What’s All the Hubbub? Understanding the Risks of the MachH2 Hydrogen Project
Photo credit: Ludo Raedts, Creative Commons License
Environmental justice organizations in Indiana, Michigan and Illinois are rallying against the development of MachH2, a proposed hydrogen hub project in the tri-state area. While the project is celebrated by many federal and state leaders as clean energy infrastructure, organizations like MWEJN partnerJust Transition Northwest Indiana (JTNWI) have called the MachH2 a false solution to the climate crisis. Citing a continued use of fossil fuel-based hydrogen energy for the hub’s construction, efforts from the projects’ leaders to weaken EPA standards for clean-energy hydrogen, and a lack of transparency around the project, JTNWI leaders have launched a campaign to stop the hydrogen rush in their state.
“The initial rollout of the hydrogen hubs was executed with no meaningful public engagement or representation by the DOE and participating parties. There has been zero transparency,” says JTNWI.
MachH2 is a project led by the Midwest Alliance for Clean Hydrogen, a consortium of companies, universities and other organizations throughout Michigan, Indiana and Illinois. It is part of a larger push by the Biden administration and state governors across the region and throughout the country to shift to hydrogen as a viable form of clean energy. Under the Biden-Harris administration, the Department of Energy launched a $7 billion program last fall to develop seven Regional Hydrogen Hubs across the nation. The launch is intended to increase infrastructure development for scaling up commercial production of clean hydrogen, especially in industries that have historically been big fossil fuel emitters. MachH2 was one of two Hydrogen Hubs in the Midwest that received the DOE bid, with the intention of developing hydrogen energy for “steel and glass production, power generation, refining, heavy-duty transportation and sustainable aviation fuel,” according to the DOE website. The other is the Heartland Hub, intended to deliver hydrogen energy in Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota for fertilizer production, and cold climate space heating. The Midwest is currently the only region with two hydrogen hub bids.
Many environmental justice activists worry that the construction of the MachH2 hub will further entrench environmental and community pollution from extractive industries in places like Northwest Indiana. As Chris Chyung, Executive Director of Indiana Conservation Voters, told Energy News Network reporter Kari Lydersen, Hoosiers are “frustrated and tired of being the Midwest’s dumping ground and Chicago’s dumping ground.” The production of hydrogen on the shores of the Great Lakes is also a highly water-intensive project, one that “could rapidly deplete and threaten the already-burdened Great Lakes watershed,” as JTNWI told the DoE and state officials in the Midwest in their recent petition.
While hydrogen offers an important alternative to electrification in the clean energy economy, not all forms of hydrogen are created equal in their environmental impact. In the case of the MachH2 project, the hydrogen production would still involve natural gas usage, and would be paired with carbon sequestration and storage (CCS). This type of hydrogen, known as blue hydrogen, ultimately does little to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to a recent report, “The Hydrogen EJ Framework,” by Just Solutions.
Other forms of hydrogen production utilize different methods of extracting hydrogen from its compound forms, like water. Different colors have been used to distinguish different extraction methods–from blue, to pink, to gray and green. Green hydrogen utilizes renewable electricity to get hydrogen from water, and is highlighted as the most sustainable hydrogen extraction method by Just Solutions.
Continued use of fossil fuels in blue hydrogen investments also tout methods of carbon removal that are dangerous, and not proven to be long-term solutions to greenhouse gas emissions. Elsewhere in the country, the construction of carbon pipelines for CCS technologies have led to severely damaged community and ecosystem health when broken. Take, for instance, the 2020 Mississippi explosion of a carbon pipeline that left an apocalyptic aftershock in the town of Sartartia. Many residents in the area became unconscious due to CO2 poisoning, with long-term health impacts like memory loss and brain damage. First responders struggled to reach residents as combustion engine vehicles were unable to start due to a lack of oxygen in the air. As carbon pipelines are being proposed as green energy infrastructure across the Midwest and the South, many point to this incident as evidence of the public health impacts of carbon pipeline damage.
But as political and industry leaders are poised to speed up the production of regional hydrogen energy, environmental justice organizations across the Midwest are pumping the brakes, remaining vigilant in their efforts to hold local, state, and federal politicians accountable to truly just green energy solutions. You can get involved by signing the JTNWI petition, emailing your local state and federal reps, and by reading the recent report by Just Solutions, written in collaboration with Just Transition Northwest Indiana and other EJ orgs across the country, on how we can develop a hydrogen environmental justice framework for our economy and energy models.