- The Suiso Frontier cargo vessel docked at Victoria’s Port of Hastings on Friday to take load the world’s first shipment of liquid hydrogen destined for Japan.
- The ship’s arrival is a landmark for the Japanese-Australian Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain (HESC) pilot project, which sees liquefied hydrogen generated from brown coal.
HESC’s vision is to produce carbon neutral hydrogen through extraction from a mix of Latrobe Valley coal and biomass, capturing and storing CO2 via the CarbonNet Project and optimising energy efficiency in the HESC supply chain.
The project plans to produce 225,000 tonnes of carbon neutral liquefied hydrogen (LH2). In a commercial phase, the project will create 30,000 full-time jobs across the Gippsland and Mornington Peninsula regions over the life of the project.
During the Pilot Project, 99.999% pure hydrogen has been produced from Latrobe Valley coal and biomass via gasification, trucked to Hastings, cooled to -253 degrees and subsequently liquified to less than 800 times its gaseous volume to create highly valuable liquefied hydrogen.
The loading of liquefied hydrogen onto the Suiso Frontier for the return journey to Kobe, Japan, makes the HESC Project the most advanced and scalable hydrogen project in Australia and the first project in the world to make, liquefy and transport liquid hydrogen by sea to an international market.
The Australia-Japan HESC partnership is at the cutting edge of creating new technology, cleaner energy, and jobs for both countries.
The learnings from the Pilot will form the basis for further work towards delivering HESC at a commercial scale. Over the next two years, the project partners will undertake extensive research and development of the technical and operational requirements for a commercial-scale project.
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
