{"id":307086,"date":"2026-10-15T08:41:55","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T08:41:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/307086\/"},"modified":"2026-10-15T08:41:55","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T08:41:55","slug":"whats-up-with-pennsylvanias-hydrogen-hubs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/307086\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s up with Pennsylvania’s hydrogen hubs?"},"content":{"rendered":"

But it is critical when it comes to replacing carbon-intensive chemical feedstocks that create products like ammonia, which is used to make fertilizer. Ammonia production alone accounts<\/a> for roughly 2\u00a0percent of global energy consumption and 1.5 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. Green ammonia could also aid in decarbonizing global shipping, which produces<\/a> another 3\u00a0percent of global emissions.<\/p>\n

Under the Biden administration, MACH2 made a\u00a0show of partnering with SEPTA, Philadelphia\u2019s public transit system, to test hydrogen-powered buses. In the hub\u2019s application, though, it was made clear that the main offtakers for MACH2 would, at least initially, be area oil refineries \u2014 a\u00a0tough sell for community and environmental-justice groups, which were already concerned about hydrogen\u2019s high flammability and its potential to serve as an indirect greenhouse gas<\/a>, magnifying the effects of methane, ozone, and water\u00a0vapor.<\/p>\n

The second Trump administration gutted the Inflation Reduction Act, which invested billions in clean energy and incentives, but most of the hydrogen hubs were spared, at least on paper. Two hubs slated for California and the Pacific Northwest lost funding<\/a> early on and remain mired in a\u00a0legal battle, but the generous 45V hydrogen tax credit survived, albeit on a\u00a0truncated timeline. Although it was initially reported<\/a> that MACH2 was on the chopping block, Energy Secretary Chris Wright announced in April that the hydrogen hubs would retain their funding \u2014 but to what end is entirely unclear.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat matters in the U.S. more than hub status is whether individual projects are going ahead,\u201d Martin Tengler, head of hydrogen research at BloombergNEF, told Inside Climate News in an email. Producers need to both find customers for their hydrogen and meet the deadlines to claim the 45V green-hydrogen tax credit and the 45Q carbon-capture credit, in the case of blue hydrogen hubs. \u200b\u201cAll these have been a\u00a0challenge, except 45Q,\u201d said Tengler.<\/p>\n

Producers now have until December 31, 2027 to begin work before the tax credits expire, rather than the original deadline of 2032. That deadline seems all but impossible to meet, especially given the fact that the DOE does not plan<\/a> to spend any more on the hubs this year, according to its July apportionment plan. ARCH2 could choose to take advantage of the 45Q tax credits for carbon capture, which don\u2019t expire until 2033, but like MACH2<\/a>, it\u2019s only drawn<\/a> about one-fifth of its total Phase One award money, \u200b\u201ca drop in the bucket of the overall award,\u201d said Torres.<\/p>\n

Despite their funding reprieve, it\u2019s not clear that the hubs will be able to hold on to that money over the next few years. The 2027 President\u2019s Budget Request released in April calls<\/a> for \u200b\u201cpermanently cancelling\u201d unobligated funding for clean hydrogen programs and repurposing<\/a> \u200b\u201cGreen New Scam funding\u201d in favor of baseload power upgrades and spending $1.2 billion on the construction of seven AI supercomputers at Argonne and Oak Ridge National Laboratories.<\/p>\n

As a\u00a0green hydrogen hub, MACH2 was dependent on the development of solar and offshore wind in order to operate. Although some solar projects are still moving forward, the American offshore wind industry has been effectively kneecapped over the last two years by the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind and Invenergy backed out<\/a> of their contracts<\/a> in 2025 amid delays and regulatory uncertainty, and early-stage products were abandoned after the Trump administration began<\/a> paying companies out of their offshore-wind leases. In April, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities announced<\/a> that it would no longer be building infrastructure to connect offshore wind to the grid. As a\u00a0blue hydrogen hub, ARCH2 existed largely as a\u00a0way for oil and gas to continue operating under stricter emissions regulations \u2014 somewhat redundant now that the Trump administration has moved<\/a> to scrap emissions regulations for power plants entirely.<\/p>\n

This was always part of the problem with the Biden administration\u2019s initial plans, said Anika Juhn, an energy data analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. Even if the government is willing to temporarily subsidize the production of clean hydrogen, that support won\u2019t be enough unless there are complementary incentives on the demand side.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe hydrogen story is really an ammonia story, in the U.S. at least,\u201d said Juhn. Without subsidies to offset the increased cost of buying clean fertilizer for farmers, it\u2019s difficult to build up a\u00a0domestic market \u2014 meaning any green ammonia that is produced in the United States will ultimately be shipped overseas.<\/p>\n

For the green steel industry, it\u2019s a\u00a0major setback, said Hilary Lewis, steel director at Industrious Labs. \u200b\u201cI think it\u2019s kind of surprising to folks that we still make steel the way that you imagine in your head \u2014 big, hot furnaces, with hot metal flying everywhere, dirty coal going in, and lots of pollution,\u201d said Lewis. \u200b\u201cThat\u2019s still how we do it. It\u2019s how we\u2019ve been doing it for centuries.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some indirect progress has been made toward cleaner steel, although not in Pennsylvania. Those old-fashioned furnaces Lewis described are known as blast furnaces: aging, inefficient, and impossible to run in an emissions-friendly way. The more modern furnaces, which are known as direct-reduced-iron furnaces, are also significantly cleaner. At the moment they run on methane, but a\u00a0facility like the $5.8 billion steel mill being built by Hyundai in Louisiana could eventually be converted to green hydrogen. \u200b\u201cThere are two steps to modernizing Pennsylvania\u2019s iron and steel industry: one is getting clean hydrogen available,\u201d said Lewis. \u200b\u201cAnd the other is building these new furnaces to replace the existing coal-based furnaces.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Torres said, many former hydrogen hub partners are pivoting to the energy cause du jour \u2014 data centers. He pointed to the Adams Fork Energy Project in West Virginia, which was initially conceived<\/a> as a\u00a0coal-to-gas facility. In 2023 it joined<\/a> the ARCH2 hub as a\u00a0partner with plans to build a\u00a0massive ammonia hub, but was later dropped from the project. This year, the same company pivoted<\/a> to constructing gas plants to power a\u00a0data center. At least four other former ARCH2 partners \u2014 Hog Lick Aggregates<\/a>, EQT<\/a>, Fidelis New Energy<\/a>, and CNX Resources<\/a> \u2014 have joined them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever someone\u2019s reaching out about the hydrogen hub, [I assume] something must be happening that I\u00a0don\u2019t know about,\u201d said Torres. \u200b\u201cBecause it\u2019s all gas plants and data centers now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But it is critical when it comes to replacing carbon-intensive chemical feedstocks that create products like ammonia, which…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-307086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}