POSITION PAPER ON HYDROGEN ECONOMY
While the cost of green hydrogen from renewable energy, such as dark fermentation of wastewater and biomass gasification varies from USD 0.15 – USD 1.57 per kg respectively, the cost of hydrogen from newer green hydrogen production technology from renewable energy such as microbial electrolysis of wastewater, photoelectrochemical and photosynthetic splitting of water are much higher, ranging from USD 15.70 – 24.20, which must be reduced by tenfold to USD 1.57-2.42 by 2050 through a research and development programme in order to be competitive with conventional steam reforming.
3.4.2
Centralised Off-site Hydrogen Production
Hydrogen could be produced in a centralised off-site or distributed on-site mode. Suppose hydrogen is produced offsite centrally on a large industrial scale from natural gas, the main problems are the transportation of hydrogen to the point of use at the petrol station and the decarbonisation of the hydrogen production process. The CCS method of decarbonisation had not been successfully proven to be commercially viable because it requires high demand for hydrogen and heavy investments in carbon dioxide pipelines to storage sites.
Figure 49: Cost of Green Hydrogen from Zero Carbon Renewable Energy
a.
Hydrogen Pipelines
For early adoption, the existing hydrogen pipeline network, now mainly for captive use in oil refineries and chemicals production, can be utilised for initial demonstrations to study the feasibility of hydrogen transportation via pipelines in Malaysia. Construction of new hydrogen pipelines requires a high capital investment and hydrogen’s energy-intensive nature limits its economic feasibility over only short distances. A 2006 study by the United Nations Environment Programme on the United States and Europe shows that even though there are hydrogen pipeline systems in operation, they are small in scale and none is more than 200 km long. Hydrogen transportation by land (road or rail) and water (barge) in cryogenic tanks to be vapourised on-site is generally considered as a less costly alternative.
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