China soon overtake Japan as the leading player in hydrogen-related technology patents.
Chinese Economics Thread
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China soon overtake Japan as the leading player in hydrogen-related technology patents.
In what energy application would using hydrogen be preferable to using the electricity used to produce the hydrogen?
Long distance transportation (especially long haul trucking) in cases where recharging stations are not on the route within adequate distances. I.E. recharging stations are partially/completely off-route or the distance gaps are too great.
If im not mistaken China upgraded their electricity network or is in the process of upgrading their netwerk with Ultra high voltage cables.
So electricity from the desert region can be transported to location with water.
China completes first yuan-settled LNG trade TotalEnergies confirmed to Reuters that the transaction involved LNG imported from the UAE..
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I know, but even with those cables there should still be some loss of electricity due to distance travelled and setting up such cables isn't cheap at all though.
At least from what I've gathered and understood.
It's probably better than to do nothing with the waste energy during peak energy generation while demand is low.
I followed crypto for a while and in the US you had gasfield using flare off as a energy source to mine bitcoin. I guess China sees more use in using the otherwise wasted energy to split water into hydrogen.
CCAV Broadcast on channel one.
On Hydrogen/Ammonia, I think we want to make a few things clear here.
First of all, China is a huge consumer/producer of both.
it produced 42 million t of ammonia in 2022, about 1/3 of the world's total
Based on all the recent guesstimates, it seems like China is increasing H2 usage a lot faster than any of the estimates have made.
There is a lot of drivers of this
Sinopec is a major one. They openly talk about their ambitions to build hydrogen network in order to move themselves to a future where hydrocarbon demand is a lot lower. If they produce hydrogen fuel, they can make more money than just building EV chargers, since they don't produce electricity. As such, it's in their interest to build hydrogen infrastructure like pipelines and fuel stations. It's also in their interest to create large green hydrogen projects. Currently, their hydrogen needs are met through coal/natural gas, but that will change as they produce more green Hydrogen and enough to cover their own needs.
From what everyone can see, this is a rapidly growing field.
So because there is this great need + this great industrial base in China, it will be far & away the world's largest hydrogen/ammonia producer. All of this helps local industries since there is additional need for all the wind turbine, solar panels and offshore floating modules it wants to produce. And unlike Europe, China actually has the empty space to plant as many solar/wind farm as possible. And it can also put them in Mongolia and central asia for export back to China.
And as we discussed this is potentially a huge multi trillion industry we are talking about not just in terms of equipments but also the hydrogen/ammonia fuel themselves. China already has many ammonia/hydrogen projects everywhere in the country. Like this 390k/yr project was the largest green ammonia project ever until more recently other Chinese projects came online
You just don't see this anywhere else in the world.
All of this ensures:
1) China can continue to produce/sell as many wind/solar related equipments as possible
2) It will establish itself as the greatest producer of electrolyzer and attract companies like Cockerill (which set up Cockerill Jingli)
3) have the most domestic green hydrogen/ammonia projects
4) Setup the world's largest fleet of ammonia carriers and ammonia powered ships
5) will eventually be the world's largest producer of hydrogen fuel cells, fuel cell engines, ammonia powered engines.
And as we've seen in solar/wind, improving technology + cost control allowed renewables to be a lot cheaper than fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are also produced in other countries and shipped to China, so there is the issue of energy independence. China wants to be a net exporter of energies so that other countries (like European ones) are dependent on China. That's what this is all about. Eventually, green H2/ammonia will be cheaper than converting them from coal & natural gas. Aside from capacity limitations, there is no reason to continue to make non-green H2. That's why companies like Sinopec is so involved. They want to get in on this early and become a dominant player in H2. Having control of main energy source is a huge net benefit for the security of your country. See how GCC countries have become wealthy and have control due to their fossil fuel wealth.
First of all, China is a huge consumer/producer of both.
it produced 42 million t of ammonia in 2022, about 1/3 of the world's total
It produced 33 million t of hydrogen, about 1/3 of the world's total.
Based on all the recent guesstimates, it seems like China is increasing H2 usage a lot faster than any of the estimates have made.
There is a lot of drivers of this
Sinopec is a major one. They openly talk about their ambitions to build hydrogen network in order to move themselves to a future where hydrocarbon demand is a lot lower. If they produce hydrogen fuel, they can make more money than just building EV chargers, since they don't produce electricity. As such, it's in their interest to build hydrogen infrastructure like pipelines and fuel stations. It's also in their interest to create large green hydrogen projects. Currently, their hydrogen needs are met through coal/natural gas, but that will change as they produce more green Hydrogen and enough to cover their own needs.
From what everyone can see, this is a rapidly growing field.
I think these are all gross underestimations for China. China will be producing more than 7.7 million t of green H2 by 2030 and more than the 70% green by 2060. But overall, you see that China anticipates to need more of its energy from hydrogen than rest of the world. The reason is quite simple i think. China has a lot of industrial needs in its chemical factories, refineries & fertilizers. It's just more industrialized than everyone else.
So because there is this great need + this great industrial base in China, it will be far & away the world's largest hydrogen/ammonia producer. All of this helps local industries since there is additional need for all the wind turbine, solar panels and offshore floating modules it wants to produce. And unlike Europe, China actually has the empty space to plant as many solar/wind farm as possible. And it can also put them in Mongolia and central asia for export back to China.
And as we discussed this is potentially a huge multi trillion industry we are talking about not just in terms of equipments but also the hydrogen/ammonia fuel themselves. China already has many ammonia/hydrogen projects everywhere in the country. Like this 390k/yr project was the largest green ammonia project ever until more recently other Chinese projects came online
You just don't see this anywhere else in the world.
All of this ensures:
1) China can continue to produce/sell as many wind/solar related equipments as possible
2) It will establish itself as the greatest producer of electrolyzer and attract companies like Cockerill (which set up Cockerill Jingli)
3) have the most domestic green hydrogen/ammonia projects
4) Setup the world's largest fleet of ammonia carriers and ammonia powered ships
5) will eventually be the world's largest producer of hydrogen fuel cells, fuel cell engines, ammonia powered engines.
And as we've seen in solar/wind, improving technology + cost control allowed renewables to be a lot cheaper than fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are also produced in other countries and shipped to China, so there is the issue of energy independence. China wants to be a net exporter of energies so that other countries (like European ones) are dependent on China. That's what this is all about. Eventually, green H2/ammonia will be cheaper than converting them from coal & natural gas. Aside from capacity limitations, there is no reason to continue to make non-green H2. That's why companies like Sinopec is so involved. They want to get in on this early and become a dominant player in H2. Having control of main energy source is a huge net benefit for the security of your country. See how GCC countries have become wealthy and have control due to their fossil fuel wealth.
It's been known for a while now that China is a huge net exporter of gold. It runs a huge trading surplus so should have a lot of incoming USD. It hasn't been accumulating UST. Normally, that would lead to currency appreciation, but we haven't seen that, but gold prices keep going up.
At some point, China probably has to reveal how much gold it has really accumulated. The huge domestic production + the huge net import has not led to China changing its official gold reserves numbers.
At some point, China needs to start selling its USD holdings in general, not just the UST
I think it probably is still too concerned about currency stability when it needs to work harder at pushing RMB importance.
Chinese exporters are so competitive vs the west that CNY can significantly appreciate and Chinese exports will still be cheap.
At some point, China probably has to reveal how much gold it has really accumulated. The huge domestic production + the huge net import has not led to China changing its official gold reserves numbers.
At some point, China needs to start selling its USD holdings in general, not just the UST
I think it probably is still too concerned about currency stability when it needs to work harder at pushing RMB importance.
Chinese exporters are so competitive vs the west that CNY can significantly appreciate and Chinese exports will still be cheap.