Let’s be honest. For many years, the real meaning of H2 was not only hydrogen, but also maybe a little “hype squared.”
Starting decades ago, rushes of coverage would focus every now and again around creating a fuel cell transportation sector. Only recently, the attention started migrating to the notion of utility-scale hydrogen economies, such as in power generation decarbonization.
What came from it? Not much, really.
Well, time and money are funny things. Sometimes they can help make the hype into reality.
A virtual event Wednesday on World Hydrogen North America detailed many of the legislative and financial movements pushing the H2 economy forward. There’s still some hype and much work to come, but recent achievements like the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act and its incentives for lower carbon energies, as well as billions of dollars in private investments already happening, show that the industry is making progress, squared.
“Hydrogen is not a one size fits all, but it definitely has an important role to play in the energy transition,” said Rob Slowinski, associate director for energy, sustainability and infrastructure at research firm Guidehouse, which was one of the sponsors for the event Wednesday along with online platform World Hydrogen Leaders.
For several years now, many companies have started investing or exploring the potential of carbon-free H2 to help clean both the grid generation resource mix and even the transportation sector (through fuel cell technologies). Among those pouring billions into the effort include Mitsubishi Power, Cummins, Siemens, GE, Plug Power, Amazon, EDF and many others.
This movement toward a hydrogen infrastructure build-out has been relatively slow and decidedly global. In the U.S., though, recent passage of the Inflation Reduction Act federally sets into motion a 10-year incentive program for clean hydrogen production aimed at up to $3 in production tax credits per zero or low-carbon kilogram of H2 produced.
Talk about your proverbial game changers. This opens the door to cost reductions all the way around for both hydrogen blending projects at power plants, and electrolyzers powered by renewable resources to create so-called “green hydrogen.”
“It makes the U.S. much more competitive,” Chris Cannata, director, hydrogen, for developer EDF Renewables North America, said in the opening session.
He estimated that it could offer a cost reduction of close to 45 percent or more compared to the pre-IRA investment option. “That’s the biggest change.”
Indeed, spurring investment to aid hydrogen in reaching nationwide economy of scale could have tremendous impacts in power generation decarbonization, but also on the transportation side.
Fuel cell technology—which uses H2 as a feedstock to create electricity to power vehicles—could offers enough energy density to impact both aviation and Class 8 freight transportation beyond what battery electric could do, some of the experts said at the World Hydrogen event.
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So much of the U.S. action plan for hydrogen is targeted at investment on the supply side of the equation, as opposed to Europe’s urgency on the demand side, due to the war against Ukraine by longtime European gas supplier Russia.
The deal is if you’re going to make so much of that H2, you’ll need a vibrant demand side to consume it, too.
“Once you see the lower cost of hydrogen in the marketplace, the applications for fuel cells in vehicles, in transportation and aviation, will start to grow,” Frank Wolak, president and CEO of the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Association, said during the opening panel.
The rise in U.S. liquified natural gas production and export could help meet some of the demand shift going on in Europe. Hydrogen can be separated from water via electrolysis, but also from methane gas via steam reforming, which is more carbon intensive but could be paired with carbon capture to create so-called “blue hydrogen.”
Electrolysis will also have to deal with water issues, particularly in drought ravaged regions such as the western U.S. Wolak, however, challenged the idea of water supply constraint and said the H2 production was less H20 intensive than many conventional energy processes such as hydraulic fracturing in the oil and gas drilling sector.
European expert Corrina Klessmann, also a Guidehouse director, noted that the continent has long held more progressive policies on decarbonization and will not stray from its commitment to green. She sees a place for U.S. LNG in the energy mix over there, but moreso maybe converted to hydrogen as lower-carbon ammonia for an energy carrier or resource in itself.
Canada also is embracing the idea of a hydrogen future, although its power generation is already predominantly low carbon by its majority use of hydroelectric and nuclear power. Some of the experts at the Guidehouse-World Hydrogen event believe that the long-term impact of U.S. IRA investment and tax credits could certainly offer benefits north of the border.
“Hydrogen is going to be a key part of the energy mix going forward,” said Mark Kirby, senior advisor at the Canadian Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association, which has grown to more than 160 members. “It creates the ability to crack some tough nuts (such as decarbonizing ) industrial processing, heating and storage.”
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(Rod Walton, senior editor for EnergyTech, is a 14-year veteran of covering the energy industry both as a newspaper and trade journalist. He can be reached at [email protected]).
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