Japan may become the first hydrogen economy

Japan Looks at Hydrogen for Power Generation - Japan Real Time - WSJ

This falls in line with the big incentives for hydrogen cars, which may be viable around the same time - 15 years from now.

I can't imagine canada or russia being able to profitably ship liquid hydrogen genrated by hydro electric power to japan, but Japan can build efficient igcc coal plants that also produce hydrogen from low grad (cheap coal). The DOE cancelled a demo plant in the US in 2008, but china and the US have advanced IG of coal, which should make it more economic to do this type of plant. Japan has greatly increased coal imports in the last 12 months. The waste and co2 can be captured for about 7 cents/kwh if japan desires to make this hydrogen low ghg intensive.

 

Actually Japan is using US developed technology right now. The DOE funded most of the research. Much of the clean coal research was cut starting in 2008, although a few projects remain.

DOE is funding cheaper and more efficient electroysis, and solar hydrogen, as well as cheaper bio and natural gas generated hydrogen. They are also funding stationary fuel cell development, and japan is starting to buy more stationary fuel cells from american companies.

A key difference between the US and Japan is the relatively inexpensive and plentiful natural gas in north america. Fast cycling ccgt make a lot of sense in the United states, where natural gas prices are competitive with coal. In Japan, natural gas must be liquified then shipped, often from an opec country or Russia, costing about 3x more than it does in the US. This greatly changes the economics. In Japan its likely that it may be cheaper to do coal IGCC + ccs + hydrogen (though electrolysis, and the first gasification step) + small fuel cell for less money than natural gas + ccgt + ccs. Without the ccs natural gas fast cycling ccgt gives off about 30% the ghg as coal/mwh, ccs can capture about 90% of the co2 from either stream.

 

Putting things in perspective, high speed rail, that isn't even high speed going from southern california to the bay area is projected to cost tapayers $68B, and it will probably cost more. In perspective, the Japanese already have real high speed rail, and fuel cell spending is less than this.

GE anounced last month that they had created a solid oxide fuel cell for natural gas, that in conjunction with an engine to burn carbon monoxide is 65% efficient in 1 MW to 10 MW cells. Gasified coal could also be used in this system, with of course a slight drop in efficiency for gasification, but the waste heat and emissions could be used for gasifications.

Japan's coal habit has been increased to about $12B/year of inports, second behind china. Going hydrogen means that they can build coal now, but later replace it with renewables or nuclear. Its probably cheaper for japan to import methanol, than to produce it domestically (energy is used, so why not import the finished product. Lower grades of coal have higher sulfur contents, which means more energy must be used to remove the sulfur, etc, but they can use coal for power and hydrogen. The coal push has bee post nuclear accident.

+1

 

Japan is increasing its coal imports for electricity, certainly building new coal plants that produce electricity and hydrogen more efficiently and sequesters the carbon dioxide, would be less carbon intense for the same about of dollars than building solar to inefficiently make hydrogen. IIRC it takes about 70 kwh of coal to make 1 kg of hydrogen from steam reforming the coal and sharing heat in a IGCC power plant. It probably costs about 200 kwh of coal using current Japanese infrastructure. Where do you think the dollars will be more productive, building solar or more efficient IGCC + hydrogen + ccs power plants?

In the US I just don't see hydrogen making any sense at all. California even with all the government spending has less than 2% of the electricity coming from solar. Why build 3 times as many panels to make hydrogen instead of just using the solar to power cars? It is not as if even Germany will have surplus solar and wind for at least 30 years.

 

currently the main reaction is CH4 +2H2O + energy -> CO2 + 4H2, so if it was completely efficient 1 molecule of CO2 for every 4 of H2 produced. Of course the energy comes from burning CH4 + 202-> CO2 + 2H2O lets say 20% so 5CH4 + 2O2 + 6H2O -> 5CO2 +16H2, so 5/16 of a molecule of CO2 for every molecule of H2 created.

This CO2 can come out in a fairly pure stream with the steam, but it costs money to sequester, and no big production sequesters just test systems. Coal makes more sense with sequestration. For most places solar is more productive placed on the grid than making hydrogen.

 

Easy, simply tax petroleum enough more will do it. Eventually we expect petroleum to cost more, but this may be decades from today, and methanol may always be less expensive than hydrogen.

If Japan is going to keep most of their nukes off, subsidizing IGCC coal plants will likely reduce coal exports and pollution as they are more efficient than current coal power plants in Japan. If they require these plants to produce hydrogen also to get the subsidies, then the hydrogen gets inexpensive to produce from coal.

 

Oh they have huge hydrogen subsidies, they have not been as big as the US subsidies, but if looks like they should exceed the United States soon. The dirty secret is if this works the odds are the bulk of Japanese hydrogen will come from imported coal, not exactly a shiny environmental product, but they can process it where the pollution is used for products (Sulfur for Sulfuric Acid, Nitrogen for fertilizer, and Carbon dioxide for industrial use or sequestered). I don' t think they want to admit to coal, but that is the most economically viable feedstock for Japanese hydrogen.

Japan imports coal from much friendlier nations than they import oil from though ;-) There are economic and national security reasons for Japan to greatly reduce petroleum use. The the leading non-petroleum alternatives to hydrogen for vehicle fuel are alcohol (methanol and ethanol) and electricity. China is focussing on methanol, Brazil on ethanol, the US on electricity, and Japan looks to be hydrogen.