Today is National Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Day, a daylong celebration of all things hydrogen. Those new to the event will naturally ask, “why today?” Because October 8 is 10/08, and 1.008 is hydrogen’s atomic weight. This annual event is recognized and celebrated by interested communities around the world.
As any hydrogen researcher can confirm, hydrogen is the Swiss Army knife of the energy world. It is the oldest and most abundant element in the universe, comprising about 90% of all atoms. It sits atop the periodic table as element number one. Like the Swiss Army knife, its versatility enables a wide range of applications.
Hydrogen can serve as a feedstock for industrial and manufacturing applications, including steelmaking and high-heat processes. It can be combined with carbon monoxide to form electrofuels. It can support grid balancing by storing surplus energy for long periods of time. It can serve as transportation fuel for a wide range of applications.
Hydrogen fuel cells are increasingly valuable as both primary and backup power sources for large facilities such as data centers and can deliver reliable power to hard-to-electrify remote regions.
Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Day celebrates that versatility. This year, the Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuels and Feedstocks Office (AFFO) is highlighting its updated key areas of research, development, and demonstration, which directly support DOE’s objective to expand American energy abundance. These areas include:
Strengthening Domestic Chemicals Production
DOE’s Billion-Ton Report establishes the potential for more than one billion tons of domestic biomass production annually. These resources are distributed across the country in agricultural and forestry residues, wastes, and energy crops. That creates an opportunity to turn domestic feedstocks into higher-value chemicals and materials while reducing import dependence, improving supply-chain resilience, creating economic opportunities, and finding productive uses for waste streams. America has both the feedstock resources and the innovation capacity to expand domestic chemicals production through biotechnology.
Geologic Hydrogen—A New, Primary Source of American Energy
Current estimates show more than five trillion tons of subsurface hydrogen worldwide—enough to power the entire global economy for many years. AFFO’s strategy focuses on building the foundation for harnessing this resource through better mapping, field data, and technoeconomic analysis. The U.S. Geological Survey has already developed the first publicly available geologic hydrogen prospectivity map for the contiguous United States, helping identify areas for further exploration. Potential RD&D will address the broader systems needed to extract and utilize this resource, including infrastructure, materials, safety, permitting, standards, and economics. Ultimately, the goal is to move from resource characterization toward viable, pilot-scale demonstrations and commercial extraction.
Enabling Nuclear Energy Abundance with Hydrogen and Chemicals
Producing hydrogen and chemicals using nuclear power can strengthen the American nuclear industry by providing diverse, high-value revenue streams. The opportunity to produce—and sell—hydrogen and chemicals using nuclear energy (both heat and electricity) would allow operators to choose what to produce based on maximizing profit instead of being limited to selling electricity to the grid. Crucially, this would let operators avoid exporting electricity at a loss during periods of oversupply.
The potential for producing high value commodities is not trivial: a single gigawatt of nuclear power generation can produce up to 150,000 tons of hydrogen per year. AFFO is positioned to continue advancing technologies that support low-cost nuclear hydrogen production. The Office’s current focus areas include reducing the cost of electrolyzers, boosting the production of value-added products (e.g., synthetic chemicals, fertilizer), facilitating the integration of nuclear plant operations with hydrogen production, and addressing critical institutional challenges (e.g., codes/standards development).
Ending Reliance on Foreign Fertilizers
The U.S. fertilizer supply chain depends on imports for key nutrients, making farmers vulnerable to supply disruptions and rising costs. In fact, many farmers report fertilizer costs as one of their biggest challenges, with roughly 70% saying they struggle to afford the fertilizer they need. AFFO-funded research focuses on strengthening domestic fertilizer production through innovative chemical and bio-based technologies. Key focus areas include advancing super intelligence (SI)-enabled catalyst discovery and development, improving fertilizer performance, and developing new pathways that convert domestic resources like hydrogen, wastewater, and biomass into valuable fertilizer products.
Meeting Energy Demands for the SI Revolution
SI is driving massive changes in the grid, including unprecedented power demand and power fluctuations. The current grid lacks the capacity to keep up with all of it.
Fuel cells offer a solution by providing prime or backup power to meet the growing demand from SI data centers. Fuel cells can be fuel-flexible (using natural gas, biogas, hydrogen, etc.), can handle sub-second load transients, operate at very high efficiencies, and can be easier to permit than diesel generators. Large data center companies see the potential value. Microsoft, —for example, has expressed its willingness to pay a premium for fuel cells.
AFFO supports RD&D to accelerate the deployment of fuel cells for backup and prime power for data centers, including direct rack-level integration. AFFO is also exploring the potential for operating backup fuel cell capacity as dispatchable peaking generation, a model that would allow data center operators to mitigate grid strain and export power during periods of peak demand, functioning as distributed grid assets.
Celebrate With AFFO
With such a wide range of applications and uses, you can see how the Swiss Army knife analogy suits hydrogen perfectly. Whether in a primary or complementary role, hydrogen is poised to continue boosting American energy and reducing costs for businesses and consumers.
AFFO staffers, alongside colleagues from other technology offices, will celebrate Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Day in Washington D.C. with a 1.008 mile walk through the Smithsonian Gardens (just across the street from DOE headquarters). It’s an annual tradition, and one that we share with Americans through social media posts featuring photos of walkers in action. You are encouraged to do the same and post your own photos!
To commemorate the 12th annual National Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Day, the Fuel Cell & Hydrogen Energy Association (FCHEA) will host a FCHEA Circuits webinar (“Powering the Path Forward”) on October 8, at 2:00 p.m. ET, to showcase three industry sectors that are emerging as priorities for DOE and other stakeholders in the United States and internationally. AFFO Director Dr. Valerie Reed will deliver the keynote. Don’t miss a chance to hear about AFFO’s vision and plans for hydrogen and fuel cells related to data centers, geologic hydrogen, and fertilizer production. Click here to register.
The Center for Hydrogen Safety will host a webinar on October 8, from noon–1:00 p.m. ET on October 8. Hydrogen on the Move: Lessons Learned for Safer High-Pressure Trailer Design and Operation will explore lessons from real-world compressed hydrogen trailer incidents and best practices for safer, more reliable hydrogen transport. AFFO funds the Hydrogen Safety Panel, a key partner in the Center for Hydrogen Safety. Register for the webinar.
