A partnership between FortisBC Power Inc., Suncor Power and Australia-based Hazer Group Restricted will use Hazer’s revolutionary methane pyrolysis know-how for the primary time in North America to provide hydrogen from pure fuel.
The challenge, positioned at Suncor’s Burrard Terminal website, will produce hydrogen whereas storing the carbon byproduct as stable artificial graphite that may be bought on the open marketplace for manufacturing or industrial use. If the pilot continues as a full business construct out, the challenge can be anticipated to provide as much as 2,500 tonnes of hydrogen per yr. This equates to roughly 300,000 gigajoules of clean-burning fuel power that may exchange the equal annual pure fuel utilization of roughly 3,300 BC households.
Hydrogen may be produced in plenty of methods, together with by way of electrolysis (separating hydrogen from water utilizing electrical energy) or by way of separating it from pure fuel. Hydrogen generated from pure fuel with the carbon byproduct being captured as stable carbon is known as “turquoise” hydrogen and has far decrease and extra simply managed lifecycle greenhouse fuel emissions related to it.
Progressive applied sciences such because the Hazer Course of provide monumental potential to create new financial alternatives whereas supporting the de-carbonization aims of FortisBC and the province. We’re delighted to work with FortisBC, Suncor and the federal government of B.C. on this revolutionary challenge which shall be a world-leading instance of the appliance of methane pyrolysis.
—Geoff Ward, CEO and managing director of Hazer
The Hazer course of permits the efficient conversion of pure fuel—and related feedstocks—into hydrogen and top quality graphite, utilizing iron ore as a course of catalyst.
The challenge is being funded straight from the associate firms and by the provincial authorities’s CleanBC Business Fund. The Fund helps tasks that may advance revolutionary options for business greenhouse fuel emissions, like renewable and low carbon gases. The provincial authorities has positioned clear emphasis on the significance of hydrogen within the province, releasing the provincial hydrogen technique in 2021 and establishing the BC Hydrogen Workplace to help the speedy development of hydrogen tasks.
The addition of hydrogen to FortisBC’s renewable and low carbon fuel provide is crucial to the corporate’s ongoing efforts to decarbonize the fuel system. Ongoing analysis is being carried out, each by way of this challenge and together with the College of British Columbia-Okanagan, on the best way to mix hydrogen into the present fuel infrastructure. A current examine commissioned by the provincial authorities, FortisBC and the BC Bioenergy Community discovered that the potential for hydrogen manufacturing within the province may exceed 200 petajoules by 2050—roughly sufficient fuel to fully exchange present pure fuel volumes.
The primary part of the challenge is now underway together with front-end engineering, design research and allowing purposes. By the tip of 2023, a prototype model of the Hazer hydrogen reactor is anticipated to be constructed onsite on the Burrard location for testing.
Hazer Group was based in 2010 to commercialize know-how initially developed on the College of Western Australia.
