Report: Safety of Hydrogen Transportation by Gas Pipelines
Summary for Policymakers (Good place to start)
Full Report on Hydrogen Pipelines
Press Release on Hydrogen Pipelines
Background Information
- The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act appropriated $9.5 billion for clean hydrogen and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) laid additional beneficial policies and incentives for the US hydrogen industry to take center stage in the clean energy transition
- Transporting hydrogen through pipelines is more dangerous than transporting methane through pipelines
- There are serious concerns about the pursuit of hydrogen blending options for existing gas transmission or gas distribution pipelines. Hydrogen blending in most U.S. existing gas pipeline systems may not prove viable. Natural gas blends with higher hydrogen percentages can leak at higher rates compared to methane
- Hydrogen has a greater propensity to leak than methane
- Hydrogen Is an indirect greenhouse gas with 33 times the warming power of carbon dioxide in the first 20 years
- Hydrogen causes pipeline embrittlement, increasing probability of failure
Further Resources
EDF Study: Climate Consequences of Hydrogen Emissions
Canadian standards organization CSA statement on hydrogen blending (link goes to web archive as post was removed sometime after March 2023)