The Battle of National Fortune in New Energy: China's Electric Energy VS Japanese Hydrogen Energy, Who Bets Right?

"We want to be ahead of the world and create a hydrogen energy society!" Once a man named Shinzo Abe announced this to the world with his head held high.

Just fourteen months after the Fukushima nuclear power plant leak, Tokyo Electric Power Company's new president, Naoto Hirose, vowed to make a big move into hydrogen energy in order to save his already dilapidated corporate image.

However, beneath these so-called abandonment appearances in Japan, there is another mystery.

What mystery is behind all this? Why did Japan choose hydrogen? Why did China choose electricity? In this battle of the century of new energy, whose hand will die?

01Why did Japan choose hydrogen energy?

It all starts with hydrogen energy. Hydrogen energy has a very important advantage over oil and natural gas. That is, hydrogen has a high calorific value for combustion, and at the same weight, it can produce four times the heat of natural gas.

Therefore, it was applied to the aerospace field in the early days, and in the process of decades of technology research and development and application, the technological achievements were relatively remarkable. Later, the goal of hydrogen fuel cell applications was to achieve car drive or power generation.

Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are more convenient than lithium battery vehicles, and hydrogenation takes only 3-5 minutes. Due to the high calorific value of hydrogen combustion, the hydrogenation range of hydrogen energy vehicles can reach 600 -800 kilometers, so hydrogen energy vehicles are also the main technical form of new energy vehicles.

The first hydrogen fuel cell vehicle was born in 1968. In the power system of this car, mainly van trucks , equipped with a high-power fuel cell pack with a mileage of 200 kilometers .

However, this new energy vehicle has a more complex structure and a relatively large body structure, which is not valued by various countries.

By the end of the 20th century, in order to effectively solve the problems of environmental pollution and energy supply and demand, fuel cell electric vehicle technology has attracted widespread attention from all walks of life, and some automobile manufacturers and management departments have invested a lot of financial and material resources in technology research and development.

All sectors of Japanese society have seen the possibility that hydrogen fuel cell vehicles will replace lithium in the future, so they have begun to continuously deploy in the field of hydrogen energy, even the Tokyo Electric Power Company we mentioned earlier is no exception.

If you can seize this opportunity, TEPCO will still be the most handsome cub in Japan.

Therefore, in 2019, Naoto Hirose announced that Tokyo Electric Power Company will devote itself to the full construction of hydrogen refueling stations, and strive to show a different self to the world during the Tokyo Olympic Games.

However, the ideal is full, but the reality is bone. TEPCO's hydrogen station construction has been unusually slow, like most of its domestic companies.

As of 2021, Japan has built more than 160 hydrogen refueling stations. Although the development was not smooth, Japan did not give up.

In July 2021, Japan wrote in a draft energy policy that it plans to generate 1% of the total electricity from new fuels such as hydrogen and ammonia by 2030, and 36%-38% of renewable energy generation.

That's a full half or so difference compared to Germany. So why is there such a big gap?

At the end of the day, it's wind power. As an island country, Although Japan is close to the sea, most of the water depths are deep.

This means that Japan cannot build a fixed offshore wind turbine, and Japan is not a windy country, so its wind potential is very limited.

Europe and the United States are different, to know that the European North Sea is a "treasure" with wind energy resources, and its wind energy potential is huge.

Because of the lack of renewable energy generation in Japan, it is difficult to increase green hydrogen production. This means that if large-scale production is not achieved, the price of hydrogen will be relatively high.

In Japan, the cost of generating electricity with pure hydrogen is as high as 5.46 yuan per kWh of electricity. In the western part of the mainland, the cost of using natural gas to generate electricity is only 0.5 yuan per kilowatt-hour of electricity.

There is also the fact that the price of hydrogen energy-related hardware equipment is itself very high. Taking the construction of hydrogen refueling stations as an example, its cost is about 15 million yuan, which is more than three times that of charging stations. This series of high costs has made the price of hydrogen in Japan high.

In the long run, will ordinary people in Japan really always pay for it? And Abe's vows at the beginning of the article seem to be just a big joke.

The reason why Japan is so obsessed with hydrogen energy is that the Fukushima nuclear power plant leaked in 2011, which made it secretive. From the perspective of new energy vehicles, Japan chooses hydrogen energy instead of electric energy, mainly considering the following points:

First of all, it is closely related to Japan's own climate. Japan's winter is relatively cold, and the low temperature performance of hydrogen fuel cells is much higher than that of lithium batteries.

Secondly, the core component of pure electric vehicles, batteries, need to use rare earths. Japan has fewer domestic rare earth resources, which means that it will have a higher dependence on the outside world.

In addition, China and the United States should start research on pure electric vehicles earlier than Japan, and Japan, as a latecomer, does not have an advantage in this field.

02Why does China choose pure electric vehicles?

China's new energy vehicle industry dates back to 2008. After some hard work, it officially achieved large-scale market promotion in 2015, with annual sales of more than 331,000 units, 341.3% higher than the 75,000 units in 2014.

In 2018, the total sales of new energy vehicles in mainland China increased by about 1.256 million units, an increase of 61.7% compared with the same period last year. Among them, 984,000 vehicles are pure electric vehicles, accounting for 78.34% of the total sales.

The reason why the mainland has vigorously invested in electric energy lies in the following points:

First of all, it is because of the needs of urban life. It should be known that fuel vehicles can only achieve economic speed if the speed is stabilized at 60-80km/h.

However, in urban life, vehicles mainly play a role in people's commuting, transporting children to and from school and other life transportation functions, the demand for short-distance outings is limited, and the number of long-distance uses is even less pitiful.

Due to the large number of traffic congestion such as morning and evening rush hours, the traffic rhythm of stop-and-go urban traffic causes most fuel vehicles to fail to reach economic speed for most of the time.

Pure electric vehicles are just the opposite, the lower the speed, the more power-saving. In addition, affected by the policy, domestic sales of higher family cars mainly use 1.5 T and other small displacement turbocharged engines, low torque when the power is weak, the turbo reaches a certain speed after intervention.

In urban life, low-torque, low-speed application scenarios account for the vast majority, and the high torque of electric vehicles is at hand, completely avoiding the above deficiencies.

There is also the fact that pure electric vehicles have better performance in most cities in terms of daily use costs, maintenance costs, safety, NVH, etc.

Secondly, it is because of the need for sustainable development. Greenhouse gas emissions pose a serious threat to the sustainable development of the world, and the exhaust gases emitted by fuel vehicles that rely on fossil fuels produce a large number of greenhouse gases, which is one of the main causes of global warming.

Carbon monoxide, hydrogen compounds, etc. in pollutants emitted by automobile exhaust will cause photochemical smog. The discharge of carbon dioxide and sulfides will further aggravate the destruction of the ozone layer and produce acid rain.

The discharge of unburned hydrocarbons, particulate matter PM and odorous gases is very harmful to humans, animals and plants.

In contrast, pure electric vehicles do not emit any harmful gases during use, and can make their own contribution to the value of the process of building an environmentally friendly society.

At the same time, fossil fuels such as oil, as non-renewable energy sources, are not sustainable in their own right. At present, the total oil reserves that have been explored around the world can only be used by humans for about 50 years.

In the soon post-oil era, the demise of fuel vehicles was inevitable. Pure electric vehicle technology is relatively mature, the overall cost is low, can be popularized in the large-scale market in a short period of time, and is closer to the concept of sustainable development.

Then, it is because of the need for the Internet of Everything. With the gradual maturity and improvement of 5G technology, as well as commercial promotion, mankind is about to usher in a new era of internet of everything. In the new era, the Internet of Things will redefine the relationship between life, people, and cars, making them more frequently connected.

If a person opens the air conditioning instruction at home through a mobile phone, with a fuel car must start the internal combustion engine power supply to ensure the continuous operation of the air conditioner, pure electric vehicles can get rid of some mechanical procedures, directly rely on batteries, motors to ensure that the air conditioning runs, with better economy, convenience and reliability.

In addition, pure electric vehicles are more suitable for autonomous driving, and their driving data will be sent and received more accurately, because there is no need to worry about the working state of the engine and multi-gearbox, and the vehicle can react more naturally after processing the surrounding data.

03 Whose hand did the deer die?

Pure electric vehicles use a single battery as the energy storage power condition of the car, use the battery to provide corresponding power resources for the motor, achieve the goal of driving the motor operation, and make the car run smoothly.

The advantage of the application of this technology is that it is basically pollution-free and low noise. Therefore, in terms of environmental protection, the advantages of technology application are relatively obvious.

In pure electric vehicles, the car structure of the gas turbine is relatively simple, and in the process of operation, fewer transmission components are used, so the subsequent maintenance and maintenance requirements are also relatively small.

The power source of pure electric vehicles is mainly power batteries. By charging, the power battery is stored, the power battery is powered by the motor controller, and then the motor is controlled by the motor controller, and the vehicle operating efficiency is significantly improved at this time.

Hydrogen fuel cells, mainly hydrogen and oxygen form a chemical reaction to generate electrical energy, to achieve the goal of motor control energy, drive the motor to run, so in terms of power sources are different.

From the perspective of worldwide technology applications, nowadays, electric vehicle technology has made breakthroughs and developments, and various countries will focus on the level of electric vehicles in the promotion of new energy vehicles. But hydrogen fuel cells, only a few countries are promoting technology.

Nowadays, some well-known automobile manufacturers have also invested a lot of time and energy in the research and development of electric vehicles.

If pure electric vehicles, in the battery capacity and battery fast charging technology application stage, fail to achieve breakthrough development within decades, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, there will be more breakthrough development opportunities.

This is because the time to replenish hydrogen energy is less expensive, and the battery life is longer, and the car has a longer driving time.

Pure electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, which technology will become the mainstream of the automotive industry? In this battle of the century of new energy, whose hand will die? Feel free to leave a message in the comments section.