The big fight of the great hydrogen gamble
A look at the feuding sides in the 45V tax credit debate.
Last Wednesday, I drove up from Brooklyn to Oswego to visit Constellation's Nine Mile Point nuclear station on the shores of Lake Ontario, where the utility giant has been working with the federal government on a landmark experiment making clean hydrogen from atomic energy.
This is a big deal. Hydrogen, the lightest and most abundant element in the universe, is also a great carrier of energy. It burns at hot temperatures like fossil fuels. Its molecules store energy for long durations, unlike batteries that start draining the moment they’re off the charger. And the only byproduct from igniting hydrogen is water. The only problem is that 99% of hydrogen on the market today is made with natural gas. For hydrogen to truly work as a climate solution, it needs to be made by zapping freshwater with enough electricity to separate the H out of the H20. And that electricity needs to come from a zero-carbon source.
Considering that, if you make an investment in one of those water-zapping hydrogen-making machines – called an electrolyzer – you’re going to want to run it as much as possible, you’re going to need a source of zero-carbon electricity that runs as much as possible.
Using nuclear power proved successful enough that Nine Mile Point stopped buying hydrogen (used during the fission process) from an outside vendor and instead now manufactures its own from an electrolyzer in a shipping container just outside the facility containing the plant's two reactors. The company wants to enter the hydrogen business -- and is working with the Biden administration on the hydrogen hubs set up with billions of dollars from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
But Constellation says its future plans in the hydrogen industry hinge on whether the company can tap one of the most lucrative benefits in the Inflation Reduction Act, the 45V tax credits for clean hydrogen production.
And the Biden administration is expected this week to release guidelines that would exclude Constellation and virtually all nuclear power from 45V's hundreds of millions of dollars.
Supporters of strict, exclusive rules say U.S. decarbonization is doomed without them. Opponents say it will smother the hydrogen industry in the cradle and allow its dirtier, fossil-fueled sibling to remain dominant.
With different corporate factions and Democratic lawmakers arrayed on both sides, it's looking like a big fight ahead, with Constellation threatening a lawsuit and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin promising to back the litigation.
I did my best to explain the stakes, history and nuances of this extremely significant but admittedly wonky fight.
You can read the full story here on HuffPost.
For a sense of how it feels at the center of the 45V debate, here’s a tweet from former Biden White House climate economist Noah Kaufman.
(While Noah and I are not related in any obvious way, the first time we spoke on the phone years ago we were both amused to discover we each pronounce our shared surname the correct way.)
The lament of Lisbon’s mayor
On a warm evening when the croons of a fado singer in a dark bar where fingers slicked with oil glide between dishes of olives and wine-glass stems echo down ancient limestone streets filled with late-night revelers from all over the world, it’s easy to forget that Europe’s second-oldest capital after Athens isn’t on the Mediterranean.
This Atlantic-facing city was born for maritime excursions far beyond anything Homer could imagine. Founded by the Phoenicians centuries before Rome, Lisbon transformed through years of theocracy from an outpost on Europe’s western edge into the seat of an empire that included half the South American continent and a trading network spanning from central Africa to East Asia. The original name for Taiwan, Formosa, came after all from the lips of Portuguese sailors.
Like those of the British and Dutch, Portugal’s maritime power crumbled in the mid-20th century as millions of Angolans and Mozambicans followed what the Brazilians had done more than a century earlier and threw off their brutal colonial yokes.
Like London and Amsterdam, Lisbon then evolved into the hub of the Lusosphere, welcoming immigrants from across the world. Unlike those two northern capitals, Lisbon did so without a homegrown Nigel Farage or Geert Wilders emerging to rally disaffected voters around the ever-potent campfire of xenophobia.
Until now. As I detailed in my last newsletter, there’s a far-right party nostalgic for the imperial past on the march, and it stands to make gains in the next election. I spoke at length about the potential for Portugal’s populist wave with Lisbon Mayor Carlos Moedas, in whose city is home to 1 out of every 4 Portuguese, and wrote up more of what he said as a follow up to my previous article on the rise off Chega.
You can read that story here on HuffPost.
Taking stock of COP28. The New Yorker’s Elizabeth Kolbert reflects on the U.N. climate summit that just ended and whether a recognition of the need to “transition away” from fossil fuels in the non-binding deal that resulted from the confaab means any more than the “phaseout” language petrostate negotiators fought to nix.
Next up: Another petrostate. Heatmap’s Jeva Lange took a look at the host of next year’s climate summit, Azerbaijan, and concludes that the Central Asian nation is an even odder choice than Dubai for talks the future of fossil fuels.
Black Americans are migrating South, where temperatures are rising fast. Capital B’s Adam Mahoney spoke to dozens to Black Americans moving from the northern cities their grandparents fled to during Jim Crow apartheid back to parts of the American South where it’s cheaper to live. The trouble is, this is the region where climate change is taking effect first.
California is preparing to turn sewage into drinkable water. It’s part of the drought-parched state’s efforts to save and recycle more of its fast-dwindling freshwater, according to The Los Angeles Times.
Germany cuts climate programs. The government in Berlin finally has a budget after cutting spending on efforts to cut emissions, The New York Times reports, right as Germany builds new coal mines to make up for its shuttered nuclear plants.
Solar-powered senior scam? The Washington Free-Beacon spoke to people who said their elderly parents with dementia were manipulated into signing 25-year contracts worth tens of thousands of dollars by door-to-door salespeople working for solar giant Sunnova.
“What you’re asking me is how are we going to make the next revolution successful, right? There is no easy answer for this.” Grist interviewed a researcher charting a path for the Arab world away from hydrocarbons – and avoiding the “green colonialism” of Western Sahara’s solar projects.
Thank you as always for your attention. I hope you felt these updates on what I’m writing and reading earned it. If not, maybe this music recommendation will. It’s called “Disko Roze” by Latvian jazz trumpeter Gunārs Rosenbergs. If any of you make house music and take requests, I think the refrain is itching to be sampled and remixed with a light hi-hat beat. The original track from the 1979 album “Laura” is easy to play on repeat.
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Signing off from rainy Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, where the fog has completely enveloped the Verrazzano Bridge this morning.