At a recent open house in Washington, Pa., Shawn Bennett ticked off some of the ways hydrogen could be used in the coming years.
“Low carbon aviation fuel …using hydrogen to create [clean] ammonia or even using hydrogen to fuel regional transit systems,” he said.
Bennett is with Battelle, a non-profit scientific organization that was awarded a contract to oversee the federally-funded Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub, or ARCH2. It’s one of seven nationwide created under President Joe Biden.
Congress appropriated $7 billion to fund the hubs through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. One of President Trump’s first executive orders, Unleashing American Energy, calls for all agencies to pause funding through the law, although federal judges have blocked similar spending freezes by Trump.
ARCH2 has already received startup funds for Phase One – a period during which the public-private consortium will plan and obtain permits for large industrial projects. So, Bennett is working under the assumption ARCH2 is still a go, even under Trump.
“We have been awarded our $25 million amount for Phase One and we’re going to continue on that phase and continue to do the work,” Bennett said.
That work includes getting businesses to plan projects to make and use hydrogen in a way that lowers America’s carbon pollution. When it’s used in industrial processes or transportation, hydrogen creates no carbon dioxide emissions. Its only byproduct is water.
That’s what makes it such a versatile, low-carbon alternative to fossil fuels, Bennett said. “It’s really an opportunity to utilize a new fuel source for industrial solutions.”
Making hydrogen from natural gas
Low-carbon hydrogen can be produced from a number of sources. One of the hubs, the Mid-Atlantic Clean Hydrogen hub in the Philadelphia area, plans to use nuclear and renewable energy. ARCH2 will largely use fracked natural gas from West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania and bury carbon emissions underground created in the process.
The plan to continue using natural gas has alarmed environmental groups, who point to public health studies showing increased rates of childhood cancer, asthma and other health effects near fracking sites.
Brian Redmond is a co-owner of Hog Lick Aggregates, a rock quarry in West Virginia that is one of the companies involved in ARCH2. He thinks having natural gas companies like EQT involved in the ARCH2 hub could be a selling point for Trump, whose policies favor oil and gas over renewable energy.
“I think there’s an incentive there for the administration to say, ‘“drill, baby, drill,’” right?” Redmond said. “We’re making more natural gas to make more hydrogen. It’s a way to clean up the natural gas.”
Redmond wants to use hydrogen to fuel his rock-hauling trucks around the region.
“My second largest cost of operations is diesel fuel,” Redmond said. “I’m looking to see if we can make hydrogen a more competitive fuel source, and be able to deliver rock to our customers in a more environmentally friendly and competitive way.”
Hydrogen tax credits in jeopardy
But first the hub will have to get off the ground. Trump’s Unleashing American Energy executive order not only calls for a pause on funding tied to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, it also calls for a pause on funding from the Inflation Reduction Act.
The law, signed by Biden in 2022, offers potentially lucrative tax credits for clean hydrogen, carbon capture and other low-carbon industrial programs that could complement and augment hydrogen projects.
“It’s unclear to me as to whether or not, you know, he thinks hydrogen is part of unleashing American energy,” said David Burton, an energy tax expert and partner with the law firm Rose Fulbright.
He’s not sure what Trump will decide about clean hydrogen – a major focal point of Biden’s climate policy – or about how that decision will affect hydrogen projects like ARCH2.
“I could see him saying, ‘yeah, [hydrogen] is tied into natural gas. It’s western Pennsylvania and West Virginia, these are my people–I support this.’” Burton said. “Or I could see him saying, ‘this is part of the green scam. And Biden did it, and anything Biden did is per se bad. And I want to cancel it.’”
Another question surrounding the hub: What will happen to its community benefits program, which includes things like workforce development, but also diversity and environmental justice initiatives, two areas Trump targeted at federal agencies in one of his executive orders? The administration has made moves to shut down or reduce environmental justice programs at agencies, like the EPA.
Though its agreement with the Department of Energy hasn’t changed since Inauguration Day, ARCH2 officials aren’t saying what will happen to its community benefits programs now that Trump is in office.
