BRENDA, Arizona — A clean energy company wants federal permission to use Arizona sunshine and water to create carbon-free hydrogen fuel in one of the state’s more stressed rural groundwater basins.
Heliogen, a Southern California-based company, last year won the exclusive right to lease more than 3,300 acres of desert east of this small community in western Arizona’s La Paz County for solar energy development. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management had offered the land as one of three designated solar zones in the state, this one just north of Interstate 10 and about 100 miles west of Phoenix.
Rather than selling the solar power directly to the grid, Heliogen proposes to use its planned solar array to coax liquid hydrogen from the water underground. It’s a process known as “green hydrogen” because it burns no fossil fuels. The company calls it a “clear path toward a carbon-free future,” but La Paz County residents fear it could dry up their drinking water wells.
“ Carbon-free hydrogen represents an ideal power source for energy-intensive industries that are more difficult to electrify, such as transportation, mining, and chemical manufacturing,” a Heliogen spokesman told The Arizona Republic in an email.