• CERAWeek
  • March 18 - 22, 2024

Zane McDonald

GTI Energy

Executive Director, Open Hydrogen Initiative

Zane McDonald is the Executive Director of the Open Hydrogen Initiative and employee of GTI Energy’s Strategy and Commercialization group. Zane has spent a decade exploring low-carbon technology and policy solutions. In his current role at GTI Energy, Zane focuses on building strategic engagements with industry, academia, public officials, and NGOs to develop innovative ideas and projects in support of energy system decarbonization. Prior to being with GTI Energy, Zane was with S&P Global Platts conducting research on emerging hydrogen markets, and at the International Energy Agency researching decarbonization technologies. Zane received a B.Sc. in Chemistry from Marshall University and M.Sc. in both Energy Economics and Transportation Engineering from University of California, Davis.

Sessions With Zane McDonald

Monday, 6 March

  • 03:30pm - 04:00pm (CST) / 06/mar/2023 09:30 pm - 06/mar/2023 10:00 pm

    Why the Hydrogen Rainbow Is a Useless Metric

    Green, blue, grey, all the way to yellow, for a colorless gas hydrogen has a surprising array of colors attached to it. What started as a set of nicknames has become an arcane code list for provenance, but is it time to consciously set aside this approach to hydrogen production? The risk of a fragmented market has never been more prominent, and hydrogen seems to have been engulfed by the approach more than any other commodity. And the core idea of a hydrogen economy, run on a clean-burning fuel, seems to have been lost in a battle for validity. Join us as we discuss the pitfalls and shortfalls of the hydrogen rainbow.