Mitsubishi plans to build and start up the low-carbon hydrogen facility near Shell’s Scotford, Alberta, facility toward the latter half of this decade. Both companies target about 165,000 tons per annum of hydrogen in the first phase of the project, which would be converted to low-carbon ammonia for export to Asian markets.
This is the goal of a memorandum of understanding between Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp and Shell Canada to produce low-carbon hydrogen to support Japan’s policy campaign for clean energy, as announced on Wednesday.
The low-carbon hydrogen, or blue hydrogen, would be produced via a natural gas feedstock and exported mainly to the Japanese market to produce clean energy, the companies said.
Shell would provide CO2 storage via its proposed Polaris carbon capture and storage project near Edmonton.
Shell in July unveiled its Polaris CCS project, joining a number of other companies proposing clean energy initiatives in Canada’s main oil-producing province. The project would have the capacity to store 300 million tonnes of carbon over its lifetime.
Alberta, home to Canada’s oil sands, is aiming to become a hub for carbon storage and hydrogen production as the world moves away from fossil fuel consumption and tries to cut climate-warming carbon emissions.
