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The EU’s hydrogen ambitions are facing a reality check. Despite an ambitious strategy launched in 2020 and ongoing work to establish a comprehensive policy framework, recent forecasts suggest hydrogen deployment is lagging behind initial targets. However, this moment offers an opportunity for reflection and provides valuable lessons not just for Europe, but also for other regions.
Ted Auch, FracTracker Alliance, 2020.
By Magdalen Sullivan & Kate Roberts
As the U.S. oil and gas industry expands, the vast network of largely unregulated pipelines that transport unprocessed natural gas —known as gathering pipelines — has crept closer and closer to residential communities. Most gathering pipelines are currently exempt from regular inspection, which means that leaks and other problems in these pipes can, and routinely do, go undetected.
By Scott Seymour and Ari Pottens
The Canadian government is likely overlooking an important source of climate pollution. Surface casing vent flow and gas migration (types of underground leakage from oil and gas wells) has the potential to leak a lot of methane, but according to new research, neither governments nor companies know how much.
Canada has made a pledge to reduce 75% of the oil and gas industry’s methane emissions by 2030 as way to help combat climate change, but poor data and inaccurate estimates on well leakage makes it increasingly difficult to know if that goal is in sight.
New research reveals that across Alberta and British Columbia oil and gas well leakage could represent anywhere between 2-11% of the industry’s emissions. This huge range means policy makers can’t reliably know how this problem stacks up against other emission sources making it nearly impossible to set priorities or to craft regulations.
This blog was jointly authored by policy experts from Clean Air Task Force & Environmental Defense Fund. Our organizations share a common goal to maximize the climate benefits of clean hydrogen deployment, as well as reduce methane emissions from oil and gas operations. Individual sets of comments on the 45V hydrogen production tax credit from CATF and EDF have also been provided to the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
As the U.S. invests billions of dollars in clean hydrogen as a decarbonization solution, the 45V Clean Hydrogen Production Tax Credit stands to shape the future of the hydrogen industry and its potential impact on climate progress. 45V offers an incentive for producing clean hydrogen, regardless of method, so long as its greenhouse gas, or GHG, intensity falls below a certain threshold — and the cleaner the hydrogen is, the more money producers can claim under the tax credit.
Seven years after hurricanes Irma and Maria made landfall on Puerto Rico in 2017, the island continues to struggle with a deficient electrical power infrastructure. Power outages are common, the price of electricity continues to increase and the reconstruction of the power grid is not happening fast enough. Power outages affect rural and urban communities in Puerto Rico and endanger the lives of the most vulnerable.
By Grace Smith and Elizabeth Lieberknecht
The Biden administration just made another major investment in a cleaner, safer energy future for all Americans. On Friday, EPA and the Department of Energy announced applications are open for $850 million in funding to monitor and reduce methane emissions from the oil and gas sector.
