One of the principle pillars of the Energy Transition is the use of hydrogen for specific industries like cement and steel manufacture that require temperatures that cannot be generated by electricity unlike, say, heat for buildings. While the prospect of utilizing hydrogen broadly throughout the economy by relying on existing natural gas pipelines seems far off, efforts are already being made to promote it in in localized uses like factories. This will be helped by tax credits, but the debate about how restrictive they should be could delay this.
Cue the peanut gallery. Bloomberg has already provided us with the usual suspect in “An Inside Look at Exxon’s White House Push to Subsidize Hydrogen From Gas” while the NRDC describes how “Four new resources were published recently that lock in the ironclad case for the Biden administration to issue rigorous guidance”. (sources below) The former apparently is adopting the homeopathic approach to policy-making—a policy’s virtue is decided by its association, and anything Exxon touches is by definition ‘bad.’ I disagree with that attitude, but nonetheless assume that Exxon’s stance is self-serving and should be treated as such, while still deciding the case on the merits. As for the NRDC’s belief in an ‘ironclad case,’ they are being quite naïve about the reliability of economic studies.
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