… Out of 18 approved hydrogen production projects that will require significant freshwater, four are in areas of high or extremely high water stress … according to the World Resources Institute’s Water Risk Atlas. … The question is where that green hydrogen production will be consuming water. Four of the private green hydrogen projects as well as the ARCHES hydrogen hub, which has been awarded up to $1.2 billion by the DOE, are located in the southwestern United States. This region has the most sunshine for cheap solar energy to power the electrolysis, and it’s also near California, where limits on emissions from transportation fuels have spurred interest in hydrogen for trucking. But parts of the Southwest remain in the worst megadrought in 1,200 years despite a bout of rainfall this winter; the Great Basin has lost trillions of gallons of groundwater, and the vital Colorado River is drying up.