Zhou Tianyong: Hydrogen is energy of the future

The country's rapid economic growth has increased the demand for energy. But the supply is not rising correspondingly with the demand. The double pressure of increasing energy supply while reducing carbon emissions demands something of an energy revolution. Choosing the right type of energy to meet the rising demand, however, is a strategic problem.

The country, in my opinion, should adopt a catch-up (with developed countries) strategy and concentrate on developing hydrogen energy.

Energy can be generated from three types of resources. The traditional resources are coal, oil and natural gas. The transitional ones are oil-treated coal and batteries for automobiles. Energy generated by nuclear plants, and solar panel and wind farms, too, belong to the second group. Hydrogen energy is the last, or the ultimate source of energy.

A typical energy revolution would follow-up the developed world strategy. This follow-up strategy would allow the traditional energy generators to remain the main sources of supply while transitional energy technology is developed. In the second stage, transitional sources would replace the traditional ones. During this stage, research would concentrate mainly on developing hydrogen energy technology. In the final stage, hydrogen energy would become the primary source.

But even if the follow-up strategy were to be adopted now, it would take 40 years to completely industrialize the hydrogen energy sector.

Another problem is that if the government adopts the follow-up strategy, the country would always lag a step behind the developed countries. As things stand today, the developed countries are likely to intensify research in transitional energy sources. And once they obtain fruitful results, they will apply them to their energy industries, and follow it up by transferring them to China, which on all likelihood would still be relying on transitional energy sources.

Importing mature technologies from the developed countries means lower risk and lower initial investment. Besides, the transitional energy technology will help develop the industry faster. But the transitional energy technology will one day be replaced by hydrogen technology, which is still the most advanced and environmentally friendly. If China were to pour in huge funds for research in, and development of, hydrogen energy technology, the huge investment in transitional technology would become a big waste of time, money, energy and precious manpower.

Experiences in other sectors tell us to develop the ultimate energy technology, instead of concentrating on transitional energy sources.

The follow-up strategy we adopted for TV sets, film rolls, video recorders, TV image tubes and many other products made us realize that by the time we had imported the technologies from abroad, they had become outdated. To overcome that, we imported more and got more outdated products. That circle has not ended yet.

So, should we still play the catch-up game?

It should be noted that the developed countries (except perhaps Iceland) have not yet stolen a march over China in hydrogen energy technology. In some aspects we are more practical and advanced than them. Hence, I suggest China concentrate on developing the ultimate energy technology, that is, adopt the catch-up strategy.

This will bring huge benefits to the country, because hydrogen is almost totally free of solid wastes and will reduce our carbon emissions greatly. Its use will help protect the environment and ease the pressure on the transport system. Besides, if the carbon tariff proposed by some experts becomes a reality, our products would be more competitive in the international market.

The catch-up strategy of developing hydrogen technology, however, could result in losses for enterprises that have already invested heavily to develop battery technology for electric vehicles. If this happens, the government should compensate such enterprises by helping them shift to hydrogen technology.

The government must be very careful in selecting its area of focus. But it should avoid choosing one that would force the country to lag behind the developed world and act as a recycle bin for outdated technologies imported from abroad.

In order to achieve this, it should invite experts from different fields and with different views to conduct thorough research and analyze the practicability, risks and costs involved in the different models. Besides, domestic researchers' opinions should have the final say.

As an economics scholar, I believe that only the model that conforms to the market demands should be adopted. Of course, the government will support the model it chooses, but in the final analysis it should let the market and consumers make the ultimate choice.

As an economics rather than technology expert, all I can do is put the question to the public without any recommendations, and hope more experts participate in the discussion to help the government make the best choice.

The author is a professor and vice-director of the research office at Central Party School.