Back on the 23/08/18 I posted this Post #: 35128622
Part of that post said this “Hydrogen can heat our buildings, power our vehicles and supply our industrial processes,” Dr Finkel said.
APA, the group which controls the majority of Australia’s gas pipelines, said it was capable of transporting about 10 per cent of hydrogen gas by volume without impacting its natural gas supply, although it is a way off from happening as yet.
So it would seem that APA have already spoken to these people it would appear, might be a nice little money earner for APA going forward and using existing pipelines, that would have to be a plus surely?
It might be a few years away yet though, but it seems that they have been planning this for a while now?
Rocket fuel: Australia targets hydrogen as next big energy export
The same fuel used to power rockets into space, hydrogen has untapped energy potential without the downside of the carbon emissions from natural gas and coalREUTERS | November 13, 2018, 12:15 IST
Newsletter AA
MELBOURNE: Australia, the world's biggest coal exporter and second-biggest liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter, wants to build its next big energy industry around exploiting solar and wind power along with brown coal to produce hydrogen.
The same fuel used to power rockets into space, hydrogen has untapped energy potential without the downside of the carbon emissions from natural gas and coal.
Australia is seeking to supply what could be a $7-billion market for hydrogen to China, Japan, South Korea and Singapore by 2030, according to a report done for the Australian Renewable Energy Agency by consultants ACIL Allen.
While initially just a fraction of Australia's LNG exports, forecast at A$48 billion ($35 billion) in 2019, hydrogen exports could grow the same way that Australia's LNG industry has over the past 30 years, according to ACIL Allen, the Australian government, and local gas producer Woodside Petroleum.
The global drive to cut carbon emissions and the falling cost of wind and solar power has turned hydrogen fuel into an opportunity now after the idea was mooted more than four decades ago.
"Many of our traditional gas markets -- Japan, Korea -- have adopted strategies that put hydrogen and ultimately renewable hydrogen at the core of their energy future. So we want to make sure we've got the capability of providing for that market," Western Australia's Regional Development Minister Alannah MacTiernan told Reuters.
The state on Oct. 25 launched a Renewable Hydrogen Council, including Woodside, French power producer Engie SA, and Norway's Yara International, to form a plan to use land, wind and solar resources to produce hydrogen.
"The development of a hydrogen business is similar to the early days of the LNG business," said Shaun Gregory, Woodside's executive vice president for exploration and technology.
To reduce global warming, hydrogen could be used in fuel cells for vehicles and manufacturing plants, and could eventually replace natural gas for space heating, water heating and cooking in homes.
Output may start through the gasification of brown coal with the hydrogen and carbon dioxide separated out. But eventually wind and solar power would be used to crack water to become the biggest hydrogen source.
Currently, hydrogen derived from coal gasification is cheaper to produce than from water. The goal is drive down the costs of a hydrogen cargo by 2030 to a level that Japanese buyers would accept, said Australia's Chief Scientist Alan Finkel, who is advising the government on a hydrogen strategy.
"The biggest potential show-stopper is that we can't meet the price target," he told Reuters.
Japan's Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) is leading a A$500 million demonstration project to produce hydrogen from brown coal from Australia's largest coal mine, Loy Yang in Victoria.
"At this point it is clearly cheaper (than hydrogen from renewables), but in the future they might be the same," KHI Executive Officer Eiichi Harada told Reuters at the GHGT-14 conference in Melbourne on Oct. 25.
Meanwhile, Woodside is working with Korea Gas Corp to potentially produce "blue hydrogen" in a carbon-neutral process of reforming methane from natural gas while eventually shifting to solar or wind to crack water to make "green hydrogen"
"We believe blue hydrogen - carbon neutral hydrogen, sourced from gas - is the key to building scale and lowering costs in hydrogen transport and distribution, which will enable an earlier transition to green hydrogen," Woodside's Gregory said in an email.
opportunities-for-australia-from-hydrogen-exports.pdf
Page 8 says this "
The replacement of natural gas with hydrogen in distribution networks, for space heating, residential water heating and cooking, provides a possible solution for decarbonisation in a sector with few options for emission reduction (the viable alternatives being electrification or the use of biogas). Although this is likely to be a longer-term application for hydrogen, the potential scale for uptake is vast. The injection of hydrogen into existing networks even at low proportions (10 per cent is accepted as a feasible blend, but up to 25 per cent has been demonstrated) would create huge demand for hydrogen. This sector is forecast to see hydrogen uptake in the longer term as part of deep decarbonisation and will be increasingly used to cut emissions after ‘low hanging fruit’ solutions are achieved. Injecting hydrogen into natural gas networks is a real possibility — ATCO has just announced an ARENA-supported project in Western Australia which will merge solar, battery storage and gas backup generators as well as feeding hydrogen into a gas pipeline to supplement that State’s gas resources.
39 A project in Leeds (United Kingdom) is seeking to fully convert a gas network to carry 100% hydrogen gas.40
APA Price at posting:
$9.25 Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)
