The first of seven so-called “hydrogen centers” opened on Friday in California.
/The state will receive up to $1.2 billion under the Biden-Harris administration’s bipartisan infrastructure law to create a regional hub for producing hydrogen as an energy source for electricity, vehicles and manufacturing.
Addressing climate change “was once a bipartisan effort,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said at the Oakland center’s launch. “This is about common sense, clean air, clean water. This is about a sustainable mindset,” Newsom said, citing the federal Clean Air Act, enacted by Republican President Richard Nixon in 1970, and the California Air Resources Board, created by Republican Gov. Ronald Reagan in 1967.
Last October, the Biden-Harris administration selected California and six other regional hubs to provide $7 billion in funding to kick-start the development and production of hydrogen fuel. The goal is to replace fossil fuels such as oil and coal with renewable hydrogen, which only emits air and water when used as a fuel.
Newsom said the $1.2 billion California received will create 200,000 jobs and attract $12.6 billion in funding to boost the federal government’s efforts to promote hydrogen as a clean fuel source. The entire hydrogen hub plan is expected to attract $40 billion in private investment.
In addition to California, Washington, Minnesota, Texas, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Illinois will also become hydrogen hubs. Each hub is made up of a network of organizations that produce clean hydrogen and different entities that use hydrogen, such as heavy trucks, personal transportation, gas stations and pipelines to transport hydrogen.
The California Center is comprised of 400 founding partners representing labor, NGOs, industry, all levels of government, and local communities.
Hydrogen is still in its infancy and is currently used for power generation and a small number of passenger cars and heavy trucks, but will eventually be used to power agriculture, aviation, shipping and other heavy industries that are difficult to decarbonize.
“Whatever California does, the rest of the country will follow, and certainly the rest of the world will follow,” U.S. Deputy Energy Secretary David Crane said at the launch of the California Hydrogen Hub in Oakland, where he arrived on the world’s first hydrogen ferry, flanked by hydrogen-powered trucks.
Crane said the Department of Energy is pursuing five strategies to advance hydrogen as a fuel source, including conducting research and development at national laboratories, creating new national hydrogen centers, creating a new hydrogen supply chain, providing tax credits to help lower hydrogen prices and establishing fuel supplies.
At the event, Crain’s announced that the Department of Energy will provide $62 million in funding to accelerate hydrogen research and development in 20 projects, including one in the Port of Oakland.
“Hydrogen energy can become one of the pillars of the 21st centuryEnglish Stone “The hydrogen economy is an inevitable product of the new century’s economy,” Crane said. He said that building a hydrogen economy requires vision, courage and bravery to seize the opportunity.
“That’s what everyone here does,” he said.