Full Title: Reclaiming Hydrogen for a Renewable Future: Distinguishing Fossil Fuel Industry Spin from Zero-Emission Solutions
Author(s): Sasan Saadat, Sara Gersen
Publisher(s): Earthjustice
Publication Date: August 31, 2021
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
The fossil fuel industry has helped generate enormous interest around hydrogen, making it difficult for policymakers to tell how much they can rely on hydrogen to meet climate goals. Too often, companies that profit from our reliance on fossil fuels invoke the vague promise of “clean,” “renewable,” or “green” hydrogen to derail action today. To avoid this trap, policymakers must scrutinize claims about hydrogen and think critically about where it can be a meaningful part of real climate solutions. To reclaim hydrogen for a renewable future, policymakers should explore opportunities to produce hydrogen from renewable electricity and use it to decarbonize sectors that cannot directly rely on a renewable electric grid.
First, reclaiming hydrogen for a zero-emission future requires a transition away from producing it with polluting technologies. Currently, oil and gas companies produce nearly all of the United States’ annual supply of hydrogen—about 10 million metric tons—from fossil fuels through a process that pollutes neighboring communities with health-harming emissions and the atmosphere with greenhouse gases. Transforming hydrogen from a climate threat to a climate tool requires a transition to green hydrogen.
Green hydrogen is made using 100% renewable electricity to split hydrogen from water molecules. For now, this is the only established way to produce hydrogen without emitting greenhouse gases or other health-harming pollutants. This whitepaper helps policymakers distinguish green hydrogen from hydrogen produced through polluting processes using inputs like fossil fuels and gas from factory farms. Fueling an industrial facility with green hydrogen would mitigate climate pollution, but not other pollution from its industrial processes, and so deployment of green hydrogen can never justify a buildout of facilities that would increase toxic pollution.