SAN ANGELO, TX — San Angelo made itself much more competitive today as the Trans Permian (Trans Permian) H2Hub and the Port of Corpus Christi Horizons Clean Hydrogen Hub (HCH2) has agreed to combine their resources to re-submit an application for federal government funding.
The Permian H2Hub is the brainchild of Austin entrepreneur Jack W. Hanks. He learned of a Department of Energy program launched by the Biden Administration to subsidize the creation of a development platform to harness alternative energy and its byproducts using hydrogen.
The Permian and Corpus hydrogen proposals made the first cut from a slate of 72 applicants and are now considered in the Top 33 finalists, San Angelo Chamber of Commerce VP of Economic Development Michael Looney said.
The Permian’s H2Hub will be a grouping of projects, including “green and blue hydrogen plants, blending of H2 into natural gas pipelines, H2 metro-bus manufacturing, H2 re-fueling stations, H2 to large-scale power generation, conversion of H2 to ammonia and methanol for both H2 hub and export markets, solar and wind power, H2 small-scale distributive power, and metropolitan H2 bus transport projects in major cities,” according to an earlier report about the initial application that was made in Dec. 2022. https://sanangelolive.com/news/busi…
Looney views the combination of the Permian hub with Corpus Christi’s as creating a synergy. Pipelines from the Permian carry both natural gas and crude.
“This combined effort will be a force multiplier in our efforts to gain a hydrogen manufacturing capability in our region,” Looney said.
“This consolidation is a very natural and strategic step for the Port of Corpus Christi, the region and the nation,” said Jeff Pollack, Chief Strategy and Sustainability Officer for the Port of Corpus Christi in a press release dated Feb. 14. “West Texas has anchored domestic energy production for decades, with a physical and commercial connection to the Gulf Coast that is the backbone of the nation’s energy economy. Our integrated Hub concept creates the roadmap for diversifying and decarbonizing this historic corridor with the potential to deliver transformative benefits to communities in the Hub.”
The Port of Corpus Christi, as a landlord port authority, claims stewardship of the most improved, most efficient ship channel on the U.S. Gulf Coast, is the prime applicant for the HCH2 and common denominator to each of the roughly two dozen discrete clean hydrogen production projects in the proposed Hub. The HCH2 Concept Paper, submitted to the DOE on November 7, names approximately 30 private sector team members as owners, developers and/or operators, offtakers, and end users of various hydrogen value chain projects and supporting infrastructure in the Corpus Christi region.
Meanwhile, The Trans Permian H2Hub geography includes the Texas Permian Basin cities of San Antonio, San Angelo, Big Spring, Midland, Odessa, El Paso, Fort Stockton, Alpine, Presidio and Del Rio. The planned projects within the Trans Permian H2Hub include production and hydrogen derivatives from diverse feedstocks as well as mobility projects, including hydrogen fuel cell bus manufacturing, hydrogen re-fueling stations, municipal transit projects and freight mobility projects.
Looney predicts six to 10 applicants will be awarded some portion of the grants from a pool of approximately $7 billion in federal money.
“Merging the two hub concepts creates a unified framework that leverages existing infrastructure and commercial connections between West Texas energy production and the nation’s premier energy gateway,” the Port of Corpus Christi stated in a press release.
Jack Hanks, CEO of MMEX, the company leading the charge for the hubs said, “Our fully integrated Hub represents two-thirds of the state of Texas and every link in the clean hydrogen value chain, from production to community end use. Our capacity to advance federal decarbonization objective and Justice40 Initiative objectives is profound.”
Top competitors for the grant money include the Port of Houston, a hub proposal in West Virginia, and one or more proposals in California, Looney said.
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Let's see... Austin - Check. Green energy related -- check. Government money -- check. Gonna be an expensive and less efficient virtue signal.
Why inject hydrogen into natural gas, when natural gas is already the cleanest and most efficient source of energy for production of electricity, if you discount nuclear and its potential "dirt". So you have to separate the hydrogen from something, inject it into natural gas, and then transport it through some kind of alternate pipeline to not mix it with the straight natural gas... Seems like a pointless project on which to spend taxpayer money to line somebody's pocket... Looks like LOTS of money will go toward building all of this new infrastructure to accommodate all of this H2 refueling and such. Who has those contracts?
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Permalink"Who has those contracts? "
Republican's donors/masters of course.
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