Hamilton could miss out on a chance to lead
Priority must be to develop the city’s unique hydrogen potential
Hamilton’s new decarbonization hub is a good idea that can help develop local pathways to a netzero future.
But there’s a big risk the hub will march off in so many different directions that it will miss the city’s unique decarbonization potential as a centre for green hydrogen.
The Hamilton Region Decarbonization Hub is the brainchild of city staff and Transition Accelerator, a national non-profit dedicated to developing low-carbon policies and projects.
The hub is expected to sign agreements by year-end for $3.1 million in funding, enough to hire a director and staff for a four-year period. The federal government is putting in about half the funding. Transition Accelerator, Ivey Foundation, the City of Hamilton and three local community associations are supplying the rest. Notably, the province is not participating.
The hub won’t make decisions or fund projects. Rather, it will create collaborations to facilitate the development of low-carbon projects. A briefing note to city council said such projects could include the greening of municipal car and truck fleets or public-private partnerships for waste heat energy systems.
While the Transition Accelerator was instrumental in launching a hydrogen hub in Edmonton, the hub’s recent briefing note to Hamilton council made only a fleeting reference to hydrogen — one of the most promising new technologies for bringing about deep cuts to Canada’s carbon emissions.
This is baffling since the Hamilton region is uniquely positioned among cities in Canada as a potential hydrogen centre to serve the steel, shipping, trucking and rail sectors.
The region’s status as Canada’s leading steel centre means it has unique potential to tap into a dramatic industrial transformation based on hydrogen. ArcelorMittal Dofasco’s plan to phase out its emission-heavy coal-based technologies by 2028 (reducing the company’s CO2 emissions by 60 per cent) raises the potential to manufacture emission-free steel using green hydrogen, once it’s available. Demand for emissionfree steel is expected to be heavy in coming years as auto and construction industry customers are under pressure to reduce their own longterm carbon footprints.
In addition, Hamilton’s existing position as a major transportation hub holds potential to set the city up as a hydrogen fuelling centre for ships, heavy trucks and locomotives with the transition from diesel fuel to hydrogen in coming years.
Hamilton Oshawa Port Authority (HOPA), which operates the port of Hamilton (the largest port on the Canadian side of the Great Lakes), is already moving in this direction. HOPA recently signed a memorandum of understanding to take hydrogen for its own operations and for its customers from the new Niagara Hydrogen Centre, a pilot project that will begin production in 2024 at the Niagara Falls power station.
This illustrates one of Hamilton’s other key advantages: its proximity to nuclear and hydro plants that could devote a portion of their lowcost renewable energy to produce green hydrogen.
Green hydrogen made from renewable electricity is considered emission-free since no CO2 is released in the process of manufacturing it. But it does have a downside. Any electricity taken off the Ontario grid for hydrogen would have to be replaced with other renewable sources. This will be a challenge, but not necessarily a deal-breaker for green hydrogen, as the federal government moves to create a net-zero national electricity system by 2035.
The pressure on Hamilton to create a hydrogen hub is expected to grow as neighbouring U.S. communities develop their own hubs with generous federal subsidies. The steel industry is collaborating with other sectors to develop hydrogen hub proposals in Ohio and in Illinois, Indiana and Michigan with $8 billion in funding under the U.S. Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
There is no question there is value at looking at the full range of carbon reduction possibilities. But this must not distract the decarbonization hub from a key priority, which is to help develop the unique hydrogen potential in the Hamilton region.