South of Tokyo, at the base of Mount Fuji, Toyota is developing the project called Woven City, a Hydrogen City. It is a prototype of a smart city whose source of energy would be hydrogen and which began its construction this year in February. But, beyond how Woven City works, there are many things to highlight about this project.
The first aspect is that the bet that government and companies in Japan are making on hydrogen is evident. If we analyze the country’s energy profile and its history, this makes much more sense than it seems at first glance. According to the United States Energy Information Administration, Japan’s energy consumption is composed of 87% fossil fuels among oil, natural gas and coal, with an additional 3% of nuclear energy. The remaining 10% are renewable energies, which include hydroelectric plants.
Japan’s great dependence on fossil fuels is accompanied by its lack of these natural resources, of which it has historically been a net importer. In 2019 alone, the country was the fourth largest importer of crude oil in the world, the largest importer of liquefied natural gas and the third importer of coal only behind China and India.
Japan’s bet is a true act of energy security and not in terms of dependence on the supply chain, but it is also a way to improve the country’s trade balance, which is affected by the strong costs of energy products and their volatility.
Another fundamental element is that it is the way in which Japan would promote the energy transition. Given its strong dependence on fossil fuels, the country has had difficulties reducing its greenhouse gas emissions. Solar and wind development has been limited for this reason; however, an aggressive plan to develop the energy transition using hydrogen could be much more feasible.
After the incident with the Nuclear Plant in Fukushima, Japan decided not to build new nuclear plants and to gradually close the existing ones. The same has happened recently when it announced that they would no longer build more coal plants. This implies that there could be greater investment in combined-cycle plants that use liquefied natural gas, which would be fundamental, in this first stage, for the development of gray or blue hydrogen, alongside green hydrogen.
A third aspect is that the bet addresses the issue of mobility. The greatest use of oil in the country is used for mobility, whether of private and collective automobiles, as well as for the transport of merchandise between cities. Although the train system is electrified and quite efficient, wheel transport continues to be important in the country.
Unlike other automakers, Japanese automakers, such as Toyota, Honda and Nissan, are betting on the standard of hydrogen vehicles more than on vehicles that use electricity from the grid. This implies that at least two other models are promoted besides the plug-in electric one: the fuel-cell model and the internal-combustion model with hydrogen. In such a way that we could say that the standard of the future of automobiles has not yet been decided.
Space is running out, but next week we will address more on this topic, expanding on Woven City, the smart city pilot that would use hydrogen as a source of energy.
This article was originally published by Business Insider México.
Date: June 10, 2021
Original Link: https://businessinsider.mx/hidrogeno-la-apuesta-japonesa-opinion-paul-sanchez-energia-circular/ [offline]
Archived Link: https://web.archive.org/web/20240528033643/https://businessinsider.mx/hidrogeno-la-apuesta-japonesa-opinion-paul-sanchez-energia-circular/ [Archived]