The hydrogen industry will be at risk if only legislation that focuses on 100% green hydrogen is signed into law and rolled out globally.
That was a strong message from Linde and TOMCO at the GAWDA Spring Management Conference this morning in San Antonio, Texas.
According to the educational session hosts, Scott Rummans and Jeff Holyoak, there was over $220bn federal spending on clean energy initiatives last year, with numbers continuing to grow.
“If we figure hydrogen out, every country in the world could be clean energy dependent, but the industry will be killed if only legislation focused on solely green hydrogen is passed,” Holyoak said.
He continued, “But if we pass legislation that only focuses on green hydrogen, the momentum wouldn’t be able to be maintained to get businesses and economies to scale.”
Green hydrogen can be generated from renewable electricity, such as solar or wind power by electrolysis, from biogas by steam reforming, or from biomass through thermal conversion.
Just last month, several trade associations have raised concerns surrounding the 45V clean hydrogen production tax credit, stating that it could prevent investment in clean hydrogen.
As it stands, the proposed regulations for 45V require clean hydrogen producers using natural gas as a feedstock to input a fixed upstream emissions rate based on a national average.
However, within the 45VH2-GREET model, which is tailed for assessing hydrogen production pathways, the upstream emissions rate is “background” data that cannot be altered by a producer.
It says that maintaining upstream methane emissions in blue hydrogen as background data could put major projects in jeopardy, which could result in less clean hydrogen.
Speaking on the US hydrogen market specifically, Holyoak said, “Hydrogen will be part of the fabric of the infrastructure in this country. It’s going to take time, but once we figure out costs and regulations, it will be huge.”
“And hydrogen is also a market opportunity for almost everyone in this room. There are loads of great opportunities.”
The 45VH2-GREET model calculates the greenhouse gas emissions from producing hydrogen, focusing on everything from the start of production to when it leaves the plant. This is measured per kilogram of pure hydrogen at a standard pressure of 300 psia (about 20 bar). Since hydrogen production conditions (like pressure and purity) can vary between different producers, the model uses this standard measure to ensure a fair comparison of emissions across all facilities.
For the 2023 version of 45VH2-GREET, when users input their data, they need to specify the purity and pressure of the hydrogen they produce. If the hydrogen is produced at a pressure lower than 300 psia, the model will calculate how much electricity would be needed to increase the pressure to 300 psia.
Equally, if the hydrogen is produced at a higher pressure, it will estimate the electricity needed to achieve that higher pressure, starting at 300 psia.
This helps to adjust the emissions calculation based on the energy needed to compress hydrogen to a consistent pressure, ensuring that the emissions data is comparable regardless of the production specifics.
