Colors of Hydrogen: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (i.e. green, gray, and blue)
Hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe, as well as a source of great energy, can be used to produce electricity, power fuel cells, for heat, cooking fuel, and transportation. No wonder we’ll all be hearing a lot more about this energy source in the coming years.
But there’s a problem: the vast majority of the world’s manufactured hydrogen today comes from fracked methane gas (aka “natural gas”). Not only does this so-called “gray hydrogen” process involve all the health and environment-harming emissions, toxins, GHG’s, and polluted wastes associated with fracking, but it requires an additional methane-burning process (SMR) to separate the hydrogen from the carbon, after which the CO2 byproduct is released to the atmosphere.
There is “green hydrogen”, in which a sustainable input such as water, using solar, wind, or other renewable energy, is subjected to an electrolysis process to separate the H2 from the O2, with oxygen as the only byproduct. While green is currently more expensive than gray, advances are happening rapidly, with cost parity estimated by 2030.
The oil and gas industry has big plans for hydrogen. They seek to blend it with regular fracked methane gas (aka “natural gas”) and pipe it into homes and commercial buildings so they can market it as “cleaner”, at least at the end user point. But there remains the terrible image and realities of “gray”.
Enter “blue hydrogen”, the industry’s attempt to put lipstick on the pig of gray. Blue as an environmental color is almost as positive as green. Blue hydrogen starts with all the consequences and harms of gray, including the SMR separation process, and adds another process to capture the carbon, compress it, transport it, and either utilize it or store/sequester it theoretically underground (CCS). But there are several problems with this: First, this additional CCS process also requires more energy inputs, which again come from combusting more methane gas. Secondly, underground sequestration has never been proven at scale, would require massive new markets, and may target the same geologic formations that are currently prime fracking locations. Meanwhile, current commercial utilizations of the CO2 often result in it ultimately being released back into the atmosphere.
Professors Howarth (Cornell) and Jacobson (Stanford) recently analyzed the GHG impacts of blue vs gray and, considering all the fugitive emissions from methane in the fracking, SMR, and CCS stages, along with the uncertainties of carbon sequestration, found that blue, even if it does provide some CO2 advantages, is worse for the climate overall. In their words, “Far from being low carbon, greenhouse gas emissions from the production of blue hydrogen are quite high, particularly due to the release of fugitive methane… Our analysis assumes that captured carbon dioxide can be stored indefinitely, an optimistic and unproven assumption. Even if true though, the use of blue hydrogen appears difficult to justify on climate grounds.”
This is not stopping the industry. They are hard at work at both the state and national levels, using politicians on both sides of the aisle to get blue hydrogen labeled as “low-carbon”, a term that is left undefined, or using loopholes such as Colorado’s definition of a “Renewable Energy Resource” as that which (only) doesn’t release CO2, opening the door for methane (CH4)-spewing blue to be included. The aim and end result is the pairing of blue with green in policy, regulation and law.
What is PSR-Colorado doing? And what can you be doing?
Search all energy and climate-related bills and legislation for the keywords “hydrogen” “green hydrogen” or “blue hydrogen”
Carefully consider any provisions elevating “blue” to “low-carbon” or “sustainable” status paired with “green”, co-mingling R&D funding, subsidies, and policies. Advocate de-coupling of green and blue, with “green” given preferential treatment.
Advocate official criteria for the “blue” designation, such as:
Stage 1 (Production): Certified total methane leakage/emission < 1%
Stage 2 (SMR/CCS): All energy inputs sustainably derived
Stage 3 (CO2 sequestration): Certified minimum 100 year permanence
— Harv Teitelbaum
PSR-Colorado Board Member
Note: Contact info@psrcolorado.org to request the slide deck for our Hydrogen webinar. Or, to watch our webinar, Click Here
