January 27, 2022 • Paul Rodden • Season: 2022 • Episode: 85
Welcome to The Hydrogen Podcast!
In episode 085, New Mexico to boost clean energy economy with a hydrogen hub Development Act, GM announces its broadening its scope on fuel cells, and Linde, announcing that it started up the world’s first plant for extracting hydrogen from natural gas pipelines using membrane technology. All of this on today’s hydrogen podcast.
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Transcript:
New Mexico to boost clean energy economy with a hydrogen hub Development Act, GM announces its broadening its scope on fuel cells, and Linde, announcing that it started up the world’s first plant for extracting hydrogen from natural gas pipelines using membrane technology. All of this 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.
Before I get started today, I want to give a shout out to my new friends at the Stanford MBA program. Last week, we had a great sit down discussion about the future of hydrogen, the technology around it and most specifically storage. Good luck to everyone this semester. I know you’ll do great. Okay, first off today in a notice sent to me from the Cabinet Secretary for the state of New Mexico, New Mexico to boost clean energy economy with hydrogen hub Development Act, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham on Tuesday, January 25, announced the introduction of a house bill for the hydrogen hub Development Act, which will expand the clean energy economy in New Mexico while lowering greenhouse gas emissions through incentivizing low carbon hydrogen production and export. The public and private sectors are investing billions of dollars to deploy low carbon hydrogen, with one report suggesting an estimated $300 billion in worldwide spending on hydrogen related projects by 2030.
Further, the Biden administration plans to invest $8 billion to incentivize the development of four regional hydrogen hubs to produce and use low carbon hydrogen and manufacturing, heating and transportation. This bill ensures the growing hydrogen economy aligns with New Mexico’s ambitious climate goals, while creating clean energy jobs for New Mexicans. According to Governor Lujan Grisham by incentivizing clean hydrogen development through this legislation, we are steering this emerging industry toward a lower carbon future. This is New Mexico’s chance to reap the vast economic and environmental benefits of clean hydrogen.
And I urge legislators to think boldly and support the hydrogen hub Development Act. Several key sectors of the New Mexico economy cannot decarbonize without low carbon hydrogen, long haul trucks, for example, cannot electrify it without dedicating an enormous percentage of space and weight to battery’s. Low Carbon. Hydrogen provides the trucking, manufacturing mining construction, electric generation and other industries the means to decarbonize their operations. This bill is sponsored by representatives Patricia Lundstrom. And Nathan Small, and the legislation would 1. create tax incentives for low carbon hydrogen production, distribution use refueling and electric generating facilities across the state to further decarbonize the economy, 2. offer the option to develop regional hydrogen hubs through the creation of public private partnerships, including funding options through the New Mexico Finance Authority. 3., prioritize the greatest tax incentives, both inside and outside a regional hydrogen hub for negative carbon intensity hydrogen, and 4. establish a greenhouse gas emission limit for any hydrogen electric generating facility seeking tax incentives. And a quote from representative Patricia Lundstrom.
This bill creates and protects good family supporting jobs for New Mexicans while reducing emissions and addressing climate change. Positioning our state as a leader in the just transition to a clean economy. We cannot turn back the clock on climate change, but we can use every tool at our disposal to slow it down and mitigate its impacts. And quoting representative Nathan Small, HB 4 aggressively reduces emissions positions New Mexico to lead the way in the energy transition puts us in the front line for federal funding, and will bring new jobs and a healthier environment to some of the most impacted communities in our state.
The energy transition offers hope for a cleaner, stronger and more prosperous New Mexico, but only if we work together. And HB 4 puts us on the path to do that. HB 4 addresses climate change at every step in the production and use of hydrogen by guiding the industry towards a low carbon methods through impressive tax incentives. Producers who use cleaner methods get larger and larger tax incentives with those producing hydrogen with a carbon intensity equal to or less than zero receiving the largest incentives, including 100% gross receipts tax deduction. Earlier this year, several state agencies signed an MOU focused on the development zero carbon hydrogen with Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories. So again, New Mexico stepping forward with a big push to develop a large hydrogen infrastructure within the state.
And as someone who was born and raised in that state, I know how important the energy sector is for the state’s economy. And so to see such an embrace of hydrogen as the energy transition fuel means that New Mexico could take the leading role in hydrogen development in the United States this decade. Next, in a press release on January 20, Linde engineering starts up the world’s first plant for extracting hydrogen from natural gas pipelines using membrane technology. Linde engineering has officially started up the world’s first full scale pilot plant in Dormagen Germany to showcase how hydrogen can be separated from natural gas streams using Linde’s high select powered by Evonik membrane technology. The process is a key enabler for scenarios in which hydrogen is blended with natural gas and transported via natural gas pipelines. The Blended gas could consist of between five and 60% Hydrogen membranes are then used to extract hydrogen from these natural gas streams at the point of consumption. The resulting hydrogen has a concentration level of up to 90%. When further processed with Linde engineerings pressure swing absorption technology, a purity of up to 99.99% can be achieved.
Membrane technologies are vital to efforts around the globe for establishing hydrogen infrastructure. In Europe 11 transmission system operators are working on creating the European hydrogen backbone. Their aim is to build and expand a functional hydrogen network based largely on repurposed existing natural gas infrastructure. Membrane technology like high select could be integral for efficiently transporting hydrogen to end users for use as an industry feedstock as a source of heat and power or as transportation fuel. And a quote from John van der Velden Senior Vice President of Global Sales and technology at Linde engineering. The high select demonstration and Dormagen, allows us to display essential technology for transporting hydrogen via natural gas pipelines in a real life setting. It shows a way to leverage existing infrastructure. In doing so we avoid the high costs and long process that would be involved in building a dedicated hydrogen pipeline infrastructure. Alright, so interesting news from Linde and what I find so appealing about this news is that manufacturers of membrane technology are focusing more and more on blended natural gas pipeline networks. I’m also a big supporter of generating hydrogen at the point of consumption. This can avoid some of the massive headaches of storage and transportation of pure hydrogen.
And lastly, General Motors takes aim at boosting its hydrogen generators business. General Motors recently announced its intentions to take its fuel cell business beyond vehicles by becoming a supplier of hydrogen generators. Uses for this equipment include everything from data centers, to construction sites, music festivals, and military by placing an additional focus on hydrogen generators will make it possible for GM to be able to scale and leverage the h2 investments it’s already made while also refining the tech. This according to the automakers execs in a quote from GM Hydrotech, business executive director Charlie Freese. Think of places where you don’t have permanent installation for power generation, but you need clean power sources. Now at the time, the automaker declined the opportunity to specify its revenue expectations for the new business. The company also stated that the price and availability date for the h2 units would be announced at another time. Now the hydrogen generators will be assembled by a joint venture between General Motors and Honda.
Through this joint venture, the h2 units will be assembled in Brownstown. Michigan, renewable innovations, which is a Utah based company will be building the generators and the production will begin in 2023. General Motors had made a prior announcement as part of its hydrogen business, which had unveiled at its h2 Fuel Cell collaboration with Navistar International Corporation, which is a truck maker with a Wabtec Corp locomotive developer, and Liebherr Aerospace equipment manufacturer. According to Freese the reason General Motors made this decision to dive into hydrogen generators instead of stopping at fuel cell vehicles is that it would be able to boost the use of green hydrogen to help bring down the cost associated with that renewable fuel. He explained that the automaker was also teaming up with infrastructure providers for the installation of more hydrogen production systems and shrink dependence on pricey hydrogen transportation, as the cost of renewable hydrogen has been one of the top barriers to its adoption. Overcoming that barrier could be a meaningful difference to its mainstream use. Okay, so great news that GM is expanding its fuel cell division and broadening its scope beyond vehicles into power generation.
Now, this is some of the news that I really do love to see. When you have Experts in one field applying their knowledge and technological expertise into new fields. And that’s exactly what GM is doing right now. And what I’m really interested in seeing develop is their hydrogen fuel cell collaborations with Navistar, Wabtec and Liebherr. Those four heavyweights together can really push the hydrogen infrastructure forward.
Alright, that’s it for me everyone. If you have any questions, comments or concerns about today’s episode, come and visit me at thehydrogenpodcast.com. Or you can always email me at info@thehydrogenpodcast.com. I would really love to hear from you. And as always, take care. Stay safe. I’ll talk to you later.
Hey, this is Paul. I hope you’d like 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.
