Gov. Mike Dunleavy, seeking an $850 million federal subsidy for a Cook Inlet hydrogen project, claims “Alaska has everything going for it in this competition” and should become a world leader in this arena.

We don’t know yet exactly why the federal Department of Energy feels otherwise, but it has discouraged the Alaska Gasline Development Corp. from going through the work of a submitting a full application.

Of the 79 applicants for a federal subsidy, the DOE says it encouraged 23 and discouraged 46 from pursuing the detailed work to finish a complete plan.

“The 46 concept papers were discouraged for many reasons, but one of the most common reasons was papers that described concepts focused on only one element of the hub. Concept Papers were also discouraged that would depend on technologies unready for commercial scale demonstrations and projects whose elements were not readily suited to help catalyze a national clean hydrogen network.”

AGDC has now released the 20-page concept paper it presented to the federal Department of Energy in November, asking for $850 million.

The corporation had refused to release the concept paper earlier, but there is nothing in the document that is confidential. In fact, the concept paper says it is not confidential.

“The DOE Clean Hydrogen Hub Program is a competitive procurement and AGDC does not plan to release our concept paper at this time,” AGDC’s public relations man told me on Nov. 7.

The plan AGDC submitted to the federal government says its project “will be the catalyst for an economic and sustainable hydrogen production complex, eventually transitioning to carbon-free hydrogen underpinned by Alaska’s vast renewable resources.”

If Dunleavy really believes in this project, he will ask the Legislature and Alaskans to approve an $850 million state subsidy and demonstrate why that is in the public interest. Otherwise, this will appear to be nothing more than an attempt to get free federal money.

The state “plan” is to get a $40 billion natural gas pipeline built from the North Slope. Some of the natural gas from that project would be used to restart and expand the Agrium plant in Kenai, producing ammonia. The carbon dioxide created from the process would be injected into depleted oil and gas fields in Cook Inlet, unmineable coal seams or other underground traps. The project would require $3.75 billion in private investment to go along with the $850 million government grant.

Research that Scott Pantaleone did for a 2020 master’s degree in applied geological sciences at the University of Alaska Anchorage is cited by the state as evidence for the carbon sequestration potential of the Hemlock formation in Cook Inlet.

About 60 percent of the 1.38 billion barrels of oil that had been produced from Cook Inlet came from the Hemlock formation, his thesis says.

This 2010 report provided estimates of carbon storage potential and explained the need for more research.

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