From billions to demos, with some blending in-between

Let’s start this week by getting the billion-dollar stuff out of the way.

Brazil, for example, has “unveiled more than $1bn of new funding for clean hydrogen hubs”. This is in addition to the “R$18.3bn of tax credits that were signed into law by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva last week”.

This new dollop of cash is part of a plan to create low-emission hydrogen hubs “by 2035” which will “integrate the production, storage and transportation of hydrogen, connecting different sectors of the economy”. The hydrogen will help both local ‘hard-to-abate’ decarbonisation as well as Brazil’s aim to “become a competitive country in the global hydrogen scenario”.

In helping out suitable projects (a call for which will open “in due course), Brazil will be working in partnership with Climate Investment Funds (CIF). CIF is a fund which “receives finance from 15 industrialised nations” and which will “provide low-cost financing” to the chosen projects.

South Korea’s latest plans run into the trillions – at least in won, the local currency. Even translated into dollars, they still involve big numbers.

Specifically, the province of North Gyeongsang is planning “a 1,000km pipeline network costing 2trn won ($1.48bn), a 3trn-won ($2.2bn) H2/ammonia import terminal, a fuel-cell industry cluster and a nuclear hydrogen R&D foundation”. Alongside the latter will be a “100MW clean hydrogen project… using power from a small nuclear reactor (SMR) at the under-construction Uljin National Hydrogen Industrial Complex”.

The hydrogen pipeline will deliver this ‘pink’ hydrogen (in future from other nuclear plants too) to “the local steel industry and refuelling stations” and will be financed by way of “a private investment fund”.