Harness Your Hopes - How and Where Will U.S. Low-Carbon-Intensity Hydrogen Expand?

Given the frothy targets to reduce U.S. carbon emissions set by the 2016 Paris Agreement and an anticipated expanding role in that process for low-carbon-intensity (LCI) hydrogen that is barely being produced in 2024, it’s hard to believe there’s a path forward. Yet one recent study from industry participants in the National Petroleum Council (NPC), commissioned by the Department of Energy (DOE), provides detailed projections of how and where LCI hydrogen will develop, including regional variations. In today’s RBN blog we review that analysis. 

This is the third installment of a series covering the practical and economic viability of increased utilization of LCI hydrogen to reduce carbon emissions — ultimately to help meet the U.S. meet its net-zero-by-2050 goals. In Part 1, we introduced an NPC study commissioned by the DOE to help define potential pathways leading to LCI hydrogen deployment at scale. More than 300 individuals contributed to the ensuing analysis, and the final 800-page report — Harnessing Hydrogen: A Key Element of the U.S. Energy Future — was published in April 2024.

Part 1 highlighted the report’s analysis of existing domestic hydrogen transmission and storage infrastructure, which was RBN’s contribution to the study. While the existing hydrogen network is small, it operates economically to meet the needs of Gulf Coast refiners and chemical companies and demonstrates it’s possible to move hydrogen gas over long distances by pipeline. Underground storage caverns, in turn, offer a working buffer system that helps stage pipeline supplies to and from refineries and producers. Nevertheless, most existing hydrogen production is still “gray” — so called because it’s derived from natural gas (methane), meaning its carbon intensity (CI) is high. Major investment is required to convert that production to LCI hydrogen; either by capturing and disposing of carbon dioxide (CO₂) from gray production to make it “blue” hydrogen; or by using renewable electricity (e.g., from wind or solar) to power electrolyzers to produce “green” LCI hydrogen from water. (For more on CI and the hydrogen color scheme, see Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood. For more on the LCI hydrogen projects under development, see our weekly Hydrogen Billboard report.)