Clean hydrogen sounds pretty straightforward, but there are a lot of complexities and caveats tied to this fuel and its applications.

One of the key concerns with the fast-growing fuel—aside from determining what “clean” even means—is the potential for hard-to-detect hydrogen leaks to diminish its climate benefits.

The leakage problem is taking on a new urgency as clean hydrogen projects surge in popularity and draw billions in funding.

• The capacity of low- and zero-carbon hydrogen projects—which encompases both blue and green hydrogen—in the pipeline globally this year has more than tripled compared with 2021, according to S&P Global.

While hydrogen itself doesn’t trap heat, more hydrogen in the atmosphere can cause chemical reactions that lead to an increase in other greenhouse gases. Hydrogen is especially susceptible to leakage and is tough to measure because it’s tiny—8x smaller than methane.

Big picture: To create the most efficient systems and choose the most beneficial applications for this fuel, the clean-hydrogen industry will need access to affordable measurement tech that can detect concentrations an order of magnitude smaller than the tools that are commercially available today, Ilissa Ocko, senior climate scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund who studies the climate impact of hydrogen emissions, told Emerging Tech Brew.

Click here to read about the efforts to keep tabs on the world’s smallest molecule.—GD

Just days before a record-breaking heat wave hit the state, California’s Legislature added to its already bold list of climate policies by passing a spate of new measures.

Among other things, the new legislation aims to help accelerate the deployment of climate tech, from the grid to EVs, in the state and potentially beyond.

Climate spending: Lawmakers in California approved a record $54 billion for climate programs on August 31. The money will be used to meet the state’s new goal of cutting greenhouse-gas emissions by at least 85% by 2045.

• More than $8 billion will go toward decarbonizing and stabilizing the power grid.
• The funding also includes $6.1 billion for EVs and battery-powered school buses, as well as $14.8 billion for transit, rail, and port projects.
• Earlier in the month, the state approved a ban on the sale of most gas-powered cars by 2035.

Big picture: When combined with the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS Act, these funds in California bring US commitments for climate tech spending to nearly $600 billion this year.

California is the fifth-largest economy in the world and has been a leader in climate policy, so these moves could encourage other states to follow suit. But the remaining question is how the state will meet these ambitious goals, especially since it’s behind on meeting its 2030 greenhouse-gas reduction targets.

“In my view, they still don’t have a realistic plan for implementation, and that’s the most important part,” Danny Cullenward, policy director at CarbonPlan, a nonprofit group that evaluates climate solutions, told the New York Times.

Click here to read on-site.—GD

Stat: Nearly 150% more US undergraduates received computer-science degrees in 2021 than in 2011. Computer and electrical engineering degrees also jumped by more than 50% over that timeframe.

Quote: “A lot of employers are saying, ‘We’re going to set a line of demarcation.’”—Steve Pemberton, chief human resources officer at Workhuman, discussing the trend of companies starting to get (maybe) a bit more rigid about RTO policies

Read: Nasal-spray vaccines could be a game-changer for the pandemic.

Learn: The Brew’s Leadership Accelerator will help you reach your full potential and learn the skills you need to be a successful leader. Sign up for our September cohort now and save with code BTS150.

Which emerging technologies are closest to mainstream adoption? Here’s the breakdown: Applied AI, the future of bioengineering, and cloud computing are among the trends set to transform multiple industries. Read the full research to find out more.*

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Three of the following news stories are true, and one...we made up. Can you spot the odd one out?

• A sulfuric-acid shortage could threaten EV development.
• Nextdoor is attempting to do the impossible: Stop neighbors from arguing with each other about politics.
• The latest Apple Watch comes with a genetic-testing feature.
• An ~$8 million Miami mansion is being sold along with its “metaverse twin” in a rare real/fake-estate twofer.

Catch up on the top Emerging Tech Brew stories from the past few editions:

• The smarter the city, the scarier the cyber risk
• Monitoring the methane menace
• This ‘forgotten’ battery metal could be the most at risk of a shortage