Attilio seems more focused on hydrogen from solar and wind but I...

Attilio seems more focused on hydrogen from solar and wind but I came across this by Giles Parkinson on 14 October 2015 ...



“We are in the first year of a hydrogen society in Japan,” said Shintaro Matsumuto, from the government agency NEDO.

Japan intends to start importing hydrogen from around 2030, but while Australian hydrogen advocates talk of using solar and other renewables, and acknowledge use of some fossil fuels in the initial period, they are surprised by the Japanese focus on cheap brown coal deposits in Victoria.

Matsumuto said initial projects would be based around fossil fuels for feed stock, particularly brown coal, although he insisted that Japan was looking to renewable energy – and for the hydrogen to be Co2 free – by 2040.

Toshimi Okada, from Chiyoda Corp, agreed the first step would be in fossil fuel hydrogen, before a gradual move to renewale energy. “Solar … with electrolysis …. has much potential in Australia,” he said.
However, Kawasaki Heavy Industries outlined a plan to build a pilot plant for brown coal gasification in the Latrobe Valley, with a full scale commercial plant by 2030, using offshore oil and gas fields for carbon capture and storage.

“Australia has enough brown coal to power Japan for 200 years,” Kawasaki’s Yasushi Yoshino told the conference. His company is counting on the success of the Carbon-Net CCS scheme, which is still just at the early feasibility stage, and there still being an appetite from brown coal mining in a decade’s time.