Japan is planning to be carbon-neutral by 2050 and in pursuing that target, the country needs a hefty investment in shifting to hydrogen.
Compared to other countries, Japan is too densely populated to utilize other environmentally-friendly resources such as wind, solar, and batteries when it comes to moving away from fossil fuels in the fight against climate change.
Other than that, even when it is more costly to use hydrogen, it still offers the most potential to decarbonize difficult-to-abate sectors like steel, cement, and heavy-duty transport. Still, the EU and South Korea have been stating that hydrogen generated from renewables could be more economical as solar and wind costs fall.
When the commercial use of hydrogen is predicted to start in 2050, Japan would have to import 36 million tons of liquefied hydrogen, more than 100 times its projected imports in 2030. It would take an investment of up to USD425 billion for hydrogen to make up for 40% of Japan’s energy requirement.
At the moment, Japan’s only developer of a hydrogen supply chain, Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd., is creating a global supply chain by producing hydrogen from brown coal in Australia, building ships and storage tanks as well as hydrogen-fired generation facilities for power and heat.
