The transport of hydrogen is still very complex – but that could change.
(Photo: via REUTERS)
Tokyo It stinks, it’s poisonous – and there is great hope for climate protection: ammonia. When this molecule of nitrogen and hydrogen burns, only water and nitrogen are emitted as emissions and no greenhouse gases. The shipping and electricity companies in Asia in particular are therefore relying on ammonia to replace coal or heavy oil as fuel.
Until now, the problem has been that there was no resilient supply chain for mass deployment. A Japanese consortium made up of the oil company Inpex, the heavy industry giant IHI and the large shipping company Mitsui OSK Lines has now closed this gap. In the United Arab Emirates, they have set up a plant that separates hydrogen from natural gas and combines it with nitrogen to form ammonia, which is then shipped to Japan by ship.
The resulting carbon dioxide is captured and pumped into oil wells. Meanwhile, IHI is developing a plant that can efficiently burn ammonia.
The project is part of the Japanese climate strategy, with which the government wants to make the country a pioneer in the development of new climate-neutral supply chains. As early as 2017, Japan was the first country to present a national hydrogen strategy in which the creation of a global market for the volatile gas played the leading role.
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In 2020, the government followed up with its climate plan, which aims to reduce Japan’s greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050. The plan envisages that 50 to 60 percent of the demand will be covered by renewable energies, 30 to 40 percent by nuclear and thermal power plants that are operated with gas or coal. Hydrogen and, more recently, ammonia are said to contribute ten percent.
Hydrogen will soon be transported with conventional tankers
The jump start now brings first successes. In addition to developing fuel cells for cars and trucks, various industry consortia have initially focused on developing hydrogen supply chains. Because Japan’s economic planners are assuming that the thirst for energy in the world’s third largest economy cannot be satisfied by domestic production of the element alone.
minus
253
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Hydrogen is cooled to this temperature in order to transport it in liquid form. But it could also be different.
Heavy industry group and shipbuilder Kawasaki Heavy has already built a prototype tanker that transported liquid hydrogen from Australia to Japan. When the hydrogen is in liquid form, a tanker can transport a larger quantity of it than when it is in gaseous form. It just has to be cooled down to minus 253 degrees Celsius, which requires particularly well-insulated tanks on board and in the port terminals.
The chemical plant manufacturer Chiyoda has shown how hydrogen can be shipped at ambient temperature using conventional tankers. Engineers found a way to efficiently split hydrogen from methylcyclohexane (MCH). This is a solvent created by combining hydrogen with another solvent called toluene.
The first hydrogen cycle of this kind leads from the Southeast Asian Sultanate of Brunei to Japan. The hydrogen is separated from natural gas on site, combined with toluene and shipped. In Japan, the hydrogen is separated from the MCH again. The resulting toluene is then shipped back and recharged with hydrogen atoms.
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In the second stage, the government is now pushing the development of a supply chain for ammonia. In 2021, it made around 500 million euros available for this purpose. The Arab supply chain is only one beneficiary of the funding. The trading house Itochu is developing the world’s largest ammonia factory in Canada, construction of which is scheduled to begin in 2024.
What all these projects have in common is that they rely on so-called “blue” hydrogen. In contrast to the “green” hydrogen preferred in Europe, it is not split off from water with renewable energies, but with coal or gas. The carbon dioxide produced during the production of this “grey” hydrogen is then extracted from the exhaust gases and either pressed underground or used for the production of other products such as synthetic fuels.
In Europe, it is criticized that this detour to clean hydrogen emits carbon dioxide and the methods for carbon dioxide capture and use have not yet been developed for large-scale industrial use. Japan’s economic planners, on the other hand, argue that this will create a world market for the new hydrogen-based energy storage systems more quickly, which will then facilitate the transition to green hydrogen.
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