Biden Announces $7 Billion for 7 ‘Clean’ Hydrogen Energy Hubs

U.S. President Joe Biden, joined by Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, delivers remarks on energy during an event in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington on Oct. 19, 2022. Alex Wong/Getty Images

The Biden administration has announced funding for seven hydrogen hubs spanning 17 U.S. states as part of its clean energy agenda, even as concerns remain over how “clean” such projects could turn out to be.

The hydrogen hubs will be receiving $7 billion from the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law “to accelerate the domestic market for low-cost, clean hydrogen,” the White House said in an Oct. 13 announcement.

The hubs aim to produce over 3 million metric tons of “clean hydrogen” annually, thereby meeting a third of the clean hydrogen production target for 2030. Collectively, the hubs will eliminate CO2 emissions equivalent to more than 5.5 million gas-powered cars on a yearly basis, the White House said.

Hydrogen energy is produced through a process called electrolysis, in which electricity is used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. “Clean” hydrogen is produced using two methods, according to the Department of Energy.

The first involves electrolysis powered by renewable sources, which is known as “green hydrogen.” The second uses natural gas instead of renewable energy, in combination with carbon capture and storage by a process called steam methane reforming. This is called “blue hydrogen.”

The seven hydrogen hubs selected for funding are:

• Mid-Atlantic Hydrogen Hub, covering Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey.
• Appalachian Hydrogen Hub, covering West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
• California Hydrogen Hub, covering California.
• Gulf Coast Hydrogen Hub, covering Texas.
• Heartland Hydrogen Hub, covering Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota.
• Midwest Hydrogen Hub, covering Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan.
• Pacific Northwest Hydrogen Hub, covering Washington, Oregon, and Montana.

“The seven selected regional clean hydrogen hubs will catalyze more than $40 billion in private investment and create tens of thousands of good-paying jobs—bringing the total public and private investment in hydrogen hubs to nearly $50 billion,” the White House said.

President Biden’s infrastructure law had set aside $65 billion in clean energy investments at the Department of Energy. This included $8 billion for a Regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs Program.

Not Necessarily Clean

Even though the administration is promoting hydrogen as a clean fuel, the reality is complicated. For instance, while green hydrogen is said to be sourced from renewable energy, the electricity usually comes from the power grid, which may not be 100 percent renewable.

In a call with reporters on Thursday, a Biden administration official admitted that while some of the hubs would use clean energy, others would rely on electricity already provided by the grid, The Hill reported. As such, electricity generated from fossil fuels like coal and gas could power some of the hydrogen hubs.

In a statement to The Hill, Erik Kamrath, federal hydrogen advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council, pointed out that the U.S. Treasury is currently weighing how to determine the circumstances under which hydrogen energy would be deemed “clean” so as to be eligible for separate tax credit.

“Weak Treasury guidelines will severely compromise any climate benefits from the [hydrogen hubs],” he said, while adding that there need to be “strong guardrails to ensure that U.S. hydrogen does not create an emissions mess.”

In a commentary for The Epoch Times last year, Peter Castle, an Australian mechanical engineer, pointed to the challenges posed by green and blue hydrogen.

If green hydrogen is powered by solar energy, it would require the deployment of vast solar farms that use numerous nonrecyclable solar panels. The panels are not “clean,” as manufacturing them uses energy that is usually sourced from nonrenewable sources. It would take several years of operation for these panels to offset the total energy involved in creating them.

Moreover, solar panels contain materials that can be highly toxic to the environment. A group of researchers at the Institute for Sanitary Engineering, Water Quality and Waste Management at the University of Stuttgart in Germany estimated that by 2016, solar panels had spread about 11,000 tons of lead and 800 tons of cadmium around the world, according to German outlet Welt.

Meanwhile, blue hydrogen is made from buried methane, which is a finite energy resource. Though there is enough methane to last many decades, it will still become depleted. As such, blue hydrogen is not an infinite power source that can provide humanity with long-lasting power.

Concerns About Water Resources

There are also concerns about desalination at the hydrogen hubs. For the hubs to produce large quantities of hydrogen energy, they will require huge amounts of water. This would necessitate setting up desalinating plants, which take in salty water and separate the saline content.

Some environmentalists say large-scale desalination plants could negatively impact ecosystems in coastal regions.

The United States currently has hundreds of desalination plants. However, these mostly make use of mildly brackish water from inland sources. Converting large amounts of saline ocean water could present a bigger issue.

Coastal Alliance to Protect the Environment, an environmental group based in Corpus Christi, Texas, contacted Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm in a letter about the issue earlier this year.

“It makes no sense to create a purported clean energy source that in turn destroys an entire ecosystem, threatens other economies reliant upon a healthy bay system, and usurps the water supply for residents,” the group said.