President Park drives a hydrogen-electric car in Sangam-dong, Seoul, where he owns an office furniture firm. There is no inconvenience because a hydrogen recharging station is conveniently located near the workplace. “Charging takes less than 5 minutes,” President Park stated, “so it’s not dissimilar to fueling up at a petrol station.”
Around 20,000 hydrogen-electric cars are expected to be on the road in the United States by the end of 2021. In both name and actuality, Korea is a world leader in hydrogen-electric vehicles. However, there is still a long way to go. Because the city has few hydrogen filling stations, lengthy lineups are usual. Due to the fact that there is only one type of hydrogen-electric car on the market, the scene at the charging station resembles a normal Hyundai Nexo club meeting. The behavior of hydrogen-electric cars is annoying as compared to battery electric vehicles, which are sold like wings. The word on the street was that everything was fine, but the supply couldn’t keep up.
Fuel cell stacks, which are at the heart of hydrogen-electric cars, are difficult to mass-produce. The Chungju factory, which is the world’s largest, has a manufacturing capacity of 23,000 units per year. It will not reach 100,000 units per year until 2024, when the facilities in Incheon Cheongna and Ulsan, which began building in October, begin production. Global EV sales were anticipated to be over 6.4 million units last year. The hydrogen economy’s cutting edge is hydrogen electric cars. Will the hydrogen economy be held back this time by the slower-than-expected pace of technical development?
The reason I say ‘this time’ is because Korea has not been at the forefront of the hydrogen economy before. In 2005, the government established the “hydrogen economy master plan,” with a target of “12.5 million hydrogen automobiles by 2040.” The aim for 2005 was a pipe dream compared to the ‘First Basic Plan for the Implementation of the Hydrogen Economy,’ which was released in November of last year with the objective of delivering 5.26 million hydrogen-electric cars by 2050. There was a hydrogen economic boom in major developed countries at the time. In a book released in 2002, Jeremy Rifkin, a professor at the Pennsylvania Graduate School of Business in the United States, stressed the hydrogen economy, and the US government’s announcement of the “hydrogen fuel program” in 2003 fuelled the hydrogen boom. Should I say it spit hydrogen instead?
General Motors (GM), which was once serious about hydrogen-electric vehicles, is thought to have influenced Rifkin’s hydrogen economy hypothesis. When the United States hoisted its flag, Japan, Korea, the United Kingdom, and Germany, all of which were researching hydrogen fuel cell technology, competed for the vision of a hydrogen economy and replied. However, by 2010, the ‘first hydrogen boom’ vanished completely. They lost their illusions and plunged into a quagmire when technical advancement and industrial creation failed to sustain them.
What was the motivation for the Republican government’s introduction of hydrogen in the early 2000s, when it was closer to the oil sector than to green energy? This is because, while the so-called “peak oil” theory predicts that oil will soon be depleted, hydrogen is seen as a potential replacement to oil. Fearful of the oil economy collapsing, oil companies focused on hydrogen.
Because hydrogen is a material, it needs a manufacturing, transportation, and storage infrastructure similar to that of oil or gas. It has the ability to sustain energy predominance in a centralized manner. In Europe and Korea, several characteristics of hydrogen have been recognized. When hydrogen replaces oil, it reduces reliance on fossil fuels imported from Russia and the Middle East, improving energy security, and fuel cell distributed power accelerates energy democratization.
In the late 2010s, the long-extinguished hydrogen flame was reignited. What went wrong back then, and what went wrong now? Korea and Japan, both back then and now, have a thriving vehicle sector and are at the forefront of the hydrogen economy. Hydrogen electric vehicles were simply prototypes at the time, but now they are mass-produced and available to the general public.
Meanwhile, the focus of hydrogen expectations has changed away from petroleum replacement and toward decarbonization. After the Paris Agreement on Climate Change in 2015, the climate change issue is worsening, and carbon neutrality by 2050 has become the spark. A gas turbine or hydrogen internal combustion engine may burn hydrogen directly, and a fuel cell can extract power. Water vapor is emitted in each of these instances. No carbon dioxide is emitted directly.
The easily fooled ‘unlimited eco-friendly energy source, hydrogen’, on the other hand, is not genuine. Although hydrogen is an infinitely abundant element, it is found in nature as a combination. Hydrogen in the form of diatomic molecules (H2), which is used as a fuel, must be made on purpose with the help of energy. Because hydrogen reacts with oxygen to generate energy and form water, its circulation is limitless. Hydrogen is created by reforming natural gas, though. The economic viability of ‘green hydrogen,’ which is produced by digesting water with renewable-energy-generated power, is still under question. Hydrogen is a modern-day version of fossil fuels. The hydrogen economy model has a flaw in this area.
Japan and Europe are reviving the hydrogen economy, while Australia and Saudi Arabia intend to create and export green hydrogen by installing solar panels in the desert. This indicates that Korea isn’t the only country dealing with the ‘hydrogen dream.’ For carbon neutrality, a large-scale transition to renewable energy is required, yet renewable energy supplies, like petroleum, vary widely geographically. The low-latitude desert offers plenty of sunlight and a good breeze.
Korea’s renewable energy resources are limited. Furthermore, because to its poor energy density, renewable energy requires a vast installation space. Wind power is pushed across hills and oceans, while solar electricity is pushed over hillsides and reclaimed territory in Korea, which has a narrow land and a high population density. As a result, there is a contradiction between harming the environment and developing in an environmentally sustainable manner. Renewable energy will have to be imported in the future by nations with low renewable energy resources and an energy-intensive industrial structure.
Thousands of kilometers apart, electricity is difficult to transport and store. This is the moment at which hydrogen may enter an all-electric civilization. Australia, which buys coal, or Saudi Arabia, which buys oil, will supply hydrogen. However, it is unknown if they will be able to develop the necessary capacities and infrastructure to produce and export green hydrogen without experiencing any difficulties. Long-distance hydrogen transportation is still in the planning stages. Dependence on foreign hydrogen is risky because it goes against the hydrogen economy’s goal of energy sovereignty.
The fact that hydrogen isn’t the ultimate energy resource isn’t the reason why governments all over the world can’t stop lusting for it. Hydrogen is seen to be the sole viable option for changing the fossil fuel-based economy into a sustainable one, which has brought mankind prosperity for the past 200 years but also caused climate change. The advantages of hydrogen are that it is simple for current actors to convert since it resembles fossil fuels, that it can trigger supplier changes, and that it does not cause users any trouble.
It is impossible to convert energy by just flipping your hand’s palm. The present fossil-fuel-based business, as well as the vehicle industry, must not be discarded as red tape throughout the changeover process. Gas stations should become hydrogen charging stations, oil firms should become hydrogen companies, thermal power plants should become hydrogen turbines and fuel cell power plants, and car companies should become electric vehicle companies. The importance of hydrogen will be demonstrated once more, given that the energy transition involves a socio-technical transformation.
Korea has been developing hydrogen energy technology in collaboration with industry, academia, and research since the late 1980s through national research initiatives including the G7 project and the 21st-century frontier project. Korea is unusual in that it has built up autonomous capabilities over a lengthy period of time to reach a world-leading level. Battery electric cars will become the majority in terms of number and diversity, while the hydrogen electric vehicle market will be confined to a few industrialized nations with hydrogen infrastructure, although hydrogen-electric vehicles will continue to play an important role in electrified transportation. Hydrogen energy’s long-term fate has been a glacial rate of technological advancement. A deep breath and a distant gaze are required for hydrogen. Impatience might result in disappointment once again.
The fact that hydrogen’s aspirations are far from actuality is concerning. Hydrogen will account for a quarter of energy consumption in the industrial sector in 2050, according to the 2050 carbon-neutral scenario (plan A). Clean hydrogen must be available in huge quantities and at a low cost in order to achieve that level of the hydrogen economy.
A very high-temperature gas reactor (VHTR), which generates hydrogen by pyrolyzing water at 900 degrees Celsius, is a viable option as a nuclear reactor. The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute has already made significant progress in R&D, which may be completed using our technology. The hydrogen community has kept its distance from nuclear power thus far. It had to be for the sake of keeping a tidy image. Hydrogen is now on the verge of becoming a mainstream energy source. It’s time to make a decision between reality and fantasy.
Hydrogen should not be politicized and marketed as a government policy. While the sector is already investing heavily in the ‘Korea H2 Business Summit,’ there is speculation about the ‘next government risk.’ The hydrogen legislation should be amended as quickly as possible by a compromise between the government and opposition parties, and presidential candidates should give a vision for the hydrogen economy.
