L.A. needs clean energy. Hydrogen could be the answer — or gas industry greenwashing

Southern California runs on petroleum, with an extended historical past of oil drilling and a panorama dominated by vehicles and freeways.

However Angelenos are additionally deeply depending on one other soiled gas.

On daily basis, tens of millions of properties and hundreds of companies obtain greater than 15 billion gallons of pure gasoline, on common, from the nation’s largest gasoline utility, Southern California Gasoline Co. Households use the planet-warming gas to remain heat within the winter and prepare dinner dinner on gasoline stoves. Energy crops burn it to generate electrical energy that powers air conditioners on sizzling summer time days.

A lot of the gasoline flows in from different states by way of pipeline. Some is tucked away at native storage fields, together with Aliso Canyon, web site of a record-shattering methane leak. A few of it by no means reaches the Los Angeles Basin in any respect, leaking from wellheads or pipelines and rising into the ambiance, the place it traps warmth much more powerfully than the carbon dioxide emitted when it’s burned.

Scientists say there’s an pressing must part out fossil fuels and finish the unprecedented world heating that’s driving deadlier and extra damaging warmth waves, wildfires, droughts and floods. So how will Southern California clear up its pure gasoline downside?

SoCalGas says it has at the least a partial reply: hydrogen.

The Sempra Vitality subsidiary proposed final month to construct “the nation’s largest inexperienced hydrogen power infrastructure system.” Referred to as Angeles Hyperlink, it might embody lots of of miles of pipelines to deliver the clean-burning gas to energy crops, factories and the ports of L.A. and Lengthy Seaside. SoCalGas clients would bear the associated fee, which might quantity to billions of {dollars}.

“It permits California to dramatically advance its local weather and environmental objectives,” SoCalGas President Maryam Brown stated in an interview. “It creates a cornerstone for the California inexperienced hydrogen financial system, and the hydrogen financial system basically.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom appears to agree. Requested about Angeles Hyperlink at a information convention, he known as it “a step in the fitting course.”

However is hydrogen a vital clear power answer, or a greenwashing boondoggle that might prop up the fossil gas business?

It’s a query driving fierce debate amongst environmentalists, elected officers and labor unions — in Southern California and world wide, as firms plan lots of of billions of {dollars} in investments that might launch the hydrogen period.

Los Angeles officers hope to play a number one position — however provided that they decide hydrogen will do extra good than hurt.

“Anyone who says inexperienced hydrogen goes to work for certain doesn’t but know what they’re speaking about,” Mayor Eric Garcetti stated in an interview. “Anyone who says inexperienced hydrogen received’t work for certain doesn’t know what they’re speaking about.”

A clear gas with baggage

Hydrogen, the world’s lightest molecule, has lengthy been utilized in oil refining and fertilizer manufacturing. However there’s been a surge of curiosity the previous few years, with the Los Angeles Division of Water and Energy rising as one of many gas’s largest boosters.

DWP has begun the method of changing the town’s largest electrical energy supply — Intermountain Energy Plant outdoors Delta, Utah — from coal to hydrogen. If the first-of-its-kind mission goes as deliberate, DWP hopes to retrofit 4 gas-fired energy crops within the L.A. Basin as properly, together with Valley Producing Station in Solar Valley and Scattergood Producing Station close to El Segundo.

The hydrogen pipelines proposed by SoCalGas would provide these crops, permitting DWP to generate electrical energy through the uncommon moments when photo voltaic panels, wind generators and batteries received’t be sufficient to energy the town. It’s the sort of dependable power useful resource Los Angeles might want to obtain its objective of 100% clear electrical energy by 2035, DWP Common Supervisor Marty Adams stated.

“Inexperienced hydrogen is basically the way in which, until one thing comes up that isn’t invented but,” he stated.

The gas prices way over fossil gasoline, however it’s anticipated to get cheaper as know-how scales up. SoCalGas and DWP are working to slash inexperienced hydrogen prices from $5 per kilogram to $1.50 by 2030, and the Biden administration has set a fair decrease goal.

Environmental justice activists are skeptical.

They need L.A. officers to comply with by on their promise to close down gasoline crops — particularly Valley Producing Station, which is in a closely polluted, largely Latino group. Though hydrogen combustion doesn’t produce carbon dioxide, it does generate lung-damaging nitrogen oxide air pollution, or NOx — far more than fossil gasoline, at the least utilizing present know-how.

“On daily basis we have now another false answer coming at us,” stated Martha Dina Argüello, government director of Physicians for Social Accountability-Los Angeles. “The environmental justice issues that we dwell with are going to proceed and worsen.”

Activists do see a task for hydrogen in preventing local weather change — however largely in “arduous to affect” industries the place switching from soiled fuels to electrical energy is anticipated to be prohibitively costly, comparable to transport, aviation, steelmaking and doubtlessly long-haul trucking. Their most well-liked know-how is hydrogen gas cells, which produce no air pollution and may energy heavy-duty vans.

Exterior these industries, although, activists fear about firms utilizing hydrogen as an excuse to maintain peddling oil and gasoline.

Pipes carry pure gasoline to Unit 4 at DWP’s Scattergood Producing Station, which is a part of a “mixed cycle” system. Unit 4 combusts pure gasoline to generate electrical energy, after which Unit 5 makes use of the waste warmth to supply extra energy.

(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Instances)

SoCalGas, for example, estimates Angeles Hyperlink might assist to displace 25% of the gasoline it delivers at this time — some, however removed from all. And though none of that hydrogen can be used for heating and cooking, SoCalGas has separate initiatives to check out “mixing” — mixing small quantities of hydrogen into the pipelines that serve properties, lowering however not eliminating heat-trapping emissions.

That’s a nonstarter for local weather advocates. They level to analysis discovering that changing gasoline home equipment with electrical warmth pumps and induction stoves is a much more efficient local weather technique, and also can scale back indoor air air pollution from cooking with gasoline.

However electrification threatens the gasoline utility enterprise mannequin, which is why SoCalGas and different firms have fought authorities insurance policies requiring new properties to be all-electric. An identical battle performed out on the ports of L.A. and Lengthy Seaside, the place an business commerce group whose members embody SoCalGas lobbied officers to prioritize biofuels over electrical vans to scrub up air air pollution.

Some environmentalists fear that hydrogen will develop into the gasoline business’s newest excuse to dam electrification.

“I don’t have a variety of belief that this isn’t one other method of getting the camel’s nostril beneath the tent,” Argüello stated.

Garcetti has an identical concern. He’s skeptical about utilizing hydrogen for house heating and cooking, saying the town needs to be “cautious to protect in opposition to folks throwing in somewhat little bit of supposed inexperienced hydrogen to greenwash gases which might be destroying the planet.”

DWP’s gas-fired Valley Producing Station in Solar Valley. Neighborhood activists are campaigning to shut the plant due to well being and environmental issues.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Instances)

However because the hydrogen financial system grows, Garcetti is hopeful the gas will help fight the local weather disaster and scale back air air pollution.

“We wish to be the coauthors of this new chapter. We’re not passive bystanders,” he stated.

A battle at Metropolis Corridor

A number of weeks after SoCalGas rolled out its Angeles Hyperlink initiative, a associated battle roiled L.A.’s halls of energy.

The bipartisan infrastructure invoice authorized by Congress in November included $9.5 billion to drive down hydrogen prices and set up regional hydrogen manufacturing hubs — cash the Biden administration is now planning to distribute. A number of Metropolis Council members launched a movement this month calling on DWP and the Port of L.A. to use for a few of these funds.

Even earlier than the movement was launched, it was the topic of livid behind-the-scenes lobbying.

Teams together with the California Environmental Justice Alliance and the Sierra Membership requested council members to permit solely “inexperienced” hydrogen, produced from water and clear power sources comparable to photo voltaic or wind. (A lot of the hydrogen in use at this time is produced from fossil fuels in a extremely polluting course of.) Environmentalists additionally urged the town to “make no investments associated to hydrogen combustion” at energy crops with out first addressing a number of issues, together with doubtlessly excessive ranges of native air air pollution.

“Buying and selling our local weather objectives for our well being objectives doesn’t make sense,” the Sierra Membership’s Monica Embrey stated.

The ultimate textual content of the Metropolis Council movement integrated these factors. However some clear power activists nonetheless weren’t happy.

Alex Nagy, California director of Meals & Water Watch, stated she’s “very uncomfortable with L.A. making use of to develop into a hydrogen hub.” She believes DWP hasn’t exhausted different choices to part out fossil gasoline, together with native photo voltaic installations, power effectivity and “demand response” applications that pay properties and companies to make use of much less electrical energy when the ability grid is careworn.

In the meantime, SoCalGas stands to make an enormous assured revenue if state officers approve its Angeles Hyperlink hydrogen mission.

“It’s this complete boon for them,” Nagy stated.

SoCalGas’ headquarters are within the Gasoline Firm Tower, heart, in downtown Los Angeles.

(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Instances)

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Shortly after the L.A. hydrogen hub movement was launched, Council Member John Lee rolled out a separate decision calling for the town to assist the gasoline firm’s hydrogen mission. Lee was quoted in a SoCalGas information launch as saying Angeles Hyperlink “will assist us get one step nearer to attaining the town’s objective of 100% clear power by 2035 with out compromising reliability and hurting jobs.”

Jobs have been a political flashpoint in battles over the way forward for pure gasoline. When San Luis Obispo officers deliberate to vote on an all-electric buildings coverage early within the pandemic, for example, Eric Hofmann — president of a labor union representing hundreds of SoCalGas staff — threatened a “no social distancing” protest that he stated would “doubtlessly [add] to this pandemic.”

The promise of hydrogen infrastructure might ease these battles, providing a lifeline each to SoCalGas staff and to plumbers and pipefitters represented by the politically highly effective Los Angeles/Orange County Constructing and Building Trades Council.

Nonetheless, inexperienced hydrogen isn’t any panacea. Along with native air-pollution issues, producing the gas requires a number of water — a useful resource in ever-shorter provide because the Western U.S. endures its worst drought in at the least 1,200 years, fueled by world warming.

The nonprofit Environmental Protection Fund, in the meantime, simply launched a analysis paper — at the moment going by peer overview — discovering hydrogen can really worsen local weather change within the quick time period if an excessive amount of of it leaks from pipelines earlier than it’s burned.

Requested about that analysis, SoCalGas spokesperson Chris Gilbride stated leaks shouldn’t be a significant concern for Angeles Hyperlink.

“It is a new pipeline designed for hydrogen, so we’d not anticipate these issues,” he stated.

A SoCalGas pipeline generally known as Line 235, which brings pure gasoline by the desert towards the L.A. Basin, undergoes repairs after an October 2017 explosion.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Instances)

SoCalGas makes its play

Gasoline firm executives say Angeles Hyperlink would transport solely inexperienced hydrogen, not fossil gasoline. Along with native energy crops, the pipelines would provide the “arduous to affect” sectors the place local weather activists typically see hydrogen as a good suggestion.

However SoCalGas has in any other case provided few particulars on what Angeles Hyperlink may appear to be. A truth sheet on the utility’s web site initially instructed the mission might embody 200 to 750 miles of recent pipeline, though it was later edited to take away these numbers.

As a substitute, SoCalGas advised the California Public Utilities Fee it wish to spend an estimated $118 million in buyer cash to start learning and designing hydrogen infrastructure to serve the L.A. Basin. These funds would cowl the mission’s first two phases, with a 3rd part to comply with that might price “a number of lots of of tens of millions of {dollars}” extra — all earlier than development begins.

It’s some huge cash — however for an infrastructure mission of this measurement, “the order of magnitude is sensible,” stated Michael Colvin, a former Public Utilities Fee official who now leads the California power program on the Environmental Protection Fund.

Colvin stated he’s intrigued by Angeles Hyperlink, calling it “step one, by way of new devoted infrastructure, that’s been proposed like this wherever within the nation.” He stated his group will scrutinize the proposal because it’s thought-about by the utilities fee.

“That is the biggest gasoline firm within the nation attempting to determine how they go about decarbonizing their system,” he stated.

SoCalGas isn’t but asking for permission to cost clients for hydrogen-related prices — just for approval to open a “memo account” to trace spending, which might make it simpler for the corporate to get well these funds from clients later.

However Angeles Hyperlink won’t ever get constructed until the Public Utilities Fee finally lets SoCalGas invoice ratepayers for the prices.

A smokestack at Scattergood Producing Station close to El Segundo.

(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Instances)

The mission’s destiny might hinge on whether or not the utility can persuade state officers that hydrogen wouldn’t solely assist deal with the local weather disaster, but in addition restrict nitrogen oxides and different air pollution in low-income communities of colour. The gasoline firm acknowledges the environmental justice issues in its Angeles Hyperlink utility, saying it “doesn’t assist leisure of present NOx emissions requirements, and stands prepared to offer any technical help” on analysis that might result in decrease emissions.

On the identical time, the gasoline firm notes that hydrogen might dramatically scale back hazardous air air pollution from heavy-duty vans, estimating that Angeles Hyperlink might ship sufficient clean-burning gas to displace 3 million gallons of diesel every day.

DWP officers have made an identical case, saying hydrogen-fueled energy crops might play a task in lessening the area’s notorious smog by guaranteeing the dependable energy grid that’s wanted to gas electrical automobiles and ditch vehicles and vans that run on oil.

What’s extra, these hydrogen crops would function an vital however not often used backup on a grid dominated by photo voltaic and wind energy, that means they’d fireplace up far much less usually than at this time’s gasoline crops, stated Jason Rondou, DWP’s director of useful resource planning. Turbine producers, in the meantime, are engaged on know-how that might additional restrict air pollution from hydrogen combustion.

“We don’t wish to reduce the significance of lowering NOx. However we do wish to characterize the contribution as very, very low,” Rondou stated. “What strikes the needle on native air-quality enhancements is the decarbonization of the transportation sector.”

And therein lies the rub for local weather activists: They see hydrogen as a doubtlessly useful gizmo to slash emissions, in L.A. and globally. However they don’t essentially belief the fossil gas business to wield that instrument, given its lengthy historical past of local weather denial and obstruction.

An indication warns of high-voltage wires at DWP’s Scattergood Producing Station close to El Segundo.

(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Instances)

As if to underscore that time, simply final month SoCalGas was slapped with a $10-million state high quality for preventing local weather motion.

However SoCalGas appears to understand some course correction is required if it needs to safe political buy-in for its hydrogen plans. After years of preventing native gasoline bans, for example, the corporate just lately started suggesting it’s open to widespread adoption of electrical heating and cooking. It didn’t attraction the $10-million high quality. And it didn’t oppose ending subsidies for gasoline line extensions to new properties.

The utility additionally says Angeles Hyperlink could possibly be a part of “a complete method to facilitate the final word closure” of Aliso Canyon. That’s a chance SoCalGas had by no means beforehand proven a willingness to think about because it defended the profitable storage subject.

“Southern California Gasoline is an infrastructure firm. And we use that infrastructure to have the ability to meet clients’ wants,” stated Brown, the corporate’s president. “Prospects’ wants are altering. We see our clients needing cleaner and cleaner fuels.”