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In December 2017, just after Christmas, Japan announced the launch of the "Hydrogen Energy Strategy" in a high-profile manner, and showed it to the world through the Tokyo Olympic Games and the Osaka World Expo. So how is Japan's hydrogen energy program developing? Is it half-dead like the Tokyo Olympics? Today's old history will give you a rip-off.
What happened to Japan's hydrogen energy program
At the end of 2020, the global number of hydrogen fuel vehicles exceeded 30,000, especially the cumulative global sales of Japan's Toyota Mirai and Honda Clarity were 12,679.
It seems that the data is OK, but a closer look is cumulative, in fact, in 2020, there are only 797 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles sold in Japan, of which 89 are sold by Toyota Mirai and 8 by Honda Clarity.
Although 2020 was a global unfavorable year, Toyota's sales were down 11.3% year-on-year, but they were able to sell 9.528 million units, while Honda also sold 4.79 million units.
Therefore, the sales of hydrogen fuel vehicles in Japan are a bit bare-chested compared to the total sales of these two cars, which is too conspicuous. Of course, in addition to Toyota and Honda Motor Corporation, which are dissatisfied with this sales figure, there is also Japan, which has a bad life.
According to Japan's hydrogen energy strategic plan, by 2020, the number of hydrogen fuel vehicles in Japan will reach 40,000, but the current sales of hydrogen fuel cells in Japan have not reached 10,000.
And Japan plans to reach 160 hydrogen refueling stations by 2020, but only 137 have actually been built. In addition, the sales of household hydrogen fuel cell cogeneration systems, which are highly anticipated by Japan, will reach 5.3 million units by 2030.
Because of the frequent occurrence of geological activities in Japan and the serious damage to infrastructure such as earthquakes, the independent installation of fuel cell systems by Japanese families can effectively solve the short-term electrical and thermal energy needs of families after the disaster.
That's a good idea, and Japan is also working hard to promote the project, and plans to reduce the price of the system to about 800,000 yen, equivalent to 45,000 yuan, around 2020. But in fact, the actual price of the system is still hovering around 60,000 yuan, and the general gasoline engine can achieve the same effect, but only a few thousand yuan.
So since the Japanese government began to subsidize in 2009, the sales of the system is only more than 300,000 units, just to reach the fraction of Japan's plan, according to the current growth rate, the sales of fuel cell systems are far from reaching Japan's target of 2030.
The equipment does not sell well, expensive is one factor, and another factor is that the price of hydrogen is much higher than that of natural gas. The cost target of the radical hydrogen energy plan is 17 yen/kWh, which is equivalent to 0.93 yuan/kWh; it does not seem high, but the current comprehensive power generation cost of using natural gas to generate electricity in China is about 0.59 to 0.72 yuan/kWh.
And according to interface news, the current cost of hydrogen fuel cell power generation is about 2.5-3 yuan / kWh, which is more than 4 times higher than natural gas power generation.
So Japan is desperately trying to bring the price of hydrogen down, on the one hand, japan's commitment under the Paris Agreement to reduce carbon emissions by 80% by 2050.
So Japan plans to start using hydrogen to generate electricity from 2020, and carbon dioxide emissions can be reduced by nearly 60% by 2050.
On the other hand, it is to reduce Japan's dependence on natural gas, because Japan is now the world's largest importer of liquefied petroleum gas, importing more than 90% of Japan's total energy, and countries that rely on external energy have energy anxieties.
But in reality, Japan's hydrogen energy plan is still far from success, but Japan is extremely iron at this time. Because Japan did not choose a parallel energy development plan, but desperately bet to increase support for the hydrogen energy industry from the financial and administrative aspects.
Relevant data show that the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry's financial subsidy for hydrogen fuel cells will increase from 70 billion yen in 2020 to 84.8 billion yen in 2021, and the amount of subsidies for other departments doing similar projects is also considerable, and Japan plans to allocate 370 billion yen to support hydrogen energy development in the next 10 years.
What is the concept of 370 billion yen? Japan's most expensive "underground burial" program in calculating the fukushima nuclear waste disposal method is about 243.1 billion yen, and Japan is reluctant to pay for the sea.
However, Japan is extremely willing to invest in the development of hydrogen energy, which seems to let us see the Habit of Japanese "gambling sticks". But is Japan's hydrogen plan right? Put your thoughts on the public screen.
Japan picks the five constants with a thin body
Japan's hydrogen energy plan is extremely successful from a technical point of view alone, because since the 1970s, Japan has been exploring the layout of hydrogen energy technology.
In particular, Japan has always regarded the development of hydrogen energy as an important part of the national energy strategy, basically established the industrial direction of hydrogen energy in the future in the 1980s, and began to comprehensively lay out the entire hydrogen fuel cell industry chain in the 1990s, and has invested hundreds of billions of yen in research and promotion of related technologies.
As a result, Toyota Motor corporation has more than 6,000 patents in hydrogen fuel cell-related technologies and industries, accounting for more than half of the world's related patents.
Therefore, if any country wants to develop hydrogen energy, it is impossible to avoid Japan's patent, if all countries use hydrogen energy as the future energy source, Japan will get the right to set standards; and at this time, Japan, like Saudi Arabia and other oil countries, can make a lot of money by selling products and patents.
However, the failure of Japan's hydrogen energy plan lies in the wolf's ambitions, the layout is too early, the sunk cost is too high, and some drawbacks of the development of hydrogen energy are ignored.
Taking new energy vehicles as an example, the first is the source of hydrogen.
From the current situation, the source of hydrogen energy is mainly from natural gas, oil, coal and other fossil energy in chemical production by-products, also known as gray hydrogen, blue hydrogen, especially gray hydrogen Carbon dioxide emissions are not low.
The green hydrogen produced by environmentally friendly electrolysis only accounts for 4% of the total production capacity. The green hydrogen energy loss of electrolyzed water is large, and only countries like China, where the curtailment rate of wind power and photovoltaic power is relatively high, can play.
The second is that the catalyst of hydrogen fuel cells mainly uses metal platinum, the price is much higher than silver, according to the February 2022 quotation, the current platinum price of 201 yuan per gram. So the price of hydrogen fuel cells is indeed not cheap.
Finally, the most criticized issue of hydrogen energy is safety. Hydrogen is flammable and explosive, which is well known, hydrogen also has a problem is corrosive, many metals will react with hydrogen to produce hydrogen embrittlement, and even fragmentation.
In summary, the application cost of hydrogen energy vehicles for various reasons is not generally high, according to relevant data, the investment cost of hydrogen refueling stations is more than 4 times that of gas stations, operating costs reach 7 times of gas stations, and safety problems have also been criticized.
Therefore, the development of hydrogen energy in various countries is more cautious, coupled with Japan's layout of hydrogen energy too early, too monopolistic, who develops hydrogen energy is Japan's "blood package", which cannot be run by the wool.
So you look at the five permanent countries, are afraid of being cut leeks by Japan, just take hydrogen energy as a backup resource, and reach a tacit understanding to exert efforts on the lithium battery technology route, which makes Japan's hydrogen energy plan unsustainable, all relying on Japanese financial subsidies.
Without revenue, some Japanese companies can only give up. So in February 2021, Nissan announced that it would stop developing hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, and honda gave up not long after.
At present, toyota is still adhering to the "faith", so there is a Japanese media article: Japan is giving up the advantages of hydrogen energy technology accumulated in 20 years, and will soon be surpassed by China. So when will China surpass Japan's hydrogen energy?
When will China surpass Japan's hydrogen energy
"Nikkei Chinese Network" once published an article, hydrogen energy comprehensive strength: Japan first, China second. China's hydrogen energy started relatively late, why can it develop so rapidly.
At the end of 2020, there were a total of 21,772 enterprises in China's chemical industry, and China accounted for about 43% of global chemical sales.
According to the statistics of the China Coal Industry Association, from 2012 to 2020, China's annual hydrogen production increased from 16 million tons to 25 million tons, which is already the world's largest hydrogen producing country.
A large amount of hydrogen needs to be stored, and the production and sales of metal hydrogen storage materials in the mainland have surpassed Japan and ranked first in the world, so this has laid an excellent foundation for China's development of hydrogen energy.
The second is the high rate of clean energy curtailment in the mainland, with 16.61 billion kWh of wind power curtailed nationwide in 2020; 5.26 billion kWh of curtailed light electricity in the country; and about 30.1 billion kWh of hydropower curtailment。
The combined power abandonment of these three is more than that of a medium-sized country, which is enough for Beijing to use for half a year.
Therefore, the use of electrolytic hydrogen as an energy storage power station is actually good, when the peak of electricity consumption, hydrogen energy is used to generate electricity through hydrogen fuel cells to meet the demand for electricity, and energy storage power stations are generally far from the city, so that the opposition of the citizens will not be very large.
Finally, hydrogen fuel cells also have an advantage, the hydrogenation speed of new energy vehicles using hydrogen fuel cells is much faster than that of cars charged with lithium batteries, which is very suitable for long-distance transportation, and the current national main promotion is also hydrogen energy buses to meet urban needs. Therefore, by the end of 2020, China's hydrogen fuel cell vehicle ownership is second only to South Korea and the United States, ranking third in the world.
On the whole, the rapid development of hydrogen energy in China is the reason for the rapid development of the market is huge. Although China began to develop hydrogen energy technology relatively late, under the advantages of the Chinese market, enterprises and related institutions continue to increase investment in technology research and development.
By 2017, 2018, 2020 and 2021, China's hydrogen energy patent applications will be the first in the world. In particular, in 2021, China's hydrogen energy patent applications account for more than 80% of the world's new number, and it is only a matter of time before China's hydrogen energy surpasses Japan.
Therefore, Lao Ziyun: I will want to take the world and do it, I see that it is unavoidable; Japan's ambitions are too big, and it is too ugly to eat, so the future direction of energy development has not gone in the direction they expected. For China, there is no attachment, so there is no loss.