H2GO and Big Navajo Energy. The tribe wants to
do something with methane, a greenhouse gas,
instead of it “just going up in smoke.”
“We’d rather see the benefit to the people,”
McCabe said. “Now we’re able to capture this,
convert it into a different fuel, a fuel of the
future, at a much higher economic value than
the commodity of natural gas itself.”
H2GO Chief Executive Johnpaul Quick declined
to fully explain how his process works, saying
those details are proprietary. He said only that
the process takes a lot of heat with temperatures
around 900 degrees. H2GO would burn some of
the gas on-site for use in its process to extract
the hydrogen, he said.
“This technology is proven,” Quick said. “It
will work.”
The tribe’s vented gas is expected to produce
600 kilograms of hydrogen daily when the
project begins and could ramp up to 1,000
kilograms, McCabe said.
Hydrogen retails for $13-$16 a liter at 42 fueling
stations in California and prices are expected
to drop as the technology for producing
hydrogen improves, according to the California
Fuel Cell Partnership.
Energy development is vital to tribal
government operations, with one-third of the
Navajo Nation’s “disposable income” coming
from mineral energy resources in the three
states the reservation spans.
“We have long have looked at energy as a
source for moving forward and providing for our
people and looking at how we can extend our
government and the services to our community,”
McCabe said.