The Midwest Does Not Need Dirty Hydrogen
U.S. climate progress depends on getting it right on hydrogen
Contacts
Alexandria Trimble, atrimble@earthjustice.org
Today, the U.S. Department of Energy awarded $22.2 million — the first part of a potentially $1 billion award — in funding for the Midwest Hydrogen Hub (MachH2).
In response, Lauren Piette, senior attorney at Earthjustice, released the following statement:
“MachH2 has not meaningfully engaged frontline communities or provided transparent plans for producing green hydrogen. We know that MachH2 will produce hydrogen from fossil fuels, and without a proactive consideration of the climate and community impacts, we can only assume that it will pull massive amounts of clean energy from our electricity grid, negating whatever energy it produces and increasing pollution from fossil fuel plants that make up for the energy that is diverted.
“There is a role for green hydrogen produced by new renewable energy sources to clean up what we cannot electrify, like steel manufacturing. But as it stands, the only ‘green’ in MachH2 seems to be our tax dollars going to fund another handout for the fossil fuel industry that harms communities and undermines our climate progress.”
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