Farmers in Japan’s prime northern dairy region of Hokkaido could soon be producing more than simply 50% of the nation’s milk, butter and cheese if a project to convert cow manure into hydrogen fuel comes to fruition.
Hydrogen does not emit carbon when it is burned, making it a potential game-changer in the battle against climate change. But it has to come either from piped methane, which is a fossil fuel, or from clean sources. This means the race toward so-called “green” hydrogen, made by splitting water through electrolysis, is hotting up. However, that process is usually energy-intensive and expensive, making it environmentally counter-productive and difficult to scale.
How is a small town in #Hokkaido reinvigorating its local economy with cows? – #hydrogen & #biomass. Learn more: https://t.co/8W52jYMpxf #Shikaoi #CircularEconomy #RegionalRevitalization #GlobalGoals pic.twitter.com/J9nCP5ALOq
— japan (@japan) July 23, 2019
Fuelling 30 vehicles per day
But Japan’s Shikaoi Hydrogen Farm has been working on how to turn cow waste products into hydrogen since 2015. They have no shortage of raw material, with over 20 million tonnes of cow manure generated annually. The pats and pee are gobbled up by a large anaerobic digester with a dash of bacteria added to break the organic material down into biogas, which can be refined into methane and then hydrogen. In this way, the Shikaoi facility’s 20 annual tonnes of waste (30% of Hokkaido’s cow by-products) are turned into 70 cubic metres of hydrogen gas.
That hydrogen feeds the local economy via an on-site fuelling station that can fill nearly 30 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles per day. It is mainly agricultural transport like tractors and forklifts that are benefitting, though cars can be fuelled too. Meanwhile, the excess can be bottled and transported to provide fuel elsewhere.
Grown in Japan
Providing a source of carbon-free fuel is not the only environmental benefit from the process either. With cow waste seen as a potentially valuable commodity, it is less likely to end up polluting water courses or releasing unwanted methane into the atmosphere.
“This project to produce hydrogen from livestock manure originated in Japan and is unique to this place,” Maiko Abe from Air Water, one of several companies involved in the hydrogen farm project, told the BBC.
But while turning crap into hydrogen may be new in Hokkaido, a project to turn human waste into hydrogen is already underway in the southern Japanese city of Fukuoka. Partnered by Toyota’s infrastructure arm and Kyushu University, the first commercial Japanese use of sewage-derived hydrogen as fuel can produce enough energy for 60 vehicles in just 12 hours.
