Biden Administration to Put $9.5B into Clean Hydrogen Initiatives

Clean hydrogen power technologies are increasingly of interest to socially responsible investors as they explore viable alternatives to fossil fuels.

President Joe Biden announced last week a series of measures aimed at tackling the amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced by the American industrial sector – and at the forefront of these measures is a significant increase in investment in hydrogen technology.

Three initiatives of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law are aimed at accelerating green hydrogen development. These include $8 billion to clean hydrogen hubs and $1 billion towards a clean hydrogen electrolysis program, which aims to reduce the cost of hydrogen produced from clean energy. A further $500 million will go towards clean hydrogen manufacturing and recycling initiatives.

Hydrogen power has been touted as a viable alternative energy source for many years, but the predominant way of extracting it creates significant polluting byproducts. “Clean” or “green” hydrogen refers to more environmentally friendly ways of producing the gas.

The next set of initiatives are aimed at low-carbon material, including the establishment of a Buy Clean Task Force, in which the federal government will use its purchasing power to support low-carbon materials. Construction projects funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will also make use of low-carbon materials.

New guidance is to be released on responsible deployment of carbon capture, utilization and sequestration technologies and the administration is also advancing carbon-based trade policies to reward American manufacturers of clean steel and aluminium.

Other measures are intended to encourage innovation across the sector. These include the launch of an interdisciplinary industrial decarbonization research initiative, as well as a committee dedicated to creating a strategy to lower America’s industrial carbon footprint.

The Biden-Harris administration said in a White House document that it hoped the measures would “revitalize local economies, lower prices for consumers, provide more pathways to the middle class through union jobs, and boost American competitiveness in global markets”.

The announcement comes as India – one of the biggest industrial producers in the world – has set its own green hydrogen targets. India’s new Green Hydrogen/Green Ammonia Policy outlines a series of initiatives that will propel India towards the production of five million tonnes of green hydrogen by 2030.

According to a statement from the Ministry of Power, it is the first step in India’s National Hydrogen Mission, setting up hydrogen to play a big part in the country’s decarbonization strategy.

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