Nature model: hydrogen derivatives cut China's carbon-neutral transition cost by $10.7 trillion

A team from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Harvard University and Shandong University has published a modelling study in Nature on cost-effective carbon-neutral pathways for the whole energy economy of China. According to the authors, adding hydrogen and its derivatives as energy carriers reduces the overall transition cost by $10.7 trillion compared with pathways based on renewables and electrification alone nature.comNaturenature.comOpen source ↗. This is a calculation, not a field deployment.

Model scope

The authors start from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recommendation of a 1.5°C target. China, the largest CO2 emitter, faces difficulties both in accommodating variable renewable generation and in decarbonizing hard-to-abate sectors nature.comNaturenature.comOpen source ↗. Hydrogen as an energy carrier is limited in practice by costly transportation, storage and fuel-cell adoption, and an affordable, coordinated deployment plan has remained unclear.

To address this, the model combines several levels of detail [1]:

• high-resolution deployment of renewable generation;
• hourly power system operation in 29 provincial regions;
• more than 46,000 rail, road, marine and pipeline routes for transferring hydrogen derivatives;
• process-level fuel adoption strategies in all end-use sectors.

The framework is called HeD-MISSION. The supplementary material describes its architecture, scenario settings, data sources, technology parameters, sectoral formulations, validation benchmarks, cost and emissions accounting and sensitivity analyses. It contains 52 figures and 160 tables.

Results reported by the authors

Besides the $10.7 trillion reduction in total cost, the authors report a negative carbon abatement cost of $-6.15 per ton nature.comNaturenature.comOpen source ↗. The pathway also eliminates external oil import expenses, which they equate to more than 50% of China's trade surplus at the 2023 level nature.comNaturenature.comOpen source ↗. The authors also state that it significantly boosts employment and economic growth.

In their conclusion, the authors describe the hydrogen-derivative pathway as a direction for affordable and secure decarbonization for China and beyond under volatile international energy markets. The full text of the article is available by subscription.