One of the central tenets of the Biden administration’s energy policy is the pursuit of “green” hydrogen, defined as hydrogen manufactured with zero carbon emissions.
This push has involved $7 billion dollars in subsidies for the creation of Regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs as well as significant tax breaks for hydrogen production through the Inflation Reduction Act.
While the administration touts this as beneficial, the reality is that using hydrogen as an energy source makes no economic sense.
There are two reasons this scheme won’t work.
First, we cannot create usable energy out of thin air. Instead, we expend energy to obtain energy resources — drilling for oil and gas, mining coal — to convert it to forms we can use for things like generating electricity or powering your car.
In fact, as I show in my new Manhattan Institute report, manufacturing hydrogen requires at least twice as much energy as the hydrogen itself can provide, even before accounting for the energy lost when that hydrogen is subsequently used, such as in a fuel cell or burned in an industrial furnace.
That’s a thermodynamic fact, which no subsidy can change.
The Biden administration has chosen to invest billions of taxpayer dollars into manufacturing hydrogen via electrolysis.
https://nypost.com/2024/02/24/opinion/why-green-hydrogen-is-all-hot-air/