After more than a year of negotiations, the U.S. Department of Energy awarded a multistate alliance of private and public entities $22.2 million to advance hydrogen energy use in the Midwest.
This is the first of four multimillion-dollar cash infusions totaling $1 billion that the Midwest Alliance for Clean Hydrogen expects to receive over the next eight to 12 years. It will use the money to build a “clean hydrogen hub” composed of eight hydrogen production and distribution projects spanning Illinois, Michigan, Indiana and Iowa.
Hydrogen is an efficient and flexible energy carrier that can be produced with zero to near-zero carbon emissions. It’s been poised as a promising tool to decarbonize heavy industries such as steel and long-haul transportation that have struggled to part from fossil fuels and are heavily concentrated in communities such as Little Village and East Chicago.
Yet, days before the Wednesday funding…
