Opportunities and Future Challenges in Hydrogen Economy for Sustainable Development
Yi Dou1,2, Lu Sun1,3, Jingzheng Ren4 and Liang Dong1,5, 1National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan, 2Nagoya University, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan, 3The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Chiba, Japan, 4The Hongkong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR, China, 5Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands
Abstract
Hydrogen economy is thought as a sunrise industry which would contribute to reducing energy consumption and emissions, as well as stimulating economic growth and bringing about new jobs. However, the one who promotes hydrogen economy also has to face challenges including technical bottleneck, competition with optional technologies, and interrelation with technology strategies. To identify the opportunities and challenges toward hydrogen economy, this chapter will first conduct an overview of economic and environmental initiatives of developing hydrogen economy to identify the stages and path of technology innovation. Then, a board review on national strategies and related policies of main countries including Japan, the United States, European Union, and China is carried out to compare the differences between main markets in the world. According to these information, crucial factors influencing hydrogen economy are identified that provides a great reference value for decision makers to reflect the strategy to promote hydrogen economy.
Keywords
Hydrogen economy; future challenges; national strategy; technology roadmap; sustainable development
Hydrogen is a common element existing in the nature, as well as an important and frequently used input for industries such as synthesis ammonia industry in decades. However, the beginning that eventually discusses on the development of hydrogen economy is from 1960s (Bockris, 2013). In early stage, hydrogen was thought as an intensive energy carrier which may transmit energy more cost-efficient by pipeline than electricity by copper wires. Later, facing serious air pollution and CO2 emissions from fuel combustion, hydrogen was thought as an ideal form of clean fuel from which the outcome of combustion is only water. Currently, hydrogen has been emphasized as a strategically indispensable composition in energy planning of main countries in the world, since it could be also an ideal form of energy storage integrated with renewable technologies which is expected to substitute fossil fuel combustion, so as to realize sustainable development in energy sector. Although the technologies for hydrogen economy have been developed in a rapid path since 1990s, the popularization of hydrogen technologies still requests several decades to deal with a bundle of challenges, especially large but necessary initial investment of infrastructures. To race to control a commanding point toward hydrogen economy, most of main countries in the world have drawn up specific plan and roadmap based on individual national conditions, which would bring opportunities in both technology innovation as well as international trading and technology transfer. This chapter purposes to summarize the opportunities and challenges in hydrogen economy for sustainable development through literature review, in addition identify common and different pathways toward hydrogen economy focusing on four main countries. It would be helpful in deepening the understanding of hydrogen economy and decision-making on technology development plan and policies.
1 Significance of Hydrogen Economy to Sustainable Development
Hydrogen is a basic element in the universe, and its common status is existing in water (H2O). With the industrialization, more and more artificial hydrogen is produced which plays an important role in building human society. In general, hydrogen is produced in several methods as follows (Chen et al., 2011; Riis et al., 2006):
• generated from fossil fuels by steam reforming, partial oxidation method, etc.;
• generated from industrial process as a by-product, such as oil refinery, iron-making, ethylene production, and electrolysis process of saline in soda factory;
• generated from biomass due to process of methane fermentation, steam gasification, etc.;
• generated from excess power from renewables such as wind power and solar PV; and
The hydrogen generated artificially is usually used to industrial process such as ammonia synthesis, methanol synthesis, and metal production, as well as energy supply for fuel cell and rocket. Considering both production and consumption, it is of no doubt that hydrogen is an important intermediate product for industrial process. However, the reason why hydrogen involves into sustainable development is related to its property such as high energy density and clean combustion. Although hydrogen itself is not a naturally existing energy resource on the earth, it has a high potential to contribute to sustainable development as a clean and efficient energy medium for clean and renewable energy production.
On the one hand, hydrogen has the highest mass energy density in all types of fuels (120 MJ/kg, in low heat value); thus, it is thought as an ideal medium of energy for storage, transition, and use. Early in 1970s, the work of Gregory et al. (1971) has revealed the advantage of using hydrogen as carriers for long-distance energy transmission. Excluding construction cost of infrastructure, transporting hydrogen through a pipeline would be much cheaper and efficient than transmitting electricity through high voltage line. At that time, constructing pipeline network specific for transporting hydrogen seems impossible because of the expensive initial investment. Recently, there have been more options to transport hydrogen such as utilizing compressed tanks, fuel cell, or existing pipeline (in case of using existing pipelines, it is necessary to deal with the problem of hydrogen embrittlement) that could support an affordable regional hydrogen network (Ball and Weeda, 2015; Yang and Ogden, 2007). Furthermore, the popularization of FCVs (fuel cell vehicles) would in fact form a hydrogen network through road transport infrastructures. The average cost of transporting hydrogen is expected to decrease a lot in the near future (IEA, 2015b). Comprehensively evaluating on the efficiency, cost, and convenience of energy conversion, hydrogen is suitable for short-term to long-term energy storage, especially when high storage capacity is required (Table 10.1).
Table 10.1
Applicable Scope of Energy Storage Technologies Based on IEA (2015b)
| Technology | Super Capacitors | Flywheel | Battery | Compressed Air Energy Storage | Pumped Hydroenergy Storage | Hydrogen |
| Power capacity | 10 kW–10 MW | 10 kW–10 MW | 1 kW–100 MW | 10 MW–100 MW | 100 MW–1 GW | 10 MW–1 GW |
| Discharge duration | Seconds | Seconds–minutes | Seconds–days | Hours–weeks | Minutes–weeks | Hours–seasons |
On the other hand, as a clean fuel for combustion, hydrogen could be widely used in FCVs and cogeneration system for industries and households where conventional combustion of fossil fuels would bring about air pollution. Currently, the hydrogen for energy supply is usually produced from fossil fuels or excess power generation of renewables. The energy conversion efficiency of FCVs is 40%–60%, which is 2–3 times higher than hydrogen internal combustion engine (ICE), and in the conventional vehicle, only 10%–15% of energy contained in gasoline is converted to traction (Emadi et al., 2005; solutions, 2011). Although theoretically, there is a loss of energy while converting fossil fuels or electricity into hydrogen and then returning it into electricity, comparing with proportionally increasing volume of batteries due to requested capacity, hydrogen has less weight and is much easier to be transported and refueled (Bossel, 2006). Typically, a single refueling in 3–5 minutes of FCV could support 400–500 km driving given 700 bar onboard hydrogen storage (Ball and Weeda, 2015). Furthermore, in case of long-distance driving (e.g., longer than 150 mi), the electric vehicle cannot avoid an extra weight for battery, while hydrogen-based FCV would avoid. Particularly, as hydrogen is also able to be produced from low-quality fossil fuels such as brown coal, importing hydrogen in large scale from politically stable countries where coal resource is abundant would enhance the energy security.
Based on these two properties, developing and deploying hydrogen technologies are considered to be of great significance for sustainable development. Except for the merits in enhancing energy security and promoting energy saving and environmental impact reduction, it is also expected to stimulate a new term of economic growth and employment due to technology innovation and social implementation, which is usually called a “hydrogen economy.” Recognizing this issue, there has been a hydrogen boom from 1990s that the main countries in the world in earnest started to develop, deploy hydrogen technology, and verify the feasibility. Nowadays, many important countries have already published the roadmap for hydrogen economy to guide research emphasis and rationally allocate social and financial resources based on their own conditions (McDowall, 2012). Particularly, some of them, like Japan, Korea, EU, and the USA, play as leaders in research and development, while China and India follows the progression in response to large domestic market. The rest of this chapter would like to support a wider perspective of developing hydrogen economy focusing on the opportunities and future challenges, as well as comparison on research emphasis and national strategy between main countries.
2 Opportunities, Challenges, and Projection of Hydrogen Economy
Although hydrogen has many applications in industrial and energy sector, the strongest driving force toward hydrogen economy should be from global challenges in energy sector relating to mitigation of climate change.
2.1 Global Challenges in Energy Sector
With the rapid economic development in current developed and developing countries, the world energy consumption increased fast during the 20th century and is estimated to keep increasing in the 21st century. Within the total primary energy demand, fossil fuels, including coal, oil, and gas, possess more than a half which brings about two serious problems: energy shortage and the emissions from combustion (Fig. 10.1). To address the problems, one consensus is to positively promote power generation from renewables to substitute fossil energy consumption. Due to International Energy Agency (IEA)’s prediction, the proportion of renewables in primary energy demand would approach to 20% by 2040. By contrast, the total utilization quantity of fossil energy is predicted to be stable from 2020 to 2040. Learning from this fact, it is also important to improve the efficiency of utilizing fossil energy at the same time.
On the demand side, according to the proportion of world CO2 emissions by sectors, the proportion of electricity and heat, transportation, and industry are remarkably 42%, 23%, and 19%, respectively (Fig. 10.2). It reveals a particular challenge in reducing energy demand in power and heat supply, as well as transportation and industry sector. The solution based on supply side is to support more alternative low-carbon energy resource while increasing the efficiency of energy conversion. Hydrogen-based fuel cell technology is just to support such alternatives for building and transportation energy use. As mentioned before, hydrogen could be transmitted by pipeline and easy for refueling during long-distance driving; it is of no doubt to recognize the irreplaceability of hydrogen as a medium of energy.
Furthermore, many mature technologies in power generation such as renewables, wind power, solar PV, and biomass have been widely applied recently and would be also dominant in the future. Nowadays, wind power and solar PV occupy the most of renewables-based electric power capacity in main regions and countries (Fig. 10.3), as a result of substantial reduction in production costs and sufficient Feed-in-Tarrif system. However, unstable wind power and solar radiation also bring problems to electric grid while matching real-time power supply and consumption. Particularly, the reverse power flow may happen under strong sunshine (if the proportion of wind and solar PV in power generation is relatively high). Temporary energy storage is the mainstream for adjusting energy supply where the power generation from wind and solar is quite unstable. As hydrogen is suitable for large capacity of energy storage and convenient to transport and utilize anywhere, the importance of hydrogen energy is emphasized.
With several decades’ technology development and systemic integration for hydrogen economy, currently introducing hydrogen economy, additionally completing a CO2-free supply chain from various sources, has been indicated to be feasible. Since the superior performance of hydrogen technology in the convenience of production, transmission, conversion, and environmental friendliness, it is quite expected that hydrogen economy could play an important role in enhancing the efficiency and usage of low-carbon resources in power generation, so as to adapt with and mitigate climate change problem. With the progression of “deep decarbonization” in main countries, hydrogen economy would obtain more proportion in the world market.
2.2 World Market of Hydrogen Economy
A world market of hydrogen economy has been gradually formed with the popularization of stationary fuel cells using hydrogen in household power system, and the development of FCV technology and necessary hydrogen infrastructure. In near future, the market is predicted to fast expand in response to the introduction of hydrogen power generation and large-scale application of hydrogen technologies.
The world market scale of hydrogen economy is estimated to keep fast increasing in the future. According to the survey report published by Nikkei BP Clean Tech Institute (Nikkei, 2013), although the world market scale of hydrogen economy is merely 80 billion USD in 2015, it will rapidly increase to 100 billion USD by 2020, 400 billion USD by 2030, 800 billion USD by 2040, and 1600 billion USD by 2050 (Fig. 10.4). Learning from the proportion by technology categories, with the promotion of constructing infrastructures for applying hydrogen technologies, the market scale of infrastructures will rapidly increase to more than 300 billion USD in 2030 then keep stable until 2050. It plays as the first driving force to stimulate the hydrogen market. However, benefitting from the large-scale application of FCVs and completed infrastructural facilities since 2020s, the market scale of FCVs is estimated to dramatically rise that overpasses the proportion of infrastructure in 2040 and approximate to 1000 billion USD by 2050. This reveals FCVs as the mainstream technology to support hydrogen economy and society. By contrast, the market scale of stationary fuel cells and power generation using hydrogen is predicted to increase gradually to 200 billion USD by 2050.
On the other hand, the proportion of market scale by countries reveals Europe and North America play as important driving forces to promote hydrogen economy. It is because of the increasing investment of hydrogen infrastructure with the fast popularization of renewable energy in Europe to realize their ambitious targets on CO2 emission reduction. By contrast, developing countries such as China and India are also positively participating in the research and development for hydrogen technology who are planning to widely introduce hydrogen stations so that represents a large increment of market share from 2030s (Fig. 10.5). However, although Japan keeps a limited and stable market scale of about 100 billion USD, it has the highest popularization rate of hydrogen infrastructure. By 2050, Europe, North America, and China are three main hydrogen markets that occupy around 60% market share of the world, followed by India and Japan. Accordingly, these countries have carried out special strategy and policies to promote technology innovation and market development, which will be discussed in detailed in next section.
Within many niche applications of hydrogen technology, ones including FCVs for transportation and cogeneration system for building (Ene-Farm) FCV are in high priority which would lead to fast popularization in near future, but supporting hydrogen stations are required to be constructed beforehand. Currently, FCV technology has been progressed into early market introduction. According to IEA’s report, by 2015, there have been around 600 FCEVs (fuel cell electric vehicles) introduced mainly in Europe, Japan, Korea, and the United States. In near future, the number of FCEV fleet is announced to dramatically increase (Table 10.2). On the other hand, to address the “chicken and egg” problem, the speed of constructing hydrogen refueling station is accelerated. At first, stations will be allocated in dense urban area, then gradually distributed to key nodes of high speed way in rural area (Table 10.3).
Table 10.2
Existing FCEV Fleet and Targets Announced by Hydrogen Initiatives
| Country/Region | Running FCEVs | Planed FCEVs on the Road | |
| 2015 | 2020 | ||
| Europe | 192 | 5000 | ~350,000 |
| Japan | 102 | 1000 | 100,000 |
| Korea | 100 | 5000 | 50,000 |
| United States | 146 | ~300 | ~20,000 |
Data source: IEA (2015b).
Table 10.3
Existing Public Hydrogen Refueling Stations and Targets Announced by Hydrogen Initiatives
| Country/Region | Existing Hydrogen Refueling Stations | Planed Hydrogen Refueling Stations | |
| 2015 | 2020 | ||
| Europe | 36 | ~80 | ~430 |
| Japan | 21 | 100 | >100 |
| Korea | 13 | 43 | 200 |
| United States | 9 | >50 | >100 |
Data source: IEA (2015b).
Regarding the application of hydrogen powered cogeneration system in building sector, Japan’s practice has confirmed its feasibility of popularization. Recently, distributed energy system is just in popularization in building sector, through which higher energy conversion efficiency could be realized by combined heat and power generation, and local renewables are much easier to connect to users. For hospital and other important facilities, such a system would also improve the energy security in disasters. Although hydrogen-based cogeneration is indicated to reach 95% energy efficiency with lifetime of 60,000–90,000 hours, since the individual capacity is relatively small (0.3–25 kW), its popularization path is not as expected in Europe and America. However, due to the report of the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry of Japan, benefitted from the sufficient subsidies from the nation and municipalities, around 150 thousand Ene-Farm cogeneration systems have been sold in the market; meanwhile, from 2009 to 2014, the price of Ene-Farm cogeneration system has already fallen by more than 50% (about 19,000 $/kW). If the popularization rate increases to 10% of households (5.3 million), 3% in total residential energy demand and 4% of emissions are reduced compared to using boilers or grid electricity (IEA, 2015b).
2.3 Challenges
To realize a hydrogen economy, we still face many challenges, including technical problems such as stability and reliability of fuel cells, economic concerns on the cost of system integration and required infrastructure and supply chain for large scale hydrogen production and transportation, as well as financial support, technical standard, and regulations. More endeavor is required to solve these problems before popularizing hydrogen technologies.
2.3.1 Technical Challenges
Hydrogen economy involves various advanced technologies from fundamental research to application during the process of production, transportation, storage, and utilization (Table 10.4). Regarding fuel cell technology, stationary fuel cell and FCVs would be the common method to store and utilize hydrogen energy. Although current demonstration experiments indicate the technical feasibility of applying hydrogen fuel cells, the costs of manufacture, comprehensive energy efficiency, and durability are expected to be improved. One direction is to develop polymer electrolyte fuel cell technologies, combined with development of noble metal substituted catalyst metal, low-cost electrolyte material, and other related technologies for electrode reaction. For industrial application, solid oxide fuel cell is also expected to increase its power density and load efficiency that requires more endeavor on developing new type of catalyst material and improving system reliability for long-term use. Furthermore, regarding large-scale hydrogen power generation at MW level, still its technical feasibility needs to be confirmed, while specific technology for hydrogen combustion is expected to suppress the emission of NOx.
Table 10.4
Main Challenges in Developing Hydrogen Economy
| Technology | Phase 1: Technical Feasibility | Phase 2: Market Introduction | Phase 3: Popularization | Phase 4: Complete Popularization |
| Hydrogen power generation | Verification of hydrogen-mixed power generation | Verification of hydrogen-only power generation | ||
| Fuel cell for vehicle | Long durability FCV for business use | Precious metal-saved catalyst | ||
| Technologies for mass production | ||||
| Fuel cell for household | ||||
| Fuel cell for business | Long durability realization | Cost reduction | Precious metal-saved catalyst | |
| Hydrogen station | Adjustment in regulation/standard | Security measures for hydrogen economy | ||
| Low-cost station | ||||
| Hydrogen transport, storage, and production | Verification of large-scale hydrogen transportation | Verification of transporting hydrogen from abroad | Development and verification of CO2-free hydrogen supply chain | |
Source: NEDO (2014).
2.3.2 Economic Concerns
Supply chain and supporting infrastructure are another crucial problem to realize hydrogen economy. One main doubt on hydrogen economy is its total costs. Due to an estimation by Tappan Bose and Pierre Malbrunot group, although cost of the feedstock is cheap (gasifying coal and biomass cost 2.6 $/GJ, steam methane reforming from natural gas is 9.3 $/GJ and electrolysis costs 17.8 $/GJ), the whole production cost increases to 15–30 $/GJ while the net cost will increase to 35–50 $/GJ, of which the unit cost for storage, transportation, and distribution is around 20 $/GJ (Bose and Malbrunot, 2006). Here, distribution cost takes the most because special nickel pipeline is required to keep away from hydrogen embrittlement. Furthermore, the efficiency of getting hydrogen back to electricity is only about 55%, in case of cogeneration, it may increase to 90% (Bockris, 2013). However, a part of cost reduction should be achieved by the economy of scale in the future, the more production supplied to the market, the lower production costs could be.
For large-scale application of hydrogen technologies, target supplier and user should be recognized where a number of production and utilization equipment need to be introduced beforehand; meanwhile, infrastructure for storing and transporting hydrogen (e.g., hydrogen station and pipelines) is necessary. For the introduction of required equipment to hydrogen station or pipeline construction, the popularization of FCVs, and capacity building, a large amount of initial investment cannot be avoided. This challenge is also called the “Valley of Death,” which represents the deep cumulative deficit after construction and operation until the total revenue overpasses the total costs. This valley period will generally be around 15 years (Ball and Weeda, 2015). How to promote a wide cooperation between municipalities, local companies and public sector, and ingenious business model to share the initial investment is critical.
In addition, CO2-free supply chain is another critical expectation for hydrogen economy. While using hydrogen as storage for adjusting power generation from renewables, developing large electrolysis cell with high electric density is important. In the case of producing hydrogen from oil-associated gas and brown coal, combination with CCS (carbon capture and storage) technology is expected to reduce CO2 emission in life-cycle assessment. Recently, there has been a new idea called “methanol economy” that purposes to chemically recycle CO2 from production or the nature, of which the general method is to generate methanol (e.g., CH3OH) directly from H2 and CO2 (Dang and Steinberg, 1977; Steinberg and Dang, 1977) or generate polymers from water and CO2 (Olah et al., 2009). With such technology innovation, CO2-free supply chain for hydrogen economy is possible to realize in the coming decades.
Finally, since hydrogen economy would bring new aspects for energy production and utilization, such as producing from unused local resources or importing from abroad, there is a necessity to reflect and revise current standard and regulation. Due to the summary by Ball and Weeda (2015), necessary standards should be carried out in three issues: one is on the reliability of hydrogen stations that supports refueling in time with safety, another one is to accurately measure the quantity of hydrogen by reliable meter, and the last one is that the hydrogen supplied should meet required specifications. The success of hydrogen economy will crucially depend on the development and commercialization of cost competitive fuel cell electric vehicles. To find a universal suitable business model or case by case through PPP (public–private partnership) would significantly improve the feasibility of hydrogen projects.
3 Hydrogen Economy Strategies in Main Countries
With consideration of the future market scale and national endeavor in promoting hydrogen economy, this chapter selects four countries including Japan, the United States, EU, and China to review and compare their national strategies. On the one hand, their strategies contain some consensus on the importance of hydrogen economy, on the other hand, based on individual conditions, they give the stress to different fields in research and development.
3.1 Hydrogen Strategy in Japan
3.1.1 Significance
In the “Strategic Energy Plan” published in 2014, hydrogen is expected to play as a central role with electricity and heat to be the main form of secondary energy in the future. Furthermore, according to the speech of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in the COP21 Summit of the year 2015, the technologies of production, storage, and transmission of hydrogen have been identified as key innovation for realizing cobenefits between economic growth and climate change mitigation through a CO2-free society (Muraki, 2016).
Due to the “Strategic Energy Plan” of Japan published in 2014, introduction of hydrogen economy in Japan is expected to realize a stable energy supply, increase cost efficiency, adapt with environment improvement, and enhance energy security (METI, 2014; NEDO, 2014).
• Hydrogen economy is expected to help in enhancing energy security. In Japan, transportation sector consumes around 1/5 of national energy consumption, which is almost supported from crude oil and petroleum products. With the popularization of the FCVs, oil products imported from turbulent regions would be substituted by hydrogen fuel imported from stable regions utilizing brown coal and crude oil-associated gas.
• Popularizing cogeneration of hydrogen would bring higher efficiency of energy use, especially, hydrogen production with CCS may realize a CO2-free energy supply; hydrogen energy is thought to reduce environmental impacts.
• Since the market of hydrogen economy in Japan is estimated to increase to 8 trillion yen by 2050; meanwhile globally, Japan possesses overwhelming more patents of advanced technologies in fuel cell field even than Europe and America, developing hydrogen energy technologies is expected to bring about benefits for pillar industries such as automobile industry which is employing 1/10 of the employers and exporting 1/5 of commodities in Japan.
3.1.2 Policies for Promoting Hydrogen Economy
One characteristic of policies in Japan is the wide cooperation system among government, industry, and research sectors for developing technology and promoting the popularization of hydrogen technologies. The representative case is the newly started program “Cross-ministerial Strategic Innovation Promotion Program” by the Council for Science, Technology, and Innovation of Japan. In the program, hydrogen energy is recognized as one of the core technologies which would enjoy powerful boosting from national government. The program emphasizes on developing necessary technologies for producing and utilizing mediums such as liquefied hydrogen, ammonia, and methylcyclohexane for completing the value chain of a CO2-free hydrogen economy. In this field, power generation through hydrogen energy is expected to be of great significance, for which the technologies for producing hydrogen from relatively low-price brown coal with CCS and solar energy by thermochemical decomposition or water vapor electrolysis are in high expectation. Furthermore, the program also aims at practicing and evaluating the cost-efficiency of various optional technologies, e.g., assessment among gas turbines, industrial furnaces, and fuel cell batteries which utilize hydrogen.
3.1.3 Technology Roadmap
Japan has the most ambitious target for promoting hydrogen economy. Until the decade of 2030s, Japan will at first realize innovative CO2-free hydrogen economy through which Japanese society can enjoy sustainable economic growth with active export and technology transfer in the field of hydrogen energy (Muraki, 2016). Toward this target, hydrogen economy has been highlighted in the “Japan Revitalization Strategy” carried out in 2013, in which three action plans including the Revitalization Plan of Japanese Industry, the Strategic Market Creation Plan, and the Strategy of Global Outreach are carried out. In the market plan, Japan aims to introduce 5.3 million household fuel cells into market by 2030, meanwhile popularize FCVs and hydrogen stations with deregulation on related policies so as to realize clean and economic energy supply (Ohira, 2016). Later in the “Strategic Energy Plan” published in 2014, hydrogen is defined as an important secondary energy with electricity and heat so that the government started to design a road map for overviewing the development and deployment of technologies for hydrogen production, large-scale long-distance transportation, fuel cell, and power generation in the future. Finally, the first version “Strategic Roadmap for Hydrogen and Fuel Cell” is carried out in the same year. This roadmap defined three phases toward the realization of hydrogen economy based on the prospection of difficulty and cost-efficiency for developing hydrogen technologies (METI, 2016).
Phase 1 (2015–): Rapid popularization of hydrogen utilization. The utilization of stationary fuel cells and FCVs is significantly expanded so that Japan would occupy the world market of hydrogen and fuel cell technology faster than other countries.
Phase 2 (2025–): Fully introduce hydrogen power generation, establish large-scale infrastructure for hydrogen supply. With the increment of hydrogen demand, promote the utilization of hydrogen technology to the field of unused energy so that hydrogen with electricity and heat would become three main forms of secondary energy.
Phase 3 (2040–): Establish totally CO2-free hydrogen supply systems. Through combining CCS in hydrogen production and utilizing renewables, realize a CO2-free hydrogen supply system in total.
The roadmap has been revised in 2016 in which the popularization plan of hydrogen technologies is speeded up while the target price, number of production are identified (Table 10.5).
Table 10.5
Main Targets in Hydrogen Technology Roadmap of Japan
| Item | Target |
| Household fuel cells (target price) | PEFC (polymer electrolyte fuel cell) type: 0.8 million yen by 2019 |
| SOFC (solid oxide fuel cell) type: 1 million yen by 2021 | |
| FCVs (target number of sales) | 40 thousand by 2020, 200 thousand by 2025, and 800 thousand by 2030 |
| Hydrogen station (target number) | 160 places by 2020, 320 places by 2025 |
3.2 Hydrogen Strategy in the United States
3.2.1 Significance
Since 1970s, the United States begins to pay attention to the progression of hydrogen technology. Particularly, from the National Energy Policy carried out during President Bush’s period, hydrogen is defined as a “long-term solution to America’s energy needs, with near-term possibilities” (DOE, 2002b). During the period from 2004 to 2008, the annual budget related to hydrogen and fuel cell in Department of Energy (DOE) reached 300 million USD level, which plays as the core role in promoting hydrogen economy in America. Even though it decreases gradually by 2015, its level still maintains at 150 million USD (DOE, 2015).
In 2001, a comprehensive meeting to discuss the feasibility and potential of hydrogen economy is held in America, during which 53 senior executives from the government, industries, universities, and environmental organizations got together and identified the opportunities and challenges toward hydrogen economy. As the major result of the meeting, DOE summarized a National Vision of America’s Transition to a hydrogen economy and called for partnership for promoting the strategy. In the publication, the significance of hydrogen economy to America is concluded as reducing the dependence on petroleum imports and reducing air pollution and GHG emissions. A consensus has been formed that it may take several decades to transit into hydrogen economy where public and private efforts are quite necessary. Later in 2002, DOE held a specific workshop and carried out the National Hydrogen Energy Roadmap to guide the research and development as well as public and private cooperation, in which hydrogen is furthermore considered to offer “long-term potential for an energy system that produces near-zero emissions and is based on domestically available resources” (DOE, 2002a). Accordingly, the expected vision of hydrogen economy in America is as a society that produces hydrogen from local fossil or renewable resources and consumes it through FCVs or combusts in households and industries. Based on these two documents, several roadmaps on fuel cell technologies, hydrogen production, delivery, and manufacturing R&D are published one by one.
3.2.2 Opportunities and Challenges
As the same to the world consensus, many advantages of hydrogen energy are recognized in the United States. Due to the description in the DOE program plan, stationary power system such as hydrogen fuel cells could provide clean energy and have high energy conversion efficiency (50–60%) not only for large scale concentrated power plant but also for smaller scale distributed energy system in buildings. In addition, fuel cells are also performing as an economically viable option for power storage, which has long durability even in serious outdoor environment dealing with a wide range of temperature conditions. The competitive driven range and low well-to-wheels emissions, as well as the possible usage in portable power of fuel cells, are also remarked in the program plan.
As expected impacts from hydrogen economy, the first important benefit is the mitigation of climate change and the improvement of air quality through widespread usage of hydrogen and fuel cells, following the energy-saving effect in transportation sector that may decrease gasoline consumption to 40% than current by 2035 and 100% by 2050. Additionally, the research and development of hydrogen technology is expected to bring continuously large amount investment in related industries with appreciable potential increment in employment. Regarding the effect on employment creation and replacement, the DOE also carried out a specific study in 2008, which reveals that a net of 0.37% (675,000 jobs) out of a total projected base-case employment of 185 million could be created by 2050 if fully completed the transition to hydrogen economy. By contrast, another separate study by the American Solar Energy Society indicated that the gross revenues of fuel cell and hydrogen industries could achieve annually 81 billion USD by 2030, bringing more than 900,000 new jobs in the whole supply chain. Most of the created jobs are for automobile dealerships and repair (DOE, 2008, 2011).
However, America also faces the same challenges. The primary difficulty is in reducing cost and improving durability of fuel cells. In 2011, depending on the size and application, the cost of stationary fuel cell systems is estimated as 3000–7000 USD/kW while it is still higher than the conventional power generation technology. And for automotive fuel cells, although the costs decreased rapidly to about 49 USD/kW from 2002 to 2011, it is still higher than ICE (internal combustion engine) of which the cost is 30 USD/kW. By contrast, the expected running time of stationary power and vehicle engine is around 40,000–80,000 and 5000 hours, respectively, and it of stationary and automobile hydrogen fuel cell is about 20,000 and 2500 hours, respectively. Beyond this, many technical challenges are also pointed out such as the high costs of production, delivery, and storage. Institutional obstacles and market risks are also identified to be addressed in the future (DOE, 2011).
3.2.3 Roadmap toward Hydrogen Economy
American strategy for hydrogen economy is particularly giving the priority to hydrogen fuel technologies and fuel cell technologies. In the long-term future, it targets on widespread commercialization of hydrogen technology in stationary power, transportation, and portable power, through system integration between social and technical sector. To achieve the target, The DOE Hydrogen Program continuously progresses and revises the next step target. According to the program plan published in 2011, the main targets in cost reduction are including
• Cost of fuel cell system for transportation achieves 30 USD/kW in 2017 (in contrast 49 USD/kW in 2011).
• Hydrogen production and delivery cost achieve 2–4 USD/gge (gallon gasoline equivalent, untaxed) by 2020 (in contrast 4–6 USD/gge for distributed production and 5–7 USD/kW for control production in 2011).
On the other hand, the program defined the key milestones toward hydrogen economy by 2020, main contents of technical milestones are including
• specific power of fuel cell system for auxiliary power units (APUs) reaches 45 W/kg and power density reaches 40 W/L; electrical efficiency of fuel cell system for microCHP achieves 45% and 60,000 hours durability;
• demonstrate plant-scale-compatible photobiological water splitting systems to produce hydrogen at an energy efficiency of 5%; demonstrate plant-scale photoelectrochemical water splitting systems to produce hydrogen at an energy efficiency of ≥15%; determine the feasibility of hydrogen production through high-temperature electrolysis as a potential end-user application under the Next Generation Nuclear Plant project;
• reduce the overall cost of delivering hydrogen from centralized production facilities to the point of use to <2 USD/gge; and
• verify performance of at least one material-based hydrogen storage technology under real-world conditions.
One remarkable point in promoting hydrogen economy in America is the crucial role of federal research, development, and demonstration. The DOE program is directly providing sufficient fund for high risk but high-impact R&Ds, which is hardly supported by private companies but may achieve critical breakthroughs and advance precompetitive technologies. These technologies include nonPt catalysts, material-based hydrogen storage, photobiological and photoelectrochemical hydrogen production, and liquid-based fuel cells. Especially, the program declared to support the long-term R&D of FCVs and low-cost hydrogen fuel production from renewable until realizing widespread commercialization (DOE, 2011). In 2014, one PPP organization “H2USA” was established to overcome the barriers in developing hydrogen station for popularizing FCVs.
3.3 Hydrogen Strategy in EU
3.3.1 Significance and Challenges Toward Hydrogen Economy in EU
With global climate change and rapid urbanization process, energy consumption have been major issues and severe challenges which human society and economic development face. EU is a union consist of many developed countries who not only consume a great amount energy but also import a lot of energy resources. In total, around 50% of its oil demand is satisfied by import, and the proportion is likely to rise to 70% in 20–30 years if no action is taken (Yolcular, 2009). To strengthen energy security, EU sets a target to increase the share of renewable energies in total energy consumption to 20% by 2020 (it has reached 9.6% in 2015). Accordingly, hydrogen is thought as an important energy carrier combining with renewables while changing the energy supply structure (Lin, 2011).
Europe has started very early to promote popularization of hydrogen technologies. Since 1986, the EU has funded about 200 projects on hydrogen and fuel cell energy technologies with a total contribution of over 550 million Euros. In 1991, various projects were started with funds under the Euro-Quebec Hydro-Hydrogen Pilot Project (Bahbout et al., 2000), followed by the European Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology Platform Development Strategy in 2005. From 2004 to 2007, a comparatively large multiregional roadmap activity called HyWays project was carried out, which takes the Snapshot of 2002 and its scale covered 10 European countries. During the period from 2002 to 2006, the total investments of hydrogen and fuel cell research are around 25–30 million Euros.
The significance of hydrogen economy recognized in the Europe is mainly as follows:
• Mitigation of climate change effect. Hydrogen-based energy would help in shifting from fossil fuels to renewables. One scenario analysis shows that introducing hydrogen as fuel in Europe is possible to decrease the unit cost of reducing CO2 by 4% in 2030 and 15% in 2050. Remarkably, its application in transportation sector could make largest contribution to reduce about 50% of CO2 emission in road transport sector by 2050 (EU, 2004).
• Enhancement of energy security. EU has set an objective to save 20% of energy consumption by 2020 compared to current tendency. Because of high heat value, wide range of flammable when mixed with air and high ignition point, theoretically combusting hydrogen, is more efficient than fossil fuels. Promoting hydrogen and fuel cells offers a great potential to improve energy efficiency in Europe that contributes to a significant reduction of CO2 emission.
• Promotion of renewable energy utilization. Hydrogen is not only a clean energy but also easy to combine with renewable energy, especially biological technology for hydrogen production. The popularization of hydrogen will significantly increase the proportion of renewable energy in the energy structure.
However, hydrogen economy in EU also meets several challenges in technical, infrastructure construction, and regulations.
• Cost reduction. Currently, the production cost, distribution cost of hydrogen, is still much higher than other options in Europe. To reduce the cost, substantial increase in R&D investments together with well-balanced distribution in deployment is required to minimize cumulative costs and shorten pay-back period (Yolcular, 2009).
• Safety and convenience in use. Hydrogen is usually stored as compressed gas or cryogenic liquid where storage conditions are very strict with many concerns in safety. In addition, storage unit is still larger than conventional fuels that brings inconvenience for transport.
• Infrastructure extension. Currently, the infrastructure such as hydrogen refueling stations for FCVs, hydrogen transport pipelines and equipment, hydrogen storage facilities is still faraway lacked for hydrogen economy.
• Technology development. Current hydrogen technologies still need improvements for mass production, e.g., hydrogen onboard storage limits driving range of hydrogen vehicles, cost, and lifetime of fuel cells is beyond expectation (McDowall and Eames, 2006).
Other challenges include the absence of surplus renewable electricity, policy support as well as energy strategy transformation, etc.
3.3.2 The European Hydrogen Roadmap
Facing the opportunities and challenges mentioned above, EU carried out specific roadmap known as HyWays Roadmap and Action Plan to provide plans, measures, and timelines for realizing hydrogen economy (Stiller et al., 2008). The path of shifting energy structure is set as follows: before 2010, hydrogen is mainly produced by natural gas and water electrolysis; 2010–2030 is mainly produced by fossil fuels (with the CO2 emissions); 2030–2040 mainly rely on renewable energy and nuclear energy and fossil fuel (with the CO2 emissions); 2040–2050, all of hydrogen is produced by renewable energy (Table 10.6).
Table 10.6
European Roadmap for Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Based on Thanapalan et al. (2013)
| 2000–2010 | 2010–2020 | 2020–2030 | 2030–2040 | 2040–2050 | |
| H2 production and distribution | H2 produced by reforming natural gas and electrolysis | Clusters of local H2 distribution grids | Widespread H2 pipeline infrastructure | ||
| H2 transport by road, and local H2 production at refueling station (reforming and electrolysis) | H2 produced from fossil fuels with sequestration | Interconnection of local H2 distribution grids; significant H2 production from renewables, include biomass gasification | Increasing decarbonization of H2 production; renewables, fossil with sequestration, new clear | Direct H2 production from renewables; decarbonized H2 society | |
| Local clusters of H2 filling stations | |||||
| FC and H2 systems development and deployment | Stationary low-temperature fuel cell systems for niche commercial (<50 kW) | Series production of FCVs for fleets (direct H2 and onboard reforming) and other transport (boats); FC for auxiliary power units (include reformer) | Second-generation onboard storage (long range) | H2 prime fuel choice for FCVs | Hydrogen-oriented economy |
| Stationary high-temperature fuel cell systems (MCFC/SOFC) (<500 kW) | First H2 fleets (first generation H2 storage) | Significant growth in distributed power generation with substantial penetration of FCs | Fuel cells become dominant technology in transport, in distributed power generation and microapplications | H2 used in aviation | |
| SOFC systems atmospheric and hybrid commercial (<10 MW) | |||||
| Stationary low-temperature fuel cell systems (PEM) (<300 kW) | FCVs competitive for passenger cars | Low-cost high-temperature fuel cell systems | |||
| FCs commercial in microapplications |
Toward a European Hydrogen economy, the European Hydrogen Energy Roadmap Integrated Project (2004) has summarized some standards, which will help to develop EU-harmonized set of codes for approval of H2-based systems, including Handbook for approval of Hydrogen Refueling Stations in Europe; permitting guides for small stationary installations; standards for the development of any industry and harmonization across Europe and globally; regulations for Europe in order to allow the local/regional implementation of H2 and fuel cell technologies; collection of relevant data and the harmonization of risk analysis methodologies. Another article by Borthwick (2006) summarized a 2020 scenario regarding the projection of hydrogen economy in EU (Table 10.7).
Table 10.7
Key Assumptions on Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Applications for 2020 Scenario
| Portable FCs for Handheld Electronic Devices | Portable Generators and Early Markets | Stationary FCs Combined Heat and Power (CHP) | Road Transport | |
| EU H2/FC units sold ~250 million per year projection 2020 | ~250 million | ~100,000 per year (~1 GWe) | 100,000–200,000 per year (2–4 GWe) | 0.4–1.8 million |
| EU cumulative sales projections until 2020 | n.a. | ~600,000 (~6 GWe) | 400,000–800,000 (8–16 GWe) | 1–5 million |
| EU Expected 2020 Market Status | Established | Established | Growth | Mass market rollout |
| Average power FC system | 15 W | 10 kW | <100 kW (microHP) | 80 kW |
| >100 kW (industrial CHP) | ||||
| FC system cost target | 1–2 €/W | 500 €/kW | 2000 €/kW (micro) | <100 €/kW (for 150,000 units per year) |
| 1000–1500 €/kW (industrial CHP) |
Data source: Borthwick (2006).
3.4 Hydrogen Strategy in China
3.4.1 Significance
As one of the biggest developing country, China’s quick economic development is propelled by huge amount of fossil fuel combustion. Within the fossil fuels, coal consumption possesses the most which brings large amount of PM, SO2, and CO2 emissions to the air resulting a serious haze, acid rain, and health problems. Furthermore, oil consumption also increased significantly in recent years because of the quick industrialization and the increase of vehicle ownership. Along with the fossil fuel combustion, especially the coal dominated energy consumption, China has become the biggest carbon emitter in the world who accounts for 28% of the total carbon emission in 2015. Due to the environmental pressure and sustainable development targets, China is accelerating the popularization of cleaner energies including hydropower, natural gas, and renewable energies in recent years. As shown in Fig. 10.6, China rapidly increased the capacity of renewable energy from 2000s, especially focusing on wind power. However, because of unsatisfactory connectivity and demand–supply matching in electricity grid, lots of generated power is finally wasted (Ma et al., 2014).
Therefore, hydrogen energy is thought as one of the important pathways to help in adjusting the energy structure in China so as to accomplish the shift from fossil energy to renewable energy. Recently, China has developed a set of medium and long-term plans to accelerate the development of hydrogen energy including break through key technologies in 2020 and realize diversity of primary energy and internet of hydrogen electricity in 2050 (Yuan and Lin, 2010). Beside the increasing number of research program, industrial production standards also keep improving including Chinese Hydrogen codes and standards, hydrogen safety technology manuals, and ISO for the standards development on hydrogen refueling and storage.
3.4.2 Challenges of Promoting Hydrogen Economy in China
China formed the hydrogen power research system in 2000 with the supporting of national research and development programs in China. Universities and institutes are the main part of this system to solve the key technology problems of hydrogen product, storage, and utilization. More and more research programs supported by the National Natural Science Foundation were undertaken and made significant progress. In 2012, the output of hydrogen is 16 million tons in China, which is the largest produce amount in the world. The number of international patents related to hydrogen energy ranks 11th in the world. On the other hand, resulting from the promotion in utilizing abundant solar and wind resource, the capability of solar power and wind power in China got to 30 and 97 GW in 2014 and will keep growing continuously with good growth policy conditions in the future. Therefore, the production of hydrogen by electrolyzing water with these two kinds of electricity is becoming the research point in China (Feng et al., 2004). Biological hydrogen production process from organic waste water using zymotechnics is another new attempt (Xu and Chen, 2006).
China also faces many challenges in promoting hydrogen economy. For instance, China has a set of perfect gas pipeline going through main wind and solar power bases, which means hydrogen generated by these two kinds of renewable energy can be delivered to the country by the gas pipeline. The security problems are the main consideration about hydrogen energy. Seventy percent of the world’s 20 MPa steel gas cylinders is concentrated in China, which gives a guarantee for hydrogen transportation and storage. A high-performance magnesium-based composite material had been invented. Lanthanon hydrogen storage alloy also entered the experiment stage (Xu and Chen, 2006). Similarly, a hydrogen transformation system without hydrogen has been designed, in which the hydrogen will be converted to liquid carbinol, ammonia, or cyclohexane to realize the efficient delivery. Focusing on the advantage of higher calorific value while combusting hydrogen, the main research target is to promote civilian use such as hydrogen power automobile. However, the heavy liquid hydrogen tank and security problems are the factors holding back the development of this kind of vehicle.
On the other hand, high cost and deficiency of infrastructure are two major problems hindering the development of the hydrogen energy in China. Some researches focus on the environmental and economic impact of different hydrogen processes and try to fine the most economical way. Feng et al. (2004) designed 11 different pilot plans in view of the different production, transportation, and storage processes of hydrogen energy with random combinations in Beijing. LCA tool was applied to analyze the economic performances of these plans. In this research, the average energy consumption of different production method was listed that coal gasification is 161.30 kJ/kg H2; natural gas steam reforming (NGSR) process is 178.91 kJ/kg H2; methanol reforming onboard is 264.29 kJ/kg H2; and water electrolysis produced in refueling stations is up to 674.62 kJ/kg H2. Economic performance of these four production methods from best to worst is methanol reforming onboard, coal gasification, NGSR, and water electrolysis. By contrast, the energy performance of four storing and transporting hydrogen methods rank from best to worst is hydrogen gas by pipeline, hydrogen gas by cylinder, liquid hydrogen, and hydride. Hydrogen production system using biomass residues is considered by Lv et al. (2008). Capacity of a designed system is 6.4 t biomass/day and annual production is 480 billion N m3 H2. The capital cost of the designed plant is 1328 $/(N m3/h) H2 out, and product supply cost is 0.15 $/N m3 H2.
Finally, establishment of the standards for hydrogen energy production, transportation, and utilization is crucial. Regarding as an important part of energy strategy, hydrogen energy got enough attentions and expected development conditions from the government of China. In the Mid-to-long Term Sci-Tech Plan (2006–2020), hydrogen was placed as the same important as clean coal, renewable, and nuclear energies (Yuan and Lin, 2010). To promote the development of hydrogen energy smoothly, the establishment of National Technical Committee 309 on Hydrogen Energy of Standardization administration of China (SAC/TC309) and National Technical Committee 342 on Fuel Cell of Standardization Administration of China (SAC/TC342) has been approved in 2008. Twenty-four standards written by SAC/TC309 have been published or still in progress, 44 hydrogen energy-related national standards have been issued, covering all of the production and utilization processes. Furthermore, for hydrogen power vehicles, safety operation management regulation for hydrogen refueling facilities of hydrogen vehicles developed timely with a draft released in China. This regulation is appropriate for the vehicles using hydrogen as the main energy, like hydrogen FCVs, hydrogen ICE vehicles, and hydrogen hybrid vehicles. It has a series of regulations for staff including the qualification, specialized technique training, safety management, etc.
Remarkably, FCVs are recently entering the daily lives in China. Ten cities with thousand new energy vehicles demonstration project initiated by the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Finance, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Industry and Information started in 2009. This project plans to launch 10,000 new energy vehicles in ten pilot cities each year involving bus, taxi, and post areas. The purpose of this project is to make the national new energy vehicle operation account for 10% of the automotive market by 2012. Currently, 25 cities were included into this project successively. New energy vehicle subsidy scheme was issued subsequently by the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Science and Technology and some local governments in these 23 cities. Twenty four kinds of new energy vehicles including FCVs were included into the scope of subsidies.
4 International Cooperation Toward Hydrogen Economy
With the consensus on the significance of transition toward hydrogen economy, main countries and regions have started to cooperate and negotiate with each other through various platforms and routes to overcome the challenges and barriers. The main platforms for international cooperation include IEA and the International Partnership for Hydrogen and Fuel Cell in the Economy (IPHE) (IEA, 2016; IPHE, 2016).
Currently, IEA has been a specific international organization for consulting and cooperation focusing on both technology development and policy implementation in energy sector. As one of the standing committees, the Committee on Energy Research and Technology (CERT) is established to analyze the trend of technology and market, develop technology roadmap, and promote the international cooperation on the development, demonstration, and deployment of technologies to meet challenges in the energy sector. Generally, international collaboration and information exchange is implemented through a number of Implementing Agreements (IAs), which is also called “Multilateral Energy Technology Initiatives” and managed under CERT. Two of the IAs are involving Hydrogen economy and fuel cell technology:
The former HIA is set under the standing group Renewable Energy Working Party. The purpose of HIA is to promote a global collaboration for the development and deployment of hydrogen technology. Through establishing sectional common tasks, member countries and companies would share information and develop implementing plans. In addition, the latter AFCIA is set under the standing group End Use Working Party, which purposes to share knowledge and exchange information on advanced fuel cell technologies.
On the other hand, IPHE is established in 2003 which aims at popularizing hydrogen fuel cells through intergovernmental partnership. Specifically, IPHE focuses on promoting the research, development, and deployment of hydrogen fuel cells. In detailed, member governments and institutes will report and exchange information on latest policy and development progression (Country Update) with each other and seek market opportunities and partnership through steering committee meetings. Furthermore, the working groups in IPHE also carry out regulation, standards, and reference, even support education chances.
Beside these institutions and platforms, there also emerged several important international conferences for hydrogen economy, such as the World Hydrogen Energy Conference and the World Hydrogen Technologies Conventions held by International Association for Hydrogen Energy, the Fuel Cell Seminar & Energy Exposition held in America, and International Conference on Hydrogen Safety (ICHS) held by NPO named International Association HySafe.
5 Conclusion
Learning from the many previous researches and progression on hydrogen economy, it is indicated that hydrogen economy would play as an important role in promoting sustainable development through energy saving and system integration with clean and renewable energies. As the equivalent significance with electricity, hydrogen will be popularized as an important energy carrier in the society. The market of hydrogen economy will dramatically increase in the future due to the technology innovation and diffusion, which can offer a great amount of jobs and stimulate industrial and service development in supply chain. However, it is also the fact that currently the cost of hydrogen production, delivery, and utilization is still higher than conventional technologies that requires a continuously strong effort on research and development, deployment, and policy making.
Accordingly, most of main countries have carried out specific development plan and detailed technology roadmap to guide the progression so as to realize hydrogen economy in a lower cost path with competitiveness in the market. The latter, vision and roadmap making from 2000s, reveals to successfully promote technology development for cost reduction and public–private collaboration. However, due to the consensus on opportunities and challenges toward hydrogen economy, the strategies and policies of the four main countries competitor (Japan, the United States, EU, and China) are quite similar, which will surely lead to a long-term competition between these countries.
There are also some differences especially on the emphasis of technology innovation learning from the countries’ strategies for hydrogen economy. As a whole, Japan has invested more effort including initial investment for research, development, and demonstration projects than the others, which makes Japan possess the most of patents in the world. By contrast, the US government’s initiative is to focus on developing breakthrough technologies which reveals high risk but possibly brings much more revenue in the future. According to specific national conditions, the visions of hydrogen economy are also diverse. For instance, in the United States, hydrogen is expected to be produced from local resource, while in Japan, it is assumed to be imported from politically stable countries where hydrogen could be produced with low cost from abundant fossil fuels. By contrast, EU represents a complex situation but balanced strategy between targets and investment, while China provides a great market for hydrogen during changing the energy structure. For realizing hydrogen economy in expected path and taking its advantages for sustainable development, not only intersectional collaboration is necessary, but also international comparison and cooperation is required.