The Scattergood Generating Station in Los Angeles is an oceanfront natural-gas-burning relic that sits on the uncertain brink of a clean energy showdown.

On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Board of Water and Power Commissioners will decide whether to advance a plan to shift the plant to futuristic hydrogen-ready turbines. The $800 million-plus retrofit is an anchor in California’s effort to boost hydrogen, a potentially clean fuel that for now remains costly, water-intensive and rarely produced without oil and gas.

But California’s high hopes for hydrogen — and the state’s investments in it as a potential economic driver in the era of clean energy — are at a crossroads.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration canceled $1.2 billion in federal funding for California’s hydrogen hub, a publ

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