To achieve '2050 carbon neutrality', a strategy to utilize hydrogen turbine technology must be established [Contributed by Professor Seung Jin Song]

Seung Jin Song, Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Seoul National, former president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Gas Turbine Society

Various opinions are emerging from the government, academia, companies, and civic groups about the specific method of reducing 40% compared to 2018, the '2030 National Greenhouse Gas Reduction Target (NDC)' that Korea has promised to the world.

The author, who has been researching gas turbine technology for decades, is paying attention to the hydrogen turbine ase of the key technologies required for '2050 carbon neutrality'. A hydrogen turbine is a device that generates electricity by driving a generator by expanding the high-temperature and high-pressure gas generated in the process of burning (hydrogen co-firing) fuel that is mixed with existing liquefied natural gas (LNG) and hydrogen. Hydrogen turbines can be used by remodeling or newly manufacturingly a part of the existing LNG combined cycle gas turbine, which currently accounts for about 26% of domestic electricity production. In line with the rate of expansion of renewable energy, it can generate electricity by flexibly mixing LNG and hydrogen.

This technology is an already commercialized technology that can reduce carbon and nitrogen oxide emissions while responding to the intermittent nature of renewable energy and dramatically reducing social and economic costs in the process of becoming carbon neutral. This means that the limitations of solar power and wind power that do not produce electricity stably can be overcome through hydrogen turbine power generation.

Above all, hydrogen turbine technology is almost thely means of alleviating social and economic shocks in the process of energy conversion in which existing fossil fuel-based power generation assets are withdrawn. Considering the large-scale job loss due to the closure of the existing power plant, the local economic downturn, and local residents' complaints about the construction of new power plants, a hydrogen turbine that reduces carbon emissions by remodeling or replacing the gas turbine of an existing LNG power plant is a must-use technology.

Major gas turbine manufacturers have already reached a considerable level in hydrogen turbine technology development, and Dow-DuPont’s cogeneration plant in the Netherlands and a combined thermal power plant in Indiana are commercializing hydrogen turbines with 5-35% hydrogen. In addition, nitrogen oxide (NOx), fine dust generated by high-temperature combustion, has reached a level that can reduce nitrogen oxide emissions below regulatory levels without installing a separate selective catalytic reaction (SCR) with 65% hydrogen mixed.

Fortunately, domestic companies are also preemptively securing hydrogen turbine technology, and KEPCO's power generation subsidiaries are renovating existing LNG power plants to demonstrate them. There are doubts about the new technology, the controversy surrounding the phase out of nuclear power, concerns about the government's aggressive greenhouse gas reduction goal, and some denying the hydrogen turbine technology itself, but in my opinion, hydrogen turbine power generation is a sufficiently applicable technology and has already been commercialized. This is backed up by successful cases and the technological prowess of major companies.

In order to achieve carbon neutrality, it is necessary to establish a detailed strategy to put all the technologies possessed by Korean companies the table under the active support of the government.

Seung Jin Song, Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Seoul National, former president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Gas Turbine Society

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