The Biden administration’s newly proposed hydrogen tax-credit rules aim to enforce strict carbon emissions limits on companies making hydrogen from carbon-free electricity — so-called “green hydrogen.”
But its plans for policing the emissions from hydrogen made from fossil gas — in particular, so-called “blue hydrogen” — aren’t as clear. That has environmental watchdogs worried.
“We also need to be paying close attention to the blue hydrogen side of the equation,” said Morgan Rote, director of U.S. climate policy at the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund.
“Blue hydrogen” is the term for hydrogen that’s made from fossil gas, but in a way that prevents the resulting carbon emissions from entering the atmosphere. At present, very little blue hydrogen actually exists — most of the roughly 10 million metric tons of hydrogen made in the U.S. every year is “gray hydrogen,” which is produced using fossil gas without capturing emissions.
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