Texas is world capital of oil & gas can it be a New Energy capital and lead the world in energy transition? The article focuses on Texas competitive advantage for Hydrogen energy as a vector.
Competitive Advantage
Texas has several competitive advantages including:
- Produces 2.0 mtpa of hydrogen (Grey) from natural gas for refining and Ammonia industry.
- Texas has over 1600 miles of hydrogen pipeline network retrofitted from natural gas
- The three of the operational sites for Underground Hydrogen Storage (UHS) in salt caverns are ,located in Texas
- Texas is national leader in wind energy with 92 TWh of electricity generation and close second in installed solar PV (15 GW).
Actions for the Market Development
- Need to have clear emission reduction targets
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A policy framework is needed to manage risk & uncertainty and get necessary capital for infrastructure projects
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An EFFECTIVE BUSINESS MODEL for CO2 transport and storage must apply to one of the three key stages
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Market Creation (Demonstration Stage)
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Market Growth (Pre-Commercial)
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Mature Industry
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Additional Insights
- Market creation stage
- The business model is companies can be contractor to the state.
- Effective before established policy incentive exist
- State funded; divided into smaller projects
- The business is key to kick-start infrastructure development and incentivize early-movers
- Market Growth / Pre-Commercial Stage /Enabled Markets
- Hybrid business model comprising state support in some parts of the market and managed competition in other parts.
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Mature Markets
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Private companies involved in the CCS chain develop & manage pipelines, hubs & storage sites without specific government direction.
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The government's role is limited to creating the mechanism that enables CCS to be a viable business opportunity
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The Road Map
The road maps provide host of technologies that can be researched, developed and piloted in broadly four categories for end-user market
- Transportation /Mobility
- Industrial
- Building/Commercial
- Power Generation
Next Steps
- Policy support and framework along with emission targets are key enablers for the investment and reduce risks
- The lowest hanging fruit in terms of technology application is to convert Grey Hydrogen into Blue Hydrogen using natural and CCS network and exiting H2 pipeline system
- Leverage existing expertise from wind energy and solar PV to generate Green Hydrogen.
- With Policy incentives there will be a supply 'push' for the production of clean Hydrogen in the market and a demand 'pull' in the end-user market.
MATURE / DEVELOED MARKET
- Houston shipping channel and Corpus Christy port offers a potential to be world class hub for clean hydrogen production, consumption and exports making Texas lead in clean energy transition to Net-Zero.