Brown hydrogen from Coal with possible Carbon Capture

A Japanese-Australian venture has begun producing hydrogen from brown coal in a A$500 million ($390 million) pilot project that aims to show liquefied hydrogen can be produced commercially and exported safely overseas. The plan is to create the first international supply chain for liquefied hydrogen and the next big step will be to ship a cargo on the world’s first liquefied hydrogen carrier. Run by Kawasaki Heavy Industries and located in the state of Victoria, home to a quarter of the world’s known brown coal reserves, the project is key to helping Japan meet its target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050. The project is producing hydrogen by reacting coal with oxygen and steam under high heat and pressure in a process that also yields carbon dioxide and other gases. Studies show hydrogen produced from coal with carbon capture and storage is half to one-third the cost of producing green hydrogen, said Jeremy Stone, a J-Power director on the project. “The technology will be superseded in the next few years by clean hydrogen sourced from renewable energy. Any investment in coal-to-hydrogen infrastructure will quickly become a white elephant,” said Environment Victoria campaigns manager Nicholas Aberle. Partners in the project include Iwatani Corp, Marubeni Corp, Sumitomo Corp and AGL Energy Ltd, whose mine is supplying the brown coal. (Japan Australia venture Coal H2, 2021)