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Hydrogen is turning into automakers’ latest geopolitical pawn
When was the last meter you watched an automotive caller wax poetical about diesel engine comptroller for Class 8 trucks ? Or a tech league keynote that touts the benefits of atomic number 8 enrichment in blast furnaces to make brand ? Or how to cauterise blue - sulfur dugout fuel in oceangoing container ships ?
Probably never .
So why did Hyundai devote half itsCESkeynote to a engineering science that ’s best suited to long - haul trucking , steelmaking and maritime shipping ?
The mere answer is greenwashing . It ’s lawful that Hyundai has invested in atomic number 1 fuel electric cell for decade , but it has also beenone of the more successful bequest automakersat navigating the galvanic transition . It ’s funny that a caller with so much momentum on its side would throw a H Hail Mary .
But maybe Hyundai ’s EV rollout is n’t going as design . possibly the vehicle are n’t as profitable as the troupe would like . Maybe the society is having a hard time secure batteries . Or possibly it realizes thatover 90%of its sales are still powered by fossil fuel and that by EV market share , the company is immure . It might be the world’sthird largestautomaker overall , but it ’s only ineighth placewhen it descend to stamp battery EVs .
record hydrogen , a sector with a green aura about it , a useful distraction from more polluting reality . And since meaningful progress is still a decennary or more away , it ’s hard to hold the society to its claims .
Yet the title made onstage wo n’t be especially impactful , even if Hyundai follow through . The companionship enounce it will produce 3 million tons of H for its brand milling machinery by 2030 . That will give Hyundai Steel the content to produce 60,000 metric tons of green blade , or 0.0025 % of the subsidiary ’s 24 million metric long ton capacity . Hyundai also pronounce it will use some hydrogen in drayage hand truck at larboard and factory , an funny choice cave in that drayage is one of the easy forms of truckage to wire with shelling .
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If that was n’t enough , Hyundai also say that it will generate it from biogas and wastefulness plastic . Because economically splitting water is too easy ?
The biogas would come from digesters containing bacteria that champ on food and other organic waste ( and landfills , presumptively ) . The methane in the result mélange then has to be separate from the other resulting gas , and the H crack off the methane molecules . Each step requires energy and drives up cost .
Chang Hwan Kim , head of battery and fuel cellular telephone growth at Hyundai , did n’t detail how the company would divest hydrogen from methane , but the most widely used method acting is steam reformation , an energy - intensive process that produce about 9 kg of CO2for every kilogram of H2 , harmonise toArgonne National Lab . Hyundai might call the dodging clean , but no one would call it green .
The H - from - plastic proficiency , which Hyundai said it has patent , is likewise complex . In it , plastic is melted and gasified so the atomic number 1 can be cracked off the gaseous hydrocarbon . Each footfall would be energy intensive , and the whole endeavor will produce legion and probably unpredictable pollutants . If the process has any Bob Hope of being clean than simply sting Rudolf Diesel , it will have to scrub up or charm those pollutant , adding more complexness and toll .
Together , thriftlessness - to - H and charge plate - to - hydrogen have to be two of the most convoluted , get-up-and-go - intensive ways to make the petrol . They ’re practically the chemical equivalent of Rube Goldberg machines . Until we see life cycle analyses detailing the mood and environmental impact of these H output methods , they ’re little more than fodder for splashyYouTube titles .
But greenwashing is n’t the only reasonableness Hyundai has plunge a hydrogen PR linebacker blitzing .
Behind shut doors , Hyundai is almost certainly worried about China ’s throttlehold on the lithium - ion assault and battery supplying chain . Though South Korean companies are major maker , Chinese companies dominate the markets for many factor , admit cobalt , black lead and lithium itself . Hyundai is dependent on Korean electric battery monster who themselves are at the mercy of Chinese supplier . ( Fuel cells also require expensive metals like Pt , but Hyundai hassaidit ’s made advance reduce the amount required . )
On the other side of the equation , Korean automakers receive an unwished surprise when the Inflation Reduction Act required certain level of American content and meeting place to qualify for EV rebate . abruptly , Hyundai ’s Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 6 became a lot more expensive relative to the challenger .
Squeezed between China and the U.S. on EVs , Hyundai would no doubt like to free itself from geopolitics of decisive mineral , but it know it ca n’t go escape back to fossil fuel , either . Jaehoon Chang , Hyundai ’s chief executive officer , said as much : “ Hydrogen is fair . Hydrogen guarantee spherical loveliness through its high accessibility . It dissolve the air division through the countries , fix the energy instability due to geographic disparity . ” ( I probably do n’t have to charge out that Chang ’s architectural plan for energy freedom relies heavily on one particular South Korean company ’s fuel jail cell and electrolyzers . )
It ’s not hard to see why Hyundai executive view the world through a geopolitical lens : For decennary , the company has sense insistence from innumerous stakeholders , like from OPEC , from country anxious to take on climate change , and now from the great powers struggling for restraint over the Li - ion bombardment supply chain . For all I know , Hyundai execs might incur hydrogen to be a useful delay manoeuvre , stalling the decarbonization of their fleet , while also think that it could be their geopolitical cornet card when the world last phase out fossil fuels . To those execs , I say good luck . Geopolitical intrigue do n’t always work out as planned .
