A plan to make liquid hydrogen from brown coal in Australia and ship it across the Pacific has been criticised as “way worse” than burning diesel or natural gas. A new liquid hydrogen tanker is due to carry the first shipment of the gas, heralded as zero-carbon fuel, from Australia to Japan, which is increasingly using it in a bid to decarbonise its economy. While the company behind the plan insists that future shipments will benefit from carbon capture, where CO2 is pumped underground, the first batch was made through a process that releases carbon dioxide into the air. Brown coal produces almost double the carbon dioxide per unit of energy than natural gas and a third more than diesel. The hydrogen will be shipped in the new Suiso Frontier tanker from the port of Melbourne. It has been made in a process called coal gasification, which forms syngas, a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. That mixture is then refined into hydrogen and CO2.
Telegraph 21st Jan 2022 read more »