Across the country, states are inking agreements with neighbors or striking out on their own to pursue billions in federal funding to set up “hydrogen hubs,” clustered centers for production, storage and use of the gas that many see as a crucial piece of the puzzle for decarbonizing the U.S. economy.
How broad a role it should play, however, is a matter of debate.
The U.S. Department of Energy is looking to dole out $7 billion from last year’s bipartisan infrastructure law that could fund up to 10 regional clean hydrogen hubs, defined as “a network of clean hydrogen producers, potential clean hydrogen consumers and connective infrastructure located in close proximity” to be sited across the country.
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“The H2Hubs will be a central driver in helping communities across the country benefit from clean energy investments, good-paying jobs and improved energy security – all while supporting President Biden’s goal of a net-zero carbon economy by 2050,” the department said in a news release last month, calling the federal cash infusion one of the largest in the DOE’s history.
That pool of money joins provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act – which created a clean hydrogen production tax credit and enacted big changes in carbon capture tax credits – that could also boost hydrogen.
“Some states are going to be motivated by climate goals. Hydrogen is an important tool for achieving those climate goals,” said Bryan Willson, a professor of mechanical engineering and executive director of the Energy Institute at Colorado State University. “Others are really motivated by economic development and hydrogen represents a tremendous new business opportunity.”
Willson is also the director of the Rocky Mountain Alliance for Next Generation Energy, which is made up of universities and national labs from four western states that are providing technical support to the effort to create the Western Interstate Hydrogen Hub, a collaboration between Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, two red states and two blue ones.
Matt Fry, a senior policy manager focusing on carbon management at the nonprofit Great Plains Institute and a former adviser to Republican Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead, said even conservative states have come around on the need to capture carbon and the obvious effects of a changing climate.
“We know that this is what we’re going to have to do,” he said. “We’ll utilize hydrogen as we bridge from a more fossil-fuel-based economy to a more electrified economy.”
Similar hub agreements have been made between Louisiana, Oklahoma and Arkansas; Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota and Wisconsin and Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York. Minnesota and Wisconsin also have a separate memorandum of understanding with Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan and Ohio aimed at “accelerating and improving” clean hydrogen production. And Oregon and Washington are also collaborating to create a Pacific Northwest hub.
Other states, like Pennsylvania and Georgia, have launched efforts to create hubs on their own.
“The hubs are trying to focus on areas where you have resources to produce it, resources to use it and resources to balance that supply and demand,” said Jeffery Preece, director of research and development at the Electric Power Research Institute.
“We’re still working on where and how to deploy hydrogen in a decarbonized future. It’s important to bring stakeholders together … to figure this…
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