The fight to define 'green hydrogen' could determine America's emissions future

[NickB79]

https://grist.org/energy/green-hydrogen-tax-credit-ira/

With the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act last year, a decades-long effort to get a major climate package through Congress is over. But the work of ensuring this unprecedented bundle of funding for clean energy actually leads to reduced emissions is just beginning.

A decision with profound implications for that goal now lies with the Treasury Department, which must settle a debate over the best way of crafting a tax credit designed to advance the production of clean hydrogen. Scientists and climate advocates warn that without rigorous guidelines dictating who is eligible for the subsidy, the government could spend billions propping up hydrogen production facilities with enormous carbon footprints, wiping out many of the other climate gains catalyzed by the legislation.

“Absent strong rules, we could increase emissions by half a gigaton over the lifetime of the credit,” Rachel Fakhry, a senior climate and clean energy advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told Grist. “The current emissions of the power sector is 1.5 gigatons. So this is completely contrary to U.S. climate goals. The stakes are extremely high.”

Such concerns came up repeatedly during a public comment period that ended in December. But the hydrogen industry, oil companies like Chevron and BP that are investing in the technology, and even a few renewable energy groups argued otherwise. They flooded the Treasury with comments insisting that arduous rules will undermine U.S. climate goals — by killing this nascent clean technology before it can even get started.

[NNadir]

1. Anyone discussing "Green Hydrogen" is a fool. Period.

It requires an increase in energy demand to make the stuff, except under very special circumstances, where energy otherwise rejected to the environment is otherwise captured as exergy.

[Caribbeans]

2. Energy Secretary Granholm doesn't seem confused by the term

This "war" between batteries and H2 is just another example of why, in 2023, the US isn't a leader in anything but drone bombing lands 8,000 miles away. Maybe add surveillance tech. Goodbye 4th! few care about that anyway, right?

Example: In 2016, the US had about 30 public hydrogen stations, all in California. A whopping 24 hydrogen stations were built over SIX YEARS (amazing, huh) so now the total H2 station count in the US is 54. Many of which are offline due to no H2, tech problems etc (incompetence). https://h2stationmaps.com

In 2016, China had ZERO hydrogen stations.

Now there are over 300 and will crack 1000+ in 2023. In just 6 years, China leads the entire industry.

That SHOULD make every single American (whatever that is today) blush.

But Americans would rather bicker between themselves about the meaning of words. ROFL - pathetic.

[NNadir]

3. Wow!!!!!!! Wowweeeeeeeee!

In 2022 there were, count 'em: 250 hydrogen filling stations in China!

OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!! WE'RE WAY BEHIND.

This surely an international threat to the United States, having only 54 hydrogen stations and, 127,588 gas stations in a country of car cultists who don't give a fuck about climate change, but love to sell bourgeois fantasies about ways to waste money and energy.

No amount of marketing can make hydrogen "clean," and to the extent this rather tiresome fantasy has prevailed since the 1970's it's more of doing nothing other than participate in a dangerous fossil fuel shell game.

There is no sense of decency, none, for those selling the hydrogen fossil fuel wasting shell game.

None.



The caption:

Figure 1. Global current sources of H2 production (a), and H2 consumption sectors (b).

Progress on Catalyst Development for the Steam Reforming of Biomass and Waste Plastics Pyrolysis Volatiles: A Review Laura Santamaria, Gartzen Lopez, Enara Fernandez, Maria Cortazar, Aitor Arregi, Martin Olazar, and Javier Bilbao, Energy & Fuels 2021 35 (21), 17051-17084]

The technical term, for people who think, for the devices utilized by people who obviously can't think, is the term for this logical fallacy: Appeal to Authority.

I like Secretary Granholm, particularly for her support of nuclear energy, a form of primary energy. Nevertheless, she has no training as a scientist having earned degrees in Political Science, minoring in French, followed by a law degree.

Therefore she has to rely on scientists to give her advice.

She obviously seems to need some better scientific advisors in some of her programs. What is being sold to her is poorly advised, because hydrogen is a very, very, very dirty fuel, and trying to make it into a consumer product will make it dirtier, if only for the energy expended to compress it after wasting energy to make it.

No amount of cheap marketing by cheap marketeers can change that fact.

Facts matter.

[NickB79]

4. And what percentage of China's hydrogen is green?

Oh look, 80% comes from coal and natural gas as of today.