The Suiso Frontier, built by Japan’s Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI), arrived on Friday from Kobe, in southern Japan, following a longer trip than the expected 16 days as the owners sought to avoid bad weather and rough seas, said a spokesperson for the venture, called the Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain (HESC).

Led by KHI, HESC is a A$500 million ($360 million) project backed by the Japanese and Australian governments as a way to switch to cleaner energy and cut carbon emissions.

Hydrogen, seen as a path to decarbonizing industries that rely on coal, gas and oil, is key to Japan’s goal to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. Australia aims to become a major exporter of the fuel.

Last year, the project started extracting hydrogen from brown coal at a 70 kg a day demonstration plant in the Latrobe Valley in the state of Victoria, about 135 km (84 miles) east of Melbourne, where brown coal mines have long fuelled some of Australia’s most polluting power stations.

The hydrogen is produced by reacting coal with oxygen and steam under high heat and pressure in a process that also yields carbon dioxide. The hydrogen is then trucked to a port site where it is cooled to minus 253 degrees Celsius (minus 423 Fahrenheit), liquefying it for export.

If the partners eventually scale the project up to 225,000 tonnes a year, they plan to make carbon-neutral hydrogen by burying the carbon dioxide released in the process under the seabed offshore Victoria.

Partners in the Australian side of the project include Japan’s Electric Power Development Co (J-Power), Iwatani Corp, Marubeni Corp, Sumitomo Corp and Australia’s AGL Energy Ltd, whose mine is supplying the brown coal.

($1 = 1.3906 Australian dollars)

Source: www.marinelink.com

Image: www.pexels.com

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The A$500 million ($353 million) pilot project, led by Kawasaki and backed by the Japanese and Australian governments, was originally scheduled to ship its first cargo of hydrogen extracted from brown coal in Australia in spring. It was delayed to the second half of Kawasaki’s financial year in October to March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It will still depend on the pandemic situation, but we think the ship could leave Japan for Australia as early as late this month,” a Kawasaki spokesperson said.

Kawasaki Heavy aims to replicate its success as a major liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker producer with hydrogen, a key element that may help decarbonize industries and aid the global energy transition.

In March this year, the Japanese-Australian venture started producing hydrogen from brown coal in the test project that aims to show liquefied hydrogen can be produced and exported safely to Japan.

The Kawasaki spokesperson said the hydrogen carrier Suiso Frontier has been registered by ClassNK, a ship classification society, giving it recognition that it complies with International Maritime Organization standards.

The schedule for the return journey from Australia is not yet fixed due to uncertainty about the impact of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, he said, adding a one-way trip takes about 16 days.

Partners on the Australian side of the project include Japan’s Electric Power Development Co (J-Power), Iwatani Corp, Marubeni Corp, Sumitomo Corp and Australia’s AGL Energy Ltd, whose mine is supplying the brown coal.

Source: www.marinelink.com

Image: www.pexel.com

The post World’s First Liquefied Hydrogen Carrier May Leave Japan this Month appeared first on Cargo News Today.