Green hydrogen is to get a boost in the United States as part of the US President’s plans to reduce emissions in the industrial sector.
The US Department of Energy will make $8 billion available to create a series of regional Green Hydrogen hubs. These hubs will facilitate the production, processing, delivery, and storage of hydrogen and plans to make the fuel more readily available to industrial users.
Hydrogen emits only water when it is used as a fuel. That’s why it is seen as a strong contender to help reduce emissions in hard to decarbonize areas of the economy. These include industrial processes such as steel manufacturing, cement, and aluminium.
But green hydrogen, which is produced using climate neutral energy sources such as hydro electric, solar and wind energy, is not yet widely available at scale and the production costs are still high when compared to fossil fuel alternatives.
The Biden administration wants to reduce the cost of hydrogen by 80% to $1 per kilogram within the next decade. It is investing $1 billion in the Clean Hydrogen Electrolysis Program that aims to improve the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of these technologies.
Further, the Department of Energy is making $28 million available for “R&D and front-end engineering design projects to advance clean hydrogen in industrial uses, as well as the transportation and electricity sectors.” It is also offering a “matchmaking” service to help hydrogen producers, users and others along the value chain figure out how to develop effective production and distribution networks.
The planned investments in hydrogen are just one piece of a multi pronged approach that Biden is proposing to reduce emissions in hard to abate industrial sectors such as steel making.
Other proposals include scaling investments in Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) technologies, trade-based policies with the EU and other countries to reward producers of “low carbon products,” and several research-based and interdisciplinary groups that will help guide future policy decisions.
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