From an Article by Joseph Pete, Northwest Indiana Times, October 30, 2023

Indiana scored a share of a $1 billion Midwest hydrogen hub that’s expected to bring hydrogen production to the BP Whiting Refinery and help local industry reduce carbon emissions.

The Midwest Alliance for Clean Hydrogen, or MachH2, hub backed by Indiana, Illinois and Michigan was one of seven bids to win a share of $7 billion in federal funding meant to scale up hydrogen production as a way to help-hard-to-decarbonize industries shrink their greenhouse gas emissions. The hydrogen hub project is estimated to reduce an estimated 25 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions or about the same as 5.5 million gas-powered cars while sparking significant economic development.

But environmental groups have concerns. Environmentalists have expressed skepticism and voiced support for green hydrogen made only with renewable energy sources.

“Fossil fuel-produced hydrogen and carbon capture and storage will irrevocably endanger the Great Lakes ecosystem while further harming the region’s already overburdened communities,” said Susan Thomas, director of legislation and policy/press at Just Transition Northwest Indiana. “As a historic steel hub, Northwest Indiana is an epicenter in the fight for a Just Transition to renewable energy. We deserve the right to green jobs and a healthy environment, not more false solutions. These Hydrogen Hub announcements are more of the same carbon schemes from corporate polluters.”

Former State Rep. Chris Chyung, executive director at Indiana Conservation Voters, has had concerns about a lack of transparency and that MachH2 only held one public meeting with Northwest Indiana, which resulted in few answers.

“Local environmental, racial justice and faith leaders must be included in discussions that will make or break Indiana’s industrial and clean energy future,” said Chyung, executive director at Indiana Conservation Voters. “Now we have a plan that, if implemented wrongly, will deepen our state’s dependence on polluting fossil fuels and add new, dangerous infrastructure in already overburdened communities.”

Hydrogen is being touted as a substitute for coal for blast furnaces, half of which is concentrated in Northwest Indiana. BP is looking to start producing hydrogen to help local steel mills and other factories make progress toward net zero emissions, while also exploring carbon capture and sequestration.

A recent Sierra Club report found that Gary Works, Cleveland-Cliffs Burns Harbor Works and Cleveland-Cliffs Indiana Harbor Works were the three worst carbon emitters in the country.

The study found steel industry pollution contributed to an estimated 900 and 2,000 excess deaths a year, as well as 30,000 incidences of respiratory symptoms.

“Our recent report was a powerful reminder that the environmental and health consequences of the steel industry demand our immediate attention and action,” said Joab Schultheis, energy committee chair of Sierra Club’s Hoosier Chapter. “We must chart a course toward cleaner, more sustainable steel production practices for the sake of our planet, communities, steel workers, and future generations.”

The Delaware Riverkeeper Network in the Philadelphia area, where the Mach 2 Hydrogen Hub landed $750 million in federal funds to operate in the Delaware River, has concerns that hydrogen was a boondoggle that would benefit the fossil fuel industry and perpetuate the use of fossil fuels. It raised concerns about the expense of hydrogen production, how much water it would use, how hot it burns and how it poses a risk of explosions.

“The last thing the Delaware River Watershed needs is the development of hydrogen and the pollution it will bring. The Delaware River Valley already doesn’t meet minimum federal clean air standards and our communities cannot tolerate one more molecule of the pollutants that plague us. Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey must aggressively move to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, not add to them through the proposed Mach 2 hub that the federal government is funding,” said Tracy Carluccio, deputy director of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network.

The steel industry currently accounts for between 7% to 9% of greenhouse gas emissions, according to studies. The steel industry is pursuing many paths toward decarbonization, including hydrogen, carbon capture, cleaner direct reduced iron feedstore and more electric arc furnaces.

Other environmental groups like the Minneapolis-based Great Plains Institute are hopeful the hydrogen hubs could put a serious dent in carbon emissions from industries like integrated steelmaking and aviation that are harder to decarbonize due to current technological limits.

“The announcement of federally supported hydrogen hubs launches a new opportunity to equitably build a clean hydrogen economy, and GPI looks forward to working with the new hubs to accelerate decarbonization across the economy,” Great Plains Institute President and CEO Rolf Nordstrom said. “GPI is working to enable the development of a robust and equitable clean hydrogen economy to expand our nation’s portfolio of options for decarbonizing some of the hardest-to-decarbonize sectors, such as agriculture, heavy industry and parts of the transportation sector.”

SOURCE: https://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/environmentalists-raise-concerns-about-hydrogen-hub-plans/article_870cd82a-7518-11ee-9a43-8f82a9ff406a.html