The plant was first scheduled to be shut down in 2018. State lawmakers approved a tax break in 2019 that had kept the facility active.
WV gave this plant tax breaks to burn coal for an unspecified length of time. The hydrogen thing is supposed to make you feel good about it.
Potentially, yes. I'm not sure about the cost effectiveness compared to other solutions like pumped storage hydropower. There's also the risk of explosion when storing hydrogen, which is a tough problem to solve.
the explosion thing doesn't really seem like a problem because of our relationship with gasoline and lithium batteries. maybe there could be a hydrogen future after all :)