PORTLAND, Oregon —
The Biden administration announced Friday that the Pacific Northwest will be home to one of seven new “hydrogen hubs,” which officials said will help the country move away from fossil fuels and the greenhouse gases they emit.
The project, which comes with the potential of up to $1 billion in federal funding, would encompass a regional network in Oregon, Washington and Montana, made up of local governments, businesses, labor groups and researchers, to help develop, produce and distribute hydrogen fuels.
Competition for the investments was fierce with nearly 80 applications from states and regions vying for the federal dollars.
That’s just one of the reasons Oregon Rep. Andrea Salinas was happy to see the Pacific Northwest emerge from the pack.
“I am so excited to announce that the Pacific Northwest will soon be home to a brand-new hydrogen hub,” she said in a statement. “This historic investment will accelerate the transition to clean energy and create thousands of good-paying jobs in Oregon and across our region.”
Hydrogen fuel has long been seen as a potential alternative to fossil fuels. When it’s burned, hydrogen fuel produces only water vapor, and no greenhouse gases.
It has been touted as an environmentally-friendly alternative for parts of the economy that are hard to electrify like heavy industry, trucking, and the manufacture of carbon-intensive materials like concrete and steel.
But it has its critics, too. Traditionally, hydrogen fuel is produced using large amounts of methane and the carbon emissions from the process can often cancel out any of its environmental benefits.
It can also be produced using electrolysis and proponents of the project in the Pacific Northwest are hopeful that the region’s sizable renewable energy portfolio can help produce cleaner, and cheaper, hydrogen fuel.
“Oregon has long been a leader in clean, renewable energy production,” Oregon Governor Tina Kotek said in a statement. “This transformational opportunity to accelerate development of the nation’s clean energy economy is tailor-made for the Pacific Northwest, where a proud tradition of technological innovation and collaboration in taking on bold challenges is in our nature.”
The Washington Department of Commerce released a list of 17 companies that have proposed projects as part of the hub including Amazon, Mitsubishi and Portland General Electric.
The northwest hub was one of seven announced by the U.S. Department of Energy Thursday, which, when operational, will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25 million metric tons per year, or the equivalent of the emissions of more than five million passenger cars.
The project is still in the first of four phases and will take an estimated nine years to complete.