(1) Climate change and air pollution threaten the health and prosperity of all Californians. Historic droughts, devastating wildfires, storms, extreme heat, and the death of millions of trees are creating billions of dollars in property damage and threatening human health and food supplies.
(2) California has set ambitious targets to reduce the effects of climate change by reducing carbon emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 and 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.
(3) In 2018, Governor Brown issued Executive Order No. B-55-18, creating a state goal to reach greenhouse gas neutrality by no later than 2045 and to maintain net negative greenhouse gas emissions thereafter, and directing the State Air Resources Board to work with relevant state agencies to develop a framework for implementation and accounting that tracks progress toward these goals.
(4) California’s leadership in driving aggressive emissions reductions has helped bring to market many new forms of renewable energy and fuels, including supporting a rapid decline in prices for renewable power such as solar, wind, and battery storage, and has accelerated adoption and price reduction
of zero-emission vehicles. The cost of utility-scale solar power dropped by 50 percent in just four years between 2011 and 2015, and electric vehicle battery prices dropped 87 percent in real terms from 2010 to 2019.
(5) Multiple studies show that renewable hydrogen, particularly green electrolytic hydrogen produced by splitting water, is poised to experience similar cost declines over the next decade.
(6) Achieving these cost reductions and deploying renewable hydrogen at scale would help decarbonize many difficult-to-decarbonize sectors, including buildings, industry, thermal power plants, and the transportation sector, including light-, medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, goods movement, and air travel, and accelerate progress towards the state’s climate, clean air, and clean energy goals.
(7) Renewable hydrogen
offers many climate and energy cobenefits, including better utilizing curtailed power and better integrating renewable resources into the electrical grid to achieve greater than 100 percent zero-carbon energy and put renewable electricity to use to decarbonize many other sectors of the economy.
(b) It is the intent of the Legislature to develop a leading renewable hydrogen industry in California in order to provide accelerated clean air, climate, and energy benefits, better integrate existing renewable resources into the electrical grid, create jobs, and provide new clean technology to decarbonize challenging sectors.