HANNIBAL, Ohio — At an industrial site on the banks of the Ohio River, a big blue building with pipes coming in and out of it could be part of the country's transition to cleaner energy. At least its owners hope so.
Inside is a gas-fired power plant that could generate enough electricity for almost 400,000 homes. Lately, though, the company that operates the plant, Long Ridge Energy, has started blending a small amount of hydrogen — no more than 5% — in with the natural gas.
"The market really shifted over the last couple of years," says CEO Bo Wholey. "We're really responding to what the market wants."
What the market wants is energy that doesn't create carbon pollution. Wholey thinks hydrogen, the most common element in the universe, could be the answer.
When it's used to fuel a car or power plant, hydrogen's chief byproduct is water — not climate-warming carbon dioxide. But finding a clean and cheap source for making hydrogen has eluded scientists and policymakers for decades.
Someday, Wholey hopes the plant will run completely on hydrogen. That goal may be more attainable after Congress passed and President Biden signed a major infrastructure law last year. It includes $8 billion for at least four hydrogen hubs to produce, store and use this combustible gas. Groups around the country are hoping to land hubs, including one in this part of the Ohio River Valley.
"That's certainly something that we're going to be evaluating, just as we think about how to make running on hydrogen more economical," Wholey says.
In a zero-carbon world, hydrogen is "crucial"
Mention hydrogen, and some remember the 1937 Hindenburg disaster, where a hydrogen-filled airship exploded (though there are questions about whether the flammable gas was the cause). But today climate scientists see hydrogen as a potentially clean replacement for fossil fuels in heavy industry.
"I think hydrogen is crucial," says Paulina Jaramillo, a professor of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University and a co-author of a recent U.N. report on climate change. She says hydrogen can be a clean alternative for industries such as steel mills, fertilizer plants or shipping.
The infrastructure bill is the largest in a long line of attempts to spur technology for hydrogen in the U.S., which the federal government has been trying to support since the George W. Bush administration.
The big problem is getting hydrogen. It can be made in a number of ways — each with its own color-coded designation. There's gray hydrogen, which is how most hydrogen is made today, through heating natural gas. This creates lots of carbon dioxide, the driving force in climate change, which the United Nations has called a "threat to human well-being and (the) health of the planet." Blue hydrogen, where that CO2 is captured and stored underground, is being pushed by big oil and gas companies as a lower-carbon energy source.