An energy company with big ambitions to produce the clean fuel of the future announced a deal Tuesday with Lancaster officials to make hydrogen by using plasma heating technology — originally developed for NASA — to disintegrate the city’s paper recyclables at temperatures as high as 7,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
Solena Group’s process has no commercial track record, and the company has not yet secured financing to build its $55-million facility in Lancaster, in northern Los Angeles County. Solena is one of many firms looking for ways to cheaply produce hydrogen without generating planet-warming gases in hopes that the clean-burning fuel will one day replace oil and gas for transportation or heating.
But the company’s process, which uses so-called plasma torches, caught the attention of Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris. The city will expedite Solena’s permitting process and send the company its paper recyclables, rather than paying to dump them in a landfill. Some U.S. cities have been sending recyclables to landfills since ChinaIf the hydrogen plant doesn’t materialize or otherwise fails, Parris said in an interview, there’s little downside for the city.The upside would be pioneering a technology that could dramatically cut emissions. Lancaster will own a small stake in the plant.
A maverick Republican, Parris has made climate change his signature issue. He helped make Lancaster the first city in Southern California to ditch its privately owned electric utility and
Clean Hydrogen= “...hydrogen through gasification of organic waste — basically applying heat & pressure until the waste becomes a gas — ...cheaper strategy for bringing down CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere... The hydrogen would also displace a dirtier fuel, such as diesel..”
What is 'dirty' hydrogen? Deuterium? Tritium?