In Los Angeles, the largest municipal utility in the United States just voted to spend $800 million converting its biggest gas-fired power plant to run partly on hydrogen. The Scattergood Generating Station, built in the 1950s beside Playa del Rey, will replace two aging gas units with new “hydrogen-ready” turbines. The project is promoted as essential to achieving Los Angeles’s goal of 100% clean energy by 2035.
Yet the fuel it depends on does not exist in usable form or scale. The plant’s own Environmental Impact Report admits the source, transport, and timing of “green hydrogen” are unknown. There is no pipeline, no supplier, and no guarantee that the hydrogen, if it ever arrives, will be renewable or affordable.
This is not a clean-energy milestone. It is a case study in how the fossil fuel industry repackages its infrastructure under the banner of climate progress.
Hydrogen has been hyped as the fuel of the future for decades. In reality, it is an energy carrier, not an energy source, and the conversion losses are staggering.
To produce “green hydrogen,” renewable electricity splits water into hydrogen and oxygen through electrolysis. That hydrogen must then be compressed or liquefied, transported, stored, and finally converted back into electricity through combustion or a fuel cell. At each stage, energy is lost.
According to studies in Joule and the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, a hydrogen-powered vehicle consumes three to eight times more electricity per mile than a battery electric vehicle. Even in ideal conditions, fuel-cell efficiency tops out near 60%, while battery-to-wheel efficiency exceeds 90%.
Every kilowatt-hour diverted to produce hydrogen for transport is a kilowatt-hour not decarbonizing the grid. Hydrogen makes sense only where direct electrification is not practical, such as in some industrial processes or long-haul freight. For cars and power plants, it is simply wasteful.
Today, over 99% of hydrogen is produced from fossil fuels, mostly natural gas, through a process called steam methane reforming. That process emits massive amounts of carbon dioxide and methane which are both powerful greenhouse gases.
The International Energy Agency estimates that global hydrogen demand reached 97 million tonnes in 2023, but less than one percent came from low-emission sources. In its Global Hydrogen Review 2024, the IEA cut its 2030 outlook for “clean hydrogen” by nearly a quarter because of project cancellations and cost overruns.
The “green hydrogen economy” remains mostly a fossil hydrogen economy with a new coat of paint.
California’s attempt to build a retail hydrogen network shows how hype collapses under physics and logistics. The state once promised 100 public hydrogen stations for passenger cars. By 2025, the number is shrinking.
Shell, once a major operator of hydrogen stations, permanently closed its entire California network in 2024, citing unfavorable market conditions. Other stations suffer chronic outages or fuel shortages, leaving Toyota Mirai and Hyundai Nexo drivers stranded for days.
Toyota is now facing a $5.7 billion class-action lawsuit from Mirai owners who allege false advertising and concealment of the lack of infrastructure. They were sold “five-minute refueling” and “zero-emission mobility,” but instead found long lines, closed stations, and cars they cannot use.
The lesson should be clear. If hydrogen cannot power a few thousand cars, it cannot power a city.
Despite these warning signs, LADWP has chosen to anchor its clean-energy transition on the promise of hydrogen combustion.
Under the approved plan, Scattergood will install a new combined-cycle turbine capable of burning a blend of 30% hydrogen and 70% methane, with the ultimate goal of running fully on hydrogen when it becomes available. Construction begins in 2026 and is expected to finish by the end of 2029.
But there is no contract for hydrogen supply, no pipeline to deliver it, and no analysis of its source. The Final Environmental Impact Report explicitly states that the “green hydrogen that would supply the proposed project has not yet been identified.”
Meanwhile, the project’s own environmental review concedes significant and unavoidable impacts to air quality. Burning hydrogen may avoid carbon dioxide, but it still produces nitrogen oxides (NOx), a key component of smog linked to asthma, heart disease, and premature death. The Scattergood site already sits in an area that exceeds state and federal ozone limits.
Multiple community and environmental organizations have warned that the plan will prolong fossil fuel dependence under a new label. They point out that hydrogen combustion could emit more NOx than the gas turbines it replaces, especially during startup and partial-load operation.
When this project initially comes online, there likely won’t actually be any hydrogen in the mix, so it will still just be burning methane for potentially an indeterminable amount of time.
As if to lend credibility to hydrogen’s future, a new entity called the First Public Hydrogen Authority (FPH2) recently launched in California. It bills itself as the first public hydrogen utility and includes the cities of Lancaster, City of Industry, Montebello, and Fresno.
FPH2’s stated goal is to advance sustainable hydrogen by coordinating production and purchase agreements across cities and public agencies. Yet its partnerships, funding sources, and emissions accounting remain opaque. The group has already been cited by hydrogen industry executives and LADWP officials as proof that Los Angeles is ready to lead on hydrogen.
This is green branding, not public benefit. The “public” in public hydrogen simply means public risk. If these projects fail which the car network already did, taxpayers and ratepayers will be left holding the bill.
Hydrogen combustion creates thermal NOx through the same high-temperature reactions that plague gas plants. Only hydrogen fuel cells which generate electricity electrochemically avoid that problem.
A 2021 paper from the Royal Society of Chemistry found that NOx emissions from hydrogen combustion can exceed those from natural gas unless exhaust gases are cooled and recirculated. Similarly, the European Environment Agency warns that hydrogen blending in existing turbines can raise NOx unless carefully managed.
LADWP’s environmental report admits these risks but proceeds anyway, relying on selective operation and future controls that are neither designed nor funded.
For residents of Playa del Rey, Lennox, and Inglewood, already exposed to cumulative industrial pollution, hydrogen combustion threatens to add another layer of respiratory hazard in the name of clean energy.
The federal government initially pledged to support hydrogen through the ARCHES Hydrogen Hub, a $1.2 billion DOE program meant to demonstrate low-carbon hydrogen at scale. But political changes and budget cuts have slashed that funding, leaving projects like Scattergood without the expected subsidies.
Despite this, LADWP insists the conversion will proceed using its own power fund. That means ratepayers will absorb the full cost and the full risk of a project based on speculative fuel.
Environmental attorney Theo Caretta warned that the $800 million price tag is already outdated, noting that turbine costs have risen under tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. “This could end up just being an $800 million project to reinvest in burning methane for decades to come,” he said.
LADWP’s own environmental review identified cleaner and cheaper alternatives to hydrogen combustion. These include grid-scale battery storage, demand response, and transmission upgrades. A battery system could deliver the same reliability without producing any air pollution.
Across California, utilities are already operating multi-gigawatt-hour battery projects that store solar power and deliver it at night which is exactly the role hydrogen is supposed to play at Scattergood.
If reliability is the goal, then the solution is diversification and grid flexibility, not building another fossil fuel turbine under the banner of hydrogen readiness.
Hydrogen can still play a role in decarbonization but only where no better option exists. Truly low-carbon hydrogen may be useful for steelmaking, ammonia, or long-distance shipping. For cars, buses, and city power, it is a waste of public resources and a distraction from proven solutions.
Policymakers should set clear guardrails before spending another dollar on hydrogen hype:
The hydrogen boom is not a climate solution. It is a fossil-fueled detour designed to keep pipelines, turbines, and gas executives in business.
Los Angeles has the opportunity to lead the nation with real zero-emission energy which includes solar, wind, batteries, and community-owned power. Instead, LADWP is pouring hundreds of millions into a speculative technology that still depends on methane and still pollutes.
The Scattergood plan is a warning. If we keep mistaking marketing for progress, we will waste another decade chasing hydrogen mirages while the planet burns.