Still tagged as one of the most important polluters within the nation, Sasol has as soon as once more outlined its plans to provide green hydrogen to reshape the corporate and the vitality trade in SA.
The problem is to get it finished comparatively rapidly, and profitably.
CEO Fleetwood Grobler says Sasol is working in direction of turning into a main producer of hydrogen, produced utilizing sustainable and renewable vitality sources.
“The numbers are big. The world will need 400 million tons of green hydrogen per annum by 2050, according to the Global Hydrogen Council,” he says.
This is even earlier than contemplating the potential of reindustrialising SA via native green hydrogen financial initiatives, by specializing in the metal manufacturing and transport industries.
Read: Green hydrogen’s potential advantages and challenges
During a presentation hosted by PSG’s Think Big sequence, Grobler identified that know-how lies on the coronary heart of the transition to green vitality.
“It is technologically viable, but it is not financially viable yet. The question remains when it will be affordable to pivot to green hydrogen,” he says.
“Currently, hydrogen costs between $3 and $5 per kilogram. It becomes viable as an energy source at $2 and very sensible at $1.50 per kilogram.”
As said earlier than, Sasol goals to cut back its reliance on fossil fuels. The group admits it has no alternative because the use of coal is unsustainable.
In addition, the transition to sustainable vitality and the manufacturing of green hydrogen current alternatives. “SA can develop into a web exporter of green hydrogen. It can impact change in different corporations and industries.
“Hydrogen is a viable alternative for long-haul heavy-duty vehicles and for mining vehicles in operations that run around the clock. It presents an opportunity to reindustrialise SA in a sustainable way,” says Grobler.
Green hydrogen as an vitality supply can go a great distance in direction of cleansing up different industries, corresponding to metal making.
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Grobler says Sasol’s concentrate on green hydrogen is a crucial part of its future technique, however must be seen “through the lens of the long-term” fairly than as a “quick fix”.
Collaboration
Sasol just lately introduced a partnership with ArcelorMittal SA to advertise the use of green vitality and cut back carbon emissions. The partnership is to develop know-how to seize CO2 emissions and really use it as in enter in Sasol’s manufacturing processes, fairly than supply carbon from coal.
The partnership will launch research into two potential tasks.
The first will discover the potential of Saldanha Bay as an export hub for green hydrogen and derivatives, in addition to green metal manufacturing.
The second examine includes carbon seize at ArcelorMittal’s Vanderbijlpark metal plant and utilizing renewable electrical energy and green hydrogen to transform the captured carbon into sustainable fuels and chemical substances.
Read: Sasol companions with Japan’s Itochu for green hydrogen tasks
Grobler says collaboration would be the key to success in future.
“The drive to a decrease carbon future and greener economic system would require large-scale collaboration and success will necessitate enduring and resilient partnerships between main corporations, even in numerous sectors.
“Successfully leveraging alternatives is a huge process that will stretch past the talents of a single firm.
“Collaboration would be the identify of the sport going ahead. The days of ‘closed corporate strategies’ are behind us and gamers in renewable vitality can not afford to ‘go it alone’.
“Collaboration between Sasol and ArcelorMittal – between an energy company and a steel company – would have been unheard of in the past. It is unavoidable going forward,” says Grobler, indicating that Sasol’s technique of accountable capital allocation additionally requires partnerships.
He sees Sasol holding a 20% to 30% stake in such ventures in future, backed by purchases by patrons of the output. Sasol has already approached potential patrons in Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Japan and South Korea to debate potentialities. South Korea and Japan are the world’s largest producers of gas cells.
Technology
The know-how to fabricate green hydrogen exists. Sasol already produces fairly a bit of hydrogen, however continues to be utilizing coal as an enter. The manufacturing course of makes use of renewable vitality, with Sasol terming the product “grey” hydrogen.
It produces some two to 2.5 tons of gray hydrogen per day at its plant in Sasolburg. The problem is producing green hydrogen quickly, on a huge scale.
Grobler says Sasol will produce its first green hydrogen subsequent 12 months and can be capable to begin large-scale manufacturing earlier than the tip of the last decade.
“Scale production is possible within six to eight years. The biggest stumbling block is finding clients.”
He says the vitality disaster in Europe has had an sudden profit in that it confirmed that change is feasible. “At first, the war in the Ukraine created the fear that long-term sustainable energy would be put on the back burner, but countries navigated the crisis.”
Grobler says Germany, which sourced 50% of its pure gasoline from Russia, and Italy (40%), decreased its use of pure gasoline and proved that customers can transfer to different vitality sources.
He says there’s already a captive demand for gray hydrogen in SA (utilizing coal and renewable vitality as manufacturing inputs), which is encouraging for Sasol given its ambitions to pivot to green hydrogen.
Read:
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