Officials: Louisiana leads the way toward the 'fuel of the future'

(The Center Square) — The Clean Hydrogen Task Force in Louisiana held its first meeting Wednesday to discuss ways Louisiana can convert to the "fuel of the future."

The primary incentive behind using hydrogen fuel is it involves little carbon. To reach the Paris Agreement goals, an international treaty on climate change that was signed in 2016, low carbon emission hydrogen fuel must represent 15% of global energy use.

Mark Zappi, executive director of the University of Louisiana's Energy Institute, gave a presentation to the task force on why this can be good for Louisiana.

"We are the epicenter of hydrogen," Zappi said.

Louisiana is second in hydrogen production, only behind California. Zappi says if Louisiana continues to get ahead of the curve, the state could not only explode in the market of selling hydrogen but also hydrogen manufacturing products.

The problem right now is cost, particularly with eliminating carbon from the equation.

What Zappi calls grey hydrogen is produced from natural gas steam reforming. This is currently the most popular form of hydrogen. Because hydrogen does not exist on its own, it has to be extracted from the fossil fuels, which releases low levels of carbon.

With blue hydrogen, which Louisiana is working toward, the carbon can be captured during the reforming process and sequestered into the ground. This process cost a little more than letting it into the air.

Green hydrogen, which is the ultimate goal of the task force, would separate the hydrogen without carbon-based sources.

There are three ways to do this: A bio-fermentation process from carbs, proteins and lipids; electrolyzed technology powered by renewable energy, where you take water and produce hydrogen and oxygen; collecting biomass like wood or other small rural plants, gasifying it, and concentrating the hydrogen out of the produced gas.

Green hydrogen right now is almost three times the cost of converting hydrogen from natural gas. Part of that high cost is because of transportation and storage of the fuel.

Transporting hydrogen will require specialized pipelines immune to hydrogen's embrittling properties. In order to ship, it has to be liquified and held in chemicals like ammonia.

The preservation of hydrogen requires geo-storage. In Sweeny, Texas, a naturally-occurring salt cavern called a salt dome is used to store hydrogen.

Despite the complications, Zappi thinks the price can decrease as it becomes more popular, like with any new technology.

"I think now that we have this level of attention on it the prices are gonna go down," Zappi said.

Despite the growth that can be had in the industry, hydrogen is not new. It's currently used in chemical processing, refining, and fertilizer manufacturing with potential growth in hydrogen burning power plants, power turbines, and fuel cell buses and big trucks.

"We think this can be the fuel of the future," Zappi said.

The U.S. produces about 10 million metric tons of hydrogen annually. Experts say $7 trillion is expected to be spent on hydrogen conversion globally by 2050.