Australia

Recently we have seen hydrogen (re)emerge as an important component of widespread decarbonisation of energy sectors. From an Australian perspective this brings with it an opportunity to store transport and export renewable energy—either as liquefied hydrogen or in a carrier such as ammonia. The growth of the hydrogen industry to now include the power and transport sectors as well as the notion of hydrogen export has broadened the range of safety considerations required and seen them extend into the realm of the consumer for the first time.<br/>Hydrogen as well as ammonia and other carriers such as methanol are existing industrial chemicals which have established protocols for their handling and use in the chemicals sector. As their use in energy and transport increases especially in the context of widespread domestic use their handling and use by inexperienced people in less-controlled environments expands shifting the risk profiles and management systems required. There is also the potential for novel hydrogen carriers such as methylcyclohexane/toluene to reach commercial viability at industrial scale.<br/>This paper will discuss some of these emerging applications of hydrogen and its carriers and discuss some of the technological innovations under development that may accompany a new energy industry— with some consideration given to their potential risks and the required safety considerations. In addition we will also provide an overview of global activity in this area and how new standards and regulations would need to be developed for the adaption of these technologies in an Australian context.

Laminar burning velocities (SL) of hydrogen/ammonia mixtures in air at atmospheric pressure were studied experimentally and numerically. The blending of hydrogen with ammonia two fuels that have been proposed as promising carriers for renewable energy causes the laminar flame speed of the mixture SL to decrease significantly. However details of this have not previously available. Systematic measurements were therefore performed for a series of hydrogen/ammonia mixtures with wide ranges of mole fractions of blended ammonia (XNH3) and equivalence ratio using a heat flux method based on heat flux of a flat flame transferred to the burner surface. It was found that the mixture of XNH3 = 40% has a value of SL close to that of methane which is the dominant component of natural gas. Using three chemical kinetic mechanisms available in the literature i.e. the well-known GRI-Mech 3.0 mechanism and two mechanisms recently released SL were also modelled for the cases studied. However the discrepancies between the experimental and numerical results can exceed 50% with the GRI-Mech 3.0 mechanism. Discrepancies were also found between the numerical results obtained with different mechanisms. These results can contribute to an increase in both the safety and efficiency of the coutilization of these two types of emerging renewable fuel and to guiding the development of better kinetic models.

The current hydrogen generation technologies especially biomass gasification using fluidized bed reactors (FBRs) were rigorously reviewed. There are involute operational parameters in a fluidized bed gasifier that determine the anticipated outcomes for hydrogen production purposes. However limited reviews are present that link these parametric conditions with the corresponding performances based on experimental data collection. Using the constructed artificial neural networks (ANNs) as the supervised machine learning algorithm for data training the operational parameters from 52 literature reports were utilized to perform both the qualitative and quantitative assessments of the performance such as the hydrogen yield (HY) hydrogen content (HC) and carbon conversion efficiency (CCE). Seven types of operational parameters including the steam-to-biomass ratio (SBR) equivalent ratio (ER) temperature particle size of the feedstock residence time lower heating value (LHV) and carbon content (CC) were closely investigated. Six binary parameters have been identified to be statistically significant to the performance parameters (hydrogen yield (HY)) hydrogen content (HC) and carbon conversion efficiency (CCE) by analysis of variance (ANOVA). The optimal operational conditions derived from the machine leaning were recommended according to the needs of the outcomes. This review may provide helpful insights for researchers to comprehensively consider the operational conditions in order to achieve high hydrogen production using fluidized bed reactors during biomass gasification.

In a report co-authored by Columbia University’s Centre on Global Energy Policy (CGEP) and the Global CCS Institute titled ‘Net Zero and Geospheric Return: Actions today for 2030’ findings reveal that climate finance policies and the development of carbon dioxide removal technologies need to grow rapidly within the next 10 years in order to curb climate change and hit net-zero targets.

The report unveils key climate actions required to avoid climate catastrophe:

With 2020 set to close the hottest decade on record CO2 emissions need to drop by 50% to achieve net-zero climate goals by 2030 The rapid deployment of climate mitigating infrastructure needs to occur including the expansion of CO2 pipelines from the current 8000 km to 43000 km by 2030 Clear climate polices which reduce the financial and regulatory risk of CO2 capture and storage and increase CO2 storage options need to be quickly developed and implemented.

Link to document on Global CCS Institute Website

Hydrogen as the International Energy Agency (IEA 2019) notes has experienced a number of ‘false dawns’ - in the 1970s 1990s and early 2000s - which subsequently faded. However this time there is reason to think that hydrogen will play a substantial role in the global energy system. The most important factor driving this renewed focus is the ability of hydrogen to support deep carbon abatement by assisting in those sectors where abatement with non-carbon electricity has so far proven difficult. Hydrogen can also address poor urban air quality energy security and provides a good means of shifting energy supply between regions and between seasons.

In response to these changed conditions many countries states and even cities have developed hydrogen strategies while various interest groups have developed industry roadmaps which fulfil a similar role.  

This report summarises 19 hydrogen strategies and aims to help readers understand how nations regions and industries are thinking about opportunities to become involved in this emerging industry. Its prime purpose is to act as a resource to assist those involved in long-term energy policy planning in Australia including those involved in the development of Australia’s hydrogen strategy

The full report can be read on the Energy Network website at this link here

The Australian transport sector is under increasing pressure to reduce carbon emissions whilst also managing a fuel supply chain that relies heavily on foreign import partners.



Transport in Australia equates to a significant proportion (approximately 18%) of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions. Due to ongoing population growth these emissions have been steadily rising with the increase of cars on our roads and freight trucks in transit. Coupled with this the transport fuel supply chain is highly reliant on overseas partners – Australia currently imports 90% of its liquid fuel. These two challenges present an interesting dichotomy for the industry incentivising research and development into new technologies that can address one or both of these issues.



Hydrogen is one technology that has the potential to provide a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions as well as a more reliable domestic fuel supply. Hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) are an emerging zero-emission alternative for the transport sector which offer a variety of benefits.



You can read the full report on the Aurecon Australasia website at this link

The Australian transport sector is under increasing pressure to reduce carbon emissions whilst also managing a fuel supply chain that relies heavily on foreign import partners.



Transport in Australia equates to a significant proportion (approximately 18%) of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions. Due to ongoing population growth these emissions have been steadily rising with the increase of cars on our roads and freight trucks in transit. Coupled with this the transport fuel supply chain is highly reliant on overseas partners – Australia currently imports 90% of its liquid fuel. These two challenges present an interesting dichotomy for the industry incentivising research and development into new technologies that can address one or both of these issues.



Hydrogen is one technology that has the potential to provide a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions as well as a more reliable domestic fuel supply. Hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) are an emerging zero-emission alternative for the transport sector which offer a variety of benefits.



Available from the Energy Ministers Website link here

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) continues to make significant progress around the world against a backdrop of greater climate action from countries and private companies. The Global Status of CCS 2021 demonstrates the critical role of CCS as nations and industry accelerate to net-zero.<br/>The report provides detailed analyses of the global project pipeline international policy finance and emerging trends. In addition four regional overviews highlight the rapid development of CCS across North America Asia Pacific Europe and nearby regions and the Gulf Cooperation Council states.

Hydrogen produced by solar and other clean energy sources is an essential alternative to fossil fuels. In this study a commercial alkaline electrolyzer with different cell numbers and electrode areas are simulated for different pressure temperature thermal resistance and electrical current. This alkaline electrolyzer is considered unsteady in simulations and different parameters such as temperature are obtained in terms of time. The obtained results are compared with similar results in the literature and good agreement is observed. Various characteristics of this alkaline electrolyzer as thermoneutral voltage faraday efficiency and cell voltage are calculated and displayed. The outlet heat rate and generated heat rate are obtained as well. The pressure and the temperature in the simulations are between 1 and 100 bar and between 300 and 360 Kelvin respectively. The results show that the equilibrium temperature is reached 2-3 hours after the time when the Alkaline electrolyzer starts to work.

This study uses an online quasi-experiment with a national sample from Australia to evaluate public acceptance of hydrogen exports. It explores the complex communications environment that messaging about hydrogen exports is typically encountered in. We find that acceptance of green hydrogen exports is significantly higher than blue or brown hydrogen exports and acceptance of blue hydrogen exports higher than brown hydrogen exports. Additionally results show economic-framed benefit messages are associated with lesser public acceptance when encountered in communication contexts that outline differently-focused environmental downsides (competing contexts) but not same-focused economic downsides (conflicting contexts). In contrast environment-framed benefit messages are associated with lesser public acceptance when presented in communication contexts that outline same-focused environmental downsides (conflicting contexts) but not differentlyfocused economic downsides (competing contexts). Overall the study indicates message framing can impact acceptance of hydrogen exports and that organisations should consider the informational context within which their communications will be received.