New hydrogen plant near Boise delivers first shipment today

Idaho's first hydrogen plant is probably only a little larger than the average homeowner's three-car garage. But what it lacks in size it makes up for in potential, its owners say.Tom Griffith and Karl Edmark, founders of Synthetic Energy, say the $1 million plant 20 miles east of Boise is just the beginning of what they hope is a growing market for hydrogen.Today, the company's first shipment of hydrogen is being delivered to Boise-based Norco, which will distribute it to industrial users. Norco provides specialty gases for everything from industrial welding operations to medical applications. The company also provides hydrogen for fuel cells developed by IdaTech, a subsidiary of Idaho Power Co.'s parent company IdaCorp Inc.
Hydrogen is used in the production of semiconductors and is also a preferred source of fuel for fuel cells.Norco Chief Executive Officer Jim Kissler said Synthetic Energy will provide 100 percent of Norco's needs and will reduce transportation costs because Norco will no longer have to use its previous supplier in Vancouver, Wash.
Griffith and Edmark hope to land contracts with Idaho computer-chip companies, including Micron, to supply hydrogen and to offer hydrogen as a blend for natural gas-powered vehicles.Ultimately hydrogen could replace gasoline as a preferred power source for vehicles, but the costs aren't yet competitive. The cost would equate to more than $13 a gallon, Griffith said. But as the cost of oil goes up and more hydrogen is produced, costs could drop by half or more, he said.Griffith and Edmark said the process they've chosen to use to collect hydrogen is unusual. Most hydrogen plants use natural gas as the feedstock, which some critics say raise questions about how truly environmentally friendly the process is. Synthetic Energy's plant uses water to create hydrogen in a process called electrolysis to remove the hydrogen protons from water.
"Essentially we're cracking the water molecule using electricity," Edmark said.Using electricity can also be expensive, so to offset the company's electricity costs, two wind turbines have been installed at the plant site that provide 20 to 25 percent of the needed electricity.
The company also qualified and received a nearly $200,000 U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development Grant that Griffith said was critical to making the project financially viable.The contract with Norco will also allow the plant to break even by summer's end, the owners say."This is a pilot plant that might show us what the future could be like," Norco's Kissler said. "Hydrogen is in its infancy stages, but going forward, the sky's the limit."