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Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) today announced that Kore Infrastructure has successfully begun testing and demonstrating its carbon-negative, waste-to-energy modular system at the utility's Los Angeles facility. The innovative technology is designed to divert organic waste from California landfills and convert it into carbon-negative hydrogen and renewable natural gas (RNG).

Kore plans to demonstrate the production of 99.999% pure hydrogen that would be suitable for fuel cell electric cars, trucks, buses, and trains by the third quarter of 2022. The demonstration facility has the potential to process up to 24 tons per day of organic feedstock and produce up to one metric ton of carbon negative, UltraGreen hydrogen™ per day, enough hydrogen for over 1,400 fuel cell electric cars.

Carbon Solutions analysts modeled dozens of typical hydrogen production pathways through the use of peer-reviewed published literature and tools like Argonne National Laboratory’s GREET Lifecycle Model. In addition to the conventional SMR process mentioned above, we also included hydrogen produced via autothermal reforming (ATR), a process similar to SMR. Both the SMR and ATR processes are compatible with carbon capture equipment, leading to deep carbon reductions when captured CO2 is stored permanently. We also studied hydrogen production via electrolysis, where water molecules are split into hydrogen and oxygen through the use of electricity. When powered primarily with zero-carbon electricity from renewables or nuclear power, electrolysis-based hydrogen can provide some of the largest GHG reductions of the pathways we studied.

“While logistics operators are aligned with the H2Accelerate view that hydrogen trucking will be required for long-haul, heavy-duty applications due to the operational flexibility it offers, further use cases where hydrogen offers operations advantages over BEVs have been identified,” the eight-page document states. “These include trucks operating in areas with significant grid constraints which will present challenges for BEV charging, and for use cases where vehicles are double shifted, requiring fast refuelling.”

In fact, according to a recent report of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), patent applications on fuel cells are experiencing a third surge, with filings surpassing those that occurred in the mid-1980s and early 2000s.

“With this IPCEI, we see EU hydrogen production moving ‘from lab to fab’; and our industry turning technological mastery into commercial leadership,” said European Commissioner for the internal market, Thierry Breton. “We know what is at stake: Europe's position as a leading region for the hydrogen industrial transformation.”

HTWO, as a fuel cell system-based hydrogen business brand of Hyundai Motor Group, was first released in December 2020 with Hyundai’s strong commitment to hydrogen economy. With its proven fuel cell technology utilized in Hyundai FCEVs, HTWO is expanding the provision of fuel cell technology to other automobile OEMs and non-automobile sectors to make hydrogen available for everything.