Hydrogen hubs are $9 billion waste

The recent article on Illinois getting one of the Biden administrations hydrogen hubs celebrated by all our politicians is another example of the government without a plan to combat climate change.

Their plan seems to be to throw billions of dollars at everything and see what sticks. Clean hydrogen has a long history of failure and costing too much money. Clean hydrogen also has a long history of being used to justify new oil and gas projects. It is not a viable alternative for fuel in cars as it would require new vehicle technology, fuel supply and fuel distribution.

Currently it requires more energy to make than it creates and that energy, except for Illinois, comes from oil, gas, or coal. Illinois is one of the only states that has enough nuclear power.

The other option for producing it is using carbon capture for the CO2 released. Carbon capture, although also touted by the government, is very expensive as has been deemed by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) as not permanent and not a long-term solution to the problem.

These two technologies which usually go together are not going to solve our problems in the next decades and therefore the $9 billion should be spent elsewhere.

We should continue to do research in both areas, but they do not seem to be an area to make our big bets to decarbonize in the next two to three decades.

Ken Maltas

Prospect Heights