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One of the biggest challenges for producing green hydrogen in the region is water, according to Jenna Mandel-Rice, a lawyer at the Seattle office of the energy and natural resources firm Van Ness Feldman and a panelist at the conference.
“The bottom line is: To get water, it’s not going to be easy,” she said.
Obtaining water rights, making changes to existing water rights or getting water from a municipal supplier can take time, and siting such a facility additionally requires state and federal approval, Mandel-Rice said.
“In Washington, some of these processes take decades,” she said.
Mandel-Rice mentioned concerns from some communities that green hydrogen projects could be developed in parts of Oregon and Washington with little available ground or surface water.
Michelle Detwiler, executive director of the Renewable Hydrogen Alliance, said developers are not going to try and establish a water-based hydrogen project where they can’t get water permits. She also said much of the water used to make hydrogen is reusable. There’s even potential to use industrial wastewater, thus recycling it.
“To make a kilogram of hydrogen requires about 4 to 5 gallons of water, and that water is reusable or can be released back into the ground,” she said in an email. “The production of gasoline requires 7-9 gallons of water and that water is not reusable; it’s very toxic.”
She said producing a kilogram of lithium to power an electric vehicle and other battery operations requires 90 gallons of toxic, non-recyclable water.
“If we are replacing or displacing gasoline and diesel and using renewable hydrogen as a fuel instead, then that is a substantial savings of water,” Detwiler said.
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