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2017 Holden Astra
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South Australia is continuing its push to stay at the pointy end of the automotive industry as the day for local manufacturing come to an end.
Already willing to participate in testing for autonomous cars, SA is now also looking to commit to hydrogen fuel to power tomorrow's fuel-cell vehicles.
State Premier Jay Weatherill said hydrogen is “the ultimate clean energy fuel”, and “by embracing a hydrogen economy, our cars, buses, trucks and power stations could soon be emitting H2O instead of polluting the world with CO2”.
With Holden set to close its Elizabeth plant on October 20 and Mitsubishi having shuttered its Tonsley Park manufacturing plant in 2008, the state hopes to fill that void by playing a role in research, development and tech for the car industry.
SA already generates more sustainable electricity per capita than any other state, and has reached an agreement with Tesla to build the world’s largest lithium battery.
The 44-page hydrogen roadmap says South Australia aims to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, establishing Adelaide as the world’s first carbon-neutral city.
It discusses the potential of hydrogen production and export in Australia, generating electricity through wind and solar, storing it as hydrogen transported overseas as ammonia.
Hyundai and Toyota have already committed to world-first trials with the CSIRO in Australia, powering fuel cell vehicles with hydrogen sourced from local Ammonia in 2018.
South Australia has already committed to investing $8.2 million in a hydrogen-fuelled bus fleet based in Adelaide. The state’s $150 million Renewable Technology Fund will be used in part for “co-investment in demonstration projects comprising hydrogen production and use”, while a $200 million future jobs fund will “target job creation in the emerging hydrogen sector”.
The road map says South Australia will “encourage automotive industry diversification along the supply chain to include the uptake of hydrogen fuel cell enabled technologies for passenger motor vehicles and heavy commercial fleets”.
The state says there is an opportunity to reduce carbon emissions “by supporting developments of alternative fuel technologies such as hybrid and hydrogen-fuelled vehicles”.
Hyundai and Toyota stand to profit from that push, having already brought a handful of hydrogen-powered vehicles to Australia to raise awareness for the fuel’s potential.
The South Korean brand has committed to selling Australia’s first hydrogen-powered cars to the public in 2018, a yet-to-be-named SUV that has already attracted 20 orders in the ACT.
Hyundai Australia chief operating officer Scott Grant praised South Australia’s roadmap as “a visionary step toward a cleaner, greener future”.
“Humanity is in transition toward zero-emissions transportation,” Grant said.
“Through intelligent incentives and a holistic approach to policy-making, governments can play a proactive role in driving the take-up of next-generation transport technologies.”
MORE: Holden Says Goodbye To Adelaide With One Last ‘Mainy’
MORE News & Reviews: Hydrogen | South Australia | Future
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5 Comments
I'm curious which production method of hydrogen is going to be used. If from natural gas then there will be CO and CO2 side products. If from water using electricity then why not use this electricity to charge electric cars instead.
An American and Russian team got hydrogen from water with solar power by using special titanium dioxide to act as photocatalyst. https://m.phys.org/news/2017-09-hydrogen-fuel.html "The U.S. and Russian team of researchers inserted a photosensitive protein into nanodiscs ??? made from circular fragments of cell membrane composed of a lipid bilayer ??? to mimic a natural cell membrane called bacteriorhodopsin. To induce photocatalysis, they dissolved the nanodiscs into water together with titanium dioxide. They also added platinum into the mix, to make the reaction more effective. Their setups involved green and white light, with the latter producing 74 times more hydrogen. In both cases, however, hydrogen emission was maintained at an almost constant rate for some two to three hours."
Why would you pay the pump price for Hydrogen when you can conveniently charge your EV at home off peak for next to nothing. Not to mention that Hydrogennis largely produced for natural gas and needs lots of electricity inputs to compress it and store it. Complete waste of time outside of a niche vehicles.
And to think I used to live there. How does throwing money on fringe projects with no possibility of return for decades make sense? There may have been a few car factories there but SA was never some kind of manufacturing powerhouse that could change the direction of the world. Madness.
South Australia - as always continuing to be irrelevant