For the Australian government and many supporters from industry, the arrival of the "Suiso Fronitier" in the port of Hastings in the south of the continent marks a turning point: The Japanese special ship, which is just under 120 meters long, is to contain liquid hydrogen in its 1250 cubic meter tank for the first time in the world transport to Kobe.
Christopher Hein
Business correspondent for South Asia/Pacific based in Singapore.
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Nevertheless, critics have a lot to complain about: Because the Australians win the hydrogen using lignite.
Meanwhile, Australia's energy companies are pushing ahead with the production of green hydrogen at full speed.
"Suiso's voyage makes the project the first in the world to produce liquid hydrogen, liquefy it and transport it by sea to an international market," said Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain (HESC), the coalition of nearly a dozen companies from Australia and Japan , which have the support of both governments.
“With the HESC project, Australia is taking on a pioneering role in the global energy transition in order to reduce emissions thanks to clean hydrogen.
It's a fuel of the future," said Australia's Energy Minister Angus Taylor.
"Giant thermos" at sea
However, this is controversial: Scientists from Stanford University recently proved that hydrogen produced using coal or gas is more harmful to the environment than burning gas directly. The Australian archbillionaire Andrew Forrest also criticized his government's path as environmentally harmful. Both his Fortescue group and Woodside Petroleum, also based in Perth, Western Australia, are investing on a large scale in the production of hydrogen: Woodside wants to produce around 1500 tons of hydrogen a day with the H2Perth factory from 2027 - which made it one of the largest in the world . Further projects are planned for Tasmania and the American state of Oklahoma. Around 5 billion dollars are to flow into new energies by 2030.Fortescue wants to produce "green" hydrogen in the Australian state of Queensland and Tasmania.
Both the public and private sectors in Australia are trying to encourage the hydrogen industry because fossil fuels, coal and gas, currently still account for well over a fifth of Australia's export value and will need to be replaced in the long term.
In the 12 months ended June 2020, coal exports were AUD 54.6 billion (EUR 34.9 billion) and liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports were $47.5 billion.
The hydrogen cooperation is based on the transport of LNG to North Asia. Japan is Australia's largest buyer of coal and LNG. The Suiso - the ship's name stands for hydrogen in Japanese - will take two weeks for the approximately 9,000-kilometer journey. The hydrogen is cooled down to minus 253 degrees and thus compressed 800 times. For comparison: A minus temperature of "only" 161 degrees is needed for LNG. "This venture can play a kind of pioneering role on the road to clean new energy for Japan," said Yuko Fukuma, spokeswoman for Kawasaki Heavy Industries, which designed and built the tanker. Alan Finkel, the Australian government's chief scientist, described the transport in the "giant thermos" on the ship as "a feat of engineering".
Another aspect is also important to Finkel: “Yes, you can send the energy via submarine cable, as Sun Cable is proposing between Northern Australia and Singapore. But if you want an international marketplace like we have with LNG, where there are contracts and spot markets and you can go to every country in the world with a port, you have to ship the hydrogen," he emphasizes the market economy component.
The first - and probably also the following - deliveries are "brown hydrogen": It was obtained with the help of a coal gasification process.
The Australians use lignite from the Latrobe Valley in the state of Victoria for this purpose.
The hydrogen is to become “blue” and thus more acceptable in terms of climate policy by using carbon offsetting.
It should either be consumed or fed into a planned repository in a former gas field under the Bass Strait off the Australian island of Tasmania.
In the test phase, 160 tons of coal are burned annually just to produce about 3 tons of hydrogen.
The use of lignite to produce hydrogen will help the controversial Secretary of Energy Taylor before the elections at the end of May: Because it secures jobs in opencast mining, although the coal-fired power plants are to be closed in the long term.
The overall project, including the liquefaction plant, was estimated at almost half a billion dollars, with the Australian government contributing a tenth and the federal government of Victoria another.
The next stage of expansion will cost almost 200 million Australian dollars.
In its later commercial phase, the HESC project is expected to produce 225,000 tons of liquefied hydrogen per year.