Tell Your Pennsylvania Legislators No More Subsidies for Hydrogen, CCS, and Fracked Gas

From PennFuture (http://www.pennfuture.org):

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Previously, we described the fossil fuel industry’s attempt to take advantage of Russia’s unwarranted war with Ukraine to game the regulatory system and allow for more fracking in Pennsylvania. Key legislators proposed a series of bills and resolutions aimed at limiting environmental rules on fracked gas, eliminating the state’s ability to regulate carbon pollution, and advancing efforts to create more liquefied fracked gas hubs in southeast Pennsylvania all in the name of countering Vladimir Putin’s unjust war.

Thankfully, all of these bills are tied up in the legislature with little prospect to proceed before session ends in December. But the fossil fuel industry’s failure to hoodwink Pennsylvania to subsidize more fracking hasn’t stopped as they’re now moving on to their next shell game: hydrogen power and carbon capture and sequestration.

For over a year now, Pennsylvania has been eyed as a location for a so-called “hydrogen hub,” backed by billions of dollars in federal government money. This hub would consist of a network of facilities to support the creation of what industry calls “blue” hydrogen — an industrial process that uses fracked gas to create hydrogen while capturing a portion of its pollution through carbon capture and sequestration (“CCS”). We call it what it really is: fracked hydrogen.

The fossil fuel industry touts fracked hydrogen as a low-carbon energy savior that can be used in anything from vehicles to industrial processes like steelmaking. But as PennFuture has been pointing out — hydrogen power is not a panacea:

1. Fracked hydrogen is a niche technology that only makes sense for hard-to-decarbonize industries where no near-term zero-carbon energy technology exists.
2. Fracked hydrogen will always be more expensive to use broadly across the economy compared to other energy sources like solar, wind, and electric vehicles. It’s simply thermodynamics. Creating fracked hydrogen requires using more energy and produces more carbon pollution than just using fracked gas in the first place.
3. Fracked hydrogen is also based, in part, on a key piece of misinformation. Contrary to fossil fuel industry talking points, CCS technology is not yet ready for prime time. CCS hasn’t proven to be cost-effective. There remains no effective way to capture carbon pollution to rely on it as the lynchpin of expanding the fossil fuel industry. It’s like telling the public that it can eat all of the Hershey’s candy it wants without gaining weight as long as they take a magic pill that’s never been tested on humans before.

That’s not to say hydrogen can’t be a part of a zero-carbon energy future — it can be! What the industry calls “green” hydrogen is a renewable fuel created by electrolysis powered by wind or solar energy. But the fossil fuel industry isn’t talking about renewable hydrogen and doesn’t have any serious plans to ever do so. Rather, the industry needs to keep concocting newer and newer grifts to gain government subsidies and perpetuate their fracked gas fields.

As a result, instead of factoring in a limited role for green, renewable hydrogen as part of a broader zero-carbon energy strategy, the fossil fuel industry is using it as a front to continue fracking. Their ruse is working.

Governor Wolf, the fossil fuel industry, the building trades unions, and legislative allies on both sides of the aisle are working behind the scenes on an energy bill that would:

• Provide at least $600 million in new subsidies for fracked hydrogen facilities.
• Create favorable environmental and siting rules for hydrogen and CCS projects.
• Create the foundation for Pennsylvania to benefit from billions of dollars in federal subsidies for building out a hydrogen hub.

Yes, an energy bill that says nothing about renewable energy, climate change, or the pollution impacts of fracked gas on communities. It’s an energy bill so ignorant of the challenges facing Pennsylvania that it’s hard to believe that it’s being created in 2022.

We’re bringing this to your attention because Harrisburg policymakers need to hear that this is a terrible deal for the Commonwealth. Pennsylvania needs to stop giving the keys to its energy future over to the fossil fuel industry. No more fossil fuel subsidies and no more taxpayer-fronted schemes to perpetuate fracking.

Please contact your legislator and say NO to more subsidies for hydrogen, CCS, and fracked gas at https://pennfuture.salsalabs.org/frackedhydrogenomnibusbill/index.html. We need a real zero-carbon energy strategy in Pennsylvania.