Science Centres: Energy

Investigating Future Energy: Hydrogen

CRL Energy’s fluidised bed gasifier, used for hydrogen energy research. [Photos: Alan Blacklock, NIWA]

Hydrogen is one attractive option in the search for clean, secure energy, especially for transport. Imagine running a car which emits only water vapour – no lung irritants, no carcinogens, no toxic gases. Hydrogen can be produced from all the energy sources a country possesses, reducing the expense and insecurity that comes from dependence on imported fuels.

There are many technical challenges with hydrogen, and most technologies for delivery, storage, and use of hydrogen will probably be developed through international research efforts.

But New Zealand decision-makers need robust information about what would work here and what won’t. The big issues for us include how and where we might produce hydrogen, and how to move it around the country. We need home-grown answers to these questions. When hydrogen cars start rolling off the production line, we need to have already done the planning and built the expertise to ensure a smooth transition to a hydrogen economy.

New Zealand research now

On the back of this newsletter we outline the progress CRL Energy has made in producing pure hydrogen by converting New Zealand lignite into ‘syngas’ from which we can extract pure hydrogen.

The essential ‘partner’ technology is carbon capture and storage. There are currently three large-scale sites around the world (Canada, the North Sea, and Algeria) where carbon dioxide is removed from gas streams and stored geologically. Modelling by Unitec and CRL Energy shows that New Zealand could significantly reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by use of carbon capture and storage, but research is required to identify and test suitable geological sites here.

What about biofuels?

Biofuels are another part of the transport fuel solution and, as for hydrogen, we need good research to understand the pros and cons of biofuels in the New Zealand context. The extent to which New Zealand-produced biofuels become a major transport fuel will depend in part on land and water availability. One of CRL Energy’s future research interests is the use of biomass as an energy source for the production of hydrogen.

More Information

New Zealand is a member of the International Partnership for the Hydrogen Economy - www.iphe.net