An academic paper recommending hydrogen for domestic heating, claiming no conflict of interest, is now being investigated after revelations that a business lobbyist and a US company with fossil-gas interests were allowed to review and suggest changes to the text before the University of Massachusetts study was published — and that National Grid and other gas companies had actually funded the paper.

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The paper now risks retraction, depending on the findings of the investigation in the peer-reviewed journal Frontiers in Energy Research, the journal that published the paper in September this year. The journal informs The Boston Globe that it has opened its “own internal investigation into the aforementioned manuscript to assess the situation and establish the facts of the matter”.

It is fairly rare for a published scientific study to be retracted — an average of 500-600 are withdrawn each year, from an estimated 2.5 million published articles in almost 30,000 scientific journals around the world.

It is not clear how long the investigation will take.

Academics contacted by The Boston Globe have been praising the journal’s decision.

“This is the appropriate action for the journal to take,” said Robert Howarth, professor of ecology and environmental biology at Cornell University, who has published hydrogen research and has led three scientific journals. “They need to see if things were done incorrectly or wrongly.”

The revelations were made by The Boston Globe after utility watchdog group Energy and Policy institute shared email correspondence obtained via public records requests showing that most of the funding had actually come indirectly from companies in the gas and pipeline industry, including National Grid, Eversource and Enbridge — which have staked their futures on the large-scale adoption of hydrogen.

The study did declare that it had been funded by the Associated Industry of Massachusetts (AIM) Foundation, a local business association that has received funding from the above companies, but noted: “Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of the AIM Foundation or the stakeholders interviewed.”

And it added: “The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.”

According to The Boston Globe, some of the study’s recommendations were “substantially written by” a lobbyist, and specialists from National Grid were invited to give feedback on an early draft of the study.

The paper — entitled The viability of implementing hydrogen in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts — makes no claims that hydrogen should be used for heating, yet concludes with several recommendations for state policymakers to:

  • Develop a hydrogen policy integrating hydrogen in the thermal sector in Massachusetts;
  • Create a pilot program for gas distribution companies to mix hydrogen with natural gas for thermal delivery;
  • Make sure the gas pipeline system is ready for use when green hydrogen becomes available for thermal needs, and make sure the state’s programme to safeguard the gas system is upgraded with hydrogen-compatible standards;
  • Create subsidies for green hydrogen that can be utilised by natural gas suppliers.

The paper also lists challenges for hydrogen implementation that “need to be overcome in order to be commercially mature”, explaining that “a wholesale shift to change to a 100% hydrogen system would require a significant investment in infrastructure and technology”.

A recent peer-reviewed meta-analysis of 32 independent studies into the decarbonisation of space and water heating found that each one concluded that hydrogen was not a cost-effective large-scale solution, and that heat pumps were a better option — requiring five to six times less renewable energy than hydrogen boilers burning green H2.

“Hydrogen for heating necessitates more energy supply infrastructure, uses more resources and requires more land,” the meta-analysis noted. “Hydrogen use for domestic heating is less economic, less efficient, more resource intensive, and associated with larger environmental impacts.”