Read the full story from The Verge.
As much as climate change is reshaping life on Earth as we know it — the solutions posed are also going to change everyday life. 2023 is on track to be the hottest in the books, and unless we want to shatter that record year after year, every country on Earth will have to work together to wean themselves off fossil fuels. The US, the world’s biggest producer of oil and gas, has more work to do than others.
So, how do you remake our entire energy system while the clock is ticking? When you build all this infrastructure, how do you do so without steamrolling over communities in the process? And how do you avoid the harms caused by drilling and mining in the past, especially when we’ll need a lot of critical minerals to make EV batteries, wind turbines, and solar panels?
The Verge spoke with Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm shortly after the Department of Energy announced $7 billion in funding for hydrogen production hubs across the US. It’s a textbook example of a potential alternative energy source that has opened up a whole new can of worms.
The environmental benefits of hydrogen are still contested. Some of the hubs will run on renewable energy. Others will be made with fossil fuels that still produce greenhouse gas emissions. The Biden administration thinks it can clean up that pollution with controversial carbon capture technology. But a lot of communities don’t want that industrial infrastructure — pipelines and storage — adding to health risks they already face after decades of environmental injustice.
That’s all to say, it’s complicated. In the interview, Granholm spoke about how she might navigate those tricky next steps.
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