Jason Lindquist

The long-delayed rules around the federal government’s Hydrogen Production Tax Credit (PTC), also known as 45V, had been the subject of heated debate — and lobbying — since passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) way back in August 2022. But after more than a year of speculation — and with the Biden administration in its last days — the final rulemaking has at last been published. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll look at how the final rulemaking compares with the initial guidelines established in December 2023, detail the key areas where the rules have been made more lenient, and explain why clean hydrogen still faces an uncertain future, while also previewing our first Drill Down report of 2025. 

One of the biggest challenges to a significant expansion of the commercial hydrogen market in the U.S. is the lack of a comprehensive transportation network. That has spurred interest from utilities, government agencies and others interested in utilizing or repurposing parts of the existing (and extensive) natural gas infrastructure to ship hydrogen. But that approach comes with some challenges, starting with the significant differences in the physical and chemical properties of hydrogen and methane, the main component of natural gas. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll explain why moving hydrogen on the existing natural gas network — then storing and utilizing it — is no easy feat. 

Progress in the carbon-capture industry can be slow, given the extended permitting process for sequestration wells, uncertain long-term outlook and skepticism about the real-world effectiveness in reducing carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. The past several weeks have been a better-than-usual period for advocates of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), with significant milestones reached for a trio of important projects under development, but not all the news was positive. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll look at what’s happening with a handful of key CCS projects. 

Passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in August 2022 was intended to unleash a wave of clean-energy initiatives, from hydrogen and renewable fuels to electric vehicles and large-scale carbon-capture projects, all part of the Biden administration’s plans to reduce carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions and move the U.S. closer to a net-zero economy. But while billions in federal financing and tax credits have helped move many projects forward, they can only advance as fast as permitting, regulations and economic reality will allow. In today’s RBN blog, we look at the surge in proposed carbon-capture projects since passage of the IRA, where they are in the review process, and how the pace of permitting at the federal level compares with the states that have primacy over their own sequestration wells. 

The Biden administration has placed some big bets on clean hydrogen, seeing it as a replacement fuel for some hard-to-abate industries and putting it at the heart of its long-term decarbonization efforts. But while clean hydrogen has significant long-term potential — backed by major subsidies, including the 45V production tax credit (PTC) — figuring out a path to a greater role in the U.S. energy mix is more complicated than it might seem. The proposed rules around the tax credit have stirred up a hornet’s nest worth of criticism from those who think the guidance might ultimately do more harm than good. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll preview our latest Drill Down Report on the incentives — primarily the 45V tax credit — intended to expand the clean hydrogen industry and examine some of the barriers to significant growth.