Hong Kong has both climate and hydrogen strategies, but the climate plan is littered with red flags and the hydrogen document is just marketing for H2.
ChatGPT generated panoramic image of Hong Kong strangled by gas and hydrogen pipelines with thin green paint dripping off of them, responsible for sustainability at Hong Kong’s US$1.4 billion annual revenue Hang Lung Property Group, reached out to me. ReThink HK, which bills itself as Hong Kong’s best-attended and most ambitious business event for sustainable development, was hosting a debate he would be part of in front of some subset of the roughly 10,000 attendees.
Another part of their plan is to replace coal with fossil gas in the ‘short term’. This is more of the fossil gas as bridge fuel nonsense that has led to it being the fastest growing fossil fuel in terms of both global use and climate change impacts in the world. Methane leaks from gas, LNG, and engines have made it clear that the climate benefits are much lower than asserted, if any even exist. This will lock Hong Kong into gas for another 30 or 40 years.
With absolutely zero costs in the document, Hong Kong’s ‘strategy’ on hydrogen fails the Rumelt test. The fundamental problem with hydrogen is that in any form, including unabated fossil hydrogen, it’s far more expensive to manufacture, distribute, and use than fossil gases it purports to replace, and it’s far more expensive than electrification full lifecycle. In many cases, it’s just more expensive for initial capital costs.
The hydrogen marketing document considers the town gas system to be an asset instead of a liability, as it is in actuality. It includes regulatory efforts to approve pure hydrogen in town gas systems. To be clear, HK’s town gas is about 50% H2, then a bunch of methane, then a bunch of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. Crappy stuff, but HK appliances have been burning 50% hydrogen and the pipes have been carrying a mixture of 50% hydrogen for decades, so it’s more technically viable.
Hydrogen buses and cars, both with targets in the hydrogen marketing document, are of course a dead end. They aren’t competitive with electric vehicles when filled with gray hydrogen and will become less so with low-carbon hydrogen. At present, you can’t buy a hydrogen bus of equivalent capability to an electric bus at all if the measure is drivetrain warranty and maintenance.
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