It’s Do or Die Time for Philly Hydrogen Hub, and Some Green Groups Are Rooting for Death – Inside Climate News
The U.S. Department of Energy is dangling $750 million for the buildout of a hydrogen hub around Philadelphia. But the looming Trump presidency and strong economic headwinds endanger its prospects.
PHILADELPHIA—As energy wonks descended on a downtown hotel for a hydrogen conference, witches were waiting for them in the parking lot. Donning a black, horned hat and green face paint, Delaware Riverkeeper Maya van Rossum and a coven of fellow protesters played off the release of the movie “Wicked” to lambast what they see as voodoo: green hydrogen.
“Don’t believe the hydrogen hype!” they chanted to passersby last month.
The tone was in stark contrast to a celebratory press conference President Joe Biden hosted in the city a year earlier, announcing a federal investment of $750 million in the region to build out one of seven hydrogen hubs scattered across the country. Politicians including Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and U.S. Sen. Bob Casey hailed the announcement of the Mid-Atlantic Clean Hydrogen Hub (MACH2), as did a menagerie of local officials and union leaders. The hub, they said, would bring new life to rusting industrial areas in southeastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and Delaware by integrating them into a “clean hydrogen” economy, delivering reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in sectors like manufacturing and transportation while also creating thousands of jobs.
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It’s Do or Die Time for Philly Hydrogen Hub, and Some Green Groups Are Rooting for Death – Inside Climate News, source
