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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Japan will aim to make
hydrogen a power source viable enough to produce the output of more than 30
nuclear reactors by 2030, the Nikkei newspaper reported. To achieve that goal in
its bid to reduce carbon emissions Japan will have to make a technology now in
its infancy commercially viable at scale, as the world accelerates an energy
transition to prevent the worst impacts of climate change, reported Reuters.
The
government will provide 2 trillion yen (USD19 billion) of funds to support
efforts to make hydrogen viable as a fuel for electricity generators that burn
without emissions, the Nikkei reported, without citing the source of its
information.
Costs will have to be cut drastically to achieve a target of
burning 10 million tonnes of hydrogen by 2030, with costs around 10 times higher
for combustion of the fuel that only emits water vapour, the Nikkei
said.
The industry ministry could not immediately comment on the report
when contacted by Reuters.
The threshold has added urgency after Japan
shifted its position recently and officially adopted a target of 2050 to achieve
net-zero emissions.
With most of its nuclear sector still shut down after
the Fukushima disaster in 2011, Japan relies heavily on carbon producing fuels
like coal and natural gas.
The country will also aim to develop more
renewable energy supplies to produce hydrogen for later use at times of
plentiful sun or wind, the Nikkei said.
Japanese companies including
Toyota Motor Corp on Monday said they established a new organisation, the Japan
Hydrogen Association, to promote the creation of a hydrogen supply chain in the
country.
By Monday 88 companies had joined the initiative, including
Japan's biggest refiner Eneos Holdings Inc and trading house Mitsui & Co
Ltd.
As MRC informed earlier,
ENEOS Corporation (formerly known as JXTG Nippon Oil & Energy) took its
larger naphtha cracker in Kawasaki off-line on 4 December 2020 for
repairment after a technical issue reported at the butadiene separation
unit in late November. The cracker was operating at 95% capacity
before the shutdown in early December. The cracker with an annual capacity of
515,000 tons/year of ethylene, 300,000 tons/year of propylene, and 105,000
tons/year of butadiene would be shut for a month. The company’s smaller cracker
at the same location is not affected by the issue.
Ethylene and propylene
are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene
(PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report,
Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,760,950 tonnes in the first ten
months of 2020, up by 3% year on year. Only high density polyethylene (HDPE) and
linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) shipments increased. At the same time,
PP shipments to the Russian market reached 978,870 tonnes in
January-October 2020 (calculated using the formula: production minus exports
plus imports minus producers' inventories as of 1 January, 2020). Supply of
exclusively of PP random copolymer increased. |
