Review - Hydrogen Fuels and CFATS

Over the last two weeks I have written blog posts about four bills (S 646, S 647, S 648, and S 649) that have been introduced in the Senate addressing measures proposed to enhance and expand a hydrogen fuel economy. The bills would establish support programs in the Department of Energy and Department of Transportation ease a transition for hydrogen fuels to replace hydrocarbon fuels in heavy industry and for hydrogen fuel cells in transportation. These bills have addressed funding issues and even briefly address safety issues, but they completely overlooked the issues of security for facilities newly storing the hydrogen used in the projects.

CFATS Background

Hydrogen is a listed DHS chemical of interest (COI) for the Chemical Security Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program. It is considered a release flammable security hazard chemical with a screening threshold quantity of 10,000-lbs with a reporting concentration of 1%. This means that any facility that has at least 10,000-lbs of hydrogen must report that inventory to CISA using the CFATS program’s Top Screen tool.

CISA’s Office of Chemical Security would then analyze the reported data to determine whether the reporting facility is a high-risk facility according to their classified risk assessment process. Covered facilities then have to develop a site security plan that provides a level of protection associated with their assigned Tier and the risk-based security guidelines outlined in CFATS Risk-Based Performance Standards (RBPS) guidance document.

The way the CFATS regulations were crafted, there is no one size fits all security program for facilities. Each facility works with their assigned chemical security inspector to craft a mix of security measures that would fulfill the RBPS standards for that facility. The one thing that is certain is that the security plan will be costly.

Even for facilities that are already covered CFATS facilities, adding hydrogen storage as a new COI for the facility will inevitably increase the security costs and may even increase the tier rankings of a facility which could increase the general cost of security at the facility.

Conclusion

If congress really wants to encourage the expansion of the use of hydrogen as a fuel, they are going to have to reduce the uncertainties associated with the planning process. The recently introduced bills would address much of the financial uncertainty, but additional legislative efforts would need to be undertaken to reduce some of the security concerns related to provisions of the Chemical Security Anti-Terrorism Standards. CISA will need to be given authority to expand the Expedited Approval Program to include a separate, all tier, authority for a hydrogen expedite approval program. It would also be helpful if CISA was required to develop a formal program for evaluating planned facility construction or expansion to see if a planned site would be covered, or a tier would be changed for a planned inventory of COI.

 

For a more detailed discussion about the CFATS program and the expansion of hydrogen fuels, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hydrogen-fuels-and-cfats - subscription required.