Hydrogen Blends are 
Expensive, Explosive, and Harmful to
Human Health and the Climate

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Source: Physicians for Social Responsibility Hydrogen Blending Report

EXPLOSIVE

  • Hydrogen ignites, explodes, and leaks even more easily than the methane gas (aka "natural gas") that Xcel sells now. Piping hydrogen into homes increases safety risks.

  • Xcel violated gas pipeline safety rules over 1000 times from 2017 to 2022. Do you trust them to handle risky hydrogen blends?

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EXPENSIVE

  • Xcel makes huge profits selling us methane (aka "natural") gas — a fracked fossil fuel — and they keep raising our price. Those with lower incomes are disproportionately impacted by rate increases.

  • Hydrogen blends cost more than methane gas alone, and costs may be passed on to consumers.

  • Xcel plans to pipe hydrogen blends into 250 Colorado homes this year, and to expand after that. You could be on the hook for the cost of blending as well as any hydrogen leaks, fires, and explosions that result.

HARMFUL TO HUMAN HEALTH

  • The American Medical Association "recognizes the health, safety, and climate risks of current methods of producing fossil fuel-derived hydrogen and the dangers of adding hydrogen to natural gas."

  • Burning hydrogen-methane blends releases indoor air pollutants that increase asthma attacks, harm lung and heart health, and cause other serious diseases — especially burdening children, the elderly, and communities of color.

  • The current hydrogen supply is largely produced from fracked methane itself. Fracking is a major source of ozone and benzene pollution, as well as climate-disruptive greenhouse gasses.    

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FALSE CLIMATE SOLUTION

  • Xcel wants to keep selling gas to preserve the value of its pipelines, but Colorado's Clean Heat Plan requires Xcel to reduce emissions from methane. Using hydrogen blends delays transitioning off methane gas to renewable energy sources.

  • Xcel claims hydrogen-methane blends burn cleaner, marketing them as “low carbon”. But producing, managing, and transporting hydrogen is even MORE harmful to the climate than methane. It neither "clean" nor "green" - it's made from fossil fuels.

  • Xcel has a choice between dangerous hydrogen-methane blends that harm the public and the climate OR the better, safer choice of renewable energy and healthy electric homes. 

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