Eric Parker, Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office: Good day, everyone, and welcome back to another H2IQ hour hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy's Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office, or HFTO, at the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Office, or EERE, within the DOE. My name's Eric Parker and I am the webinar lead for our office. Today's H2IQ hour will introduce us to an overview of federal regulations for hydrogen technologies in the US. You will get an opportunity to ask questions and provide feedback. If you are active on social media we encourage you to share anything interesting you find during today's presentation online using the hashtag #H2IQ in your post. And also, make sure to stay tuned for topic in the near future like these.
So, we'll begin in just a minute but first I have a few housekeeping items to tell you about. Today's webinar is being recorded; however, all attendees will be on mute. And the full recording and the slide deck you'll see today will be posted on our HFTO website in the near future. Be sure to check back in a week or two to download a copy of that.
Attendees will have the opportunity, as I mentioned, to ask questions. So, please submit your questions via the Q&A box you should see in the bottom right of your WebEx panel. If you can advance to the next slide you'll see an example of that on the slide there. We'll cover those questions during the Q&A portion at the very end of the presentation. We'll do our best to get to all of them. And with that I think I'll turn it over to my colleague and H2IQ hour host, Laura Hill, who will tee up the topic and introduce our speaker. Thanks, Laura.
Laura Hill, Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies office: Thank you, Eric. Hello, everybody. My name is Laura Hill and I manage the safety codes and standards activities at our HFTO office. Brian, if you'll go to the next slide, please?
As Eric already mentioned, you're here to hear about an overview of federal regulations for hydrogen technologies in the US. We're really excited about this recently released document and the opportunity to do a deeper dive here during the webinar today. Our speaker is Brian Ehrhart. Brian is chemical engineer at Sandia National Laboratories. He has worked in the past on the use of solar thermal energy for hydrogen production and energy storage. Since 2017 he has worked to support technical analyses for safety codes and standards and infrastructure for alternative fuel, particularly hydrogen. His current and past work is focused on assessing risk for hydrogen vehicles and infrastructure, developing software codes for various fire and thermal scenarios, and working to improve the National Fire Protection Association's fire safety codes. Brian received a B.S. in chemical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a master's and Ph.D. in chemical engineering form the University of Colorado Boulder. And with that I will turn it over to Brian to lead us through our topic today.
Brian Ehrhart, Sandia National Laboratories: Thanks, Laura. And hello, everyone. As Laura said, my name is Brian Ehrhart. I'm at Sandia National Laboratories and today I'm going to be talking about everyone's favorite and most exciting topic, a discussion about federal regulations, specifically an overviewing of broadly applicable federal regulations for hydrogen systems in the US and how this type of analysis and these regulations are specifically applicable to H2@Scale and new and exciting hydrogen systems in the near future.
Whoops. Go forward…
Okay. So, this is the graphic from the Department of Energy Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office H2@ Scale initiative. This really is a useful graphic because it can really show all the various ways in which hydrogen systems interact, the various ways in which the – a hydrogen infrastructure or hydrogen systems can interact with the electrical and natural gas existing infrastructure and the various widely disparate end uses for hydrogen, both in transportation, chemical uses, heat and power production, as well as the various ways in which hydrogen can be produced, by steam methane reforming, electrolysis, et cetera.
And so, in order to enable this very broad-based and widely useful number of end uses for hydrogen, hydrogen needs to be moved around. It needs to be applicable to all these different end uses, which can look very different and can all be regulated differently, both at the federal level but also at the state and local level. And so, what we did was we kind of took a lot of the same applications in the H2@Scale graphic and really tried to make kind of an accompanying map, a regulatory map of where the federal oversight in the US for hydrogen systems exists and what organizations or agencies are responsible for providing that oversight in these various applications.
As you can see, this is the graphic with all sorts of different production, storage, transportation, and use of hydrogen – so, the entire hydrogen value chain, which isn't necessarily all going to be in one system, of course. These are going to be many different and interconnecting systems. You can also see it's a bit of an alphabet soup of different federal agencies and organizations that provide the oversight and regulations that would govern hydrogen systems in these various applications. And so, the remainder of the talk today and what I'm going to be focusing on is really taking you all through this regulatory map, touching on each of these items or nodes in the map, and discussing how different federal regulations apply or not and how they may interact in order to better enable broad-based hydrogen systems in the future.
So, first off, I want to say a few words about the scope of this analysis, what this is and what it isn't. So, really, this was a review of US federal regulation and oversight. This is not meant to be a comprehensive list of every possible code and standard that must be followed for a given hydrogen application or system. And this is not meant to be a formal interpretation of regulatory language. I myself am not a regulator, and so I am not the one who would be giving approval for potential hydrogen systems that are being designed and built. And so, the goals of this analysis that we performed and that I'm going to be talking about today are really to identify the federal regulators and agencies that need to be engaged by various stakeholders for future hydrogen systems – so, really, that identification piece. Additionally, trying to identify the limits of where federal oversight stops and starts – that is to say, where state and local jurisdiction would more apply rather than federal oversight, although this particular analysis did focus on the federal oversight.
In addition to looking at the limits of the jurisdiction we also wanted to look at the specific regulations in the Federal Code of Regulations, or CFR, that would apply to these types of systems, all the various systems that hydrogen could be incorporated into, and try to provide an assessment, a somewhat subjective assessment of the readiness of those regulations for hydrogen. And we sort of broadly categorize them into these kind of three categories of fully ready, partially ready, or not really ready. And really, what this means is does the regulation or requirement specifically note hydrogen, in which case it's reasonable to assume that following the letter of those regulations hydrogen is specifically included or specifically listed as a possibility.
Another possibility is that hydrogen could be indirectly covered within a regulation. This – an example of this would be if a regulation lists something like flammable gases or hazardous materials, some sort of broad category that should indirectly cover hydrogen but hydrogen may not be specifically listed or called out in the regulation.
And finally, other regulations may be specific to a particular material, such as natural gas or propane or gasoline or diesel, some specific fuel, in which case if hydrogen is going to be covered in that type of regulation something would need to be modified. The regulation itself would have to change or the interpretation of the regulation would have to change because it is specific to something that is not hydrogen. So, hydrogen is not necessarily included in that regulation.
As I've described, this readiness assessment, as we're calling it, is really an assessment of the regulations as currently written. This is not an assessment of the scope or the capabilities of the federal agencies or organizations themselves. So, we're really just assessing those kind of as-written and publicly available regulations, not necessarily assessing kind of more subjective measures of "Does an agency have a history or have experience with hydrogen?"
And when identifying if hydrogen is included or not we're not trying to make an assessment of the content or specific requirement of the regulations. We're just noting whether or not hydrogen is or is not included in the regulations. So, we're not necessarily trying to assess for every possible regulation whether or not the requirement makes sense or if it is going to be too onerous or could be improved. We're not trying to assess the actual requirement; we're just trying to assess whether or not hydrogen is included.
And then, of course, like any regulation, code, or standard this is an assessment based on the regulations as currently written. Just like you would expect, any changes in the regulatory language or interpretation in the future would obviously cause our assessments that I'm presenting today to change.
So, first, starting off, in order to get hydrogen we need to produce it of course. And so, what type of federal oversight in the US is there for the production of hydrogen? Hydrogen can be produced in many ways. Most of the hydrogen in the US currently is produced via steam methane reforming for natural gas. It can also be produced using electricity, by electrolysis. There's also other pathways under development and being researched by the HFTO and others. In terms of oversight for the production of hydrogen, the main federal oversight is through the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, which specifically calls out the production of hydrogen and is really for emissions reporting. This is especially relevant for something like steam methane reforming, which can produce various types of emissions in that process of high-temperature reforming, and so that type of emissions reporting must be reported to the EPA. And so, in this case because that 40 CFR Part 98 Subpart P specifically calls out hydrogen production we would say that this regulation has hydrogen specifically listed.
Now, again – and I won't bring this up for every topic, but I think it's important to emphasize that while this is the only federal regulation that we identified for the production of hydrogen that does not mean that other regulations and other requirements would not apply. Local jurisdictions such as a state or municipal requirements may adopt various NFPA, ASME, CGA, and other standards. And so, those might be required by those state or local jurisdictions for these systems. So, again, this is not to say that the only requirement that has to be followed is this EPA emissions reporting requirement, but rather that this is the main federal oversight that is done for hydrogen production.
Once hydrogen is produced it must be stored, of course. This is really kind of a fairly broad-based potential application because just about any system that utilizes hydrogen would need to have some sort of storage capability for the hydrogen. And so, this type of node or this topic is really potentially broadly applicable. The main federal oversight is through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA. They specifically list hydrogen as a potentially hazardous material and have specific subsections of the 29 CFR Part 1910, which call out hydrogen specifically, and so we gave it that categorization.
The applicability of those regulations depend a lot on the maximum quantity stored. SO, there's a threshold below which these OSHA requirements would not apply. And there's different requirements and different thresholds, whether or not the hydrogen is stored in a gaseous or liquid state. There is also a distinction – and why we show two different nodes here on the regulatory map – between whether or not this hydrogen is stored after being produced and the sole intent is for distribution versus other onsite storage requirements.
Additionally, hydrogen has been used for many, many years as part of rocket launches – so, liquid hydrogen is a liquid propellant used to launch rockets. And so, the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Aviation Administration, or FAA, has specific regulations – the 14 CFR Part 420 – that give particular requirements for the storage of hydrogen on aircraft and spacecraft launch sites. In particular, these requirements focus on separation distances – so, physical separation between the hydrogen storage and other hazardous storage. So, you can imagine at an airport or a spacecraft launch site there are other highly energetic, highly flammable materials and fuels being used, and so there are requirements for how each of those must be stored and how far away they have to be from each other.
And then, again, this is another case in terms of storage for hydrogen systems in which local regulations would really certainly apply but can vary between the state and local jurisdictions depending on what has been adopted or required in that particular jurisdiction. An example of this would be the NFPA 2 hydrogen technologies code, which is generally broadly adopted but different editions are adopted in different municipalities and jurisdictions. And so, that would be an example of kind of more of a local requirement, not necessarily a federal requirement.
Once hydrogen has been produced it can be transported in a variety of ways. And so, the next couple of slides will talk about the various ways in which hydrogen can be transported. One of the ways that already exists is by pipeline. There are over 1600 miles of hydrogen pipeline currently operating in the US, primarily in the oil and gas industry, and the particular federal requirements and federal oversights for the transportation of hydrogen by pipeline really depends on the location of the pipeline. So, there are different oversights and different requirements based on whether or not the pipeline is onshore versus offshore and whether or not the pipeline is intrastate or specifically contained within a state or whether or not it's interstate, it crosses state lines.
And so, for onshore, on-land pipelines that do cross state lines the DOT Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, or PHMSA, would have primary jurisdiction and oversee the minimum safety standards for the design and installation of these types of pipelines. Specifically, they have an Office of Pipeline Safety, or OPS, that handles more of the inspections and enforcement after construction of the pipelines. In this case hydrogen is indirectly included because this regulation tends to focus on the transportation of flammable gases. It doesn't necessarily call out hydrogen specifically, but it also doesn't limit itself to the transportation of methane or natural gas.
Otherwise, on-land in – for pipelines that are entirely intrastate – so, don't cross state lines – this can actually be a mix. So, in some states – all 50 states have agreements with PHMSA, and these are maintained on PHMSA's website, and the pipeline construction, inspection, and enforcement are either regulated by a state agency or – a particular state agency or by the PHMSA OPS, the Office of Pipeline Safety, per that agreement with PHMSA. In this case – and again, the same type of federal regulations would indirectly include hydrogen. However, because all of the agreements can vary by state the specific requirements and the specific regulatory oversight might vary by state depending on particular state agency requirements.
For offshore pipelines for – within state waters, so closer to shore, this can be similar to the onshore intrastate type of regulation – so, either by PHMSA OPS or the state agency per the agreement that each state maintains with PHMSA. Further out on the outer continental shelf offshore the U.S. Department of Interior Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, or BSEE, has an Office of Offshore Regulatory Programs through the US code. However, these requirements that oversee offshore outer continental shelf-located pipelines are really specific to oil and natural gas. So, the specific language in that section of the US code limits these types of requirements to oil and natural gas pipelines, and so hydrogen wouldn't necessarily be included.
In cases in which a pipeline can result in a transfer to or from a fixed facility – so, a pipeline terminal, for example, gong to a maritime vessel – the U.S. Department of Homeland Security U.S. Coast Guard would have jurisdictions over and requirements for those types of transfers in that 33 CFR Part 154. And this is another one of the cases in which hydrogen is indirectly included. It specifically calls out various hazardous and flammable materials. And I'll talk a little bit more on a subsequent slide about kind of import/export terminals because we kind of called those out a bit separately, but that – this would be an example of that type of facility.
In terms of the sales and distribution of natural gas, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, has regulations that specifically focus on the sale and distribution of natural gas. This is another case in which these aren't necessarily safety requirements but rather how the sale and distribution of that gas infrastructure should be handled. And this is a case in which if this type of infrastructure were to be converted to more of a hydrogen-specific case the – hydrogen is not necessarily included the way the regulations are currently written. They are natural gas-specific.
In addition to pipelines hydrogen can also be transported by road. So, this is focusing on hydrogen as a cargo. And this is really commonly done, especially for existing hydrogen refueling stations in California, for example. Hydrogen can be delivered by tanker truck, either in a gaseous or a liquid form. In these cases where hydrogen is being transported as a cargo the DOT PHMSA really has the primary federal oversight through the hazardous material regulations, part of the 49 CFR. I list some of them here. They list specific – or, excuse me, more general requirements for hazardous material transport. There are specific requirements for cryogenic flammable gases and compressed gases, requirements for loading and unloading practices, specifics on how the shipping containers should be used, including how cylinders and tanks should be built inside shipping containers, and all the way down to the packaging and labeling and paperwork that is federally required by these hazardous material regulations. And this is a case in which hydrogen is specifically listed. It is specifically listed in the 49 CFR 172 as a potentially hazardous material, and so specifically called out, and so applicable
In addition to DOT PHMSA there's other federal regulations, especially for the federal interstate highway program. So, the DOT Federal Highway Administration handles all sorts of highway safety through the Highway Safety Improvement Program. This includes bridges and tunnels as part of the highway system. And this is a case in which it's – hydrogen is sort of indirectly included in the sense that this particular program and these particular regulations aren't directly related to the specific type of fuel but rather more general highway safety improvements.
Additionally, the DOT Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration regulates how motor carrier routing and scheduling should occur and also gives additional safety regulations. So, this again is for the drivers and the trucking companies that would transport hydrogen around the US.
And then, these requirements point to the hazardous material regulations that DOT PHMSA maintains. And so, again, in this case hydrogen would be specifically listed as something that needs to be considered by this federal agency.
Lastly, in terms of fuel ratings, the Federal Trade Commission maintains regulations that specifically certify and allow for posting of fuel ratings. So, you can imagine when you're pumping gasoline into your car the specific ratings are regulated by these types of federal requirements. It also regulates how the transfer of fuel between different types of entities can and should occur. In this case hydrogen is not included, even as an alternative automotive fuel. In a sense this makes sense. You wouldn't necessarily try putting hydrogen in your current internal combustion engine vehicle, and that's really what the focus of these regulations is for. But for future use of hydrogen as a fuel it may need to be included in these types of ratings for more broadly applicable use.
Hydrogen can also be transported by rail. Again, this is hydrogen as a cargo. Many of the same hazardous materials regulations by the – that are maintained by the DOT PHMSA would apply, and so I list many of them again here – again, giving general safety requirements and how the various tanks and pressure vessels need to be constructed. I do list this – it should be 49 CFR, excuse me – 49 CFR Part 174 for rail transportation. So, this is different than the road transportation, obviously, and this specifically calls out approval by – by the DOT Federal Railroad Administration, or FRA. And so, that would be somewhat different than the hazardous materials by road, but again, same type of analogous requirements for – this time for rail requirements. A lot of the same requirements would still come into play for how the vessels and how the tanks need to be constructed and tested and labeled and that sort of thing. But again, some specifics for rail here.
The DOT FRA also maintains a number of state rail plans, which include upgrades to the railroad network and how that – how those upgrades and changes are planned and developed. Each of those state rail plans are independent agreements between the FRA and each state, so they can vary quite a bit. So, they're not strictly a federal regulation per se but I did think they were worth mentioning here because in terms of potential upgrades or changes to the rail network that would certain affect how hydrogen for rail may occur in the future.
Again, hydrogen transportation as a cargo, this time by waterways. And I did want to say for the rail and waterways there have been past examples of this occurring. By rail hydrogen – bulk tanks of hydrogen used to be transported to NASA for rocket launches. This is currently done by truck trailer now, but it used to be done by rail, so it certainly used to exist and can again.
In terms of transportation by railways the NASA Stennis Space Center in Mississippi that does a lot of space engine testing using propellants like liquid hydrogen uses very large liquid hydrogen tanker barges to move huge quantities of hydrogen through a river system to various portions of that NASA facility. So, again, this also exists.
Very similar to these other methods of transportation the DOT PHMSA hazardous material regulations would apply. This time 49 CFR 176 gives specific requirements to maritime transport, or transport by vessel. And again, hydrogen is specifically called out in these regulations and so specifically listed for this application.
I also mentioned a little bit previously, but a little more in depth, the U.S. Coast Guard would also have quite a bit of oversight especially in terms of transfer operations and the specifications of the vessel, maritime vessel itself. And so, some of these requirements regulate different portions of either the activity or the vessel itself, and so you can see kind of some of the details here. In general, these regulations indirectly include hydrogen. They note specific – or rather, they apply to hazardous or flammable materials but they don't specifically limit themselves to any particular flammable materials. And so, hydrogen would likely fall under that category.
I will note for some of these regulations, such as that top one, 33 CRF Part 156, it would specifically apply to vessels that have at least a 250-barrel capacity. That capacity being kind of a volumetric or liquid-based volume capacity would need to be updated or clarified for something like hydrogen. As a compressed gas, where do you really kind of draw the line between that particular capacity? And so, that's just kind of an example of how the regulation would apply as written, or seems to apply as written, but it may need to be clarified for hydrogen specifically. And then, the rest of the regulations list here, as I said, apply to different types of vessels or different types of activities on navigable waters within the US that fall under the jurisdiction of the Coast Guard.
Kind of a special case here that I thought it worth discussing a little more in detail are import and export terminals. In a sense, these are currently used pretty widely for liquefied natural gas in which a natural gas pipeline terminates at one of these facilities, is liquefied and loaded onto huge tanker ships for transport overseas. And this can happen in both directions, obviously, either import or export. And so, in a sense, this is really related as – or this application is really a combination of a pipeline and a maritime facility, and so both of these types of regulations would apply. And so, a lot of the pipeline regulations, especially for offshore pipelines, would apply, as well as those U.S. Coast Guard regulations that I note here for transportation of hazardous material between vessels and facilities would apply as well.
I did want to note here, though, in terms of some additional regulations and oversight by FERC and the Coast Guard through the CFR – 18 CRF Part 153 that specifically regulates and provides oversight of near- and offshore natural gas import and export. In this case hydrogen is not necessarily included because this is natural gas-specific. And so, should these types of systems be desired or designed and implemented in the future those regulations might need to be revisited, as FERC may have jurisdiction over a different type of gas being imported or exported.
This is also not just a purely hypothetical exercise. While these types of facilities generally don't exist in the US the countries of Australia and Japan are actually currently testing a system very much like this. Hydrogen would be produced in Australia from coal gasification plants, loaded on – liquefied and loaded onto large tanker ships and transported to Japan. They actually have physical facilities that are built. They have ships in the water that are – have been built and they're currently testing this type of setup. So, it's certainly a potential possibility in the future.
So, moving away from the transportation and storage of hydrogen to the use of hydrogen, of course one of the first and perhaps most obvious uses of hydrogen is the production of electricity. This can be done either using a fuel cell or gas turbine through the burning and production of heat. And indeed, there's – there are current projects through the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. The Intermountain Power Project, specifically, which is a facility in Utah, is currently looking at the production – or, the use of hydrogen and hydrogen-natural gas blends to produce power in power turbines. And I'll talk a little bit more about that on a future slide.
But generally, power plants and the production of electricity is regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, through these CFRs listed here that specifically apply to the production of electricity and the electrical grid. Hydrogen is specifically included in this case. Fuel cell are specifically mentioned as in the definition and scope of the regulation as a possible way to produce electric power. There are also alternative fuel power plants that the Department of Energy's Office of Fossil Energy, or FE – DOE FE would potentially have jurisdiction over. Essentially, these requirements prevent new and existing power plants from using only petroleum or natural gas without the ability to use coal or other alternative fuels. In this case, hydrogen is not necessarily listed as one of those alternative fuels but there was a fairly broad definition in alternative fuels as those obtained from alternative sources, in which hydrogen may arguably fall under. And then, of course, any sort of hydrogen use or electricity production facility would almost certainly be – would fall under local jurisdiction, and so local regulations and requirements would also apply.
In addition to the production of electricity, like grid-level electricity, hydrogen can also be used for heating. There are currently some – various research projects looking at hydrogen burners and the use of hydrogen for residential, commercial, and industrial heating. These would fall under some of the federal requirements for commercial heaters and hot water boilers through the Department of Energy's Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, or EERE. In this case the definition of the gas in these regulations that specify energy efficiency are specific to natural gas and propane. And so, if hydrogen burners are to be included in that type of energy efficiency program that particular definition or those requirements would need to be broadened to include something like hydrogen or other fuels.
I also mentioned previously in the pipeline section that the sales and distribution of natural gas are regulated by FERC. And again, these are natural gas-specific. And so, if a – in the future if a hydrogen – broad-based hydrogen infrastructure is going to be implemented these types of jurisdictions would need to be broadened to include hydrogen. And of course local regulations would apply, especially when you start to get into residential and commercial buildings. Local building codes and fire codes would certainly be applicable in those cases, even though they aren't necessarily part of the federal oversight.
Some of the other very exciting uses for hydrogen include chemical and industrial use. This can include everything from ammonia production, oil and natural gas processing, and just the production and upgrading of other chemicals that are produced at industrial sites all over the country. In this case the requirements from the Department of Labor OSHA, which we've already talked about, specifically do – would apply in this case, especially for the storage of hydrogen onsite, but there's also requirements for the use of hydrogen. Again, those requirements differ based on the state of the hydrogen, the phase it's in, gas or liquid, and on the maximum quantity applicable.
Similar to the production of hydrogen, the use of hydrogen in these cases may fall under a number of regulations through the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA. I already mentioned the hydrogen production regulations and emissions reporting they're from. But there's also emissions reporting from the production of ammonia and other chemicals, in which case the same type of emissions reporting requirements would apply, even if hydrogen is used in those types of facilities. Depending on the particular system there are different source categories of the production and use of hydrogen and thresholds and scale under which these regulations may or may not apply. But in either case hydrogen is specifically listed in these types of regulation in addition, again, to local regulations applying in these types of systems.
I mentioned briefly the Intermountain Power Project, which is looking to produce electric power from natural gas-hydrogen blends. And there's other potential projects and research efforts going on around the country; I just highlight that as a potential example. Many of the analogous regulations for pipelines would apply whether or not pure hydrogen is being used or a natural gas-hydrogen blend is being used, and so I won't repeat all of those here. But I will note that for alternative fuel power plants regulated by DOE FE they specifically do list blends as a potentially alternative fuel, and so by – while hydrogen blends are not specifically mentioned in the written regulations they would be potentially obtained from alternative sources and included in blends of some of these other fuels such as natural gas, and so potentially included in this type of regulation, especially for power plants.
Another end use which is kind of getting a little – kind of merging of topics here is auxiliary power systems. So, this would be the production of electricity not for grid level electricity but really kind of local or specific, almost an appliance level production of electricity. So, examples are mobile generators for lighting or even refrigerated transport vehicles. Those reefer trucks or reefer trailers need to be powered by something and hydrogen is a way that can provide that power. I list some of the various regulations here. Similar to the transportation of hydrogen that I mentioned previously, the – whether or not the hydrogen power systems are being used on road, on rail, in maritime applications, or in aviation applications there are different regulations that may apply. And I'll talk on the next couple slides about the use of hydrogen in these transportation applications, but this is a little bit different in the sense that it's providing power for something that's onboard these transportation applications, not necessarily providing the motive power itself, if that makes sense.
The case for roads and planes – so, the Federal Highway Administration and the Federal Aviation Administration – indirectly include hydrogen – it's not necessarily specific to the type of fuel used – whereas the FRA and U.S. Coast Guard do have requirements for the onboard production of electricity. But these tend to be specific to natural gas, propane, or battery venting and not specific – and don't provide for kind of broad-based alternatives such as hydrogen. So, those might need to be modified in the future if those types of systems are to be used.
The last category of applications I wanted to talk about briefly are – is the use of hydrogen in transportation. So, this is not transporting hydrogen as a cargo but actually using the hydrogen as the thing doing the transporting. So, in the case of fuel cell electric vehicles, any type of vehicle that is going to be manufactured, sold, or imported in the US must conform to these Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, or FMVSSs. These are under the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and they specifically cover things like vehicle crashworthiness and fuel system integrity. In this case some of these FMVSSs – and there are many; there are currently 65 – some of them are general vehicle crashworthiness and others apply to the fuel system integrity themselves – so, that 300 series. This is a case in which hydrogen has been indirectly included. Many of the titles of those FMVSSs are specific to natural gas systems – so, compressed natural gas fuel system integrity, for example. But these have already been used for hydrogen systems. There are hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles on the road today in the US and are – have been used and covered under these FMVSSs already.
I also already mentioned the Federal Highway Administration's Highway Safety Improvement Program, which is not specific to the type of fuel used or hazardous material transportation or use but does apply in terms of general highway safety, especially for bridges and tunnels and other aspects that may affected by a differently fueled vehicle.
I will just note here just sort of as kind of an interesting wrinkle, the regulations for the transportation of hydrogen as a cargo and the transportation of hydrogen as an automotive fuel in a fuel cell electric vehicle are different, which means that even if a vehicle is built to meet these NHTSA standards, if that vehicle is being transported – say, on the back of a trailer – and there's hydrogen onboard the system a DOT special permit may be required for transporting that vehicle, especially across state lines. So, those regulations are similar but there is a distinction between the transportation of hydrogen as a cargo versus as a fuel.
The use in rail generally falls under the DOT Federal Railway Administration. I mentioned some of the regulations here already. They cover everything from design requirements and crashworthiness requirements. There are slightly different regulations for freight locomotives versus passenger locomotives and I list both of those here. The Federal Transit Administration also handles safety and security for transit systems, including lightweight – light rail trollies and subways, which would be different types of rail applications. And a lot of those requirements are not necessarily fuel-specific but rather broadly applicable to general safety requirements.
Finally, the use in maritime – so, the use to power ships – would be regulated under the U.S. Coast Guard under the CFR shown here for different types of vessels and different applications of vessels. A lot of these requirements depend on fuel properties, such as the flash point of the fuel. And so, while hydrogen isn't specifically called out it seems like it would certainly apply here.
Again, the Federal Transit Administration also applies for local transit systems, and so depending on – a ferry type system, for example – those regulations would also apply here.
The DOT Maritime Administration, or MARAD, also supports through research and engagement various types of maritime transportation systems. And so, while they don't necessarily provide the regulatory oversight they are certainly engaging with these federal agencies and other stakeholders to provide support as needed.
As you might expect, in terms of the use in aviation the Federal Aviation Administration for different types of aircraft – and there's different regulations for each of these different types of aircraft that I list here – would apply for the use of hydrogen in aviation – that's probably pretty straightforward – in terms of application.
And so, finally, and this is my final slide here, a summary of the hydrogen readiness. So, I tried to call this out throughout the presentation on the individual slides, but in terms of kind of the four main categories of hydrogen systems – production, transport, storage, and use – generally, regulations already exist for which hydrogen would – that would apply to hydrogen systems. Of course, state and local regulations and requirements would also apply as adopted. Some of these regulations, such as natural gas pipelines or burners for heating or even electricity production may be more natural gas-specific or propane-specific and so may need to be brought in to include hydrogen systems. But in general a lot of these regulations would seem to already apply to hydrogen, which should be beneficial for future enabling of large-scale hydrogen systems.
And so, with that I'd like to thank you all very much for your attention. Here again is the regulatory map. This is part of a larger report which is – has been published and is publicly available. You can see the link there on the bottom of your screen and these slides will be available. And I'd be happy to answer any questions.
Laura Hill: Thanks, Brian. I appreciate the comprehensive look at all of these different regulations. We have quite a few questions so I'll start by apologizing in case we do not get to every one of them. We do have a record of them and we can follow up with you later at a separate time.
Going kind of from the top down, let's start at the very high level here, Brian. Which of all of the very many application areas that you discussed do you think present the most urgent gaps? Thinking – you're at an R&D facility, so think from an R&D's perspective as well as from a regulatory perspective.
Brian Ehrhart: Yeah. So, I think from a regulatory perspective, which may or may not need to be informed by R&D, I think a lot of the specific applications that seem most urgent are the use of both local and grid-level hydrogen power that have regulations that are sometimes specific to batteries, natural gas, or propane. There are kind of current efforts and current projects that are looking at hydrogen-natural gas blends, for example. And so, having federal regulations that can allow that and allow that in a safe manner, I think, really are pretty critical and important to include hydrogen as a possibility in those requirements.
In terms of research and development gaps, I think really kind of the various heavy duty transportation applications, they can all be really quite a bit different. And so, the different safety requirements and even the different transportation – those hazardous material regulations for transportation can really differ between the various heavy duty transportation modes. And so, kind of being able to consider all of those different modes kind of together in terms of hydrogen is – the properties of hydrogen are the same everywhere but also kind of taking into account those different transportation mode idiosyncrasies really, I think, is an important gap that needs to be addressed with more R&D.
Laura Hill: Great. Thank you. We have quite a few questions around things that are not included in the report. Would you in fact go back to the previous slide? I want to make sure folks have a chance to see the link to the report in case they haven't had a chance to read it for themselves yet. Let's start here. Did you analyze whether the regulations that are listed as being directly including hydrogen – did you analyze whether those regulations reference current or out-of-date standards? Some examples being OSHA CFR 229 – we don't need to dive into every single individual one. But did you take a look at that?
Brian Ehrhart: Yeah, great question. And we did not in this particular effort. So, we just looked for whether or not hydrogen was included. We didn't look at whether or not we thought the requirement was appropriate or current or otherwise out of date. The example you gave for OSHA, I think, is a great example. Those regulations have existed for many decades despite a lot of more recent advancement in hydrogen safety research. And so, yeah, when I say that hydrogen is specifically included or that those requirements include hydrogen that is definitely not meant to be a value judgment on whether or not we think those requirements are appropriate or up to date for current hydrogen systems, just – we just looked at whether or not the – hydrogen was specifically included in those regulations.
Laura Hill: And as a quick follow-up, recognizing that you maybe don't speak for the entirety of the federal government, do you think that the federal government is waiting on industry to engage with them and request these changes? Or, how do you feel that those changes need to be approached?
Brian Ehrhart: Yeah, I mean, from one standpoint it's – it is going to inherently be somewhat of an iterative process. Right? There's not really a reason to write federal regulations for systems that don't really exist yet. And in doing so, in trying to anticipate how these systems may be designed or built, kind of writing those federal regulations too early or without specific examples or engagement by industry can actually be limiting. If they're written in such a way that kind of assumes or presumes a certain way of designing or using the system, that can actually be detrimental and limiting to future expansion of hydrogen as a fuel and hydrogen systems.
By contrast, if systems are designed and kind of incorporated with little engagement from the federal regulations, you can kind of get in this case where each individual system is sort of a one-off design that is included or approved by a federal agency just for that system, and if someone comes along and designs a very similar but slightly different system they would sort of potentially have to start at square one.
So, it really does need to be a co-engagement by all stakeholders – the research community, the industry, and our federal regulator colleagues – to really ensure that those regulations are written as needed and as appropriate to enable the safe and widespread use of hydrogen as an energy carrier.
Laura Hill: So, I'm going to try to merge two or three questions here real quick to see if we can just kind of – I think they all kind of cover the same thing. There are some regulations that aren't mentioned in the report. Some that we were asked about here include CFAT – which is the Chemical Facility Anti-terrorism Standards, which is 6 CFR Part 27, thanks to Google. There's also a question about regulations that apply to fossil fuels, USACE, some NIST regulations, and some EPA regulations that aren't included. And are there reasons or those that you may be familiar with that you might have chosen not to include in the report, or why they might not apply to hydrogen? I realize that a bit of an umbrella question, so just stick to the ones you're familiar with and we'll go from there.
Brian Ehrhart: Sure. So, in this particular effort we really tried to only approach regulations that would specifically be – or that we thought would specifically be applicable to hydrogen as a fuel. So, really kind of focusing on the production, storage, transportation, and use of hydrogen and what regulations would specifically be around those types of systems. Other federal regulations – labor practices, general safety standards – would certainly always apply to any system regardless of if it has hydrogen or not. So, while I don't want to say that it's impossible that we missed some, and I think potentially some of those regulations may have more direct applicability to hydrogen, we were really trying to focus on what regulations would apply to these types of systems specifically and not kind of apply to systems more broadly, if that makes sense
Laura Hill: Great. Thanks, Brian. So, we have a number of questions around very specific applications. One that sticks out that I've seen a couple times – we'll just end with this question since we do want to respect everybody's time – did you have a chance to look at regulations around blending of hydrogen, propane, or natural gas? We'll just talk about blended fuels in general.
Brian Ehrhart: Yeah. So, I talked about this a little bit and specifically looking at it kind of from the standpoint of kind of either the transportation or use of those blended fuels – so, either the transportation by pipeline or the use as – in electricity production or heating applications. So, we did try to identify those specific applications that we thought would be most applicable to those types of systems, but we also recognized that this is a current effort, both in the research community and in industry that are looking at different aspects of that, of this particular application. So, like the HFTO has a new, very large and very important high-right program which is – excuse me, high-blend going on which is looking at those specific issues for the blending of hydrogen into natural gas.
So, we tried to highlight some of the main regulations that we thought would be most applicable, but we were trying to do kind of a broad-based assessment, and so we didn't necessarily do a particularly deep dive into any one particular topic area.
Laura Hill: Great. Thank you, Brian. And thanks to everybody for the thoughtful questions. Unfortunately, we will definitely not be able to get to all of them but we will do our best to follow up later. With that, I will turn it over to Eric. Brian, if you don't mind just going to the last slide?
Eric Parker: Yeah. I want to thank Laura and Brian for the really comprehensive presentation and echo Laura in thanking all of you for attending and asking such good questions. But that does conclude today's webinar. I'd like everyone to keep an eye on the HFTO webinar mailbox for more webinars like these and to check back on our website in about a week or two's time for this recording and the full slide deck for sharing. And sign up for the newsletter if you haven't already.
And with that, I'll wish everyone a great rest of their week. And goodbye.