DADDY, WHAT WAS OIL?:

Now, after decades of false starts and overly optimistic projections, several factors are giving an unprecedented lift to clean hydrogen. In the United States, sweeping legislation capped a series of moves by the country's Department of Energy (DOE) over the past year to drive down the cost of low-carbon hydrogen and stimulate demand for the fuel. And in Europe, a looming fossil-fuel crisis has sent officials scrambling to find alternatives to the 155 billion cubic meters of Russian natural gas that EU countries imported in 2021.

"I've been working in hydrogen for 20 years, and this is absolutely the most exciting time, the busiest time," says Keith Wipke, manager of the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Technologies Program at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colo. "There's just so much activity." [...]

The DOE has established goals of getting the cost of low-carbon hydrogen, without incentives, down to $2/kg by 2026, and to $1/kg by 2031. Says Wipke, referring to the top $3/kg credit in the Inflation Reduction Act, "if today's hydrogen is about $5 a kilogram through electrolysis, clean electrolysis, and you're able to take $3 off of that, and go from $5 down to $2, well, essentially, you have met, with the incentives, our 2026 goal of $2 a kilogram. Now, technically, you've done it through incentives, but the impact is the same. You're rapidly getting the cost of hydrogen down to where it is very competitive--and in many cases cheaper--than the fossil alternative. So that's why the community is so excited."

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