H₂Tech (H₂T) sat down with Cameron Poole (CP) at the Hydrogen Americas Summit to discuss Louisiana's unique position in the green hydrogen (H₂) industry, highlighting the state's high per capita consumption and historical leadership in traditional H₂ production. They emphasize the potential of green H₂ to reduce emissions and serve as a building block for other necessary products globally. Cameron also provides more details on funding for the H2theFuture project and the Global Wind Organization accreditation program.

H₂T: Can you tell us about Greater New Orleans (GNO) and your role with the organization.

CP: GNO is the economic development organization for the 10 parishes that constitute Southeast Louisiana, including New Orleans and Orleans Parish. For U.S. economic development, it is about creating conditions where companies not only want to invest their capital and establish their presence, but also for people to want to raise their families. In specific to energy, our work has reached statewide and, more specifically, across South Louisiana beyond the east. I am the energy and innovation manager, so I manage a number of GNO’s energy programming, both those under the umbrella of the H2theFuture project and additional programs at the intersection of energy and innovation. That includes supporting our Louisiana State University (LSU) led future use of energy Louisiana initiative, which received a historic $160 MM from the National Science Foundation (NSF), and some other really exciting programs with partners like Newlab and Opportunity Hub.

H₂T: Do you think Louisiana or New Orleans specifically has an edge in decarbonization? If so, why?

CP: In Louisiana, the H₂ market represents such a tremendous opportunity. Our state demands a third of the total H₂ in the U.S., meaning we have the highest per capita consumption, which is predominantly driven by petroleum, ammonia and methanol production, with refineries capturing 40% of our share of that national total. That means that when discussing where H₂ as a molecule is headed as it expands potential use cases, but also takes a cleaner, greener form by virtue of green and blue H₂. That is very relevant to Louisiana and the companies that operate here and the communities that live here, because we are quite literally one of the largest chairs of all H₂ work to date. Wherever energy is headed has a lot to do with where Louisiana is headed. Now, specific to our edge is that we have been a leader in traditional H₂ production, historically done through steam methane reforming (SMR).

With that comes miles of pipeline and relevant infrastructure, world class facilities (e.g., those operated by CF Industries and Shell), our research institutions (e.g., LSU) have world class and, at times, first of class programs, with the country's first carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) engineering program having gone online this year, and we are very globally connected. That is a product of infrastructure that intermodal connectivity, not only in the U.S., but international markets. That is why so much of the exports of liquified natural gas (LNG) come out of the U.S. Gulf Coast, but specifically Louisiana. Overall, we have a lot to work with. We have a toolkit that has historically been used for traditional H₂ production. A lot of work we are doing, not just as economic developers, but with our partner networks, is leveraging all those tools, skills and people, and helping set direction towards the future through connecting and resourcing. This was kicked off with the H2theFuture project, which was seeded by federal and state investments to catalyze a lot of that forward looking work.

H₂T: What is the H2theFuture project?

CP: H2theFuture is a 25 plus partner project seeded with funding from the U.S. Department of Commerce via the Economic Development Administration and our state government through Louisiana economic development, our state economic development office. H2theFuture is really targeted around establishing Louisiana as a global hub for decarbonization with a focus on green H₂, but of course, much wider than that. We are driving through this program, workforce development, applied research and the building of physical assets to derisk low-carbon technologies. This is generally broken down across five work streams. So, we have our test beds, and that is where a lot of the innovative side of things kick in. I work with the world class labs that are being built across four of our partner institutions at LSU: the University of Louisiana, Lafayette, University of New Orleans and Nichols University. We are working with five similar entities to GNO that cover different regions across the southern boot of the state (e.g., Baton Rouge area Chamber, South Louisiana Economic Council, Acadiana University and Southwest Louisiana Economic Alliance). We are also doing workforce in really robust ways of a large part of the workforce we are doing is actually targeting skilled trades through our community colleges and apprenticeship programs. That includes the goal of our Global Wind Organization accredited Wind Technician program at Nunez Community College, and an LNG Center of Excellence over in Southwest Louisiana Community College.

Higher education is important as well. Our 4-yr degree curriculum development is happening at four of our state's HBCUs, collectively making sure that we are targeting skilled trades that are accessible and a large base of employment for the average Louisiana resident, but also making sure that we are addressing historically underserved institutions as it relates to being afforded opportunities to be up to pace with industry and developing demanded skills for their students, and of course, setting up all those students to be a part of the energy future. We also have world-class assets being built. We are really excited to see the Louisiana Future Energy Center being established at the University of New Orleans. This will be an emission free facility that is home to energy startups and energy companies as a starting point and offers an opportunity to collaborate. We will be hosting a lot of programming, such as energy workshops and training programs, such as those we have done for offshore wind, which helps companies learn about where their role might be in the sector. We are also building an eMethanol fueling barge at the port of South Louisiana, which is a really exciting asset as it relates to demonstrating the demand for and feasibility of alternative fuels and decarbonizing the maritime sector.

H₂T: What is the total amount of funding allocated to the H2theFuture project, combining the federal grant and state matching funds?

CP: We got we got a pretty sweet kickoff in 2022, and this program that was appropriated in the year 2021 through the American Rescue Plan. The American Rescue Plan under the Department of Commerce established the Build Back Better Regional Challenge, which was designed to boost economic pandemic recovery and rebuild American communities, particularly those that have been grappling with decades of disinvestment, which can point towards the trends we have seen in oil and gas activity, particularly, oil and gas activity and employment in the U.S. Gulf, where we have seen particular job losses. Under that challenge and due to the need for recovery and rebuilding, GNO led an application for this funding opportunity H2theFuture to really again catalyze how we leverage the basic economy and infrastructure around energy toward the future. Due to the program, we received $50 MM from the U.S. Department of Commerce via the Economic Development Authority that was matched generously by our state partners at $25 MM via Louisiana economic development. Louisiana Economic Development has really been foundational to supporting efforts like these as well as the NSF program of $160 MM. They matched the tech hubs award we received for the U.S. Gulf Louisiana Offshore Wind Initiative, led by LSU. Overall, Louisiana Economic Development has been fundamental in supporting and matching the efforts of local and regional partners in pursuing these new opportunities.

H₂T: What is the Global Wind Organization?

CP: The Global Wind Organization is a global accreditation program for curriculum, servicing offshore wind training. Nunez Community College received a Global Wind Organization accredited course that will be going online in the fall. Twenty students of that first cohort will receive a full scholarship by virtue of support from the National Science Academy. But the GNO Wind Alliance is the program we run here, which is really wrapping its arms around the opportunity to drive Louisiana's role in not just offshore wind in the Gulf of Mexico, but national offshore wind. We have 250 plus organizations, and there is a big base of local companies (historically employed in oil and gas) who were seeing alignment in what they do now towards what is demanded for or by offshore wind, and that that demand will increase as we see more projects go online. In fact, when we partnered with RWE, which was before their acquisition of the Lake Charles lease area through the first federal auction for offshore wind in the U.S. Gulf, they partnered with us with a forward-looking vision for the fact that there is a strong supply chain opportunity for offshore wind in the U.S. Gulf.

We partnered on a project called the Louisiana Offshore Wind Database or supplier database. In the first phase, we identified 125 companies that have a competitive advantage to engage the wind supply chain. From there GNO Wind partnered with Oceantic to bring their Offshore Wind Ready Program down and we educated about 100 of those 125 companies through five different offerings of the training program, which really gave a one-on-one on the industry and a breakdown of project phases and supply chain components, which helped companies map out not only their particular role, or offering to an offshore wind development, but when the best time to strike is from a business development perspective. In a wider function, GNO Wind Alliance meets monthly to keep national and global interests up to date, with on the ground details about how wind is developing in Louisiana. We host an annual program called Louisiana Wind Energy Week, which will be happening the last week of January in 2025, where we partner with the National Renewable Energy Lab, the U.S. DOE and several of our local partners, including the Southeast Wind Coalition, Tulane, University of New Orleans and the National Wildlife Federation.

Our program boils down to business support, policy development, state planning and global market entry for these companies. This all connects back to green H₂, because as we know, green H₂ is produced by electrolysis, powered by renewable energy. When you look at the landscape of renewable energy for Louisiana, we do have some solar growth, we are still only 45th nationally in our solar portfolio, meaning how much solar we have online and available to whether that is residential via the grid or industrial customers. There is scalable opportunity, and we are seeing tremendous growth there. However, in the long run, what the Gulf of Mexico offers is technically the largest cumulative potential for offshore wind. Offshore wind is typically done with either a fixed foundation as we typically see it on towers, or floating, which we have not yet done commercially. We are going to see a lot of that in the Gulf of Maine and California as their projects take off. If the flooding potential is fixed in the U.S. Gulf, it makes the region number one for how much offshore wind can happen in the long term, and for all developable areas. It can be deduced that offshore wind will be a necessary component to renewable energy that comes online for the sake of energy as itself, but particularly, for energy that will be required for green H₂ production.