Japan’s Mitsubishi Partners With Shell Canada In Clean Energy Push

Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp and Shell Canada have signed a memorandum of understanding to produce low-carbon hydrogen to support Japan’s push for clean energy, the companies announced on Wednesday (Sep 8).

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, the companies said in a statement 

The companies aim to produce 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.

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.