Cleaning up tailpipe exhaust created problems for the climate: Traditional hydrogen production essentially cooks methane with steam and vents the resulting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It has become one of the largest industrial greenhouse gas emitters in a region infamous for industrial emissions.
But these days, everyone from ExxonMobil to pure-play renewable developers is vying to turn Houston into a global center for low-carbon hydrogen. Methane-based hydrogen producers are looking to add carbon-capture devices and sequester emissions underground. Others plan to funnel solar and wind power directly into electrolyzers, producing hydrogen without any fossil fuels.
Cleaning up hydrogen could position the Gulf at the center of efforts to decarbonize a range of dirty industries — think shipping, long-distance trucking and carbon-intensive industrial processes. The Biden administration has enacted an unprecedented tax credit to lower the premium for “clean” hydrogen and invested $7 billion across seven regional hubs to jump-start production, distribution and use of the clean molecule. Houston’s HyVelocity Hub won a chunk of that change last fall, and it is negotiating final terms with the Department of Energy.