IEF Hydrogen Report – It’s Time to Move Beyond Colors & Scale Up
The International Energy Forum (IEF), based in Saudi Arabia, is leading a research initiative examining the elements required to create a hydrogen market. Currently, hydrogen accounts for a piddly 1% of the energy mix worldwide, but is expected to scale up in the coming years and decades as countries strive to reduce carbon emissions (reducing CO2 is a futile effort, but it is what it is). Current research and discussions on hydrogen focus primarily on the various production cost outlooks for different “colors” of hydrogen (gray for hydrogen that comes from natural gas with no carbon capture, blue if there is carbon capture, green for using water and renewables to create hydrogen, etc.). There has been, according to IEF, little discussion around the possible trajectories of the “hydrogen business model.” Scaling up hydrogen production, regardless of color, will require new types of contracts, financialization (price discovery), and/or commoditization. The IEF has just issued a new report called “Scaling-Up the Hydrogen Market” (full copy below).
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Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia are all scrambling to form working groups or other alliances in an attempt to be THE state chosen for one of four regional hydrogen hubs funded by the recently passed so-called Biden infrastructure bill (see
Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia are all scrambling to form intrastate working groups and alliances in an attempt to be THE state chosen for one of four regional hydrogen hubs funded by the recently passed so-called Biden infrastructure bill (see
Yesterday MDN highlighted a newly published Cleveland State University study commissioned (and paid for) by the nonprofit JobsOhio (see
Over the past decade or more landowners have been approached about leasing their property and/or mineral rights–for shale drilling, pipelines, solar and wind farms, etc. Here’s a new one to add to the list: pore rights. Pore space is the underground space where carbon dioxide that’s captured from various processes can be injected and stored, keeping it locked away underground where it theoretically won’t damage Mom Earth. The whole concept of storing CO2 underground would be funny if it were not so sad that grownups are actually doing this. But we digress. Leasing pore rights may be the next big thing for landowners and mineral rights owners in the Marcellus/Utica region as carbon capture and storage takes off. However, who owns pore rights? Landowners or mineral rights owners?
Yesterday MDN friend Joe Barone from
KeyState LLC is developing 7,000 acres of natural gas fields and geological storage in West Keating Township, Clinton County in the middle of coal and iron country in central Pennsylvania (see
Getting hydrogen from point A to point B by mixing it with and flowing it through existing interstate natural gas pipelines sounds easy. Just hook up to a handy source of hydrogen and let the molecules flow and mingle with methane molecules, right? However, adding hydrogen (H2) to existing methane (CH4) pipelines is NOT a simple thing. There are major roadblocks to flowing H2 through CH4 pipes.
Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia are all scrambling to form intrastate working groups or other alliances in an attempt to be THE state chosen for one of four regional hydrogen hubs funded by the recently passed so-called Biden infrastructure bill (see