The Newfoundland and Labrador government has asked the company vying to build one of the country’s first large-scale green hydrogen plants to provide more information about the project’s impacts on the environment.

World Energy GH2 must include more details in its environmental assessment of the massive development, called Project Nujio’qonik, the Department of Environment and Climate Change said Wednesday.

The department said in an email that requiring additional information is a routine part of the environmental assessment process, “particularly as a project becomes more defined.”

But it did not say what kind of information was needed, or why it was requested, The Canadian Press reports.

World Energy GH2 is hoping to install up to 164 wind turbines on western Newfoundland’s Port au Port Peninsula, and a hydrogen and ammonia production plant in the nearby town of Stephenville. Long-term plans call for tripling the project’s size.

The company is led by Clearwater Seafoods co-founder John Risley and Brendan Paddick, a former chair of Nalcor Energy, the province’s now-defunct Crown energy corporation. Their ambitions in the province have sparked protests in western Newfoundland, where some residents say they’re concerned about Project Nujio’qonik’s footprint in an area home to a delicate ecosystem.

In a statement Wednesday, World Energy GH2 said it was hoping to be released from further environmental assessments with conditions.

“This amendment process is not unusual for a project of this scale,” the emailed statement said. “We will work with government to comply with the amendment requirements.”

The federal government said in late September that the project would not be subject to its impact assessment process.

The green hydrogen that GH2 is promoting uses renewable power like wind to split hydrogen from water molecules by electrolysis. Green hydrogen has no emissions, but it currently costs more to make than hydrogen produced from fossil fuels.

Hydrogen is mainly used to help in oil refineries and to make fertilizer, iron and steel, and methanol, an alcohol used in some paints and plastics and construction materials. In a low-carbon economy, hydrogen can play a bigger role as a source of energy to power some forms of transportation, and to replace coal and natural gas as a source of electricity.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 1, 2023.