Fortescue Future to acquire Nikola’s Phoenix Hydrogen Hub project
20 July 2023
Nikola Corporation and Fortescue Future Industries (FFI), a global green energy and metals company, announced that FFI will acquire Nikola’s Phoenix Hydrogen Hub (PHH) project. (Earlier post.) FFI will bring the capital and resources required to fully develop the project and the parties are working towards a hydrogen supply agreement to support Nikola’s Class 8 zero-emission trucks.
Rendering of PHH.
Nikola says that the agreement is fully aligned with its capital-efficient energy strategy to collaborate with partners interested in the hydrogen energy ecosystem that Nikola is pioneering.
The PHH is a fast-to-market, green hydrogen project located near Phoenix, in the city of Buckeye, Ariz., and is expected to be built in phases to scale alongside demand. The project is expected to progress towards its first hydrogen production by the middle of this decade.
PHH marks the first project announced as part of the Memorandum of Understanding signed in January 2023 between the two companies to collaborate on and evaluate the co-development of large-scale US green hydrogen production facilities.
FFI and Nikola are working towards a hydrogen supply agreement to support Nikola’s hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle demand. The large-scale deployment of hydrogen as a zero-emission fuel into the transportation sector, is expected to benefit from both the hydrogen tax credit in the federal Inflation Reduction Act and state level incentives such as the Low Carbon Fuel Standard in California.
The PHH project is currently going through the final stages of its permitting process, and the procurement of long-lead equipment is underway.
In addition to developing technology solutions for hard-to-decarbonise industries, while building a global portfolio of renewable green hydrogen and green ammonia projects, FFI is also developing and acquiring the technology and energy supply to help decarbonize the iron ore operations of one of the world’s largest producers of iron, Fortescue Metals Group, by 2030 (Scope 1 and 2 terrestrial emissions).
In Europe at least it looks to be way more cost effective to transport a considerable amount of the energy flow via hydrogen in repurposed gas pipes than to try to move everything around with electric:
https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/analysis/a-european-hydrogen-network-could-reduce-the-need-for-power-grid-expansion-in-net-zero-energy-system-study/2-1-1487474
Links through to the full academic paper, for those who are into such things.
It also would greatly reduce planning permission hassles in decarbonisation, as folk don't like loads of transmission lines in their neighborhood.
One hydrogen pipe can move many times more energy than a cable, even though it uses more volume than natural gas,
For instance in areas such as Scotland, there is no way they are going to allow cables everywhere to transport power to England.
Posted by: Davemart | 20 July 2023 at 01:08 AM
Here is an alternative to present electrolysis, just out of the lab:
https://techxplore.com/news/2023-07-succeed-highly-efficient-low-cost-green.html
' The researchers used a hydrogel (a water-based gel) to attach the enzyme to the electrode, and were able to produce green hydrogen using a biocatalyst, and with over 90% efficiency; that is, over 90% of the electrons introduced into the system were deposited in the hydrogen without any secondary processes.'
I am not sure what happens about the oxygen, but it seems that very high efficiencies at low cost using biocatalysts may be possible.
Posted by: Davemart | 20 July 2023 at 01:12 AM
End use of hydrogen in the home:
Is commonly assumed to be very inefficient, going on the notion of hydrogen gas boilers.
It is a completely different ball game if home fuel cells are used, which can give over 90% efficiency and can be combined with heat pumps, solar, whatever.
That means that energy currently chucked out by centrally located large plants instead gets effectively used.
The notion that an economy which uses hydrogen as well as batteries, direct electric and so on is inherently very inefficient is not sustainable in my view.
Posted by: Davemart | 20 July 2023 at 01:17 AM