Long Ridge Energy Generation started burning hydrogen along with natural gas and sending electricity to the Mid-Atlantic grid.
Reid Frazier/The Allegheny FrontAt an industrial site on the banks of the Ohio River, a big blue building with pipes coming in and out of it could be part of the country's transition to cleaner energy. Its owners hope so.
There is a gas-fired power plant that could provide enough electricity for 400,000 homes. The company that operates the plant, Long Ridge Energy, has begun to blend a small amount of hydrogen with the natural gas.
Bo Wholey says the market shifted over the last couple of years.
The market wants energy that doesn't create carbon pollution. Wholey thinks hydrogen could be the answer.
When hydrogen is used to fuel a car or power plant, water is the main byproduct. Finding a cheap and clean source for making hydrogen has been a problem for decades.
Wholey wants the plant to run on hydrogen someday. President Biden signed a major infrastructure law last year. At least four hydrogen hubs are needed to produce, store and use this gas. The Ohio River Valley is one of the places where groups are hoping to land hubs.
Wholey says that is something that they are evaluating, just as they think about how to make running on hydrogen more economical.
Mention hydrogen and people will remember the 1937 Hindenburg disaster, where a hydrogen-filled airship exploded, though there are questions about whether the flammable gas was the cause. Climate scientists see hydrogen as a potential clean replacement for fossil fuels in heavy industry.
Paulina Jaramillo, a professor of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University and a co-author of a recent U.N. report on climate change, says hydrogen is crucial. She says hydrogen can be a clean alternative for certain industries.
The infrastructure bill is the largest in a long line of attempts to spur technology for hydrogen in the U.S., which the federal government has been trying to support since the George W. Bush administration.
The biggest problem is getting hydrogen. It can be made in a number of different ways. Most hydrogen is made through heating natural gas. This creates lots of carbon dioxide, the driving force in climate change, which the United Nations has called a threat to human well-being and the health of the planet.
Coal has black or brown hydrogen in it. Natural gas is used to make gray hydrogen. Both produce carbon dioxide. Most of the carbon dioxide is captured by blue hydrogen and stored underground. Green hydrogen uses renewable energy to split hydrogen from water. Nuclear power is used to make pink hydrogen.
Meredith Miotke for NPRThe infrastructure bill requires at least one hub for blue hydrogen and another for green hydrogen. The process in which renewable energy is used to extract hydrogen from water gives off no carbon dioxide. Pink hydrogen will be produced by another hub.
Jaramillo says green hydrogen is the ideal, but blue hydrogen could still help the world meet its climate goals ifCCS is used.
If we are going to produce hydrogen with natural gas, it must have CCS, says Jaramillo.
Blue hydrogen leaks methane, a potent greenhouse gas, even though it captures up to 90% of its CO2 and relies on the natural gas system. Some scientists are questioning how beneficial it will be to the climate.
Julie McNamara, deputy policy director for climate and energy with the Union of Concerned Scientists, wants better methane safeguards on any federal funding for blue hydrogen.
McNamara says that it is one of the most important things to get right because the government is investing $8 billion to make sure that the industry is clean.
Some scientists think blue hydrogen is still worth pursuing.
Making hydrogen in an efficient way from fossil resources is the fastest way to reduce our carbon footprint, says Goetz Veser, a professor of chemical. Veser studies the production and use of hydrogen.
The University of Pittsburgh has a lab where Goetz Veser and James McKone work.
Reid Frazier/The Allegheny FrontVeser says that blue hydrogen has an advantage because it uses technology that is decades old.
The political power of the fossil fuel industry in the United States is one of the advantages, according to an analyst. She says blue hydrogen is more likely than green hydrogen.
Do you think that the natural gas industry would be more willing to get rid of infrastructure?
Do you think that they would prefer the investment that you made in the infrastructure? She says that you have to pay more to add carbon capture on to it.
Manchin is a key supporter of blue hydrogen. Manchin blocked Biden's climate agenda last year but said he might accept a scaled-down bill with clean energy tax credits. Manchin wants one of the hydrogen hubs to be built in his home state of West Virginia.
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