Firm plans to open hub for green hydrogen

JACKSON, Miss. -- A Jackson-based company has announced plans to build a green hydrogen hub in Mississippi that it says will be the largest of its kind in the U.S. and will create an easier pathway for hard-to-decarbonize manufacturing industries to move away from fossil fuels.

Connected across multiple sites traversing about 200 miles in southern Mississippi, Hy Stor Energy's Mississippi Clean Hydrogen Hub will produce, store and deliver green hydrogen that is 100% carbon-free and can be used to create green electricity, substitute or complement natural gas and replace diesel or other gasoline for heavy-duty trucks, ships and trains, said Laura Luce, Hy Stor Energy's chief executive officer.

Green hydrogen is produced by splitting water into two parts -- hydrogen and oxygen -- via electrolysis that uses renewable electricity such as that from the sun and wind. Green hydrogen, when produced and burned, emits no carbon dioxide, only water vapor.

In addition to regularly producing and delivering to customers across Mississippi and surrounding states, Hy Stor will house green hydrogen in caverns developed in Mississippi's naturally occurring salt domes that can be stored for months or even years at a time, Luce said.

That way, it can be used when needed, such as during extreme weather events, like hurricanes, when power can be out for days and weeks, she said. It can also be accessed at times when renewables like solar panels and wind turbines can't produce energy.

"It's difficult when you have an energy form that is only available when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing," Luce said. "If a company wants to decarbonize part of their energy profile, or if they want to go 100% clean energy, you really can't do that right now on a 7 by 24 basis."

"What we're trying to do is take those hard to decarbonize sectors, like cement, or steel and data centers, and be able to create energy, power, electricity, that's 100% carbon-free," she said.

The project will extend from outside Jackson to deep water ports on the coast. Hy Stor Energy has received approval to store hydrogen in multiple Mississippi counties, including Smith, Perry and Simpson, and will likely expand.

Members of the board of supervisors from all three counties have wrote letters of support for the project. In a Sept. 15 letter from the Perry County Board of supervisors urging the U.S. Department of Energy to approve a loan for the project, they said the environmental and economic impact the hub could bring are "sorely needed."

"As part of his Justice40 Initiative, President Joe Biden has pledged to allocate at least 40% of climate investments to disadvantaged communities," they wrote. "There is no area more in need of these investments than the State of Mississippi, which has the highest percentage of African-Americans of any state in the country."

Republican Gov. Tate Reeves, Speaker of the House Philip Gunn and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann have all voiced support for the project, along with the state's three public service commissioners.

Luce said Mississippi was an ideal place to build the project because of its proximity to interstate gas transportation pipelines and electric transmission lines, as well as interstate highways, rail lines, deep water ports, and the Mississippi River.

Luce said the state's naturally occurring underground salt formations can support the development of the large caverns needed to store years' worth of green hydrogen.

The planned scale of the Mississippi Clean Hydrogen Hub is up to 10 times larger than any other green hydrogen project under consideration in the U.S., she said.

It will create an estimated 110 million kilograms of green hydrogen annually when it opens for commercial service around 2025. If it's 100% of that green hydrogen were used as fuel, it would be enough to fuel 25,000 medium to heavy-duty sized trucks or 600,000 cars, Hy Stor said.

When it opens, the Mississippi hub will have the capacity to store more than 70 million kilograms of green hydrogen in its underground salt caverns.

Leah Willingham is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative, a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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