The Future is Green Hydrogen – Nobody Will Buy Blue if Green is Available

August 13, 2021

Plug Power views The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act as an important step forward in the development of hydrogen energy in the U.S. Based on feedback from many of our customers looking for assistance in meeting their sustainability goals, we believe that green hydrogen is the true future of hydrogen energy. Only green hydrogen – in which renewable energy generates hydrogen from water and emits harmless oxygen – will allow the U.S. to decarbonize energy, transportation, and industrial applications.

We recognize that blue hydrogen–defined as the use of natural gas to generate hydrogen from methane and capturing its carbon emissions—is not the long-term solution to decarbonize the U.S. economy. Carbon capture requires long-term geological storage and does not eliminate upstream emissions. Several attempts by the fossil-fuel industry to implement carbon capture have failed so we have low confidence that they will succeed. And blue hydrogen will be too expensive and emit too much carbon in the end.

Plug is fully committed to a green hydrogen future. We are investing heavily in building a green hydrogen ecosystem and are on track to build out 500 metric tons of green hydrogen production by 2025, which will replace 4.3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions. This includes the groundbreaking of a green hydrogen production plant in Camden County, Ga., where 15 tons of liquid green hydrogen will be produced per day, and North America’s largest planned green hydrogen production facility in Alabama, New York, which will produce 45 metric tons of green liquid hydrogen daily using clean New York hydropower.

The future is green hydrogen – nobody will buy blue if green is available. We believe that our green hydrogen production will outperform blue hydrogen in cost, availability, and environmental attributes.