(701e) Techno-Economic Analysis and Life Cycle Assessment of Production, Storage and Transportation of Hydrogen Carriers

Hydrogen demand is expected to increase by six times in the next decade and the development of hydrogen supply chains all over the world is of utmost importance. Due to its inherent volatile nature, hydrogen poses considerable risks and expenses in storage and transportation. A strategy to overcome these challenges is utilizing hydrogen carriers, which are liquid or solid materials that can store hydrogen energy and can be safely and inexpensively transported. The carriers are subsequently used directly in applications such as power generation or dehydrogenated back to hydrogen. While individual studies on the costs and emissions of producing the carriers are available in literature, the variability in production methods, properties and end-use of the carriers creates challenges in analyzing and comparing them fairly.

In this paper, we discuss four hydrogen carriers in tandem - methane, methanol, ammonia, and liquid hydrogen. Techno-economic analysis and life cycle analysis are performed along a common framework to estimate the costs and emissions of production, storage and oceanic transportation of the carriers. Low carbon production pathways are considered with utilization of green hydrogen and captured carbon dioxide. In the production stage, ammonia is found to have the lowest levelized cost and second to lowest greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, marginally higher than liquid hydrogen. For transportation costs, a fixed supply route from Australia to Japan is considered and several port-to-port routes are analyzed for economic and environmental feasibility. Transportation costs and GHG emissions are found to be significantly affected by port-to-port distance via ship charter costs and the type of fuel used in the ship.

We expect the results from the current paper to provide a guideline towards identifying the suitable hydrogen carrier for a given application and supply route and to contribute towards fastened development of robust hydrogen supply chains.