Air Products has canceled its $4.5 billion Louisiana Clean Energy Complex, a flagship blue hydrogen and ammonia project that would have been the world's largest carbon sequestration site. The company wrote off $2.9 billion after failing to find customers and facing rising costs. The project relied on fracked gas and carbon capture and storage, a technology with a long history of underperformance. Local communities in Louisiana's Cancer Alley had opposed the project for years, citing pollution risks and damage to the Lake Maurepas ecosystem. The cancellation is part of a broader trend. Of 45 proposed hydrogen and ammonia facilities across the US, only one has reached construction. Many depend on speculative markets like ammonia as a shipping fuel, which do not exist at scale today. Federal subsidies for carbon capture have been expanded twice since 2022, potentially directing up to $1 trillion in public funds to private companies. The collapse of this project suggests that the business case for blue hydrogen remains weak, even with generous government support.
