An expert panel constituted by the government has suggested that India has enough potential to produce hydrogen from domestic coal and the country should strongly pursue this option.
This assumes significance in the wake of Prime Minister Narendra Modi annoucing hydrogen mission on India’s 75th Independence Day.
Hydrogen is a clean fuel and can serve as a possible substitute to liquid and fossil fuels. It is also the most abundant element in the universe, making up more than 90 per cent of all known matters.
“India has an opportunity to produce hydrogen from domestic coal and we may aggressively pursue this option in our overall hydrogen ecosystem,” the expert committee said in its report on roadmap for coal to hydrogen production. The panel also suggested for setting up of a couple of semi-commercial gasification units to convert coal to hydrogen.
The integration of Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) units along with gasification, it said, can be explored so that blue hydrogen thus produced is more acceptable.
“The gasification technologies may be selected based on assessment of the potential for eventual commercial upscaling and keeping the option of biomass co-gasification along with coal subject to availability of biomass in the close vicinity of such gasification units,” the panel said.
The coal gasification units should be set up near the hydrogen demand centres or close to the coal mines.
The cost of transportation of hydrogen would be high at present and hence there was a need to examine the economics before deciding upon the locations of gasification plants.
“Alternatively, we could establish the plants closer to the natural gas grid so that hydrogen thus produced could be injected to some extent i.E. Up to 18-20 per cent into the natural gas pipelines, as to that extent of hydrogen injection in the natural gas pipelines may not need the modification of the gas pipelines,” the panel recommended.
This, it said, will facilitate the utilisation of hydrogen produced from coal in the industries currently using imported natural gas.