Roadmap to a US Hydrogen economy

A competitive hydrogen industry will reinforce US energy leadership. The US is now the world’s largest producer of natural gas and oil, exporting to more than 35 countries. As countries around the world look to hydrogen to reduce carbon emissions, the US has an opportunity to reinforce and grow its energy leadership position and create jobs in this field. The competitive domestic supply of hydrogen will enable exports of the fuel to other markets that do not have such competitive supplies.

Haven't seen too much made about the future potential for hydrogen fuel exports-- how much does that factor into the equation of current projections for hydrogen? How quickly could the U.S. get to the point that it's creating more hydrogen then it's able/willing to use to make export necessary, or do you think exports will come before we've reached any sort of surplus?

Great to see important policy proposals like the Roadmap to the US Hydrogen Economy being raised and discussed here on Energy Central! Certainly developing a hydrogen economy is a complex challenge fraught with questions like those already raised in the comments to this post  – Does it make sense to export hydrogen when in calculating the energy and financial resources that must be expended on H2 logistics and transport, the net energy gain can be less than optimal? If our objective is decarbonization and clean energy, are the use of natural gas and Power-to-Gas infrastructure legitimate steps in the transition or are they just a way to whitewash the continued use of fossil fuels?  Are traditional oil and gas producers trying to authentically achieve climate action or is it just lip service to maintain their relevance in the energy market?  How can we encourage these companies to participate as players in the transition from established brown hydrogen production methods to more innovative green hydrogen production processes?  

To reach the ambitious targets we have set to reduce global warming, we need as broad involvement as possible, public and private, investors and research tanks, traditional energy providers and new-to-market energy innovators. I am interested to hear what all the different stakeholders have to say about this roadmap – is it achievable? Will 14% U.S. renewables be sufficient to achieve global climate action targets? Will the proposed steps bring new revenues and jobs to the U.S. energy sector?  GenCell Energy is committed to making this transition happen and we are pursuing several projects to partner our fuel cells with green hydrogen producers to enable completely clean, carbon-free energy generation – the question is cost – what prices for green hydrogen can the market sustain? It is all a matter of scale – as demand grows, prices will fall and the projects will get to market. There are issues, there are barriers, there are vested interests, but there are also opportunities that we must push hard to make clean energy an economic reality.