DESPITE a surge in covid-19 cases, Japan is doggedly pushing ahead with its preparations for the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic games. In January, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga . But there is another reason too: Japan wants to use the events to showcase its efforts to become a “hydrogen society” and to inspire other countries to join it.
To do so, Japan is making heavy use of Olympic symbols. The Olympic torch is being partly fuelled by hydrogen as it makes its way through Japan, even as some parts of the relay are cancelled due to coronavirus concerns. When the games begin in July – unless they are derailed again – the Olympic cauldron will also be powered by hydrogen. And a hydrogen station has been built near the athletes’ village for refuelling the hydrogen-powered buses and cars that will ferry competitors to and from venues.
Japan is one of the growing number of countries that aim to achieve . But its transition to renewable energy is trickier than it is for others, since it has limited free space for building vast solar and wind farms to replace fossil fuels. It has installed on many of its lakes and is planning , but these alone cannot supply enough energy for its 126 million people.
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To fill this gap, Japan has decided to bet big on hydrogen energy. It wants to power at least and 800,000 vehicles, including 1200 buses, using hydrogen by 2030, and is also researching its potential use in powering trucks, ships, trains, aircraft and industries like steel-making. It has established a 2 trillion yen ($18 billion) Green Innovation Fund that will help to support this expansion. In December 2020, more than 80 Japanese companies, including giants like Toyota and Kawasaki Heavy Industries, agreed to work together to help the nation achieve its hydrogen goals.
The number of homes that Japan wants to power with hydrogen by 2030”
Hydrogen has several big pluses. It can be used in fuel cells to generate electricity with zero emissions. It can be stored for long periods and transported great distances. It can power everything from homes and vehicles to heavy industry. And it has the highest energy content of any common fuel by weight – almost three times that of petrol. “The advantages of hydrogen are applicable to all the world, not just Japan,” says Jonathan Arias at juwi Shizen Energy, a renewable energy company in Japan.
The biggest drawback of hydrogen is its high cost. To make the fuel cleanly – so-called green hydrogen – water must be split using expensive electrolysers powered by solar or wind energy. Then there is the cost of the associated infrastructure, including specially designed trucks, ships and trains to transport hydrogen safely at the right temperature and pressure, along with facilities to store and distribute it.
Hydrogen can be made cheaply from natural gas, but this cancels out its green credentials. A last year predicted that green hydrogen could compete with fossil fuel-derived hydrogen by 2030, but noted this would require “global collaboration”.
“The advantages of hydrogen are applicable to all the world, not just Japan”
Enter the Olympics and Paralympics. Japan hopes the games will generate enough hype around hydrogen to galvanise this collaboration, says Arias. If the rest of the world embraces hydrogen energy, it will drive down the cost through competition and economies of scale, he says. “If there’s mass-scale production, it will help to reduce prices.”
The hydrogen for the games will be made at the world’s largest solar-powered electrolyser for hydrogen production, which opened in 2020 in Fukushima prefecture, the area devastated by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. It will be transported by truck to a refuelling station near the athletes’ village. There it will be used to fill up the cars and buses that will drive competitors around. The vehicles’ fuel cells will power electric motors.
After the games, the athletes’ village will be converted into the world’s biggest hydrogen-powered neighbourhood. Hydrogen will be piped to fuel cells in public areas to power lights and air conditioning. Each of the 4100 apartments will also have a hydrogen fuel cell to heat water systems and provide a small amount of electricity – enough to power low-energy devices like smartphones – alongside regular grid power.
“It will be the first town in Japan that puts into practical use hydrogen stations, hydrogen pipelines and hydrogen fuel cells at full scale,” says Katsuhiko Nagata at Panasonic, the company providing the neighbourhood’s fuel cells. However, until green hydrogen becomes more affordable, the hydrogen used will be made from natural gas at an on-site station, he says.
To reduce the cost of green hydrogen, Japan’s government has promised to invest in technological innovations and to seek to import it from countries that can make it more cheaply. In particular, it has set its sights on Australia, which has ample sunshine, wind and empty space that make it perfect for producing this fuel.
Australia recently approved a 6500-square-kilometre hydrogen production facility in which 10 million solar panels, 1500 wind turbines and an electrolyser should create green hydrogen for less than $2 per kilogram, making it competitive with hydrogen derived from fossil fuels. Kawasaki has built the world’s first liquefied hydrogen carrier ship, the Suiso Frontier, for transporting Australian hydrogen to Japan.
At this price, more countries may start considering using hydrogen on a large scale, says at the University of Technology Sydney in Australia. One of the best things about hydrogen is that it can be used to store energy, he says. Solar and wind energy can be stored using batteries, but these are made from materials – like nickel and cobalt – that are in limited supply, and they gradually lose energy over time. If solar or wind power is converted via electrolysers to hydrogen instead, it can be stored indefinitely and used any time, says Huang.
The final hurdle to widespread hydrogen adoption is convincing the public that it is safe, says Huang. The Hindenburg disaster, in which a hydrogen-filled airship exploded in 1937, has given the fuel a bad rap, he says. “But it’s actually safer than gasoline when properly managed.”
“If solar or wind power is converted to hydrogen, it can be stored indefinitely and used any time”
Modern hydrogen tanks are made from tough carbon fibre and can withstand gunshots without exploding, he says. “Even if they did crack, because hydrogen is so light, it would just shoot into the air.” Hydrogen did , but no one was hurt. In contrast, cracked oil and petrol tanks leak liquid fuel that can burn for a long time or spill into the ocean.
Certainly, it seems that excitement around hydrogen is building. One silver lining of the pandemic is that several countries have announced big investments in hydrogen to help rebuild their economies (see “The main competitors”, left). Germany, for example, has committed €9 billion, while South Korea’s Korean New Deal lays out a plan to produce 200,000 hydrogen vehicles by 2025. And in March, John Kerry, the US special presidential envoy for climate, . Even if hydrogen can’t show off its tricks at the Olympics due to last-minute cancellation, it still looks set to become a winner.
The main competitors
In 2017, Japan became the first country to publish a , which set out an action plan for becoming a “hydrogen-based society” by 2050. Since then, several other countries have followed suit, including:
Australia
Aims to make cheap green hydrogen on a massive scale to export and use domestically.
Canada
Wants to be one of the world’s biggest suppliers of green hydrogen, use hydrogen for 30 per cent of its energy needs and have over 5 million hydrogen vehicles on the road by 2050.
France
Has committed €7.2 billion to producing green hydrogen and having up to 700,000 cars, 90,000 trucks, 2400 buses and 180 trains powered by hydrogen in operation by 2030, along with 1100 hydrogen-refuelling stations. Hydrogen energy will also be used in homes and industry.
Germany
Has earmarked €9 billion for producing green hydrogen. It also aims to build the world’s largest hydrogen grid and to use hydrogen in industries like steel-making.
South Korea
Wants to have 6.2 million hydrogen cars and 1200 hydrogen-refuelling stations operating by 2040. The country also aims to make hydrogen-powered buses, trucks, trains and ships, and to use hydrogen energy for industry and in homes.
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