How Dirty Hydrogen Projects Threaten Our Climate and Health

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. Pure hydrogen can be used as a fuel because it releases energy when combined with oxygen. However, hydrogen tends to attach to other kinds of molecules, so pure hydrogen is not naturally occurring on Earth. The most common way to produce hydrogen is to separate it from methane gas using extremely high heat and pressure.

This process is called steam-methane reformation (SMR), and it is heavily polluting. The heat comes from burning fossil fuels, which emit harmful pollutants like particulate matter and nitrogen oxides — gases that create smog and can damage your lungs.

Hydrogen isn’t our climate future — it's our dirty present, posing a major threat to our climate and our health. Hydrogen’s climate toll is so huge that global hydrogen production today is responsible for more climate pollution than the entire country of Germany.

Petrochemical companies and oil refineries are responsible for producing nearly all of the United States’ annual supply of hydrogen (about 10 million metric tons).

The process the industry uses to produce this hydrogen air pollution into neighboring communities and pumps climate pollution into our atmosphere.

Many steam-methane reformation facilities are sited in communities already living in the shadow of oil and gas infrastructure.

For instance, the oil refining company Philips 66 recently entered an agreement with gas giant Linde to build what will be the largest hydrogen production facility in the United States. The project is being constructed in St. James Parish, Louisiana, where the concentration of petrochemical plants and refineries has already raised cancer rates so high that the area is known as “Cancer Alley.”

Hydrogen is highly flammable and prone to leaking. Hydrogen burns more rapidly than natural gas, often with explosive outcomes. When leaked into the atmosphere, hydrogen can also have a greenhouse gas effect five times more potent than CO₂.

Hydrogen has no place in our homes.

Contrary to spin from gas companies, hydrogen should never be used to replace gas in home appliances such as furnaces, stoves, and water heaters. That would be dangerous, leaky, and irresponsible.

Burning hydrogen in home appliances would produce health-harming air pollution like nitrogen oxides (NO_x), the main ingredient in smog, in our homes.

Nitrogen oxides are a family of poisonous, highly reactive gases. They form when fuel is burned at high temperatures — and hydrogen burns at a much higher temperature than the methane gas conventionally used in furnaces and stoves. Nitrogen oxides are a threat to human health because they trigger breathing and lung problems in people.

Children are especially vulnerable to air pollution like nitrogen oxides because they have smaller airways, their lungs are still developing, and they breathe at a faster rate than adults leading them to take in more polluted air.

Injecting hydrogen into our gas system could also create safety hazards in our pipelines and household appliances. Today’s gas lines and pipes were not designed for hydrogen, which can embrittle certain metals used in pipes and sealants and make them more likely to crack.

Households deserve modern upgrades with electric appliances like two-way heat pumps, induction stoves, and electric hot water heaters. These healthy, zero emissions appliances are available today, will help clean the air in our homes, and are far more energy efficient.

Take for example a two-way heat pump, which uses electricity to move heat from a cool space to a warm space — thus warming cool spaces and cooling warm spaces. By transferring ambient heat rather than burning a fuel to create heat, electric heat pumps are up to three times more efficient than a gas furnace.