Air Liquide's Mike Graff on Celebrating National Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Day 2022 with strong momentum for the future
Connor Dolan
On October 8th, Mike Graff, the Chairman and CEO of American Air Liquide Holdings published the following article, available online here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/celebrating-national-hydrogen-fuel-cell-day-2022-strong-mike-graff/
National Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Day 2022 offers an opportunity for all of us to celebrate the advancements in hydrogen investment and policy that we collectively achieved over this past year, and to reflect on ways to build on this momentum to grow the U.S. hydrogen market.
While hydrogen alone will not drive the clean energy transition, the clean energy transition will not happen without hydrogen.
Hydrogen provides the flexibility and reliability needed to achieve a true clean energy transition swiftly, effectively, and affordably. It will help decarbonize our transportation and industrial sectors and facilitate the onboarding of more renewable energy on the electric grid to serving as critical – and scalable – energy storage. And for our workforce, the development of a domestic hydrogen market means the creation of hundreds of thousands of new clean energy transition jobs for American workers in the next decade.
The United States is in a stronger position to bolster hydrogen production and support market growth as a result of the important incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), like the Hydrogen Production Tax Credit, and the implementation of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, including the Department of Energy’s Hydrogen Hub program.
By providing a robust roadmap for hydrogen policy, elected officials are incentivizing continued private sector investment and increased hydrogen production – facilitating access, affordability, and swifter impact.
To date, Air Liquide has invested more than $1 billion into hydrogen in the U.S., and we are committed to investing another $10 billion globally in the entire low-carbon hydrogen value chain by 2035. At Air Liquide, we are committed to continuing to leverage our expertise in hydrogen markets and production and invest in a clean energy future. To date, Air Liquide has invested more than $1 billion into hydrogen in the U.S., and we are committed to investing another $10 billion globally in the entire low-carbon hydrogen value chain by 2035.
We were proud to open a new liquid hydrogen production facility in North Las Vegas earlier this year that can provide California’s growing mobility market with renewable hydrogen and will go a long way in supporting that region’s clean energy transition. We look forward to working with our industry partners in participating with DOE’s Hydrogen Hub program, including in the establishment of clean hydrogen hubs in New York, West Virginia and California that will leverage the energy infrastructure unique to each region to propel a local low-carbon economy.
And we are honored to have recently hosted U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, U.S. Secretary of Labor Marty Mash, the Delaware Congressional delegation, and Governor John Carney to Air Liquide’s Innovation Campus Delaware to discuss the important role of public and private partnership in ensuring our clean energy transition provides jobs, opportunity, and prosperity to American workers.
Innovation, smart investments, and partnerships between the public and private sectors are helping drive the critical progress needed to deliver the benefits of hydrogen to the American people. Today is a day to celebrate the important work underway and recognize the critical role that hydrogen is playing – and will play—in this country’s transition to a clean energy future.
