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Hydrogen provides a meaningful solution that addresses the need to lower our carbon footprint while preserving the most innovative workforce in the world. A cleaner, more resilient energy future is within reach, and union labor will build it.

“We’re splitting water with a combination of electricity and this high temperature steam,” Gross says. “And that’s what leads to a breakthrough in efficiency, and that leads to an eventual breakthrough in price.” Because the technology uses steam, it can use less electricity, making it as much as 45% more efficient. Since it also can run throughout the night, “we can amortize the cost of the electrolyzer over 24 hours, instead of over 6 hours a day,” he says. “And that four-to-one better amortization leads to lower cost hydrogen.”

More recently, ZeroAvia experienced a bad news/good news scenario when its hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered Piper Malibu Mirage M350 crash landed last April. The good news was that no one was hurt, despite the plane losing a wing. Better still, with no fuel to leak and no hot engine to ignite it, there was no Hindenburg-like conflagration.

“The hydrogen system itself all held up perfectly,” Mr. Miftakhov said. “The emergency crew said if it were a fossil-fuel plane it would have been a major fire.”

But greening Massachusetts’ electric grid through offshore wind and other renewable sources will take years, if not decades, said Bob Rio, a senior vice president at AIM. Right now, he said, the majority of New England’s electricity still comes from natural gas-fueled power plants, so it’s important to look at alternatives that could reduce carbon emissions, such as hydrogen. Meanwhile, he said, state officials should focus on harnessing “green hydrogen” — that is, hydrogen made with electricity generated by wind or solar turbines.

The capital comes in from Air Water, MUFG Bank, Ltd. (MUFG), Nikkiso, and Japan Infrastructure Initiate (JII) as FirstElement Fuel is actively executing on its plan to build out its California Hydrogen Network from 31 True Zero Stations to 80 stations by 2024. 

At least 12 of the 80 stations will be capable of refueling heavy-duty trucks in addition to light-duty cars.