Policymakers and industry say the Midwest Hydrogen Hub will create green jobs and slash emissions, but environmentalists see a ploy to keep fossil fuels in use.
To make hydrogen, electricity is used to split hydrogen molecules from water. But this process is energy intensive, and where that energy comes from makes climate advocates question the “clean” branding.
Hydrogen production is color-coded based on the energy source used to produce it. Green hydrogen, for example, denotes that the power comes from renewables, like solar or wind. Pink hydrogen sources its power from nuclear energy. Blue hydrogen comes from natural gas and then traps emissions using carbon capture. When it comes to defining “clean hydrogen,” environmental advocates want to draw the line at green. But according to Banwart, the Midwest Hydrogen Hub will count all three as carbon-cutting options.
The vast majority of hydrogen manufactured in the United States today is produced with natural gas. Advocates say that anything that keeps fossil fuels online — including natural gas — isn’t clean.
I generally view hydrogen as fossil fuels’ last gasp at relevance. It might be useful in some very specific cases, but mostly it just doesn’t make sense. It leaks through metal and is way more complex and finicky than wind/solar/battery. Let’s invest heavily in advancing battery tech and then we’ll solve the base load issue too. Iron air batteries are looking promising for that.
The hard part is that there are places where hydrogen really is the best path forward for decarbonization, especially when it comes to making fertilizers or various other industrial processes, and even maybe for marine applications, but the conversation keeps getting pushed towards cars, buses, trains, and other small vehicles where it just isn’t practical.
Given how involved oil companies have been in marketing it in those segments, and the willingness of certain car, bus, and train companies to be perpetually ‘trialing’ hydrogen instead of just using batteries or centenary, it is rightly often seen as just a way to greenwash and delay from electrification, but there are still things where hydrogen really is the better option for decarbonization and we should be pushing for more green hydrogen production and infrastructure there while calling out the organizations acting in bad faith.
I’m admittedly uncertain that investing in new battery technology is really likely to help though. We just don’t have the decade or two required for said tech to be discovered, refined, put into production, and then scaled up.
Between LFP for mass vehicles, Li-ion for space and mass critical applications, and Sodium ion for bulk storage, centenary and marine nuclear for bulk transport, along with solar, wind, and hydro for generation and long term energy storage, I think we already have all the tech necessary to scale up and decarbonize both the grid and overland transport. At this point the focus and funding should instead be put towards applying said technology as quickly and at as large a scale as possible as fast as possible.
We know what we need to do, we know how to do it, now we just need to actually do it.
