LINE Hydrogen has a vision to reduce the Australian transport industry’s reliance on diesel by developing renewable technology to mass produce green hydrogen, writes Chris Ryan.
Australia has a diesel problem and Brendan James has a plan to solve it.
“We consume around 84 million litres of diesel a day in Australia,” explains the founder and chairman of Queensland-based energy company LINE Hydrogen. “At the moment, it’s the only option for heavy transport and remote power generation for heavy industry, including the mining industry. We need a solution for that.
“Our focus is replacing diesel for Australia – reducing CO2 emissions, improving Australia’s terms of trade and ensuring security of energy supply. We will continue to need delivered fuel, particularly outside our major cities, and one thing hydrogen is very good at is being a delivered fuel. As a zero-CO2 fuel, green hydrogen is the perfect replacement for diesel.”
LINE Hydrogen is taking a holistic approach to tackling the diesel problem, and producing green hydrogen is only the start of it. The company is manufacturing the equipment needed for large-scale hydrogen production and developing equipment and partnerships for end-use.
Commissioning in early 2023, the company’s Great Southern Project near Bell Bay, in Tasmania, aims to deliver low-cost green hydrogen for the Apple Isle’s heavy haulage fleets. Production will start at 1.49t H2/day, growing to 14.9t H2/day over nine years.
“The thing stopping some hydrogen companies coming through is access to heavy vehicles,” says James. “When facing the same challenges, we decided to go into heavy vehicle manufacturing and distribution ourselves.”
At its Brisbane factory, LINE Hydrogen is converting vehicles to run on hydrogen, and establishing a fleet of B-double heavy haulage hydrogen-powered trucks and buses. The vehicles will be leased to transport companies or operated directly under heavy haulage and transport contracts, with the first 29 trucks scheduled to hit the road in early 2023.
LINE Hydrogen has also partnered with North America-based Jericho Energy Ventures (JEV) to bring leading hydrogen boiler technology to Australia. JEV’s Dynamic Combustion Chamber boiler uses a patented method for burning hydrogen and oxygen in a vacuum chamber to create high-temperature water and steam with zero greenhouse gases.
“Just about every industry uses steam production or hot water production in some form, and so much of that comes from diesel or other fossil fuel power,” says James. “We looked at how we could potentially replace that. It’s a really interesting application that runs well in conjunction with our electrolyser technology and how we run electrolysers.”
On the mining front, LINE Hydrogen has signed a memorandum of understanding with Blue Cap Mining to design, develop and operate renewable technology to replace fossil fuel-based power generation at Lord Byron gold mine in Western Australia.
The renewable technology will support a green hydrogen production plant, producing fuel to replace diesel and powering the Lord Byron operation during non-renewable energy generation periods.
“Mining operations have a significant amount of invested capital in their current fleet,” says James.
“The first option is converting that to run on hydrogen, which will accelerate the rollout of hydrogen, not unlike the conversion to LNG [liquefied natural gas] we saw in the 1990s.”
The Federal Government and Australia’s state governments are seizing the potential of green hydrogen, with hydrogen hubs popping up in regional areas and a host of new players entering the market.
“It’s a big country to cover and Australia consumes a lot of diesel,” says James, embracing the competition.
“If LINE Hydrogen is rolling out the infrastructure on its own, it is certainly going to take a lot longer to open up haulage routes.
“We’re advocates of helping some of these other guys catch up to where we are at, and we are in discussion with some of them at the moment. I’m not concerned about competition. When you’re developing a new industry, if you’re fighting among yourselves, you’re just slowing each other down.”
James wants to see hydrogen projects throughout regional Australia serving transportation routes.
“It is looking at the optimum distance between projects to reduce distribution and transportation costs,” he says.
With Australia’s thirst for diesel and its capacity to generate clean energy, James believes the nation is well placed to be a world leader in the production of green hydrogen.
“Too often, the financial industry and government entities are funding foreign nationals to come into this space,” he says.
“I think we can be leaders and innovators.
“Australian engineers have led the world for decades. If you go to any automotive industry around the world, you’ll find Australian engineers.
“It’s the same in the aeronautical and mining sectors – Australians rule the industry.
“We have to believe in ourselves and deliver it.”