How dense is Ian Macfarlane?, page-7

Japanese are very keen on the hydrogen. Toyota and Kawasaki are teaming up to produce their hydrogen from Victorian brown coal and ship it to Japan. Their number crunchers obviously think it is the most economical way to generate hydrogen.

That Japan is heading towards hydrogen fuel and America is adamant that EV are the go could reflect each country's fuel supply. Japan has to import their power and transport fuel and probably doesn't have great prospects for solar power and land constraints for wind power. Whereas America has abundant gas, coal, oil and solar/wind energy options.

So if the Japanese have to import their fuel, may as well choose one with the emissions produced in the host country, Australia in this case, and they can run their cars emission free. It will mean they are not beholden to the global oil prices.

Japan will need to create the Hydrogen fuel supply line, but in such a small country the number of pump stations, pipelines, ports that will need to be built would many times less per vehicle than what would be required in countries like Australia and America.

The added bonus for Hydrogen produced from Victorian brown coal is that it is very cheap to produce from brown coal and there is the option to capture the carbon and sequester it in soil or the offshore bass strait gas fields.