Green hydrogen study underway in Questa
Emerging technology may take root in former mining district
A feasibility study is underway to determine if Questa is a suitable location to build a green hydrogen production facility.
Questa was among 24 communities across the country that received a technical assistance grant from the U.S. Department of Energy earlier this year to explore clean energy development projects.
The main ingredients of any future green hydrogen project will be land, water and fossil-free power.
In partnership with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Sandia National Labs, Los Alamos National Labs, Chevron and Kit Carson Electric Cooperative, the village and the Questa Economic Development
Fund are looking at the former Questa Mine tailings site next to the village as a possible site for a future hydrogen facility.
Chevron was tightlipped about the possibility of a green hydrogen facility being built on portions of the former mine tailings site or on environmentally unaffected properties it owns north of Questa. And the company is currently engaged in a battle with the Office of the State Engineer over a significant amount of water rights that the state declared invalid due to non-use, a ruling that spurred the company to pull back on proposed donations and discounted sales of some of its water rights to the Village of Questa and several nearby landowners.
Water to supply a hydrogen production facility could also come from treated wastewater produced by the ongoing remediation of the underground workings at the closed Questa Mine or a municipal wastewater treatment plant.
In a brief statement, the company told the Taos News that, “while Chevron will continue to make surplus land and water rights associated with the former Questa Mine available for the economic development of the Village of Questa and surrounding communities, we cannot speak directly to potential commercial activity related to renewable energy at this time.”
The third ingredient necessary for a green hydrogen production facility — clean renewable energy — is already available in Questa, thanks to Kit Carson Electric Cooperative’s green energy initiatives.The co-op, which earlier this year achieved its goal of supplying customers with 100 percent solar-derived electricity during non-cloudy daylight hours, thinks hydrogen could play a role in achieving its 100-percent clean
energy goals.
“The co-op’s overall goal is to be 100 percent renewable and carbon free,” said Kit Carson CEO Luis Reyes. “We hit our first targets of 100 percent daytime solar and we got batteries online. I think our second phase is, what do we do for cloudy days, snowy days, nighttime? We want it renewable, we want it carbon free, we want it to be clean.”
Reyes said the co-op is “looking at some different emerging technologies, but hydrogen is pretty interesting. The co-op is looking at different — some existing, some emerging — technologies. If you generate the hydrogen gas from the electrolysis process from water, you know, water has been deemed a renewable resource and it’s clean.”
Hydrogen, which burns hot and produces only water vapor as a byproduct from combustion, is being hailed across the world as an alternative fuel source to power freight trucks or trains that currently burn diesel, for example, or electrical power production facilities that feed electrical grids. And most hydrogen production requires intense amounts of energy and usually produces large amounts of greenhouse gasses in the process. Hydrogen isn’t readily available on the planet, however, and there is almost no infrastructure in place to actually utilize hydrogen fuel at scale.
Nearly all hydrogen currently produced in the United States is “gray hydrogen or “blue hydrogen,” both of which use natural gas as the key building block. Blue hydrogen relies on carbon capture and sequestration to limit carbon dioxide emissions that result from production; gray hydrogen production emits greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.
There are several other classifications of hydrogen production, including “yellow hydrogen,” which is similar to what is being proposed in Questa, but which relies on fossil fuel-powered electricity to run electrolyzers to split water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen. Hydrogen projects that rely on a mix of renewable and fossil fuel energy sources are also sometimes labeled yellow.
The electrolysis process itself doesn’t generate any emissions, and when electrolyzers are powered by renewable energy sources like solar or wind — Reyes noted that Kit Carson just signed a deal to purchase wind-derived electricity being produced in Colorado — the resulting hydrogen is considered 100 percent clean energy.
Hydrogen technology isn’t new, but the inefficiencies and expense involved in making
hydrogen has kept the industry stalled for decades.
“Anytime you deal with an emerging technology, no one ever wants to be the first offtaker, the guinea pig,” Reyes said, acknowledging that the federal Inflation Reduction Act that President Biden signed into law last month created significant incentives for green hydrogen development. Credits, direct payments and tax incentives contained in the bill are designed to encourage businesses to pursue carbon-free energy solutions and emissions reductions, including “clean” hydrogen production. The bill also encourages privatepublic partnerships.
According to an analysis by international law firm Shearman and Sterling, the incentives in the bill could kick U.S. hydrogen development into high gear.
“The bottom line is this: When combined with the investment tax credits for renewable power production and energy storage infrastructure, the entire upstream value chain for green hydrogen production infrastructure, from well (electron generation) to gate (the outlet of storage facilities), is now subsidized by the U.S. government,” the firm said in an article posted to its website.
Questa Mayor John Ortega said that, while the hydrogen feasibility study is “very preliminary,” he is optimistic that a green hydrogen production facility will prove to be an important potential economic driver for the community, which lost hundreds of jobs when Chevron closed the nearly 100-year-old molybdenum mine in 2014.
“It’s too early to say how many jobs this would create,” Ortega said, because “we don’t know the scale. It could be really good for Questa, and would bring us closer to being 100 percent nighttime green energy.
“We’d probably be one of the first places in the country to be 100 percent green energy,” Ortega added. “It’s clean energy. We want it.”
Reyes said the question of how to diversify Taos County’s economy now and moving forward is a primary topic of concern among community leaders and state and local officials.
“How do we diversify away from just tourism? Some is green energy, some is broadband, some is the hydrogen economy,” he said. “So I think this lines up with the community’s view and the state’s view on how to diversify the economy. As we wean ourselves of oil and gas, north central New Mexico and Taos is not harmed because we’ve built our own local economy that can sustain the taxes we need.”
Reyes estimated the Questa feasibility study would be completed within the next six months.