Jump-starting hydrogen economy will require color blindness: panel

More attention will need to be paid to various hydrogen production pathways in the near term in order for the hydrogen economy to expand in the long term, stakeholders from across the US hydrogen economy said during a Center for Strategic and International Studies panel discussion.

The simultaneous development of various hydrogen production methods will be building blocks necessary for scaling up the clean hydrogen economy, the stakeholders during the Nov. 16 discussion.

"I think sometimes sequencing and scale of investments gets underappreciated or lost in some of the conversations as we get overly focused on the end goal," CSIC Senior Fellow Jane Nakano said.

The present hydrogen economy includes a variety of production methods, each with its own color categorization denoting its associated carbon emission levels. Green hydrogen refers to zero carbon hydrogen produced using renewable energy and electrolysis, which is currently a high-cost production option. Blue hydrogen refers to a production method that uses natural gas paired with carbon capture technologies to produce low-carbon hydrogen.

Dirtier methods are often described as grey hydrogen, which is produced with natural gas without carbon capture, and brown or black hydrogen, which is produced using coal and is the most carbon intensive method.

Other production methods have cropped up within this spectrum, most notably pink hydrogen, which is generated using nuclear energy, and turquoise hydrogen, which uses a methane feedstock to produce hydrogen with a solid carbon byproduct.

All of these methods should be simultaneously developed if the hydrogen economy is going to scale up enough to decarbonize hard-to-abate sectors, said Bill Elrick, executive director of the California Fuel Cell Partnership.

"I don't like the color scale because hydrogen doesn't really have a color – you're really trying to get at a carbon number," Elrick said.

To Toru Sugiura, senior manager of Toyota Tsusho America, an exclusive focus on high-cost green hydrogen won't generate the demand necessary for the fuel to popularize.

"The carbon emission component is important, but I think first, in order to make hydrogen as a common fuel, I think it's very important that we start using hydrogen whatever the color," Sugiura said.

One piece of California legislation is already attempting to make progress in this respect, Sugiura noted. Senate Bill 439, introduced earlier this year, would expand the definition of green hydrogen to include more clean production pathways beyond electrolysis. Those methods include the conversion of biomasses and other renewable gasses and liquids to hydrogen.

The Biden Administration's Build Back Better Act would similarly award hydrogen production tax credit amounts according to carbon intensity levels rather than method. The credit would offer $3/kg of hydrogen produced with 95% fewer emissions that that produced by steam methane reforming, or grey hydrogen, and between 60 cents/kg and $1.02/kg for hydrogen produced with between 40% and 95% fewer emissions than grey hydrogen.

It's important to initially use various low-carbon hydrogen types "just to change the market," Sugiura said. "Then gradually we can think about carbon levels and green levels."

"The important thing is to try not to move from 100 to zero carbon emissions," he said. "Gradually moving towards zero emissions is important to starting up."