In recent months, conversations have happened on the Navajo Nation regarding plans for developing a hydrogen pipeline that could be one of the largest in the country. Jerry Redfern, a New Mexico oil and gas reporter has been covering the issue for Capital and Main. He recently talked Anthony Moreno to share more.
Interview transcript:
Anthony Moreno: Jerry, thanks for joining us. Your reporting says that one of the largest pipeline operators has traveled throughout the Navajo Nation detailing plans for what could be one of the country’s largest hydrogen pipelines. Can you tell us more about what's happening here?
Jerry Redfern: Yeah, actually, you know, the funny thing is, it's not overly detailed. It's not entirely clear what the whole proposal is yet. They've been going from Chapter house to chapter house across the Navajo Nation. And chapter houses are like a form of village government, like a village council. They've been going from Chapter house to chapter house across the Navajo Nation, where this pipeline would run, telling people that they're planning on doing this. But they haven't been overly clear on the endpoints, or you know how this is going to affect people in place, this is apparently to this point mostly been, as they say, informational work to tell people that this is coming. An interesting thing to note is that the route that they're showing and the route that the company itself Tallgrass has talked about follows along a pipeline already owned by the Navajo Nation, and that's a natural gas pipeline.
Anthony Moreno: Your reporting also says that Tallgrass Energy has plans to reopen the Escalante coal-fired power plant in New Mexico to convert it to run on hydrogen. What do we know about this?
Jerry Redfern: That the general idea is to take this shuttered power plant that shut down a few years ago and re-jet it, so that it's burning hydrogen and that's about the sum of it. The main goal I think, or one of the main goals I think, is that they're going to make hydrogen from natural gas. And that's what all of this really gets back around to. The San Juan Basin is a big natural gas producing basin. There's lots more reserves underground there that certain companies would like to tap into and that's why the Lujan Grisham administration has focused on this area for this hydrogen development is because of actually the natural gas that's there. A key thing to note about this is that to get one unit of energy of hydrogen or from hydrogen fuel, it takes 7 units of energy from natural gas going into it. It's a very energy intensive process to make that hydrogen.
Anthony Moreno: In your reporting, you were able to talk to an environmentalist who is also traveling throughout the Navajo Nation to educate folks about the efforts that are going on here and it seems like there are some questions out there that need to be answered when it comes to this. Can you share a little bit about what the environmentalists had to say to you?
Jerry Redfern: Yeah. So, Jessica Keetso works with a group called Sacred Water Speaks. She's been going around and mostly warning people of the environmental effects of hydrogen because a lot of what's talked about is how clean hydrogen is and which, which is totally true, that it's a very clean fuel when used to make energy, particularly when used in a fuel cell. It really has no outcomes to it at all. You get a bunch of electricity out of it. You get a little bit of oxygen, you get a little bit of water. I mean, that's pretty good. The problem with hydrogen production comes on the production side of it, and that's what she's been going across the Navajo Nation and talking to people about saying, essentially, yeah, you can like hydrogen if you want, but you have to ask where it's coming from and if it's coming from natural gas, we have all of the traditional problems that we've had with natural gas production in this area, that's still going to happen, and if it's coming from water well, remember this whole region of the country is a desert and we don't have enough water as it is. It's an interesting thing. Shiprock, itself, the city, town of Shiprock, has a really big water issue, because their water table, their water supply. underneath the town was contaminated from decades of uranium mining and processing, so it's a very fraught issue from all directions.
Anthony Moreno: Were you able to hear from officials from the Navajo Nation about these meetings that are going on about a potential pipeline.
Jerry Redfern: No, I wasn't. And I was really kind of saddened that they didn't get back to me, but I spent a couple of weeks calling and writing emails and they did not get back in touch.
Anthony Moreno: Jerry Redfern is a New Mexico oil and gas reporter for Capital and Main. Jerry, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us.
Jerry Redfern: Again, you're most welcome. Thank you for having me on.
