The anticipated revolution in hydrogen-based fuels advocated by the Biden administration and endorsed by the U.N. Convention on Climate Change has also captured the imaginations of green visionaries eager to help the world dodge climate change by ending dependence on fossil fuels.

One such organization is the California-based Green Hydrogen Coalition, an educational nonprofit founded in 2019 with the mission to build “top-down momentum for scalable green hydrogen projects.”

Janice Lin, the Berkeley-based founder and president of GHC, sees the nation’s seaports as an ideal starting place for a hydrogen fuel revolution to begin “because ports are epicenters of poor air quality.”

In a two-day webinar hosted Nov. 30 and Dec. 1, Lin moderated multiple panels of experts and advocates to examine that proposition while also examining strategies to leverage green hydrogen, made with electrolysis using renewable power. Nearly all of the hydrogen used today is stripped from natural gas, which also produces carbon dioxide and, because of that, is known as gray hydrogen.

Day 1 of the conference included an overview of the Biden administration’s hydrogen goals and the $9.5 billion in funding authorized to accelerate the development of clean hydrogen in the $1 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that the president signed into law Nov. 15.

Viewers also heard the experience of one marine terminal company servicing the congested Port of Los Angeles: Fenix Marine Services, which moves about 20% of the port’s cargo and consumes about 175,000 gallons of diesel fuel every month.

Webinar participants and viewers also got a brief analysis of the global hydrogen market from a BloombergNEF analyst who predicted green hydrogen would become a dominate fuel in most major markets by the end of the decade.

Targets

For the federal perspective, U.S. Deputy Energy Secretary David Turk made it clear that hydrogen is a cornerstone of the administration’s energy policy, whether green, gray or blue — the last of which is when the carbon dioxide produced when making hydrogen from methane is captured and sequestered or used in some other industrial process.

“Hopefully everyone has now seen and internalized this administration’s incredibly ambitious goals on climate: the 2030 goal of 50 to 52% … greenhouse gas emission reductions; 2035, 100% clean electricity; and 2050, full net-zero for our economy,” Turk said.

Reaching those targets will require “a range of technologies, not only for electricity but for transportation; for buildings; for industry; across everything that uses energy in our society,” he said.

“One of those technologies that we’re putting a lot of emphasis on, certainly from the Department of Energy perspective, is hydrogen. It’s versatile; it can be created in a number of different ways. It can be used in a number of different ways, including for the harder-to-decarbonize sectors, whether that’s heavy-duty freight, whether that’s a variety of industrial uses. But there’s some challenges on hydrogen, especially the cost of green hydrogen,” he said.

The administration’s ultimate goal for hydrogen is to create an industry with the ability to produce it carbon-free at $1/kg by the end of the decade, he said.

And that fits well with GHC’s goals to convince terminal operators in the ports of L.A. and Long Beach to shift away from diesel-powered trucks and other equipment as soon as possible and move to electric equipment, powered either by hydrogen fuel cells and batteries or plugged into the local distribution gird.

Advocacy group C40 Cities has that same goal but on an international basis.

“The idea behind our ports program is that by engaging ports and shipping industry, city governments can align their climate goals and strategies, and not just share knowledge but act collectively as a coalition,” said Alisa Kreynes, green ports program manager for the group’s Climate Solutions & Networks division.

“We see point cities as key global players and catalysts for decarbonizing our shipping and supply chains. We also see ports and cities having a unique role in climate action because of the very nature of how ports connect cities across the world through trade and innovation,” she said.

C40 in April began developing common emission standards for ports and working with both utilities and shipping companies to create “the world’s first transpacific green shipping corridor,” a pilot program to  shipping companies to deploy zero-carbon-emission vessels running on green hydrogen.

“By 2030, we want to see deep sea container ships operating on zero-carbon-emission fuels. How many ships are realistic by 2030 on a specific trade route will be determined through the study we will need to undertake to understand the fuel supply and the bunkering infrastructure requirements,” Kreynes said.

C40 is also interested in developing ship-to-shore policies aimed at cutting down diesel emissions from both docked ships and those waiting offshore for a berth at a terminal.

“We’re looking at shore power requirements to be absolute for all container vessels,” she said of the policy still in development.

“So regardless of the types of fuels [used], all ships will still need to plug in. The same goes for cargo handling equipment, which will be electric or powered by green hydrogen [fuel cells]. [A] zero-carbon-emissions requirement is a must by 2030.”

Collaboration with Industry

But none of this can be done without the participation of the industry itself.

“We need terminal operators; we need cargo owners; we need harbor craft companies; and we need fuel producers. So this is the coalition that has been working to put together this really exciting pilot, which we are hoping to be able to announce very soon,” Kreynes said. She added that the Port of L.A. will be leading the effort that will include overseas ports as well.

Those goals dovetail with the efforts of Pacific Environment, a California-based nonprofit that works to foster “grassroots activism” in communities around the Pacific Rim, whether in North America or Asia.

Madeline Rose, campaign climate director for Pacific Environment, described her organization as “a shipping industry watchdog,” noting that it has “gained a permanent consultative status of the International Maritime Organization, which sets international shipping law.”

“We’re now leading a global advocacy campaign to force the transition of ships off fossil fuels,” she added. “Fossil fuel shipping is just a massive global polluter. The industry accounts for 3% of global climate emissions today” and is annually adding to its emissions, she said.

But how to pressure the industry to switch to cleaner alternatives is the question.

About half of the maritime pollution comes from container ships, and Pacific Environment has determined that 15 container ship companies account for about 97% of the products sold by U.S. retailers. The major clients of container shippers include companies such as Walmart, Amazon and Costco, and they carry products made by companies such as Nike and Patagonia — all of which have “ambitious climate commitments.”

“They are vulnerable to public pressure because they have a direct relationship with all of us,” she said.

Rose added that Pacific Environment is also targeting smaller vessels: tugboats, ferries, dredges, excursion vessels and fishing boats that routinely ply the waters of most ports. She said the California Air Resources Board is moving toward new regulations “to encourage a zero-emission transition for all registered commercial harbor craft in California. We’re expecting that regulation to pass the Air Resources Board around January or February.”

But it won’t require immediate electrification, she added. “As written, it’s going to allow a vast majority of the vessels to either upgrade to cleaner diesel engines or electrify.”

The adoption of the new rule means that “over 1,000 vessels with hundreds of different companies in the next several years will be looking to partner with other organizations to make the transition to electrification, which includes green hydrogen fuel cells,” she added.

And that includes the federal government. “The U.S. government is one of the largest owners of harbor craft in the world,” Rose said. “The U.S. government owns 1,700 Harbor vessels.”

Discussion with Scott Schoenfeld — general manager of Fenix Marine Services, which relies on a fleet of more than 350 large diesel-powered equipment and vehicles to move tons of good through the L.A. and Long Beach ports — revealed just how difficult it will be to make the transition from fossil to hydrogen.

“My problem is that my business, which supplies the goods our nation needs and the exports we produce, is almost completely reliant on heavy machinery that is powered by diesel fuel,” he said.

“Roughly 40% of the containerized freight comes through the twin ports of L.A. and Long Beach, and containerized freight represents more than 90% of the goods you see on the store shelves.

“Fenix has made the switch to renewable diesel, purchased hybrid machines, purchased carbon credits and installed energy storage devices. But we currently still have no commercially viable option to purchase and power either battery electric or hydrogen fuel cell zero-emission port equipment. …

“We’re working on it. We’re piloting a lot of different options, but it’s a lot more than just being able to say ‘we’re going to do it’ and expect it to happen. … Our initial estimates show that if Fenix were to fully electrify our terminal, we would more than quadruple our electrical demand, from an already stretched electrical grid. … We face multiple brownouts and blackouts on a yearly basis, and this prevents us from doing our jobs and supplying all the goods that we need.”

The company has partnered with Toyota and took delivery of its first fuel cell-powered utility tractor rig (UTR) in November. The rig loads containers from ships onto heavy-duty trucks.

The Port of L.A. in June also deployed five fuel cell Class 8 trucks manufactured by Kenworth Trucks and powered by Toyota fuel cells, in a test of the technology. It expects to take delivery of another five trucks, as well as battery EVs, in the future. They use gray hydrogen.

Schoenfeld said Fenix would move quickly to fuel cell-powered UTRs and trucks if hydrogen were available at less than $3/kg.

Future Prices

Cheap green hydrogen looks as if it could be a reality by the end of the decade, according to BloombergNEF analyst Matthew Bravante.

In a separate discussion, Bravante said green hydrogen today is not competitive anywhere in the world because there is so little of it and because it is so expensive, at as much as $14/kg.

But, given its endorsement and funding by multiple governments, intense ongoing research — and the expected arrival of increasingly less expensive renewable energy to power electrolyzers that are also expected to drop in price — the cost of green hydrogen will dramatically decline, he said.

“By 2030 [the median price] will out-compete … blue hydrogen in nearly every major market. And in some major markets, you’ll start to see green hydrogen out-compete gray hydrogen,” he said.

“Within the next handful of decades, you’ll see a total paradigm shift in the cost of hydrogen, from green carbon-free hydrogen being the most expensive to green carbon-free hydrogen being the cheapest,” he predicted.

Initial demand for green hydrogen will come from refining and companies using ammonia to make fertilizers. Its use as a fuel for residential and commercial heating will likely follow as prices fall.

But even at $1/kg, hydrogen will may still not be cheap enough to decarbonize the entire economy, he said.

“The point I want to make is that hydrogen will start to decarbonize certain sectors at $2/kg, or $1.50/kg, or even $1/kg. But in order to fully decarbonize whole industries with hydrogen, you will still need some sort of carbon pricing mechanism,” he said, touching an issue that most politicians today regard as “the third rail” in any energy debate.