A bill in the Oregon Legislature would require gas utility notification when hydrogen is blended with natural gas for residential customers. (Photo by Anton Petrus/Getty Images)
Last summer, a Democratic state senator heard from hundreds of constituents in southeast Portland who were concerned about NW Natural secretly supplying residents with natural gas blended with small amounts of hydrogen.
Sen. Khanh Pham of Portland told the Senate Committee on Energy and Environment at a hearing Monday that they weren’t just concerned that NW Natural didn’t notify them, but that it wasn’t required to inform the state’s Public Utility Commission either. In response, Pham is now sponsoring Senate Bill 685 to require utilities to notify customers and the commission that it’s going to supply residences with hydrogen-blended natural gas.
“Every gas pipeline has risks. The goal is that when hydrogen gas is introduced into Oregonians’ homes, there should be a minimum public notice,” Pham, a member of the committee, told the senators.
The bill, based on regulations in Washington state, would also require utilities to notify the commission of blend ratios and potential safety and health risks, and inform local fire and health departments about their plans.
Two years ago, NW Natural scrapped hydrogen blending plans in Eugene due to public outcry over lack of transparency.
A growing body of research shows that burning natural gas in homes is unhealthy, and although there is less research on the risks of burning hydrogen-blended natural gas in homes, studies show that burning these blends releases nitrogen oxides, which can cause respiratory illnesses.
Natural gas also brings environmental concerns. It is almost entirely methane, a potent greenhouse gas. When burned, it releases carbon dioxide, another greenhouse gas warming the planet.
Hydrogen does not emit greenhouse gases, but the hydrogen NW Natural is making to blend into its natural gas is created through a controversial and energy-intensive process that requires heating methane to capture the hydrogen molecules in it. NW Natural, which opposes Senate Bill 685, maintains that blending hydrogen with natural gas will help lower harmful emissions from burning natural gas alone.
During the hearing, company representatives said hydrogen is safe to burn in homes and that giving customers and the commission advance notification would be onerous, expensive and impede the company’s climate goals.
“Policies that add unnecessary expense and complication to reducing emissions and developing clean energy resources do not serve Oregonians,” Mary Moerlins, NW Natural’s environmental policy director. “Instead, they cost our customers additional time and money. Oregon should not add additional requirements that don’t improve safety at a time of extreme pressure on utility rates.”
Environmentalists argue that hydrogen — which can be energy intensive to make and only clean if it’s derived from water and the energy used to make it is sourced from renewables — should be used to power big ships, trains and manufacturing facilities, not homes.
Studies from the International Renewable Energy Agency have found that replacing 20% of natural gas with hydrogen only reduces emissions from natural gas by up to 7%. And each ton of emissions cut from blending hydrogen with natural gas costs three times as much as the next most expensive method of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which is to draw carbon from the atmosphere using large machines, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.
The better solution, many environmentalists say, is to hasten a transition to electric heating and cooking infrastructure in homes and away from burning fossil fuels like natural gas.
But a 7% reduction is meaningful to the company’s efforts to meet state decarbonization targets, according to Chris Kroeker, decarbonization director at NW Natural. He told the committee it would equate to a reduction of 400,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year, equivalent to taking 85,000 gas-powered cars off the road every year.
Kroeker said the company does not typically alert customers about gas blending because “there’s no significant impact on downstream equipment, it increases costs for customers to do so, and it could also cause messaging fatigue.”
Pham and other supporters of the bill question that reasoning. Carra Sahler, director of the Green Energy Institute at Lewis & Clark Law School, said customers deserve to know what they are paying for.
“The monopoly utility is now using ratepayer dollars for this project, but does not need to alert anyone if it increases the amount of hydrogen it blends,” she said.
Pham told the committee that before introducing the legislation she toured the NW natural facility where the hydrogen blending is taking place, and met with the Portland-based Renewable Hydrogen Alliance and carpenter, electrician and ironworker unions to understand their concerns.
“As a NW Natural customer, I know that you send notices in the mail, and I imagine that you could probably include a notice in the mail,” Pham said.
NW Natural’s ‘turquoise hydrogen’
Methane gas extracted from the earth is made of carbon and hydrogen molecules. The hydrogen NW Natural is making – “turquoise hydrogen” – is created when that methane is heated to temperatures so high that the carbon and hydrogen molecules split from one another. This process is called “methane pyrolysis.” NW Natural is heating methane, capturing the hydrogen and blending it into natural gas. They’re also using some of the hydrogen as energy to heat more methane to create more hydrogen. And they are capturing the carbon and using it to make products like asphalt.
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