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Seattle-based Modern Hydrogen is transforming energy systems to be cleaner and more cost-effective. Founded in 2015, the company has developed a device that lets business and industrial clients convert natural gas from utilities into clean-burning energy on site.  

Natural gas accounts for roughly 50% of energy use in the United States, and burning it is one of the biggest sources of CO2 emissions. “The breakthrough is understanding how to originate hydrogen from natural gas and then how to use that hydrogen as a fuel source that is plentiful, economical, and domestically available,” said Mothusi Pahl, Vice President of Business Development and Government Affairs at Modern Hydrogen. “The idea of being able to achieve decarbonization without fundamentally changing your business—that is really the end state we see.”

Modern’s technology breaks down natural gas into its carbon and hydrogen components. The resulting hydrogen can be burned cleanly without generating fossil emissions, and the separated carbon is collected as a solid that resembles coal dust. This byproduct offers additional benefits: It can be integrated into asphalt for road construction, locking carbon away from the atmosphere. For every ton of carbon sequestered in asphalt, Pahl says, the equivalent of approximately 3.67 tons of CO2 emissions is prevented from entering the atmosphere.

Sequestering carbon not only reduces the carbon footprint of infrastructure projects, Pahl says, but it also reduces costs and has the potential to create stronger, more durable roads.

Modern Hydrogen notes that asphalt’s the most common paving material in the world. It also includes petroleum-based binders derived from crude oil, and their extraction is responsible for more than half the greenhouse gas emissions from asphalt production.

National Grid Partners, the corporate venture and innovation arm of National Grid, invested in Modern Hydrogen in 2023. Now National Grid is collaborating with the startup to test the asphalt product in New York winters.

What They Do

Modern’s asphalt mix has been successfully tested in seven states under diverse conditions, from the heat of Texas to the rain of the Pacific Northwest, but this trial marks its first in frigid temperatures.

Modern Hydrogen conducted the trial at one of National Grid’s operating yards on Long Island, where a 4’ x 4’ patch of hot-mix asphalt, containing 10 pounds of solid carbon captured from renewable natural gas, is undergoing real-world testing. Every day, roughly 100 vehicles—including backhoes, dump trucks, and SUVs—drive through the yard, subjecting the asphalt to steady pounding in addition to snow accumulation, rapid temperature drops, icing, and road salt.

New York alone produces approximately 18.5 million tons of asphalt each year, making road construction a significant contributor to the state’s carbon emissions.

Winter is Coming

We do a lot of restoration in our construction activities and look for any avenue that can help reduce impact – whether that’s lower costs or reduced carbon footprint.

The Modern Hydrogen team will go back to the Long Island site in the spring to see how the asphalt patch weathered the cold. Its success could pave the way for the implementation of carbon-sequestered asphalt in infrastructure projects across the Northeast and beyond, with the potential to sequester thousands of tons of carbon annually. 

“One of the huge benefits of having National Grid as a partner is being able to ask questions,” said Pahl. “We're a small startup with a wealth of experience in our field, but we don't have thousands of employees with millions of hours of experience. Having that as a resource base is really a force multiplier.”

Modern Hydrogen: Turning Carbon into Cleaner Asphalt