Green Hydrogen Projects Promise Growth, but Will It Be Enough?

August 15, 2022--Written by Paul Wiseman for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--As noted in this space last week, hydrogen as a non-carbon-emitting fuel presents a rosy face, but around the edges are some pimples. One of those is that current hydrogen production is more than 95% based on natural gas, coming from a separation process that does release carbon atoms from the hydrogen. This is called brown hydrogen.

That process can be mitigated to blue hydrogen if the separation facility uses carbon capture and storage (CCS)--but CCS, while coming down somewhat in cost, is still a very expensive undertaking, requiring a good bit of energy itself.

Companies featured: Plug Power (NASDAQ:PLUG), New Fortress Energy (NASDAQ:NFE)