Hydrogen: A Tiny Molecule with a Big Impact

Countries around the world are ramping up their investment in technologies to increase green energy availability and reduce carbon emissions. As one example, the United States’ Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 provides a green hydrogen production subsidy up to $3 per kilogram. Not only does green hydrogen have more energy per kilogram (120 MJ/kg) than traditional fossil fuels (<50 MJ/kg), but with this subsidy, green hydrogen is also expected to become cost-competitive with traditional fossil fuels. As a result, more companies than ever before are researching and developing new ways to use green hydrogen to reduce both their costs and their carbon footprint.

Decarbonizing the Auto Industry

Hydrogen fuel cells have been studied since the early 1900s and were first used to power a vehicle in the 1960s with General Motors’ Electrovan. Today, fuel cells power vehicles like Toyota’s Mirai which can travel more than 70 miles on a kilogram of hydrogen while only emitting clean water. If green hydrogen is used, each of these vehicles can eliminate more than 4.6 metric tons of CO₂ emissions every year, compared to fossil vehicles. These vehicles also do not require the large batteries needed to power electric vehicles, thus enhancing their climate benefits. While fewer than 20,000 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are currently sold each year, improvements in the cost of hydrogen and development of the infrastructure needed to deliver hydrogen for end-use promise to drive demand for these vehicles.

Decarbonizing Electricity Generation

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, hydrogen fuel cells currently provide 350 MW of electric generation capacity in the United States. These fuels cells operate in the same way as those deployed in vehicles, but the energy powers the grid rather than a vehicle. This capacity is only 0.03% of the United States’ total electric generation capacity, so there is substantial room for growth in this sector.

As we transition to a green energy future, electricity generation companies are also using hydrogen as an additive to traditional fossil fuels to reduce carbon emissions. As an example, the Long Ridge Power Plant on the Ohio-West Virginia border uses a blend of 5% hydrogen and 95% natural gas to provide up to 485 MW of electricity. The General Electric turbine used in the plant will allow them to increase the blend to 20% hydrogen as green hydrogen becomes cheaper and more readily available. Companies like General Electric, Mitsubishi, and Wärtsilä are actively developing electricity generation engines capable of running on 100% green hydrogen. This will be a key capability as the world seeks to displace baseload fossil fuel electricity generation.

EGXFuels’ Advantage

With all the exciting opportunities for green hydrogen to displace fossil fuels, interest and investment into green hydrogen production are growing. EGXFuels has revolutionized green energy and green hydrogen production through patent-pending technologies and processes. Our first production site is projected to provide more than 2 GW of green electricity to produce more than 350,000 metric tons of green hydrogen every year. With dozens of viable energy production sites already identified, we will have the capacity to deliver enough green hydrogen to meaningfully reduce our planet’s carbon emissions.

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