CHINESE NATURAL GAS INVESTMENT: AN OPPORTUNITY FOR HYDROGEN RESEARCH

摘要

As China charts its national development in the 21st century, the nation's environmental sustainability will figure heavily into the shaping of policy. The accumulated pollution debt of the last 50 years has devastated many areas on the mainland and eroded real economic growth. In response, aggressive energy policy focused on pollution-reduction and sustainability aims to curb further environmental degradation, specifically through the use of price controls and natural gas substitution as a medium-term energy solution. In this plan to leverage natural gas, China's unique economic position allows her a golden opportunity to "piggy-back" on natural gas development to analyze hydrogen as a long-term energy source. Utilizing small-scale reformers that tap into existing natural gas pipelines, China can create a rudimentary urban hydrogen infrastructure that can be used to evaluate the theoretical transportation technologies so crucial for Mure hydrogen developments. Using this opportunity to test empirically hydrogen fuel storage technology and fuel cells and to gather econometric data allows for rapid proliferation of hydrogen-based transportation as upstream hydrogen technologies advance. The studies' costs can be defrayed indirectly by foreign investors interested in China's lucrative natural gas market. Small, continuous studies over the next decades will create a valuable opportunity for China and its partners to evaluate critically hydrogen's potential as a fuel source and to perfect new transportation technology for the day when hydrogen's production reaches cost-effective levels.