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The US Department of Energy (DOE) is challenging companies to
help slash the costs of "clean hydrogen" produced from renewable
sources, nuclear energy, and fossil fuel plants equipped with
carbon capture to $1/kg in the coming decade.
Under the "Energy Earthshots" initiative unveiled 7 June,
Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm issued a call for "all
hands-on-deck innovation, collaboration, and acceleration" for
scaling up production, storage, delivery, and end-use of clean
hydrogen in the US to make it affordable.
Calling clean hydrogen "a game changer," Granholm said "it will
help decarbonize high-polluting heavy-duty and industrial sectors,
while delivering good-paying clean energy jobs and realizing a
net-zero economy by 2050."
Specifically, DOE's Request for Information seeks input on
"viable hydrogen demonstration and deployment projects that enable
clean hydrogen production, infrastructure, and end-use."
The initiative comes less than a fortnight after President Joe
Biden released the federal government's fiscal year 2022 spending
request, which included a line in DOE's budget about this
initiative and funds to boost research, development, deployment,
and demonstration for hydrogen, among other clean energy
technologies.
Fifty-plus years ago, the Apollo 11 mission relied on a
hydrogen-powered fuel cell system, which supplied electricity and
water for the mission, and on liquid hydrogen as fuel to propel the
rockets, according to the Roadmap to a US Hydrogen Economy, which a
coalition of major oil, natural gas, power, automotive, fuel cell,
and hydrogen companies developed in 2019.
In 2021, the Biden-Harris administration is following this
blueprint as it looks to foster the fuel's use on earth as one
approach for reducing GHG emissions, and for staving off the
impending climate crisis.
According to IHS Markit estimates, the cost of producing green hydrogen from splitting
water molecules by electrolysis that is powered by renewable
electricity is $4-$5/kg. In comparison, the cost of producing
"blue" hydrogen from fossil fuels equipped with carbon capture or
from renewable natural gas captured from landfills is estimated at
$1.50/kg-$2/kg.
"Getting the price down is great, but what would really be a
game changer is if Secretary Granholm can harness the DOE expertise
to reduce the intermittency, or 'firm' the production of green
hydrogen supply to the industries that need it 24-7," said
Alexander Klaessig, research director for IHS Markit's Hydrogen and
Renewable Gas Forum.
If DOE can develop, demonstrate, and deploy technologies that
bring down the costs of compressing and storing hydrogen in
locations with intermittent renewable power, it would make a huge
difference in the overall cost of clean hydrogen, he added.
To make clean hydrogen readily available, whether it be blue or
green, companies need tax credits to help lower the costs of
production, adoption of technology in consumer products that use
this fuel, and a distribution network.
Tax credits
Companies committed to net-zero goals and engaged in finding
clean energy solutions, such as Air Liquide USA or Albany-based
Plug Power, support the goals of the Biden-Harris administration,
as do members of Congress, notably Senator Thomas Carper,
Democrat-Delaware, who are looking to boost production of clean
hydrogen through production and investment tax credits.
Earlier this year, Carper, who chairs the Senate Environment and
Public Works Committee (EPW), authored a bill creating investment
and production tax credits for clean hydrogen. Carper's bill was
folded into the Clean Energy for America Act that the Senate
Finance Committee approved 26 May for full US
Senate consideration.
In a 26 May unanimous vote, Carper
also was instrumental in ushering a bill to reauthorize surface
transportation projects across the US through the EPW committee.
This bill not only authorizes funds for building roads, bridges,
and highways, but also sets up a $2.5-billion competitive grant
program to build hydrogen fueling and electric vehicle charging
stations along the National Highway System.
On 4 June, the top officials of Air Liquide, Bloom Energy, Plug
Power, and Chemours joined Carper at Air Liquide's innovation hub,
a research facility in Newark, Delaware, to voice support for tax
credits for clean hydrogen production and to test-drive hydrogen
fuel cell vehicles provided by Toyota and Hyundai that already have
been introduced in California.
Buying down cost of investments
Both pieces of legislation would be critical in "buying down the
cost of investing in clean hydrogen," Carper said, after he drove
around the Delaware site with Air Liquide Executive Vice President
Mike Graff in a hydrogen-fueled Toyota Mirai.
After the test-ride, Graff noted that Carper's legislation will
help catalyze the use and production of clean hydrogen across all
sectors, including transportation, industry, and energy
storage.
Air Liquide, which is developing technologies up and down the
hydrogen supply chain, would benefit because it would create jobs
and lower CO2 emissions, he said.
At the Delaware campus, one of five Air Liquide innovation hubs,
researchers are investigating the optimization of electrolysis,
development of safety protocols to fuel marine vessels with
hydrogen, and membrane technology to upgrade biogas, or landfill
gas, to sequester methane for use as a feedstock in producing
hydrogen.
"With hydrogen technologies provided by Air Liquide, the
[University of Delaware] operated the first hydrogen fuel cell bus
some 15 years ago right here on the local campus," said Graff, who
also supervises the company's Americas and Asia Pacific hubs.
Increase viability of hydrogen
Air Liquide supports investment and production tax credits for
clean hydrogen production, believing they will provide "a bridge"
as hydrogen projects are scaled up and costs come down during the
energy transition, David Edwards, Air Liquide director and advocate
for hydrogen energy, told IHS Markit 8 June in a telephone
interview.
The company has already started operations at a $200-million
liquid hydrogen plant in Las Vegas that will use renewable natural
gas as a feedstock to supply about 30 mt a day to fueling stations
across California. Currently, Air Liquide operates the world's
largest current electrolyzer facility in Bécancour, Quebec, which
is powered by 99% renewable energy from Hydro-Québec. The
electrolyzer generates about 20 MW of power from splitting water
molecules, while producing 8.2 mt a day to meet Canadian and US
East Coast market needs. The facility's output is enough to fuel
more than 2,000 cars, 16,000 forklifts, 275 buses, or 230 large
trucks.
The Bécancour site also includes a test bed for the next
generation of electrolyzers under development and is now a
satellite of Air Liquide's Campus
Innovation site in Delaware.
"While the goal to bring costs down is needed, we also must
encourage market demand for low-carbon hydrogen in the
transportation and energy sectors," Edwards said.
To make clean hydrogen affordable and readily available though,
the cost of hydrogen to the end-user needs to be considered. This
includes not just the cost of producing the gas, but also the cost
of transporting the product via pipeline or other forms, such as
road delivery of gas or liquid, the cost of adopting the technology
in vehicles to use this fuel, and the cost of supplying this fuel
to the end-user by setting up fueling stations.
Lack of availability
A lack of available clean hydrogen fuel remains the key obstacle
to its widespread use, Plug Power CEO Andrew Marsh told IHS Markit
on 4 June.
"My two biggest customers are Walmart and Amazon, and they want
to move to hydrogen for many applications, but they can't until
green hydrogen is readily available," Marsh said.
Plug Power is making strides in that direction. In February,
Plug Power announced it would construct a
green hydrogen production facility in Latham in western New York
state that would have the ability to produce 45 mt a day of green
liquid hydrogen using electrolyzers fueled by hydropower.
Combined with the green hydrogen that Plug Power's Tennessee
plant already produces, the company aims to produce 500 mt per day
of green power by 2025, which Marsh said is the equivalent of 1,000
mt of gasoline, "which is a lot."
"By making hydrogen available you accelerate the applications
for hydrogen," Marsh added.
Posted 08 June 2021 by Amena Saiyid, Senior Climate and Energy Research Analyst
