The US Department of Energy (DOE) has cancelled $3.7 billion in funding awarded to 24 clean energy projects under the Biden administration, including multiple hydrogen and carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects.

The funds were issued by the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED) between election day (5 November) and 20 January. In a statement on Friday, DOE said the projects “failed to advance the energy needs of the American people, were not economically viable and would not generate a positive return on investment of taxpayer dollars.”

Energy secretary Chris Wright said the Biden administration had “failed to conduct a thorough financial review” of the spending. “Today, we are acting in the best interest of the American people by cancelling these 24 awards,” he added.

The axed funding includes $331.8m to an Exxon Mobil project at Baytown, Texas, according to a list seen by Kallanish. The so-called Baytown Olefins Plant Carbon Reduction project was planned to use hydrogen to replace natural gas in burners for ethylene production.

Some $99m awarded for Ørsted’s power-to-X facility, along the Texas Gulf Coast, has also been cancelled. The project would use green hydrogen and captured biogenic carbon to produce e-methanol.

Technip Energies’ project in the Gulf Coast, which would use “low-carbon intensity” hydrogen to produce sustainable ethanol and ethylene, is also on the list. It had secured $200m in federal funding. Similarly, $4m awarded to nonprofit research institute RTI International for a renewable hydrogen-based e-methanol production demonstration has also been scrapped.

“DOGE and the Trump Administration have just killed dozens of major investments in American competitiveness, good jobs, and cleaner air to support Trump’s tax cuts and line the pockets of billionaires,” comments Iliana Paul, deputy director for the Industrial Transformation campaign at environmental organisation Sierra Club. “These projects were not just pro-climate; they were pro-jobs, pro-innovation, and pro-public health.”

Kallanish has contacted the companies for comment.