential consideration’

Blending pilots focused on buildings have been spearheaded by some of the largest utilities in the nation as well as smaller-scale gas providers, and are being considered from coast-to-coast.

Dominion Energy, which serves 4.5 million customers in 13 states, has laid out plans for three blending pilots, in Utah, South Carolina and Ohio. National Grid, which has 20 million customers, is pursuing a project in New York. And multiple large California utilities have proposed pilot programs.

Some utilities, such as Dominion and Minnesota-based Xcel Energy, did not reply to several requests for clarification on hydrogen blending plans, or replied to only some queries about their plans. But plans from certain utilities have been detailed in regulatory filings with state utility commissions.

The pilots for which cost data are available range in price from roughly $33,000 for Puget Sound Energy’s small-scale testing (which ratepayers did not fund) up to an estimated $63.5 million for a decade-long pilot proposed by California utility Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), which would focus on blending 5% at the start ranging up to 20% hydrogen in transmission gas lines.

If approved, customers would pay up to $94.2 million for PG&E’s pilot, because of the rate of return utilities are able to collect from customers. California utilities are aiming to recover more than $200 million in total from customers for their proposed pilots.

California regulators have rejected some previous blending proposals from utilities, saying companies should use “every reasonable attempt to use existing and other funds before requesting new funds.” Advocates including the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) have argued that the projects are not in the public interest, particularly amid the state’s spiking utility bills.

“Cost is an essential consideration,” said Erin Murphy, a senior attorney at EDF. “When you’re passing on costs to ratepayers, you have to demonstrate that that is a prudent investment.”

Pilots have gotten pushback in other states, including Colorado and Oregon, where projects were recently dropped or delayed, and opposition has been fierce in California, which has the most pilots proposed to date. The mayor of Truckee, California, which could host a project, submitted a comment to regulators explaining the town does not support it. And following protests at two California universities that planned to collaborate on projects, utilities downsized the plans.

After student opposition at University of California-Irvine, SoCalGas reduced the scope of the project and proposed an additional pilot in Orange Cove, a small agricultural community of about 9,500 people. Ninety-six percent of Orange Cove’s population identifies as Hispanic or Latino, and roughly 47% of residents live below the federal poverty line, according to the U.S. Census.

Some Orange Cove residents also are concerned about blending, which SoCalGas hopes to test at up to 5% hydrogen levels. Genoveva Islas, who grew up there and is the executive director of Cultiva la Salud, a public health nonprofit based in nearby Fresno, said the local approval process lacked transparency and public input.

The project is slated to sit steps away from the Orange Cove football field, near the town’s high school, middle school and community center. “In short, I would just say it is concerning,” Islas said.

In an email, the utility told Floodlight that the city “proactively asked SoCalGas to undertake this project in its community” and said it was “expected to bring socioeconomic benefits to Orange Cove.” The utility also said it hosted a community engagement meeting about the project in Spanish and English and has provided fact sheets to the community in both languages.

In Colorado, where Xcel Energy had planned to blend hydrogen in an isolated neighborhood, some residents learned of the pilot from a journalist reporting on the project.

That has made some feel like unwilling test subjects in an experiment that others, like the Sierra Club’s Dennison, say are unnecessary. “The community’s immediate reaction is that they don’t want to be guinea pigs,” Islas said. “They do not understand how this decision was made without their involvement or their consent.”

The great majority of the projects, including the one in Orange Cove, are still under review by regulators. Meanwhile, researchers are undertaking more studies to understand the technical limits of blending.

“There are a lot of unknowns,” said Mosleh from UCLA. “Some fundamental research needs to be done.”

Utilities are trying hydrogen-blended fuels. There are a lot of unknowns. is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.