Commentary by Carl Hintz
Terms like “blue hydrogen” and “bridge fuel” are used by the gas industry and electric utilities to obscure how disastrous methane is for the climate.
So what is “blue hydrogen”? It’s produced not from renewable energy, but from methane and other fossil fuels. Before you get your hopes up that the hydrogen economy will be green, 95 percent of hydrogen produced in the US is produced by natural gas reforming. This process releases carbon dioxide, just as burning methane does.
In contrast, clean or green hydrogen is simply hydrogen gas made from water using electricity that is produced by renewable energy. It is important to understand that hydrogen is not an energy source, rather it is a way of storing energy. However, we already have a simple, mature, effective and reliable technology to store energy—lithium-ion batteries.
Ironically, but not surprisingly, oil and gas companies are trying to cash in on the Inflation Reduction Act. The legislation includes substantial subsidies for hydrogen. Open Secrets reported that in 2023, 202 companies and organizations lobbied U.S. Senators on issues related to hydrogen. These companies want “technology neutral” rules to claim clean energy subsidies for dirty “blue hydrogen” which is produced by mining methane and other fossil fuels.
Methane is almost 30 times as powerful a heat trapping gas as carbon dioxide. The oil and gas industry is the largest industrial polluter of methane. In 2022, methane was responsible for 12 percent of US contributions to climate change. However, there is a silver lining. Unlike carbon dioxide which stays in the air indefinitely, methane has a residency time of about 12 years. If we stop methane pollution, we will see climate benefits in the near term.
Locally, Duke Energy has claimed it will transition its methane plants to clean hydrogen by 2050. This is what gas industry shills mean they say “bridge fuel”. These terms are intentionally vague. What is methane a bridge to? Is it a temporary solution that allows us to stop using coal, as we transition to wind and solar? Is it a temporary solution that allows us to eventually switch to clean hydrogen? This was Duke Energy’s dubious justification when it gained approval in December 2022 from the Utilities Commission for its plans for two billion watts of new climate-wrecking methane power plants.
These new gas plants would lock the state into methane infrastructure including pipelines and fracking (in neighboring states). This is counter to House Bill 951, the North Carolina law that requires the Utilities Commission to “take all reasonable steps” for the state’s utilities to reach net zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050.
The problem with Duke Energy’s claim that it will switch from methane to hydrogen is that it doesn’t answer the obvious question, how will the hydrogen be produced? If it’s from wind and solar then we should be building the wind and solar farms now (not the proposed natural gas plants). Most likely, Duke Energy has no serious plans to switch from methane to hydrogen and is simply using this as a loophole to avoid taking the actions required by HB 951 to reach net zero carbon dioxide emissions.
To summarize, blue hydrogen is bad, green hydrogen is good, and the claim that methane is a bridge fuel is a lie. The utilities and gas companies would like to burn all the methane we can mine, climate be damned.
Today, people can see first-hand what 2 degrees Fahrenheit of warming means. We are experiencing the dangerous heat waves, the rapidly intensifying hurricanes, the encroaching sea level rise and salt water intrusion. A March 2022 Pew Survey found 54 percent of U.S. adults say global climate change is a major threat to the country. A June 2023 Pew Research Survey found that “two-thirds of U.S. adults say the country should prioritize developing renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, over expanding the production of oil, coal and natural gas”. This isn’t only a matter of opinion. In NC, 43,000 households have installed solar panels.
So if renewable energy is popular and large numbers of Americans are concerned about climate change, why has there been relatively little policy action?
Fossil Fuel companies have moved away from outright denying climate change, but that doesn’t stop them from lobbying for inaction. According to Open Secrets, in 2023, Chevron, Shell, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, Phillips 66, BP, TC Energy, Marathon, Enbridge Inc, and Williams Companies spent 49 million dollars on lobbying.
In the 2022 election cycle, Duke Energy spent 10 million dollars on lobbying and donations. Lobbying is just one way that energy companies influence policy. In 2018, NC WARN estimated Duke Energy influence spending at more than 80 million dollars a year. This legalized bribery has paid off.
What Duke Energy asks of the NC Utilities Commission, it receives. Threatened by the success of rooftop solar, Duke Energy asked for a monthly minimum bill and an end to “full retail rate” net metering. In March 2023 the Utilities Commission approved this request. The new monthly minimum bill (even for customers who produce electricity with rooftop solar) is $22 per month for Duke Energy Carolinas customers and $28 a month for Duke Energy progress customers.
Eager for larger profits and in order to pay for its planned methane and nuclear power plants and high voltage lines, Duke Energy requested major rate hikes. In August 2023 and December 2023 the Utilities commission acquiesced, granting Duke Energy Progress a 11.3 percent rate hike and Duke Energy Carolinas a 14.6 percent. This is anticipated to give the utility, which enjoys a near total monopoly, an extra one billion dollars in revenue.
So we know what Duke Energy wants. High electricity bills, a reinforced monopoly, more gas power, more nuclear power, more high voltage lines, and most of all more profits. We also know what the oil and gas companies want. The ability to mine and sell oil and gas, even if it displaces and kills millions of people globally at the hands of climate fueled natural disasters. More pipelines and more fracking even if it poisons drinking water for generations.
It is still in our power to stop this. We need to take the Utilities Commission back, so it operates in the interest of the people not in the interests of Duke Energy. Let’s make the rate hike a costly issue for Duke Energy and for corrupt politicians, this will undercut their legitimacy. Let’s push our towns, cities and counties to develop public utilities that utilize solar power and battery storage, this will undercut Duke Energy’s monopoly. It is entirely feasible to power our state with renewable energy, primarily solar power with battery storage, supplemented by offshore wind power. Let’s fight for this renewable powered future in our communities and at the general assembly. What is holding back the transition to renewable energy in NC is not technology that needs to be developed or discoveries that need to be made, but rather corporate power that must be challenged and overcome.
Carl Hintz is a contributing editor at The Triangle Free Press.