The Anonymous Widower

South Korea Is On The Hunt For An Overseas Hydrogen Production Location

The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Hydrogen Fuel News.

It is an interesting article, which talks about how both South Korea and Japan are looking to source hydrogen from another country and how Australia is in prime position.

This Wikipedia entry, which is entitled Energy In South Korea, has this breakdown of electricity production in South Korea.

• Thermal – 65.3%
• Nuclear – 31.1%
• Hydro – 1.6%
• Other – 2%

Note that at the time of writing the UK is producing 39.0% of electricity from renewables and 15.9% from low-carbon sources.

Consider.

• As South Korea imports a lot of liquified natural gas and has no oil or gas resources of its own, importing hydrogen is just replacing a carbon-dioxide producing fuel with a zero-carbon one, that is produced from renewables.
• Other than Australia, other possible sources of hydrogen mentioned include Saudi Arabia and the United States, but is their hydrogen produced from renewables or steam-reforming of methane?
• I suspect another could be South Africa, as they can develop a lot of wind power around the Cape.

I think we’ll see more countries going down the same route as Japan and South Korea and importing large quantities of hydrogen.

• Countries with lots of renewables like geothermal, hydro, solar and wind will benefit.
• Countries with plenty of gas can use steam-reforming to create hydrogen.

But surely, the biggest beneficiaries will be world-class companies, like ITM Power in Rotherham, who build electrolysers.

June 25, 2020 - Posted by AnonW | World | Hydrogen, iTM Power, Japan, Korea