West Virginia officials, skeptics react to Appalachian Hydrogen Hub announcement

(Graphic Illustration/MetroCreative)

CHARLESTON — Nearly two years after first forming a working group to convince federal energy officials to locate a regional hydrogen hub in West Virginia, those same state and congressional officials were pleased to see their work pay off. However, some remain skeptical about the potential for hydrogen.
President Joe Biden and officials with the Department of Energy announced Friday parts of West Virginia, Southeast Ohio and western Pennsylvania will play host to the Appalachian Hydrogen Hub, one of seven regional hydrogen hubs to be constructed nationwide.
According to Biden administration officials, the Appalachian Hydrogen Hub could create as many as 18,000 construction jobs between all three states and as many as 3,000 permanent jobs once completed.
The project is also a public/private partnership with the Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub (ARCH2), which includes more than 40 partnering companies in the natural gas, energy and manufacturing sectors, West Virginia University and Marshall University, local transit authorities and the federal National Energy Technology Laboratory.
The $925 million investment in the Appalachian Regional Hub by the Department of Energy represents a portion of the more than $9.5 billion set aside for hydrogen research in the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also called the bipartisan infrastructure law.
The bipartisan infrastructure law was passed at the end of 2021 after months of negotiations that first began between President Joe Biden and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., in the spring of 2021. The law included language requiring a regional hydrogen hub be placed in the Appalachian region.
“Today is a major win for the ARCH2 team and for future economic development and energy production in West Virginia,” Capito, the ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said. “Since we included language and funding for a hydrogen hub competition … and at every stage since, I consistently supported efforts to help make this project a reality. I’m thrilled for the ARCH2 team and am so proud West Virginia will continue its tradition as an innovative, energy-producing state through a regional hydrogen hub.”
After negotiations on the bipartisan infrastructure law broke down, a bipartisan group of senators, including Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va, picked up those negotiations with the White House. The bill passed the Senate in a 69-30 vote with both Manchin and Capito voting for it.
“This means West Virginia will be the new epicenter of hydrogen in the United States of America,” Manchin, chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, said. “We won the hub because of the hard work of countless individuals and organizations, and I could not be prouder to be making this announcement today … now, West Virginia will be on the leading edge of building out the new hydrogen market while bringing good-paying jobs and new economic opportunity to the state.”
In the U.S. House of Representatives, the bipartisan infrastructure law passed 228 to 206. While Reps. Alex Mooney, R-W.Va., and Carol Miller, R-W.Va., voted against the bill, former 1st District Rep. David McKinley was among 13 Republicans in the House to help the bill clear passage and head to Biden’s desk.
McKinley was defeated in the 2022 Republican primary after redistricting put McKinley and Mooney in the same district. Mooney frequently attacked McKinley during the campaign for his vote on the bipartisan infrastructure law. But speaking by phone Friday, McKinley said he remains proud of his vote and pleased that the Appalachian Hydrogen Hub is becoming a reality.
“It is enormously gratifying,” McKinley said. “It is gratifying to see something finally come to fruition … It cost me my job for voting for the infrastructure bill, but it was the right thing to do for West Virginia. We are seeing now the benefits of it.”
At the beginning of 2022, Manchin, Capito and McKinley formed the West Virginia Hydrogen Hub Working Group with Gov. Jim Justice to develop the plan to submit to the Department of Energy to locate a regional hydrogen hub in West Virginia and the Appalachian region. The application was submitted in March 2022.
“I thank all of those involved,” Justice said. “It’s just another great step forward in West Virginia, my gracious sakes of living. We have been an energy state forever. We want to embrace all different forms of energy and all of the alternatives. At the same time, we’re never going to forget our coal miners and our gas workers. We’re going to be really proud of our fossil fuels. All the being said, there are lots and lots of companies that can really benefit from this.”
Not everyone was as optimistic about the potential for hydrogen energy as an economic driver, however. The Ohio River Valley Institute believes many of the claims made about the economic potential of hydrogen, the lack of a domestic market for hydrogen, and the continued use of natural gas to produce hydrogen and create emissions, makes a hydrogen hub a costly endeavor with little benefit.
“Because hydrogen and carbon capture are economic for only a few niche industries, plans to develop ARCH2 may yield a small affair with disappointingly little economic and climate benefit,” Sean O’Leary, a senior researcher with the Ohio River Valley Institute, said. “Or, if plans maintain momentum, hydrogen and CCS will be forced into irremediably uneconomic applications, resulting in higher prices, utility bills, and taxes with little or no net economic benefit. Our region cannot afford to invest further in an oil and gas industry that has failed to produce job, income, and population growth for more than a decade.”
McKinley acknowledged some of the benefits of natural gas production have not been able to reach full potential, placing the blame on opposition by environmental groups and multiple court cases that have tied up pipeline construction for years and even decades.
Congress was able to include some permitting reform in the debt ceiling deal passed at the beginning of summer. McKinley encouraged Congress to keep working toward additional permitting reform to help speed up pipeline and infrastructure permits to help the Appalachian Hydrogen Hub become a reality.
If it is going to come into fruition, great, but let’s make sure it goes all the way and they get the permitting more streamlined in a way that will discourage litigation that could kill it much like some of the other pipeline projects that have happened in this country.”
Steven Allen Adams can be reached at sadams@newsandsentinel.com.