"Clean” Hydrogen: Carbon Capture or Carbon Con?
The UN recently warned we must immediately transition away from fossil fuels, including methane (CH4, aka “natural” gas). Instead, the Oil and Gas Industry (O/G) green-washes its products as “clean” or clean “firm” energy. Foremost among this category of derived-from-fossil fuels is “clean” hydrogen. And it appears that Colorado legislators, regulators, and utilities are buying in at our expense.
Currently, we get the vast majority of our manufactured hydrogen from methane gas (aka "natural gas") produced by fracking. The fracking process, with loopholes and exemptions from seven federal environmental protection laws, releases air and water pollutants linked to myriad environmental and direct human health harms, including cancer, childhood leukemia and birth defects, some of these observed at distances up to 10 miles from high-density fracking operations.
Gray hydrogen takes the fracked methane and subjects it to Steam Methane Reforming (SMR), a process by which the methane and steam are eventually reformed into hydrogen (H2) and CO2, this latter released into the atmosphere. The SMR process requires additional energy inputs, often requiring more fracked methane.
Fracked Blue Hydrogen, now spun as "clean hydrogen", uses the pretense of capturing most of the CO2 produced by gray hydrogen's SMR process and sequestering it or using it in industrial or agricultural applications, or for further fossil fuel extraction. This is known as Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage/Sequestration (CCUS), a process never proven feasible at scale, and one which has failed repeatedly in test projects.
Conclusion: Non-green hydrogen isn’t clean or carbon neutral. Carbon capture neither manages carbon nor in fact captures it. “Clean” hydrogen is a colossal, taxpayer-funded scam, one that will accelerate climate change and global warming to all Coloradans’ detriment, diverting funds and focus away from the true renewable energy transition we need.
