Blue hydrogen clean energy complex to be built in the US

Air Products is an industrial gas company that produces and transports hydrogen and other essential industrial gases to many customer facilities in Louisiana, across the US Gulf Coast, and around the world.

The company will build, own and operate the megaproject, which will produce over 750 million ft³/day of blue hydrogen in Ascension Parish, Louisiana. ‘Blue’ products are produced utilising hydrocarbons as a feedstock, with the CO₂ in the production process captured for permanent sequestration. The project will create 170 permanent jobs with a total annual payroll of US$15.9 million and more than 2000 construction jobs over three years. It represents Air Products’ largest-ever investment in the US.

A portion of the blue hydrogen will be compressed and supplied to customers by Air Products’ extensive US Gulf Coast hydrogen pipeline network. The network is one of the largest hydrogen pipeline system in the world, stretching more than 700 miles from Galveston Bay in Texas to New Orleans, Louisiana. This vast US Gulf Coast pipeline network can supply customers with more than 1.6 billion ft³/day of hydrogen from approximately 25 production facilities, including blue hydrogen from Air Products’ Port Arthur, Texas facility. The Port Arthur facility has captured approximately 1 million tpy of CO₂ since 2013, with the CO₂ transported via pipeline and utilised for enhanced oil recovery operations.

The balance of the blue hydrogen from the new Ascension Parish facility will be used to make blue ammonia that will be transported around the world and converted back to blue hydrogen for transportation and other markets.

The innovative megaproject will also feature one of the world’s largest instances of CO₂ capture for permanent sequestration and produce only environmentally friendly blue products. The megaproject is expected to be operational in 2026.

Approximately 95% of the CO₂ generated at the facility will be captured, compressed and transported safely by pipeline to multiple inland sequestration sites located along a pipeline corridor extending up to 35 miles to the east of the new production facility. Over 5 million tpy of CO₂ will be permanently sequestered in geologic pore space secured from the State of Louisiana approximately 1 mile beneath the surface. Air Products has already received approval from the State Mineral and Energy Board, which is part of the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources, for the permanent sequestration of the CO₂.

The company will provide all of the complex’s products ? blue hydrogen and co-products (liquid nitrogen, liquid oxygen and liquid argon) ? to customers in the US and around the world.

This new Louisiana clean energy megaproject announcement follows Air Products’ announcement in June 2021 of a multi-billion-dollar net-zero hydrogen energy complex in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and its previous announcement of the green ammonia production facility joint venture in NEOM, Saudi Arabia powered by renewable energy for the production and export of carbon-free hydrogen to global markets.

Read the article online at: https://www.globalhydrogenreview.com/hydrogen/18102021/blue-hydrogen-clean-energy-complex-to-be-built-in-the-us/