This is my final paper for a class I took the fall of my senior year called Clean Energy Innovation. It was offered as part of the STIA program (Science and Technology in International Affairs) through Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service. The course covered basic technical background for different power generation methods (from natural gas to perovskites), as well as grid and energy storage concepts. For each realm of energy innovation, we also discussed policy solutions, both tried and imagined, for spurring innovation.

In this paper, I discuss the feasibility of adapting existing natural gas transport infrastructure for transport of hydrogen. Many hope that hydrogen can replace liquid fuels in the future, as hydrogen releases no greenhouse gases when burned and can – theoretically – be split out of water using solar energy. Widespread use of hydrogen would require a well-developed network for transporting and distributing hydrogen, which would require massive investments on a continental scale – unless we can adapt America’s already well-developed natural gas infrastructure to deliver hydrogen gas.