To say that the scope of the 2700-page Infrastructure, Investment, and Jobs Act (IIJA) of 2021 is expansive is like saying Arkansas can be humid in July. The introduction to the $1 trillion legislation reads, “To authorize funds for Federal-aid highways, highway safety programs and transit programs, and for other purposes.”
It’s under “for other purposes” that the United States Department of Energy (DOE) was directed to seek out and select regional clean hydrogen hubs to fund. From this, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Louisiana decided to form a partnership to establish a regional hub—HALO—for the development, production, and use of clean hydrogen as fuel and manufacturing feedstock.
Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson said, “In Arkansas, we have a growing and diverse energy portfolio and natural resources vital to any successful regional hub. We are the proud home of prominent partners and companies critical to U.S. commerce with a strong history of environmental leadership and track records of reducing emissions. We are excited to partner with our neighbors in Louisiana and Oklahoma to put forward a winning application.”
Each governor appointed individuals from their respective state to serve as designees to the partnership, and Governor Hutchinson chose Arkansas Secretary of Energy & Environment Becky W. Keogh. The designees will serve as the primary authority and point of contact for coordinating governmental, research, and private sector efforts to promote hydrogen development and use.
Secretary Keogh said, “These states are perfectly situated to demonstrate the entire value chain of hydrogen and uniquely situated to tackle the hard-to-decarbonize sectors like industrial, manufacturing, and transportation. The partnership builds upon existing advantages, such as an inland seaport system that runs from Oklahoma through Arkansas and down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico in Louisiana, existing intermodal rail, existing pipeline infrastructure that runs from Oklahoma through Arkansas to the Gulf of Mexico, and some of the most valuable interstate freight highways in the United States. More importantly, hydrogen is already available for demonstration with new large clean hydrogen production hubs scheduled to come on line in the near future.”
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. Currently, a great deal of hydrogen is produced in the partner states through separating methane into its components of hydrogen and carbon. While this process still produces waste carbon, the process can be made much cleaner by capturing the waste carbon and injecting it into permanent underground storage zones. There has also been growing interest and investment in making the electrolysis of water to release hydrogen more commercially available.
