Brightcon 2026, hackathon and courses

Highlights:
- Hydrogen deployment is a technology–policy–region alignment problem, not a single-pathway ranking exercise.
- The same federal policy produces uneven provincial outcomes because pathway cost drivers differ by region.
- Methane pyrolysis has a conditional transition role, while low-carbon electrolysis is better aligned with long-term deep decarbonization.

Abstract:
Low-carbon hydrogen deployment depends not only on production technology, but also on policy and regional conditions. Regionalized hydrogen evaluation studies, however, often use separate environmental and economic datasets, making it difficult to keep system boundaries consistent across tools and locations. Using Canada as a testbed, we developed a regionalized life cycle and techno-economic framework to assess 21 hydrogen production pathway configurations across all provinces and territories. A reconciled facility-level hydrogen production and demand database was used to screen pathways by identifying dedicated production, captive on-site generation, by-product hydrogen, and industrial demand. The framework was implemented in Brightway–Python and openLCA–Excel/VBA using the same baseline parameters and inventory assumptions. The Brightway–Python workflow supports automated batch calculations, while the openLCA–Excel/VBA version provides a more accessible interface for users. Representative province-pathway cases were calculated in both implementations and compared for numerical consistency. The results show that policy support lowers cost barriers but does not produce uniform outcomes across provinces. Pathway performance changes with energy systems, feedstock access, and infrastructure conditions. Under investment support and carbon-black revenue, methane pyrolysis powered by low-carbon electricity reached mitigation-cost competitiveness only in the most favorable provincial case. Therefore, it has a limited short- to medium-term role, but residual emissions from natural gas supply chains constrain its long-term contribution. Low-carbon electrolysis showed lower residual climate impacts across applicable provinces. It is more compatible with long-term decarbonization options, but its cost remains strongly dependent on electricity consumption and price. The code, foreground inventories, and parameter tables are open source so that users can inspect assumptions, reproduce calculations, and adapt the framework to other technologies, regions, and policy settings.