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REALISING THE POTENTIAL
Hydrogen is an attractive source
of energy because it can be
produced in large quantities and
stored for a long time without loss
of capacity, typically via
compression, liquification and
through material carriers such as
ammonia. And it’s light – very,
very light – so it’s an economical
way to transport energy produced
by renewables over large
distances.
In Australia, there are lots of
opportunities to use hydrogen as
an alternative to natural gas and,
in time, it has the potential to
replace it completely for domestic
cooking, heating and hot water.
What’s more, using hydrogen fuel
in applications such as transport
and power stations in remote
areas can compete on a cost basis
with traditional sources of energy.
But it’s overseas where the big
opportunities lie. Countries such
as Japan, South Korea, China and
Singapore are hungry for
hydrogen as a cost-effective way to
reduce emissions. For example,
Japan is the world’s third-largest
economy and imports a whopping
94% of its energy. Other nations
such as Norway and Saudi Arabia
are actively pursuing this
emerging market, but Australia
has what they don’t: sun, space, an
established manufacturing base
and a skilled workforce (read:
electrical contractors).
“Electrolysers are quite useful
because they can ramp up and
down pretty quickly, so they can
respond to quick fluctuation and
they can be operated in a partial
mode very easily,” says Dr. Roberts.
“They’re quite flexible in terms of
the power that’s used to drive
them. It really does offer a whole
new level of storage in terms of
grid-integrating, intermittent
renewables, for example, and
ultimately it gives us the chance to
export some of this renewable
energy to countries that don’t have
solar and wind to make hydrogen.”
Indeed, the CSIRO’s National
Hydrogen Roadmap says exports
of hydrogen represent “a key
opportunity for Australia”. The
Hydrogen Strategy Group says it’s
an “immediate economic
opportunity”. And a report by the
Australian Renewable Energy
Agency found that over the next 20
years there’s “scope for Australia
to become a significant exporter
of hydrogen”. If that’s not a
consensus, we don’t
know what is.
THE NEXT STEPS
The federal government opened a public
consultation on a national hydrogen
strategy, and pledged to set aside
funding to develop clean
hydrogen. It seems big wigs
such as the Council of
Australian Governments’
Energy Ministers are all for
a hydrogen economy.
In the private sector, the
industry continues to lurch
forward. A small quantity of
hydrogen produced by solar energy has
been delivered to Japan from Queensland.
Japanese conglomerate Kawasaki has built
a world-first hydrogen fuel carrier to
transport clean hydrogen fuel – produced
from brown coal in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley
– from Australia to Japan. Researchers at the
Queensland University of Technology have
discovered cheaper and more efficient
materials for using during electrolysis.
Impressive, eh?
So what happens next? It depends, says
Moroz. “The fact that hydrogen can be used
as a fuel and made very cleanly is not
disputed, but so much of it relies on the
uptake of renewables – you would need an
enormous amount of renewables to
produce enough hydrogen cleanly to
replace all those other fuels. Then there’s the
cost of producing the hydrogen and
transporting it. It really depends on how the
policies are set up.”
JUN – JUL 2019 GEMCELL.COM.AU
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