This might be it, but it bled over into their internal efforts and they got too focused on the political side and less on what would work for customers.
Politicians like hydrogen because if you ignore all the crap to get their (drilling for fossil fuels, separation, energy use in compression, transport, capital costs of building networks etc) you get that picture of water out of a tailpipe. The physics of it remain very poor.
There’s a gas field in disputed area in East China Sea, which some says could produce hydrogen at scale, and energy self sufficiency had been an ambition of the country for … some time. There’s no equivalent oil field or Uranium deposit.
Most of the clean hydrogen production schemes I've seen are pipe dreams or scams, but happy to be shown something here.
As a point of ref we have relatively clean electricity generation already (hydro, solar, wind, nuclear) depending on what you count.
Any indication how close to production this east china sea resource is? How willing China is to let Japan develop it or is it already well developed? Again - these are often pipe dream type ideas.
It’s not happening, and there’s zero reason China is willing to give in, but sort of remains as an ambition. Yeah pipe dream is probably spot on.
I think it has more to do with external independence/isolationism, than about environments theme, carrying over from the century before. I don’t understand why the government just go double down on nuclear fuel cycle concept but maybe there are too much political complications in it.
Politicians like hydrogen because if you ignore all the crap to get their (drilling for fossil fuels, separation, energy use in compression, transport, capital costs of building networks etc) you get that picture of water out of a tailpipe. The physics of it remain very poor.