Superfund Site Still On Track To Produce Green Hydrogen

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Now that US President Donald Trump’s war in Iran has disrupted global fuel markets, it’s time for the Energy Department’s $7 billion Regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs program to kick into action. Except, not. The program was aimed at building a more resilient hydrogen supply for domestic industries. Too bad Trump ripped up the plan upon taking office last year. Nevertheless, a trickle of activity continues to stir in the area of green hydrogen produced from water, with New Mexico among the states in play.

Picking Up The Green Hydrogen Pieces

Hydrogen is produced mainly from natural gas and coal. As a transportation fuel, hydrogen has yet to go mainstream in the US, but other use cases abound including fertilizer production as well as refining, metallurgy, and food processing.

Funding for the Regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs program was carved out of the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The BIL required space in the plan for natural gas with carbon capture, but the main focus was on green hydrogen from renewable resources, including biomass as well as water electrolysis. The foundational idea was to leverage different sourcing, transportation, storage, and demand factors in various parts of the US to build more security and resiliency into the domestic hydrogen supply chain, with a ripple effect on the industries that rely on hydrogen.

Trump clawed back funding for the green hydrogen projects, but some of the stakeholders stuck around to pick up the pieces. That includes the unsinkable electrolyzer and fuel cell manufacturer Plug Power. Last year, Trump pulled a $1.66 billion loan guarantee out from under the New York–based startup, which would have supported up to six domestic hydrogen projects.

Still, it’s a big world out there. That’s something Trump persistently fails to acknowledge, but it’s a fact. Plug Power has been doing its electrolyzer business in Europe, and last month the company celebrated a new contract for its 275 megawatt “GenEco” electrolzyer for a project in Québec. The electrolyzer will run on hydropower to produce hydrogen for green ammonia, which will then be processed into ammonium nitrate for the mining industry.

Transforming A Superfund Site For Clean Energy

One green hydrogen project that did manage to survive the Trump chopper — at least so far — is the Questa Hydrogen Project. To be located at former Chevron molybdenum mine and Superfund site in the village of Questa, New Mexico, the project received $231 million in funding through a US Department of Agriculture program called Empowering Rural America. The award was announced on January 13 of 2025, when former President Joe Biden was still in office.

The Questa project comes under the wing of the Kit Carson Electric Cooperative, one of 900 or so member-owned electric utilities around the country established under a Depression-era Act of Congress. The aim was to lift rural communities out of poverty through electrification. To this day, electric coops serve an outsized proportion of counties that fall into the persistent poverty rate.

KCEC has made a big name for itself as an early mover in the renewable energy transition. In 2019, the coop began working with the New Mexico solar developer Guzman Energy to negotiate its way out of its existing, burdensome coal power contracts and switch to solar.

Just three years later, in 2022, KCEC achieved 100% solar power for daytime hours. Once completed, the Questa project will help KCEC deploy solar energy at night, too, by leveraging green hydrogen as a long-duration energy storage medium. The hydrogen will be used in stationary fuel cells to produce electricity for local communities.

When the project first surfaced on the CleanTechnica radar back in 2024, the initial ask was for up to 16 hours of storage. That’s 4–6 times more than KCEC was getting from its existing battery systems.

Hold, Please …

The plan includes a 50-megawatt solar array in Questa along with hydrogen facilities in Questa, the Town of Taos, and the federally recognized Picuris Pueblo and Taos Pueblo tribes. Water for the electrolysis systems was initially supposed to come from Chevron’s wastewater treatment plants, established at mine as part of the Superfund cleanup operation. However, somewhere along the line Chevron decided not to make treated wastewater available for the hydrogen operation.

According to reporting by the news organization Taos News, Chevron has instead designated a groundwater well on the site. The switcheroo has sparked some opposition among local residents concerned about water resources in a region gripped by a 25-year megadrought. On its part, KCEC notes that the water rights attached to the mine could be forfeited if not claimed for community use.

“As mine reclamation concludes, these rights could become inactive; using them for this project would help ensure they remain in beneficial use, avoid potential forfeiture by the State Engineer, and keep those water resources tied to the Questa community,” KCEC explains.

“In addition, the Office of the State Engineer’s impairment analysis for Chevron’s approved additional point of diversion (RG-14117-POD-18) found that diverting up to 250 acre-feet per year would not adversely affect the local aquifer, nearby wells, or surface water flows, as confirmed through NMOSE hydrologic modeling and approval,” the coop adds, referring to the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer.

More Green Hydrogen For The USA

As noted by Taos News, the Questa project needs to be 10% complete by July 4 in order to qualify for federal tax credits. So far, KCEC is on track to deliver the solar phase of the project on time. Though, as of this writing, the Questa Village Council still has to vote on a power purchase agreement to buy the array.

KCEC is not the only stakeholder stirring green hydrogen activity. Another example is the Texas-based ag tech firm TalusAg, which has developed a modular system for producing green ammonia fertilizer from green hydrogen. The company piloted a solar-powered version of the system in Iowa last year and it is currently pitching the idea in Minnesota. The system is energy-agnostic, and in Minnesota it could run on excess wind power, helping turbine owners recover revenue that would otherwise be lost to curtailment.

Another firm to watch is New York–based First Ammonia. Last month, the firm experienced a hiccup in its plans for a 200-megawatt green ammonia plant in Victoria, Texas, when its electrolyzer supplier bowed out. However, the company affirmed that it is still on track for an FID (final investment decision) towards the start of construction later this year.

Photo: A Superfund site in New Mexico will soon host a 50-megawatt solar array, earmarked to produce green hydrogen as a long duration storage medium for night-time clean power generation (courtesy of US EPA)