Government pushes hydrogen technology up nation's agenda

[Caribbeans]

A bus is refueled at a hydrogen station in Beijing's Daxing district in July. [TIAN YUHAO/CHINA NEWS]

Government pushes hydrogen technology up nation's agenda

Development of alternative fuel for road vehicles a top task for China this year, urges report

LI FUSHENG | China Daily | 2024-03-11

Fuel cell vehicles are expected to gain momentum as the development of the hydrogen energy sector is billed as one of the major tasks for the Chinese government this year.

According to this year's Government Work Report, to step up development of "cutting-edge sectors "including the hydrogen industry is one of the nation's fundamental industrial tasks this year.

Some National People's Congress deputies have also come up with proposals on developing the sector, which is believed to be the ultimate solution to vehicle emissions.

China has set a goal to have 50,000 fuel cell vehicles on its roads by 2025, according to its hydrogen development plan that was released in 2022.

Zhang Ronghua, an NPC deputy from Tianjin, said the goal is of strategic importance, but hindrances exist in some aspects.

She called for faster financial support from the authorities, adding that it now takes around two to three years for companies to receive their subsidies. The time span is causing financial problems for small companies...more
https://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202403/11/WS65ee58bba31082fc043bbc60.html

There is at least ONE MAJOR difference between China and the United States when it comes to energy.

ONE of these nations literally tied their economy to OIL. Guess which one? Could this be a reason that H2 currently costs $30-$35 per Kg in the nation that tied their economy to OIL and $5 - $8.00 per Kg in the global hydrogen leader ?


"Nice work Hank!"
"I KNOW DICK! Besides being a Killer, I'm Brilliant!"

[NNadir]

1. The "cost" of hydrogen in China is tied to the fact it's generally made from coal there. The real cost, of course...

...is environmental, since the production of hydrogen in China, as in the rest of the world, is dangerous fossil fuels.

Every time a fossil fuel greenwasher comes here to wax lyrical with a slick dishonest video advertisement seeking to rebrand fossil fuels as "hydrogen," a process that wastes energy and thus requires more fossil fuels than burning them directly in devices like buses, I'll just repeat again, the reality:

Currently, nearly all hydrogen in China is either produced directly from fossil fuels (55% from coal gasification and 14% from steam methane reforming (SMR)) or as a byproduct of petroleum refining (28%), with only 1% coming from water electrolysis. (2) Producing 1 kg of coal- or SMR-based hydrogen emits roughly 19 and 10 kg of CO₂, respectively. (3) In 2020, hydrogen production from fossil fuels in China emitted approximately 322Tg of CO₂, equivalent to 25% of total CO₂ emissions from industrial processes, a number expected to rise with increasing hydrogen demand. (4) Industrial processes include production of nonmetallic mineral products, chemical, and metal products, as well as production and consumption of halocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride. (4)

EST: Chinese Hydrogen Production Is Making Climate Change Worse.

(cf: Subsidizing Grid-Based Electrolytic Hydrogen Will Increase Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Coal Dominated Power Systems Liqun Peng, Yang Guo, Shangwei Liu, Gang He, and Denise L. Mauzerall Environmental Science & Technology 2024 58 (12), 5187-5195)

The dishonest slick ads are toxic.

[NNadir]

2. Really, 50,000 dirty fossil fuel derived hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in China? This is a miracle? A good thing? A...

trend? A groundswell?

Generally ad men and women are really, really, really bad at math - or are at least trained to hide math, especially in the case of hydrogen hype fossil fuel greenwashing here - but this is new height.

According to this link, China has 352,680,000 registered vehicles: Registered vehicles in China.

This means in "percent talk" used by people trying to sell lies about so called "renewable energy," this means that 0.0131% of vehicles in China are powered by dirty hydrogen there, which is entirely too many, since in China, as elsewhere, hydrogen is made from fossil fuels, in China, dominated by coal:

Currently, nearly all hydrogen in China is either produced directly from fossil fuels (55% from coal gasification and 14% from steam methane reforming (SMR)) or as a byproduct of petroleum refining (28%), with only 1% coming from water electrolysis. (2) Producing 1 kg of coal- or SMR-based hydrogen emits roughly 19 and 10 kg of CO₂, respectively. (3) In 2020, hydrogen production from fossil fuels in China emitted approximately 322Tg of CO₂, equivalent to 25% of total CO₂ emissions from industrial processes, a number expected to rise with increasing hydrogen demand. (4) Industrial processes include production of nonmetallic mineral products, chemical, and metal products, as well as production and consumption of halocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride. (4)

(cf: Subsidizing Grid-Based Electrolytic Hydrogen Will Increase Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Coal Dominated Power Systems Liqun Peng, Yang Guo, Shangwei Liu, Gang He, and Denise L. Mauzerall, Environmental Science & Technology 2024 58 (12), 5187-5195. The text in the excerpt above comes from this paper.)

I note that fossil fuels have killed more people than Henry Kissinger did, and wasting the exergy of fossil fuels for a stupid exercise to make hydrogen toys in China will merely raise the death toll, not that the fossil fuel industry, including the component trying to greenwash them as "hydrogen," give a rat's ass how many people are killed by their dishonesty.


EST: Chinese Hydrogen Production Is Making Climate Change Worse.