Latest Hydrogen News Global July'21

Latest Hydrogen News from around the World

1. New York: he state is collaborating with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), joining two hydrogen-focused organizations to inform state decision-making and making $12.5 million in funding available for long duration energy storage technologies and demonstration projects that may include green hydrogen.
2. Norway: Shell will join a project in Norway to produce hydrogen from natural gas while capturing the emissions. Shellis is also a partner in a joint venture project with Equinor and TotalEnergies to build CO2 storage off Norway.
3. UK: The only way that gas distributors can save their businesses is to switch the fuel in their grid infrastructure from natural gas to clean-burning hydrogen. UK’s All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hydrogen (APPG) released a report calling for the British government to increase its H2 ambitions and subsidise the nascent hydrogen sector.
4. HydrogenOne Capital: “In the early stages of the fund it’s going to be all about green [hydrogen]… we’ve sized our fundraise to be able to invest in 20-100MW projects, which are what’s on the table today. But keep in mind those are phase-one projects and many of those sites will scale up over time to 500MW or even to gigawatt-scale,” Co-founder JJ Traynor tells Recharge.
5. Low carbon Blue Hydrogen : Almost all of the 70 million tonnes of hydrogen produced globally each year are derived from unabated natural gas or coal, which results in nine to 12 tonnes of CO₂ emitted for every tonne of H₂ produced. If those emissions were to be reduced by 90% using CCS, it would still means that about a tonne of carbon dioxide would be released into the atmosphere for every tonne of blue hydrogen.
6. Geopolitical Implications:Considering a wide range of applications of this fuel, green hydrogen is set to increasingly dominate energy supply systems. The Hydrogen Council estimated that hydrogen can unlock 15 percent of global energy demand by 2030 if priced at ~ US $1.80 per kilogram (kg).
7. Carbon Pricing: 80 % of 1124 workers in the grey, blue and green H2 sectors, believe carbon pricing is needed in order to make blue and green hydrogen cost-competitive with cheaper but highly polluting grey H2.
8. South Korea: Lotte Chemical Corp. is investing $3.8 billion in hydrogen projects by 2030 to foster the business as a new growth driver, moving away from its mainstay petrochemicals.
9. Hydrogen storage systems: Lavo, the Sydney-based company makes hydrogen storage systems for utility and residential markets. Each hydrogen battery system—which it dubs HEOS—will provide about 13 megawatt-hours of storage at the solar sites.
10. Oman: Uniper under a cooperation agreement is slated to provide engineering services and negotiate an exclusive offtake agreement for green ammonia as part of the HYPORT Duqm project to be built in the Special Economic Zone at the Arabian Sea port of Duqm, Oman.
11. Italy:Italian start-up Enapter says its unique anion-exchange membrane (AEM) electrolyser technology will produce green hydrogen for a lower price than the alkaline and proton-exchange membrane (PEM) machines currently dominating the market — because its equipment is made with lower-cost materials, has lower operating costs and is also more energy efficient.
12. Japan: Japan, once a passionate advocate of nuclear energy, now has serious hydrogen ambitions. The country has the world’s largest network of hydrogen filling stations. It is planning to replace fossil fuels with hydrogen in heavy industries such as steel-making. And it has a head start in organising imports of the fuel.
13. Net Zero: $173trn, the BloombergNEF said, will have to be invested worldwide in renewable energy projects and infrastructure if international net-zero targets are to be reached by 2050. This would necessitate increasing current annual spend of $1.7trn a year to $3.1-$5.8trn on average over the next three decades.
14. Transport:Hydrogen technology – which is electric and by nature emission-free – currently fulfils the needs of drivers who use their vehicles frequently and need to recharge quickly. Hydrogen-powered vehicles have a similar range to cars that run on petrol and at least double that of battery-only electric vehicles. And best of all, “filling up with hydrogen” takes only a few minutes, just like refuelling with petrol.
15. World’s first liquid hydrogen shipment: The Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain (HESC) project — which aims to ship grey hydrogen derived from brown coal from southeast Australia to Japan — is now up to a year behind schedule due to delays in the commissioning of the world’s first liquid hydrogen (LH₂) carrier vessel, Kawasaki Heavy Industries’ Suiso Frontier.