District 20 News: State Rep. Kinkead

With Pennsylvania coal fueling the industrial revolution across the United States, our Commonwealth has always been at the epicenter of American energy. Zooming in even further, western Pennsylvania played a major role in earning this reputation, as Mt. Washington is home to the country’s first coal mine and much of the coal mined in this region directly bolstered Pittsburgh’s region-defining steel industry.

While coal and other greenhouse gas-emitting energy sources have been integral in our nation’s development, it has become abundantly clear that these sources are major contributors to climate change, extremely harmful to local air quality and not sustainable sources of energy for our future on this planet. Thankfully, we have the ability to change course and have already begun to do so in several areas. Unfortunately, our current renewable energy sources are not enough to address the energy needs of our region and other areas of the nation with significant weather changes between summer and winter months. But what if we could address these issues and grow our region’s economic impact, all while supporting our local building trade unions with family-sustaining jobs? Hydrogen power has the potential to do all of this, and western Pennsylvania is uniquely positioned to lead the transition.

Hydrogen is a clean burning fuel; the main byproduct is water rather than carbon. It has a wide variety of applications geared towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions, including long-term energy storage to replace residential reliance on natural gas for furnaces and hot water heaters and to power industries that can’t easily be electrified, such as marine and air transportation, cement and steel production, and long-haul freight. Today, hydrogen is mostly used in petroleum refining and fertilizer production, while transportation and utilities are rising markets.

So if hydrogen is such a magic bullet, why haven’t we switched to hydrogen already? It becomes more complicated when exploring different methods of producing the hydrogen that will be burned. Depending on how the hydrogen is produced, it is labeled with different colors. There are several “colors” of hydrogen, but grey and blue are the most relevant to hydrogen production in our area.

Grey hydrogen is produced using high-temperature steam in combination with a methane source, such as natural gas. This combination emits carbon, eliminating grey hydrogen as a sustainable energy option. Blue hydrogen is produced the same way, except it uses carbon capture technology to prevent around 90% of carbon emissions from entering the atmosphere. Currently, almost all of the hydrogen produced in the United States is grey hydrogen, as carbon capture is still an emerging technology and is not yet feasible on a large scale — this is the major hold up for implementing hydrogen- based energy. But as carbon capture technology becomes more easily applicable on larger scales, areas with hydrogen energy infrastructure already in place will reap the greatest rewards in both sustainability and profitability.

The federal government, recognizing the need to accelerate hydrogen into the market as a viable clean energy source, stepped up through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, passed in November 2021, and included an $8 billion appropriation to establish between six and 10 “hydrogen hubs” across the nation, each of which would position assets necessary to produce hydrogen-based energy in close proximity to maximize efficiency. Many dozens of applications have been submitted, competing to be selected as a location for one of these hubs. Among them is one to build a blue hydrogen hub here in western Pennsylvania, and it’s a proposal I am strongly in favor of.

Western Pennsylvania is located at a key crossroads of industry and services, while also having the ideal resources — particularly natural gas — and workforce needed to develop a hydrogen hub. Besides the obvious benefits of reducing our carbon emissions, building a hub here would create an unfathomable number of jobs to establish and operate the facilities. Since natural gas is fundamental to producing blue hydrogen, some environmental advocates are understandably skeptical about how much more sustainable a blue hydrogen hub would actually be compared to continuing with energy sources that emit greenhouse gasses. While I think much of this skepticism comes from a genuine place, I firmly believe blue hydrogen would be a huge step forward for energy sustainability and greatly benefit Pennsylvanians. Change is incremental and if we are serious about ending our addiction to fossil fuels, we must make it feasible for companies to transition to clean-burning fuels. If we cannot scale up hydrogen production, no industries will make efforts to transition to using it. Blue hydrogen is a step forward on the path to a green energy future, not the destination. But it puts western Pennsylvania on the map to be a driver to a better future for us all.

Many of my colleagues in the state House agree and we are taking active steps to ensure hydrogen energy is produced responsibly in the future. My colleague Rep. Greg Vitali, chair of the House Environmental Resources & Energy Committee, recently introduced legislation to outline qualifications for what constitutes a “clean” hydrogen hub and establish further guidelines and regulations — and this is just the beginning.

You’ll surely hear more about hydrogen hubs in the coming months and years, especially if the Biden administration selects our region as a hub site. I encourage you to stay up to date on these exciting energy developments. Hub or no hub, I’ll still be here to help you however I can with state-related issues. Never hesitate to call my office at (412) 321-5523 or email me at RepKinkead@pahouse.net.