Excerpt from this story from Inside Climate News:
ExxonMobil’s Baytown refinery and petrochemical complex is one of the largest industrial operations in the country, covering 3,400 acres or nearly 15 percent of the city of Baytown, just east of Houston. It is also one of the nation’s largest sources of greenhouse gas pollution, but Exxon says it has a plan to change that.
The proposal hinges on technology that would convert natural gas into hydrogen while capturing the carbon dioxide emissions released in the process. Exxon said the effort would make the Baytown site a major hydrogen producer while helping to lower the refinery’s emissions by “up to 30 percent.” It is part of a larger effort by the oil and gas industry to position itself for a shifting energy landscape.
Up and down the Gulf Coast, oil and chemical companies including BP, Chevron, Air Products and others have proposed a series of similar projects that would combine carbon capture technology with hydrogen production in an attempt to turn the fossil fuel-dependent region into a center for clean energy.
The efforts are being propelled by a colossal wave of federal funding. The Inflation Reduction Act, enacted in August, included new and expanded tax credits that would help finance hydrogen production. In September, the Department of Energy began accepting applications for $7 billion in grants to help build “clean hydrogen hubs” around the country.
The hope is that hydrogen can help cut greenhouse gas emissions from industrial operations like steel manufacturing and heavy-duty transportation. For the Gulf Coast’s fossil fuel industry, it could also offer a lifeline and a rare opportunity for a new market.
But some environmental advocates and scientists are warning that the Biden administration and the oil industry are rushing into a new technology that could further entrench natural gas in the nation’s economy while failing to deliver significant climate benefits.
They point to recent academic research showing that increased leaks of super-polluting methane, the primary component of natural gas which traps more than 80 times more heat over the short term than carbon dioxide, can erode or even negate any benefits drawn from capturing carbon dioxide emissions. One study published last year determined that under some conditions, burning hydrogen made from natural gas can be even worse for the climate than burning the fossil fuel directly, even with carbon capture equipment.
