Technology:
The competition to reduce the price of hydrogen is
heating up because fuel-cell vehicle (FCV) will be put on the market toward the
end of this year in Japan. The Japanese government plans to halve the price of hydrogen
by 2020 to spread FCVs and the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) published Hydrogen Energy White Paper for the first time. The whie paper will be downloadable from NEDO's website shortly.
Iwatani Corp. is making strenuously efforts to construct
a hydrogen station that does not need a compressor to fill liquefied hydrogen
into an FCV. It costs 100 million yen to construct a gas station, whereas it
costs 460 million yen to construct a hydrogen station, of which 140 million yen
is for a compressor alone. The company is trying to introduce the system to fill
liquefied hydrogen into an FCV only by the special pump developed by the Linde Group
of Germany. It is negotiating with the High Pressure Gas Safety Institute of Japan to install the special pumps in Japan, and it plans to start production
of these pumps in Japan next year.
Currently, the wholesale price of hydrogen is 60 yen per
cubic meter and the retail price is 150 yen per cubic meter. The retail price
should be reduced to 100 yen to make the fuel cost of FCV as low as the fuel
cost of gasoline vehicle and to 80 yen to make it as low as hybrid vehicle. The
government wishes to reduce the fuel cost of FCV to as low as the fuel cost of gasoline
vehicle in 2015 and to as low as the fuel cost of hybrid vehicle in 2020. To
realize a retail price of 80 yen per cubic meter, the wholesale price should be
30 yen and the profit of hydrogen station should be 50 yen.
Kawasaki Heavy Industries is taking another approach. The
company is planning to produce hydrogen from brown coal produced in Latrobe
Valley in Australia. Brown coal is very cheap: it is one tenth of ordinary coal
in price. It will construct an experiment plant in Australia in 2017. It also
plans to build the world’s first hydrogen carrier. Chiyoda Corp. has been
conducting experiments to put a technology into practical use. The technology
is to liquefy hydrogen by dissolving it in organic solvent and transport
liquefied hydrogen to hydrogen stations by tank vessel and tank at ordinary
temperatures and pressures.
The project to send hydrogen to city streets from a hydrogen
plant using pipes has already started in Kyushu under the initiative of an
industry-government-academia organization. The concept of Kitakyushu HydrogenTown receives hydrogen from the Yawata iron works of Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal. As the world’s first concept, using hydrogen sent from a nearby iron works
to city streets attracts attention worldwide.
The project of Kitakyushu Hydrogen Town
Let's drive a Toyota's FCV
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