BATON ROUGE, La (BRPROUD) — Gov. John Bel Edwards announced the bipartisan three state partnership with Arkansas and Oklahoma to establish a regional hub for development, production, and use of clean hydrogen as furl and manufacturing feedstock.
In the agreement, the states intend to compete as a unit for funding established in the Infrastructure, Investment, and Jobs Act of 2021, in which the United States Department of Energy is directed to seek out and select regional clean hydrogen hubs to fund.
“The state of Louisiana, as well as our partner states in this effort, have a long history of producing and transporting fuels and feedstocks in liquid and gas forms, as well as significant population of industrial end users with potential to make use of hydrogen as fuel or as part of manufacturing processes,” Governor Edwards said. “This is an extension of Louisiana’s ongoing efforts in diversifying the makeup of our energy sources and ensuring an economically and environmentally balanced approach to cleaner use of traditional fuels and transition to new potential energy sources.”
The agreement also includes provisions for:
- Promoting investment in infrastructure for production and transportation of low-carbon hydrogen
- Prioritizing direct capture of carbon for all phases of hydrogen development
- Working with industry, transportation networks and ports to connect major facilities with high carbon footprints to hydrogen infrastructure for fuel blending and reduction of CO2 emissions Working to support hydrogen production to support all phases of industry that can use hydrogen as a fuel source
Hydrogen is presently used in many manufacturing processes and has increasingly gained interest as a clean-burning fuel source that could help reduce carbon emissions from manufacturing, heavy industry and long haul trucking.
“Here in Louisiana, we’ve already seen and participated in action to produce more hydrogen through cleaner processes, and with a partnership of our state with Arkansas and Oklahoma sharing information at the level of state government, between our research institutions, and between our industry groups, we expect to be able to accelerate progress in both the production and use of hydrogen,” Governor Edwards said.
The three states have been focused on hydrogen as an additional resource in their all-of-the-above approach to a diversified and clean energy portfolio. In late 2021, a hydrogen-from-natural-gas project with carbon capture and sequestration was announced in Louisiana and a large electrolytic production hub was announced in Oklahoma.