The $2 billion Project Coyote has been put on hold, along with the 250 jobs it promised, but hydrogen still has a future in BC.
Small wonder that B.C. Premier David Eby hailed the announcement last fall of plans for a $2-billion hydrogen plant at Prince George.
“I love this project,” Eby told the provincial legislature.
After all, Project Coyote promised more than 250 jobs during construction and 100 permanent jobs, and had the support of the Lheidli T’enneh First Nation.
And, above all, it would be one of the biggest hydrogen plants in Canada — producing each year some 140,000 tonnes of green hydrogen and 700,000 tonnes of green ammonia.
But there was a note of caution when Eby talked about the project last November: “The challenge for us is . . . how do we seize this economic opportunity without making British Columbians pay higher rates on their hydro bills.”
Now the Fortescue Future Industries project is on hold, if not dead. It seems the sticking point was the plant’s anticipated need of 1,000 megawatts of power from B.C. Hydro, to produce hydrogen from water.
That would be equivalent to 90 percent of the 1,100-MW generating capacity of the $16-billion Site C dam that is due to come online next year.
But Barry Penner, chair of the Energy Futures Institute, points out that 1,100 MW is Site C's rated maximum generating capacity. In reality, he says, its average generating capacity would be more in the 582 MW range.
“It was never clear to me at the Energy Futures Institute where that 1,000 megawatts of electricity (for Project Coyote) was going to come from,” Penner told BIV News.
And B.C. Hydro faces massive demands for new power, in addition to Site C, for the next many years.
Fortescue now says it will focus initially on green hydrogen projects in Australia, the U.S., Norway and Brazil. “We also have large projects in Oman, Morocco, Egypt and Jordan which will follow our initial projects.”
Still, Mayor Simon Yu is hopeful the project proposed for Prince George will come about. "To me it is a pause, to me it is not a 'we're not going to do it'.”
There has been no explicit word from Fortescue on hydrogen proposals it was drafting with the Homeguard Cree First Nation in northern Manitoba and the Innu in Newfoundland and Labrador.
While aware of the growing power-supply issue, B.C. is far from giving up on hydrogen production.
The province says there are around 50 proposed projects, including hydrogen-fuelling stations and heavy-duty trucking uses. Those are among 63 plans and actions in B.C’s hydrogen strategy, part of its plan to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.
For example, B.C. is putting up as much as $133 million to support the $900-million H2 Gateway project.
In that, Vancouver-based HTEC plans to build and operate an interprovincial network of as many as 20 hydrogen refuelling stations (18 in B.C. and two in Alberta). The B.C. government said the project would create more than 280 jobs and could reduce emissions by about 133,000 tonnes a year.
HTEC also plans to “start the use of hydrogen in the commercial transportation sector” with a pilot project to involve six different heavy-duty fuel-cell trucks, and to upgrade a hydrogen-fuelling station in Tsawwassen and a maintenance facility in Abbotsford.
The Canada Infrastructure Bank is putting up a $337-million loan for HTEC’s H2 Gateway project.
B.C. has also launched, with Washington State, a study of how the two could collaborate in developing and growing the hydrogen economy in their jurisdictions.
Hydrogen Central reports that more than 50 percent of Canada’s hydrogen and fuel-cell companies are in B.C. They account for nearly 60 percent of Canadian research investment in hydrogen and fuel-cell development.
And Hydrogen Central lists a number of projects in B.C.:
- The City of Prince George receives $150,000 from Ottawa to help develop a regional hydrogen hub;
- Salish Elements and the Indigenous government of Xaxli’p (in the Squamish-Lillooet Region) are to collaborate on development of a green-hydrogen facility.
- Over $9.4 million will be used to establish a new hydrogen hub at Simon Fraser University’s Burnaby campus.
Meanwhile, Ottawa and Germany are each putting $300 million into supporting hydrogen exports to Germany, potentially from Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.
(In 2022, when Germany asked about getting Canadian LNG, Prime Minister Trudeau said there was no business case for that. He pushed for exports of Canadian hydrogen, instead — but so far has produced no business case for that.)
Germany in particular is betting big on hydrogen; one estimate is that it will take investment of 65-80 billion euros — as much as $120 billion in Canadian dollars.
There are hydrogen projects proposed across Canada, among them:
- Suncor and ATCO are collaborating on a large-scale hydrogen project near Edmonton. It will produce more than 300,000 tonnes of hydrogen annually, using natural gas and capturing 90 precent of the carbon emissions.
- World Energy GH2 plans Project Nujio’qonik, “the country’s first commercial-scale green hydrogen/ammonia facility” on the west coast of Newfoundland and Labrador. Ottawa has put up $128 million for this project. It would produce 250,000 tonnes of green hydrogen per year (1.2 million tonnes of green ammonia).
Canada now ranks in the top 10 of global hydrogen producers, at around 3 million tonnes of hydrogen annually. The largest current use for hydrogen, both in Canada and globally, is for oil refining, ammonia production, methanol production, and steel production.
The latest federal budget includes over $17 billion in tax credits between now and 2035 to help fund hydrogen projects — with cleaner production and fewer emissions a key goal.
In the U.S., the federal government plans to spend US$7 billion to US$8 billion to build a hydrogen economy. The money will be allocated to seven regional “hydrogen hubs” across the U.S. mainland. California gets a hub of its own — and $1.2 billion. Private investment would add an additional $11 billion or so.