Hydrogen Blending in Natural Gas Pipelines: Opportunities and Challenges

In October 2022, a consortium of four U.S. National Laboratories and over twenty partners from industry, nonprofits, and academia commenced the Pipeline Blending CRADA – a HyBlend^TM Project to address technical barriers to blending hydrogen in natural gas pipelines. This two-year project supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office applies $15M in total funding – $11M federal funding and $4M cost share – to investigate the challenges of mixing hydrogen into the existing natural gas infrastructure. The motivation for blending is decarbonization as the generation of heat and power from hydrogen blends could be lower than from natural gas alone if the hydrogen is produced from clean pathways.
This talk will cover the origins and describe the objectives of the cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) project. Recent results will be presented from the four partner National Laboratories: metal and polymer pipeline materials R&D from Sandia National Laboratories and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, technoeconomic analysis from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and environmental life-cycle analysis from Argonne National Laboratory. In addition to detailing progress made to date, future R&D activities in these areas will be discussed. Opportunities for interested stakeholders to join a potential second phase of this effort will be described.