Hydrogen-energy transportation for Beijing 2022
More virtue signaling from China. How is the hydrogen, that is supposed to be so green, produced? Let me guess – its most likely steam reformation which means that its made from Natural Gas and the CO2 produced in the process is released into the environment. Which gives you no emissions at the tailpipe because all the emissions happen at the factory where the hydrogen is produced already. Let’s just assume you take the Natural Gas straight, feed it into a Natural Gas vehicle with an internal combustion engine and run 100km on it. the same type of vehicle with a fuel cell is fuelled up with Hydrogen and runs those 100 km as well. Who has used more fuel? I don’t know but I have learned that additional processing steps always mean loss of product and energy input. This means that the straight Natural gas vehicle is likely to be cleaner and more CO2 friendly than the hydrogen vehicle. But what if they use electrolysis? Then you must look where the power came from – and China is the biggest coal burner on Earth by some margin. Plus its horribly expensive.
Beijing’s Yanqing district is speeding up the construction of two hydrogenation stations and a supporting hydrogen plant in time for the Alpine Skiing World Cup in 2020 and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games.
