WILMINGTON — In the last year, former Adesis executive Andrew Cottone and former lead of Delaware Sustainable Chemistry Alliance (DESCA) Dora Cheatham have been working behind the scenes to make Delaware the first one in when it comes to hydrogen.
The pair have transitioned out of their roles and teamed up as founders of First State Hydrogen, a company that has a vision to bring clean – and profitable – hydrogen energy to the Mid-Atlantic region. And they both think that Delaware can be ground zero for the industry, as Cottone and Cheatham are in the middle of studying where to build a hydrogen manufacturing site in four sites among three states.
“It’s an exciting thing to focus on the next generation economy, and we have the vision for a new Delaware that benefits from a clean and green future,” Cheatham said. “That’s what truly excites me about this.”
First State Hydrogen is involved in current negotiations for millions of dollars from the federal H2Hubs grant, and is exploring raising private capital. While the company is small, it already has signed partners with the Siegfried Group, JPMorgan & Chase Co. and Siemens Energy, among others.
It’s quite an evolution for Cottone, as he describes his journey as one from skeptic to true believer. A trained chemist, he bought a company and turned it into Adesis, which now manufactures organic light-emitting diodes for TV and computer screens.
But two years ago, he needed deuterium oxide, also known as heavy water, for Adesis’ manufacturing purposes. Then he heard about a Netherlands plant that produced “green” hydrogen from splitting oxygen and hydrogen from water using renewable energy sources like solar and wind.
“I came back from that trip with a business plan to build a Delaware plant just so I could have heavy water,” Cottone said with a laugh. He is still a board member of Adesis but stepped away from day-to-day work at the company in July.
“When I started looking into the science, it started to boil down to one fundamental law of nature: hydrogen burns two to three times the energy of carbon based fuels. And that’s something you can build a business around,” he said.
That theory is what the federal government is also betting on, as the U.S. Department of Energy has set a “hydrogen shot” of lowering clean hydrogen costs by 80% to $1 per 1 kilogram in one decade. President Joe Biden has dedicated up to $7 billion in a program to develop hydrogen hubs across the nation to fuel more research in this potential new energy source.
Delaware along with other states known as the Mid-Atlantic Clean Hydrogen Hub (MACH2) has won $750 million in that grant program, and Cottone credits Cheatham with the state’s success in securing a piece of that funding.
“She was the soul behind the project, pushing us to go from 90 possibilities to the final 10. She’s got a unique talent for getting people together on a single mission, and it’s incredible,” Cottone said.
The pair met through DESCA and talked over the years, but really connected when Cottone won the Pete du Pont 2023 Reinventing Delaware prize for his plan for Delaware-focused effort to jump-start the hydrogen economy.
“It really was a meeting of two minds, and when we got together on MACH2, we were having that meeting more regularly,” Cheatham said.
“Through DESCA, I saw how pieces can come together and we can have an impact if we can connect with our community quickly. And that’s what’s so special about Delaware: if we get together on something dynamic, it’s likely to happen.”
With Cottone as the First State Hydrogen CEO and Cheatham as the company’s vice president of sales and commercialization, the duo is ready to lead the trail for the hydrogen market.
Hydrogen is already used by steel factories, refineries, cement factories as a way to decarbonize their footprint, and companies and states are working to find new ways to balance out their environmental impact. Other companies may use hydrogen boilers to heat buildings or generate “green electricity,” Cottone added.
But one big market in the distant future may be hydrogen powered cars, as 25 countries already use the energy source for public transportation. Delaware has some hydrogen fuel cell DART buses on the roads, approximately running on seven kilos of hydrogen.
Right now, First State Hydrogen has finished a study on its proposed electrolysis plant, and while details are scarce, Cottone did say that the company was looking at locations in Delaware, Carney’s Point, N.J. and Cecil County, Md. Ideal sites need to be within 50 miles of their clients for quick distribution.
The company has narrowed the field to four potential sites, while a new study is looking at the mechanics and costs to turn it from conception into reality.
“We’re focusing on the near term so we can sell for today’s use and tomorrow’s demand. We can lean into the future growth of what we see as the inevitable economy,” Cottone said.
