Air Products’ Hydrogen for Mobility Solutions VP Eric Guter and Industry Leaders Discuss Steps Needed on the Road to the U.S. Hydrogen Economy

Air Products’ (NYSE: APD) vice president - Hydrogen for Mobility Solutions, Eric Guter, took part in a virtual panel discussion today detailing the findings of the Fuel Cell & Hydrogen Energy Association’s (FCHEA) “Road Map to a U.S. Hydrogen Economy” report. 

The panel was part of FCHEA’s northeast launch of the 96-page Road Map to a U.S. Hydrogen Economy report, which was created by a coalition including Air Products and 19 other major hydrogen, oil, gas, power, automotive, and fuel cell companies. The comprehensive report details how the United States can expand its global energy leadership by scaling up activity in the rapidly emerging and evolving hydrogen economy. The creation of the report was coordinated and managed by FCHEA.

“At Air Products, we are committed to developing new sources and types of hydrogen to meet increasing market needs,” said Guter. “As a leader in hydrogen production for decades, we have the capabilities and know-how to provide the hydrogen needed to eliminate greenhouse gases from hard to abate sectors of the economy. We believe world-scale projects, such as the NEOM project, are required to rapidly reduce the cost of green hydrogen and more quickly help the world reduce its carbon footprint.”

Hydrogen, when used in fuel cell applications, eliminates vehicle emissions as the only emission is water. As a world-leading producer of hydrogen and hydrogen for mobility applications, Air Products provides solutions from hydrogen supply to distribution to dispensing and has made significant investments to accelerate the transition to zero-carbon transportation.

Last year, Air Products, in conjunction with ACWA Power and NEOM, announced the signing of an agreement to build a $5 billion world-scale green hydrogen-based ammonia production facility powered by renewable energy. The green ammonia production project site is located in NEOM, in the northwest corner of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. 

The joint venture project will include the innovative integration of over four gigawatts of renewable power from solar, wind and storage; production of 650 tons per day of hydrogen by electrolysis; production of nitrogen by air separation using Air Products’ technology; and the production of 1.2 million tons per year of green ammonia. The project is scheduled to be onstream in 2025. Air Products will be the exclusive off-taker of the green ammonia and intends to transport it around the world to be dissociated into what is known as green hydrogen for use in the transportation market and other industries.

Air Products also made significant investments to increase hydrogen production in the U.S. This year, Air Products’ newest liquid hydrogen plant at its La Porte, Texas industrial gas facility is scheduled to go onstream. Once onstream, the liquid hydrogen plant will produce approximately 30 tons of liquid hydrogen per day. It will draw its hydrogen from Air Products’ existing Gulf Coast hydrogen pipeline system network. 

Air Products operates extensive hydrogen pipeline networks around the world, including the nearly 700-mile Gulf Coast Pipeline Network – the world’s largest – connected to more than 20 hydrogen production facilities and with a system capacity of 1.7 billion standard cubic feet per day.

Also, in Port Arthur, Texas, Air Products operates the largest CO2 purification and capture project for enhanced oil recovery by an industrial gas company. Air Products designed, constructed and operates the state-of-the-art system to capture CO2 from two steam methane reformers located at a Port Arthur refinery. The CO2 removal technology was retrofitted to the SMRs, which produce hydrogen to assist in the making of cleaner burning transportation fuels by refinery customers on Air Products’ Gulf Coast hydrogen pipeline network. Since 2014 Air Products has captured over six million tons of CO2 at Port Arthur that has been put to beneficial use. Carbon capture is essential to producing what is known as blue hydrogen. 

And last year, in Santa Ana, California, Air Products commissioned the nation’s largest fast-fill hydrogen bus fueling station at the Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA). The new fueling station, located at OCTA’s bus depot, was designed by Air Products and is equipped with Air Products’ hydrogen fueling technology. OCTA’s current hydrogen fuel cell electric bus fleet consists of 10 buses, but the station is built for future growth. It has a bus fueling capacity for more than 50 buses, which corresponds to fueling up to 1,500 kilograms (kg) of hydrogen in an eight-hour time period. 

For more information on Air Products and its hydrogen for mobility capabilities visit: https://www.airproducts.com/gases/hydrogen.