Louisiana advances clean hydrogen projects with support from lawmakers

(The Center Square) — The second meeting for the Clean Hydrogen Task Force on Wednesday was marked by hydrogen project announcements from several organizations.

The Louisiana Future Energy Center — which is 25 partner organizations from Lake Charles to New Orleans dedicated to clean energy — announced 40 projects to occur over the next five years. These would create over 26,000 jobs with $60 billion in capital investment.

The purpose of the Legislature's task force is to discuss why clean hydrogen is important to the state and to write legislation that encourages its advancement in the economy. The first meeting was a lot of discussion and this one was no different.

It started by explaining that the energy transition has already started. Over one-third of Gulf Coast manufacturing investments in 2023 were in fuel adaptation for decarbonization.

Additionally, refining and chemical manufacturing jobs were up 2.8% in 2023 from 2022. Work in these type of clean energy plants is now easier to find than in upstream oil and gas by more than 10,000 jobs.

Committee Chair Rep,. Joseph Orgeron, R-Lafourche, said he saw this potential movement years ago. He also said he knew oil and gas wouldn't necessarily have to feel threatened by clean energy because a lot of work could come from conversion of fossil fuels rather than extraction.

"I foresee a day in the future where we're still importing crude oil and providing added value refining processing in a cleaner more eco-friendly manner. I kind of feel myself speaking pie-in-the-sky type of thing but seeing your labor numbers...you're kind of making a prophecy that I put out maybe five, six years ago," Orgeron said.

Dr. Greg Upton from LSU Center for Energy Studies went on to describe how big the industry could be and how much hydrogen they'd need to match energy demands.

There are three different industries in which hydrogen can come into play: exports, electricity and manufacturing. Exports would need 21 million metric tons of hydrogen to match the world's, specifically England's, energy demands.

Electricity would need four million metric tons domestically, and manufacturing would need 20 million metric tons.

"So the bottom line is if we're gonna be an energy exporter to the world, and the world wants hydrogen, the scale of the amount of exports is way larger than what we currently have," Upton said.

Upton also provided updates from the Louisiana Economic Development which announced nine hydrogen projects, summing to over $32 billion in capital expenditures allocated. If and when they move forward to the next phase is unknown.

Upton also encouraged the state to help these organizations by saying Louisiana is going to be impacted by decarbonization policies regardless of political actions in the state. He said they should as well get ahead of the curve.