Blue Hydrogen Hub for North Dakota

Bakken Energy (formerly Bakken Midstream Natural Gas) and Mitsubishi Power Americas have signed a strategic partnership agreement to create a hydrogen hub in North Dakota. It will be composed of facilities that produce, store, transport, and consume hydrogen. It will be connected by pipeline to other such hubs being developed throughout North America.

Hydrogen is a carbon-free energy carrier and a carbon-free fuel. The most common forms of clean hydrogen are green and blue. Green hydrogen is created from water using renewable energy and electrolysis. Blue hydrogen is derived from natural gas with the carbon dioxideemissions captured and sequestered. The hub in North Dakota will focus on blue hydrogen production. Mitsubishi Power has existing partnerships to develop similar hubs in Utah and Texas.

Bakken Energy, supported by Mitsubishi Power, is currently working with Basin Electric Power Cooperative and its subsidiary Dakota Gasification Company on the potential acquisition and redevelopment of the Great Plains Synfuels Plant located near Beulah, North Dakota. The redevelopment would make the facility the largest producer of clean hydrogen in North America. The project is in due diligence, and specific details are confidential until that phase is complete.

“Blue hydrogen represents a huge opportunity for synergies with our existing energy development, and these are exactly the strategies that will bring North Dakota one step closer to being carbon neutral by 2030 with an all-of-the-above energy approach,” said North Dakota Governon. Doug Burgum.

“We believe that clean hydrogen derived from natural gas, with the carbon captured and with its cost advantages, is the best way to accelerate the adoption of hydrogen,” said Mike Hopkins, CEO of Bakken Energy. “Bakken Energy intends to be the largest and lowest cost producer of clean hydrogen in the United States.”