New Nevada hydrogen fuel plant to begin operations in early 2022

The facility will provide H2 for FCVs and will support the zero-emission transportation mix.

International industrial gas company Air Liquide (EPA stock symbol AI) now expects that its new Nevada hydrogen fuel plant in North Las Vegas construction will be completed by November 2021.

This new plant will be constructed specifically for serving the H2 transportation fuel market.

“[Hydrogen production] is very much built around the industrial use of hydrogen: things like refineries, electronics, agricultural products and not really as an energy vector or transportation fuel,” explained Air Liquide director and advocate for hydrogen energy Dave Edwards. “The project in Nevada is our first large-scale investment specifically for these new markets in the US. This hydrogen is not for the traditional industrial markets, but rather for the mobility and transportation fuel market that is mostly on the west coast.”

If the Nevada hydrogen fuel plant’s construction is completed as expected in November, it will be slated to begin operations in early 2022. At that time, it will start H2 production to be used as fuel for both light-duty and heavy-duty transportation sector vehicles.

The Nevada hydrogen fuel plant will be powered by renewable natural gas to produce blue H2.

“Even though hydrogen as a fuel is considerably better than gasoline or diesel, [its production process] still has an environmental footprint that needs to be addressed,” explained Edwards. “Our first investment in North Las Vegas is to use similar technology, but we have the ability to displace the natural gas in the process with renewable natural gas and reduce the carbon footprint of our feedstock.”

Among the renewable natural gas sources that Air Liquide intends to use as its plant’s fuel sources include landfill gas, biogas, and waste-water treatment gas. In this way, while the H2 production won’t be emissions-free, it will still help to considerably reduce the carbon footprint, with the goal of being able to achieve a net negative carbon footprint over the lifetime of the facility.

The goal of the Nevada hydrogen fuel plant is to help to fill the expected H2 supply shortage that is occurring as California pushes for the use of hydrogen-powered transportation vehicle fleets.