Appalachian hydrogen hub is a dirty-energy boondoggle that should be canceled

December 6, 2024

Randy Pokladnik

Cleveland.com editorial

In the fall of 2023, the Biden administration’s Department of Energy (DOE) announced a $7 billion investment in seven regional hydrogen hubs, to be financed through the Inflation Reduction Act. One of those hubs, the Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub or ARCH2, will receive up to $925 million and see projects spanning the states of Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. The future of ARCH2 is uncertain and may be affected by the incoming administration.

After the initial announcements of projects, DOE promised there would be opportunities for community engagement — but that has not happened. The Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations and the DOE held listening sessions about the hub this spring, and on Nov. 7, an open house was held in Dunbar, West Virginia. Open houses scheduled for Ohio and West Virginia have been postponed indefinitely. Very little technical information about the various projects has been released to the public, making it difficult for citizens to engage or comment on projects. As a result, on May 28, over 50 environmental organizations signed a letter created by the Ohio River Valley Institute (ORVI), asking the DOE to suspend negotiations on the Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub until more information on the projects was released.

In addition, a recent report by ORVI pointed out that, “Four project development partners have exited ARCH2 and five of the 15 originally proposed projects have been scrubbed.”

Projects still in play in Ohio include: two Plug Power/Amazon facilities, Independence Hydrogen, and the Dominion Energy/Stark Area Regional Transit Authority project. The majority of partners in the ARCH2 hub are fossil fuel corporations or companies with ties to fossil fuels. No renewable energy companies are involved in ARCH2. Any energy used for Plug Power water electrolysis plants will be fossil-fuel-based, as Ohio only produces 4% of its electricity from renewables.

ARCH2′s hydrogen will be “blue hydrogen” — hydrogen collected from fracked methane gas molecules using steam methane reforming. The result will be more dangerous fracking for our communities, more fugitive methane emissions, more water withdrawals, more radioactive brine, more truck traffic, more exposures to carcinogens, and more fracking infrastructure.

The Achilles heel of blue hydrogen is its reliance on carbon-capture-storage technology (CCS) to sequester carbon dioxide and store it in Class VI injection wells. CCS is expensive and ineffective. One example is the Gorgon facility in Australia which operated at a third of its capacity. The pipelines used for CO2 transportation can rupture and release concentrated carbon dioxide, which is an asphyxiant. A pipeline rupture in Satartia, Mississippi injured 45 people.

Hydrogen gas is explosive and highly flammable; can permeate steel as well as plastics; is an indirect greenhouse gas; creates toxic NOx emissions when blended with methane for a fuel; and causes the embrittlement of steel, which would make transportation via existing pipelines problematic.

Economically speaking, hydrogen as an energy carrier is extremely expensive and thus requires significant subsidies. Each time an energy source is converted to another form of energy, energy is lost during the conversion. “It will always be more efficient to rely first on the direct use of renewable electricity wherever it is possible to do so,” argues a 2021 Earthjustice report.

Hydrogen projects globally are seeing a lack of a market, and companies are abandoning new hydrogen projects. The high costs of hydrogen will be passed on to ratepayers and citizens. Why support more extractive industries in our region? Why gamble on there being a long-term market for hydrogen gas? It would make more sense to spend money on safe, affordable energy projects such as wind turbines, solar arrays, energy efficiency, and electrification of transportation.

Anti-fracking activist Randi Pokladnik is a lifelong resident of the Ohio River Valley and a retired Weirton Steel research chemist with a Ph.D. in environmental studies.