Thread by @ssteingraber1

THREAD: Can we be clear on something?
There is no “debate” within the academic, independent scientific community about the snake oil that is Blue Hydrogen which is made from fracked gas. There is science showing that it’s bad and then there are its influencers.

https://twitter.com/nalanpog/status/1427465179630080007

Here is the best peer-reviewed science we have, authored by our two of our finest climate scientists: environmental engineer Mark Jacobson at Stanford @mzjacobson and biogeochemist and ecosystem ecologist Bob Howarth at Cornell @howarth_cornell

https://twitter.com/mzjacobson/status/1425874007711043586

The Howarth Jacobson paper clearly shows that Blue Hydrogen is a climate disaster when you factor in unavoidable methane emissions. In fact, we’d be better off just burning the gas directly. Blue Hydrogen attempts to put filters on cigarettes and declare hey they’re safe now!

Over in the other corner are the leading guys creating the “debate.”

One is “influential analyst” Michael Liebreich @MLiebreich who works as an advisor to…”blue hydrogen leader Equinor.”

rechargenews.com/energy-transit…

This is how Liebreich rolls: he first makes hostile how-stupid-can-they-be comments about the scientist-authors and then throws around some technical and methodological claims re: assumptions in the model that the scientists then have to debunk. Like in this thread:

https://twitter.com/MLiebreich/status/1427516734861455388

Another leading Blue Hydrogen influencer is @TedNordhaus of the pro-fracking pro-nuclear Breakthrough Institute. Ted has a BA in history. His niche is to tell us to calm down, climate change is not so bad so he’s now a conservative media darling. sourcewatch.org/index.php/Brea…

Nordhaus rolls the same way: ad hominem attacks plus potshots targeting modeling assumptions that force the authors to show how, as is his longstanding practice, Nordhaus is cherry picking. In this tweet Nordhaus also goes after our finest climate reporter @HirokoTabuchi

https://twitter.com/tednordhaus/status/1425882634765307905

Narrator: They are the opposite of discredited.

In sum, if we get more peer-reviewed science that shows something different, we can have a debate. Right now, based on the evidence we have, Blue Hydrogen is merely a desperate attempt by the fossil fuel boys to stay relevant.

But it has no clothes. And it’s not even an emperor.