Port Moody, BC, will host an innovative low-emission hydrogen power plant, according to the three companies behind a pilot project planned to begin construction by the end of next year.
The test project would be the first such plant in BC, and possibly in Canada, to produce what is known as “hydrogen turquoise,” an almost zero-emission method for capturing and converting methane from natural gas combustion. . Similar projects exist in Germany and France.
The Port Moody project is now in the planning stage, a FortisBC Energy spokesman said.
“Hydrogen has great potential for British Columbia,” Sean Beardow said in a telephone interview on Monday. “It’s potentially a huge resource for us … an important piece of how we expand our renewable, low-carbon gases.”
Hydrogen has long been seen to have great potential for climate-friendly electricity production and fuel cells for transportation.
Because British Columbia and other jurisdictions are committed to drastically reducing emissions in the face of climate change, the development of greener energy sources on a large scale is a key technological challenge, especially electricity that can be transported over long distances or marketed abroad.
The pilot project at Port Moody would initially be on a small scale. But if developed commercially, the plant could produce up to 2,500 tons of emission-free hydrogen fuel a year, equivalent to 300,000 gigajoules of energy, its proponents say.
The Hazer Group Hydrogen Fuel Plant in Western Australia is similar to a pilot project the company is helping to build from late 2023 in Port Moody, BC (submitted by Hazer Group)
That would be enough energy to power more than 3,000 homes, FortisBC says.
The natural gas firm has partnered with Australia-based Hazer Group, which already generates hydrogen energy in a pilot project in that country, and Suncor, which will host the plant on its Burrard Terminal property.
The process of using natural gas to create hydrogen fuel has been criticized because it still uses fossil fuels.
But supporters of the project say it will not release greenhouse gases. Using a method called methane pyrolysis, the plant would essentially separate the carbon from the hydrogen in the methane released when the natural gas is burned. Hydrogen can be used as energy, while carbon is stored as solid graphite, which could then be used in other industries such as construction.
In April, the National Research Council of Canada described methane pyrolysis as a “completely new approach.” Last year, a methane pyrolysis plant was opened in Nebraska, claiming to be “the world’s first commercial-scale methane pyrolysis unit.”
Werner Antweiler, an associate professor at the Sauder School of Business at the University of BC who is currently working on research on this type of hydrogen energy in international markets, said it is “very exciting” that this project take place in BC.
“This is the beauty of the future,” he said in a telephone interview. “Hydrogen is a tool that allows us to market and store clean electricity.”
Antweiler explained that the approach is known as hydrogen turquoise because it is among the production methods called green and blue.
In “blue” hydrogen generation, fossil fuels and some carbon emissions are burned, but not all, are captured and converted, he said. “Green” hydrogen is the most sustainable and depends entirely on large renewable energy supplies.
Currently, the dominant way to make hydrogen energy is called “gray” hydrogen, which burns fossil fuels such as coal and has a high environmental price.
Antweiler looks more promising in hydrogen turquoise, but the downside is that it is expensive to produce.
He said the planned pilot project in Port Moody could improve the technology and hopefully help reduce costs.
“This is really the Holy Grail to make it cheap,” he said.
“Hopefully, in the long run, we can expand it and make it much cheaper than it is today. So it’s a pilot project for that reason, but we hope that the demand for hydrogen will grow in the future.
“And that’s something that would be groundbreaking territory.”