Hydrogen Energy in California

When HECA filed its amended application for certification with the California Energy Commission in May of 2012, Michael Peevey, president of the California Public Utilities Commission, called HECA "an innovative business model that improves the economic viability of the project. HECA intends to ramp up the facility to produce more electricity during peak hours of need in order to maximize the energy and capacity value of the plant. This is an example of the kind of creative thinking we will need to solve the climate crisis."

The Natural Resources Defense Council has referred to enhanced oil recovery with sequestered CO2 as having vast potential benefits, explaining that "the country has a significant, untapped win-win-win opportunity to stimulate our economy and reduce our dependence on imported oil while actually helping to protect wild places and reduce global warming pollution: a process known as carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery (CO2-EOR). According to industry research CO2-EOR would give America access to large, domestic oil resources, potentially more than four times the proven U.S. reserves, or up to 10 full years of our total national consumption. But without the stimulus of climate protection legislation, CO2 for oil recovery is likely to remain in short supply and most of this domestic oil resource will stay in the ground."

Speaker: Mark Lerdal, Hydrogen California & MP2 Capital