Paul Rodden • Season: 2024 • Episode: 369
Listen Now:
>Direct Link To The Hydrogen Podcast MP3<
Listen On Your Favorite App:
Welcome to The Hydrogen Podcast!
Episode 369, In this episode, Paul examines the implications of a second Trump term on the U.S. hydrogen economy, including the challenges for green hydrogen projects and federal incentives. He discusses the potential paths forward for hydrogen to thrive despite policy shifts, emphasizing global and private sector support.
Thank you for listening and I hope you enjoy the podcast. Please feel free to email me at info@thehydrogenpodcast.com with any questions. Also, if you wouldn’t mind subscribing to my podcast using your preferred platform… I would greatly appreciate it.
Respectfully,
Paul Rodden
VISIT THE HYDROGEN PODCAST WEBSITE
https://thehydrogenpodcast.com
CHECK OUT OUR BLOG
https://thehydrogenpodcast.com/blog/
WANT TO SPONSOR THE PODCAST?
Send us an email to: info@thehydrogenpodcast.com
NEW TO HYDROGEN AND NEED A QUICK INTRODUCTION?
Start Here: The 6 Main Colors of Hydrogen
Transcript:
Will a second Trump term end the green hydrogen push. What are the variables and what is the most likely path forward for hydrogen to succeed in these next four years? I’ll go over this and give my thoughts on today’s hydrogen podcast.
So the big questions in the energy industry today are, how is hydrogen the primary driving force behind the evolution of energy, where is capital being deployed for hydrogen projects globally, and where are the best investment opportunities for early adopters who recognize the importance of hydrogen? I will address the critical issues and give you the information you need to deploy capital. Those are the questions that will unlock the potential of hydrogen, and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Paul Rodden, and welcome to the hydrogen podcast.
In an article in E and E News, Brian Dabbs writes, Trump may end Biden’s green hydrogen dream. President Elect Donald Trump’s victory is threatening to quash a major source of low carbon energy before it gets off the ground. President-elect Donald Trump’s victory is threatening to quash a major source of low-carbon energy before it gets off the ground: “green” hydrogen.
The industry, which wants to make hydrogen with renewable energy, is heavily backed by the Biden administration, the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
Facing potentially less federal support under Trump, the sector could struggle to compete with natural gas and other cheaper, dirtier fuels. That would put billions of dollars in projects at risk, according to experts.
“It is going to be much more difficult for green hydrogen to compete,” said Mary Baker, a government affairs counselor at K&L Gates, which represents hydrogen companies. “Across the board in the clean energy space, there is angst.”
Since the election, stocks have tumbled for large hydrogen companies like Plug Power, Ballard Power Systems and Global X Hydrogen.
Trump has not detailed his full position on hydrogen, although he criticized hydrogen cars during the 2024 campaign, suggesting the vehicles were prone to blowing up. On his Agenda 47 campaign website, he says that blending hydrogen with other fuels is an “untested” technology. Spokespeople for the president-elect did not respond to requests for comment, but Trump has vowed to target funding from the IRA that he terms “the green new scam.”
Meanwhile, Trump ally and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has criticized using hydrogen for cars and rockets, although he unveiled Tesla’s first hydrogen-powered vehicle this summer.
Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, but it’s expensive and challenging to harness.
Today, fossil fuels are combusted to produce 10 million metric tons annually of hydrogen in the U.S., which is largely used for fertilizer and other agricultural practices. The Biden administration thinks the U.S. can power huge parts of the economy, like steelmaking and long-haul trucking, with “clean” or low-carbon hydrogen.
Clean hydrogen requires either hydrogen production with carbon capture or clean electricity. That involves green hydrogen or “pink” hydrogen produced with nuclear. Electrolysis is the process by which a current is sent through water to drive a chemical reaction that produces hydrogen.
“Lots of people in industry continue to see the long-term value of producing hydrogen to the U.S. economy and for export around the world,” said Frank Wolak, president and CEO of the lobbying group Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Association. “But there’s definitely a trepidation about what this industry looks like going into 2025.”
The Biden administration is trying to jump-start the nascent clean hydrogen industry with $7 billion from the infrastructure law to build a network of hydrogen hubs. Another billion dollars is slated for the manufacturing of electrolyzers, which are used to produce hydrogen with electricity.
The infrastructure law says the hydrogen hub network must use “diverse” fuels, including renewables, nuclear power and fossil fuels with carbon capture technology.
The IRA provided a tax credit for hydrogen, known as 45V for its place in the tax code, that industry supporters say could bolster production at the hubs and elsewhere. The Treasury Department’s proposed guidance to receive the credit favored what is known as the “three pillars” approach, calling for hydrogen production to use new clean energy on the grid during the same hour that the production is occurring, and from the same geographic area.
Environmentalists praised the draft guidance as important for ensuring hydrogen lowers emissions, while many industry members said it was too strict and would hinder projects. Final Treasury guidance on the tax credits are expected in the coming weeks.
Regardless of the content of the Biden administration’s final rules, the Trump administration could trash them and create new ones that favor “blue hydrogen,” which involves linking fuel production with carbon capture.
“Now would be an excellent time for the Biden administration to finalize guidance to lock in the three pillars immediately and prohibit the use of bogus methane offsets,” said Lukas Ross, deputy director of the climate and energy justice program at the environmental group Friends of the Earth. “The Biden administration needs to lock in as much progress as possible now.”
By “bogus” offsets, Ross referred to rules in the Treasury proposal that could allow gas captured at landfill sites to qualify for 45V as part of a complex emissions trading system known as “book-and-claim.”
Alan Krupnick, a senior fellow at the energy research group Resources for the Future, said gas producers like blue hydrogen because “it keeps the natural gas demand up.”
Oil and gas companies are heavily invested in blue hydrogen. They are project partners in virtually all the hubs. North Dakota Republican Gov. Doug Burgum, a potential Energy secretary pick under Trump, enthusiastically backed the selection of a hydrogen hub in his region, saying “clean hydrogen can play a major role in our all-of-the-above energy approach.”
While Trump has threatened to repeal the IRA, some Republicans want to preserve parts of it.
Trump could also try to revoke the hydrogen credit altogether or attempt to claw back or “impound” IRA funds. Trump’s efforts would be bolstered by a GOP-controlled Congress. Republicans have already won the Senate and are close to locking down the House.
Moreover, Trump is likely to trash EPA carbon rules that could force gas power plants to mix fuels with hydrogen and install carbon capture, and he’s all but certain to decide against new greenhouse gas emissions regulations for the industrial sector. That means demand for clean hydrogen could be hard to come by.
Clean energy leaders are projecting confidence in the industry’s future. Dan Lashof, U.S. director of the World Resources Institute, predicted Republicans will keep the IRA hydrogen tax credit.
“I think we’ll continue to see the U.S. driving innovation in a lot of these nascent technologies, including hydrogen,” Lashof told reporters on a post-election call. “We’ll have to see, but I think that those investments, both from the federal government [and the private sector], will continue.”
In future years, green hydrogen could compete directly with natural gas to power industrial facilities and even long-haul trucking, according to some analysts. The U.S. has enough natural gas to last about 80 years at current production rates, according to the Energy Information Administration.
To make green hydrogen more cost-competitive, the Department of Energy announced $750 million in March for 52 projects to build the industry’s supply chain. One of those is privately owned Electric Hydrogen, a Massachusetts-based electrolyzer producer. DOE awarded the company $46.3 million to produce “a next-generation proton exchange membrane electrolyzer stack capable of meeting DOE cost and performance targets,” along with an $18.3 million tax credit.
Beth Deane, chief legal officer at Electric Hydrogen, called hydrogen a “long-term play.”
“It’s only going to work if you can bring down the costs,” she said. “We’re going to be able to bring down the costs by getting projects built, and that has not happened in large part because, at least in the U.S., there has not been certainty around the incentives.”
Hydrogen supporters hope the funds and tax cuts will revolutionize industrial and transportation fuel and slash emissions in the coming decades. Domestic manufacturing proponents also see an opportunity to defang China.
Without support for domestic manufacturers of electrolyzers, “the green hydrogen industry could fall victim to the same trap of overreliance on Chinese supply chains faced by U.S. solar developers before announced investments in domestic electrolyzer production capacity have the chance to get off the ground,” James Prussing, senior vice president at the consultancy Boundary Stone Partners, said in a statement.
China had nearly 60 percent of the 25 gigawatts of global electrolyzer manufacturing capacity last year, according to a recent report from the International Energy Agency, a Paris-based energy organization. The report says China is likely to produce more than half of the world’s electrolyzers in 2035.
“By 2035, Europe and the Middle East will each contribute 15% of global manufacturing capacity, the United States 11%, and India 7%,” IEA said.
The report predicts 320 GW of installed electrolyzer capacity by 2050 if countries deliver on Paris agreement policies. It calls EU initiatives for low-carbon aviation fuel a “major driver” of electrolyzer demand and says transportation will account for two-thirds of demand in 2050, with the remainder in the industrial, refining, and power sectors.
China is on track to use a quarter of electrolyzers installed by midcentury, while the U.S. will use 14 percent, the report added.
“If the U.S. diminishes its interest in green hydrogen and electrolytic hydrogen, it doesn’t mean that Europe is diminishing its interest, and it doesn’t mean that China is diminishing its interest,” said Wolak. “We’d simply sit on the sidelines.”
Okay, so just a couple of things I want to talk about in this article. We’re really diving into some of the points that are made when this article was written, the US Senate was controlled by Republicans, and now. All the House of Representatives is also controlled by Republicans. And also the quote about Elon Musk and Tesla getting into hydrogen vehicles. So far, I have not seen any concrete evidence that Tesla is actually making a hydrogen vehicle. Now, Elon Musk has changed his position on hydrogen a little bit, saying that for industrial use hydrogen is needed. But outside of that, I have not seen him make any statements specifically regarding hydrogen and Tesla. But as I said before, could Trump actually repeal the IRA? Well, technically, he could, but first, there’s going to be a lot of red tape to do that. And secondly, there are billions upon billions of dollars, both federal and private, already invested in us hydrogen production. And these are not just us dollars getting spent on these projects and developments. This is global money coming into the US from Europe, the Middle East and Asia. So while I won’t say that the hydrogen industry, at least here in the US, is too big to fail. It has certainly gained enough interest and support for it to grow. How it grows is going to be the big question.
All right, that’s it for me, everyone. If you have a second, I would really appreciate it. If you could leave a good review on whatever platform it is that you listen to Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google, YouTube, whatever it is, that would be a tremendous help to the show. And as always, if you ever have any feedback, you’re welcome to email me directly at info@thehydrogenpodcast.com. So until next time, keep your eyes up and honor one another. Hey, this is Paul. I hope you liked this podcast. If you did and want to hear more. I’d appreciate it if you would either subscribe to this channel on YouTube, or connect with your favorite platform through my website at www.thehydrogenpodcast.com. Thanks for listening. I very much appreciate it. Have a great day.
