HYDROGEN RIVALRY GETS HOTTER AS SOUTH KOREA CHALLENGES EUROPE

South Korea’s plans to pump billions of dollars into hydrogen are positioning it to take on Europe as the leader in the emerging technology, although it’s lagging on investing in the cleanest form of the fuel, Heesu Lee reported for Bloomberg News.

The Asian nation is among around a dozen countries that have strategies for hydrogen, a carbon-free gas that can be burnt or used in fuel cells for power generation or transportation.

Cleaner than wind or solar, the technology is expected to eventually play a major role in the global energy mix but is still in its infancy and requires a lot of investment before it becomes commercially viable.

Korea is aiming to more than double the amount of hydrogen vehicle refueling stations to 180 by year-end, while Hyundai Motor Co. is looking to scale up production of fuel cell vehicles that run on the gas and build more charging stations.

SK Group, which owns South Korea’s biggest oil refiner, is planning to build what it says will be the world’s biggest grey and blue hydrogen plants by 2023 and 2025, respectively, to power the growing transport fleet.

All told, five Korean conglomerates will invest 43.4 trillion won ($38 billion) in hydrogen technology by 2030, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said this month.

That compares with Europe, where France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Portugal will pump a total of $44 billion of government funds into hydrogen this decade, industry researcher IHS Markit estimated in December.

“South Korea is definitely at the forefront of the hydrogen economy along with the Europeans,” said Alex Klaessig, director of gas, power, and energy futures at IHS Markit in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Koreans are more focused on the downstream elements of the value chain than the Europeans and they’ll probably import hydrogen, for the time being, he said.

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