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Canada's hydrogen strategy is here (Oh sorry, "hydrogen strategy for Canada". Not sure on the title) It's a big one at 115 pages. I'll be looking thought it, but if you want to check it out: https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/changements-climatiques/hydrogen-strategy/23080
They see up to 30% of Canada's end-use energy could be reduced via hydrogen. That sounds about right, based on IEA work. That would equal ~190 MT, or around 25% of Canada's total emissions
Their pricing H2 at $1.50-3.5 by 2050. In comparison, BNEF has H2 at US$0.80-1.6 before 2050, so conservative but not unduly so
It's good that they are also highlighting air quality improvement with hydrogen as well. That sometimes get lost in the carbon story, but as @envirodefence pointed out, emissions from vehicles have huge health implications https://environmentaldefence.ca/2020/06/03/public-health-environmental-groups-release-new-report-showing-health-benefits-cleaner-vehicles-gtha/
I like the feds approach on the carbon intensity of hydrogen as the key metric, although would like to see some recognition that starting with 50% CCUS might be ok, to meet government targets the carbon intensity needs to drop quickly
I'm not convinced that FCEV will be more popular in urban areas due to costs of grid reinforcement and charging orphans. BEV will likely be cheaper, and smart charging is a thing. If interested @PollutionProbe did a paper on MURBs and charging https://www.pollutionprobe.org/zev-charging-in-murbs/
Hydrogen blending and replacing gas can be a good thing, especially as we start to electrify. See @PollutionProbe work on the future of natural gas where we included hydrogen as a potential pathway https://www.pollutionprobe.org/future-hold-natural-gas-report/
Ammonia and synthetic fuels look like a really cool area (there's one guy I know who always talks about ammonia!). Although that will require a really low carbon intensity of H2 or you're just moving emissions around and not really reducing them
Where the report sees end uses of hydrogen and when
It's good at the end they mentioned integrated energy planning, but more is needed. An H2 strategy should not be finding a use for H2, but rather seeing how it can help us get to net-zero energy. For that we need to think how all sectors/fuels will work together to get to net-0
This is a good comparison of heating costs. One problem: Does not include costs of distributing H2, which could be high. If anything it promotes the use of hybrid heating
Same comparison for transportation fuels. Show's the cost effectiveness of BEVs here I think rather than H2, especially for light duty
Emissions savings from heating with H2 are similar to electrification in average Canadian grid today (and grid is likely going to be cleaner in future).
Either way: to get to the H2 projected, A LOT will need to get built
I'm not going to look at the economic multipliers as I never believe those numbers, and as for export, there so much uncertainty I am not sure how instructive the results will be
And that's it! Their recommendations are clear - de-risk investments, update codes/regs, collaborate, increase awareness, etc. One interesting one is to create regional blueprints. That will be the real action as each region considers how H2 can meet its needs
It's great the federal government is thinking of how H2 can play a larger role in the net-zero transition. Still a lot to be done, but this is a good start
