US invests big in green hydrogen

The United States is pouring $7 billion into green hydrogen. In a press release issued on October 13, President Joe Biden and U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm announced the funding for seven regional hydrogen hubs throughout the country.

“Advancing clean hydrogen is essential to achieving the president’s vision of a strong clean energy economy that strengthens energy security, bolsters domestic manufacturing, creates healthier communities, and delivers new jobs and economic opportunities across the nation,” the White House said in the release.

The hubs serve Delaware, New Jersey, and eastern Pennsylvania on the east coast; the Appalachian Mountains region that includes western Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia; the state of California; the Gulf Coast of Texas; the rural midwestern and western states of Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota; the industrial midwestern states of Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan; and Montana, Oregon, and Washington in the Pacific Northwest.

Each hub will work to decarbonize sectors like heavy-duty transportation and industrial processes like chemical, steel, and cement manufacturing.

The public funding will leverage more than $40 billion in private investment and generate tens of thousands of new jobs, including unionized work. Around two-thirds of the hubs will generate electrolysis-based hydrogen that can use renewable energy sources like solar and wind, creating power while reducing greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.

The hubs’ goal is to generate 3 million metric tons of clean hydrogen annually, or around 33 percent of the US’s clean hydrogen production goal for 2030. The hubs will cut 25 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions or the equivalent of 5.5 million gasoline-powered cars. ce/jd