Over the past month, in public meetings stretching from the Navajo Nation to Albuquerque, public officials and company representatives unveiled a picture of a new hydrogen energy industry being built in the northwest corner of New Mexico. The presentations reveal hydrogen production, transportation, power generation and carbon sequestration projects arcing across the Navajo Nation to Farmington and down to the I-40 corridor between Gallup and Albuquerque. Most of the projects are underway, and it’s clear they’ll rely on fossil fuels.
Tallgrass Energy sits at the center of all this activity and has the backing of the state’s biggest political player, New Mexico’s governor. The Denver-based company operates more than 7,000 miles of natural gas pipelines stretching from Oregon to Ohio, and it’s going all-in on creating the necessary pieces of a new economic base in New Mexico’s second-largest fossil fuel producing region. The region’s natural gas holds the key to many of the projects
