As a founder member of the Hydrogen Council, we have been collaborating with players across key industrial sectors to help set up the right conditions and infrastructures to develop hydrogen-powered solutions, and driven initiatives to raise awareness of the multiple benefits of their more widespread adoption.
That work is complemented by our role as an investor in AP Ventures, an investment programme set up in 2013, and spun out as an independent fund in 2018. The fund focuses on developing high growth technology companies across the hydrogen value chain and, in the last nine years, has invested in a portfolio of 24 PGMs-based technology companies.
In South Africa, we joined forces with the Department of Science and Innovation, Engie, and Bambili Energy, to carry out a feasibility study that looked at the possibility of setting up a “hydrogen valley” anchored in the platinum group metals-rich Bushveld geological area. The study’s findings revealed the multiple benefits that the project could help unlock, including adding more than $3.9bn to the country’s GDP by 2050, and creating more than 14,000 jobs per year, across the entire hydrogen value chain.
Hydrogen also has great potential to drive decarbonisation within our own operations. In May this year, we unveiled First Mode’s nuGenTM hydrogen-powered ultra-class mine haul truck, capable of carrying a 290-tonne payload, at our PGMs mine in Mogalakwena, South Africa.
Developed by our Technical Development team, in partnership with First Mode, the truck is just part of First Mode’s nuGenTM’s Zero Emissions Haulage Solution (ZEHS) that includes the capability to produce green hydrogen in the future.
In the coming years, we are planning to convert or replace our current fleet of c.400 diesel-powered trucks, fuelling them with green hydrogen. This will help us to remove up to 80% of diesel emissions at our open pit mines and move us closer to our 2040 carbon neutrality goals.
As the case for hydrogen as an alternative energy source gathers momentum around the world, costs will continue to fall and infrastructure will improve. And because it requires no charging time, unlike electric battery systems, using hydrogen means mines can enjoy clean power with no loss of productivity – an attractive option that could see hydrogen’s involvement in the mining industry grow significantly in the years ahead.
Hydrogen developments around the world
- In South Korea, the world’s first fuel cell plant that uses plastic waste to produce hydrogen is in development.
- In the Netherlands, a large fuel cell-powered maritime training ship will enter service this year.
- In the US, American Airways has announced their investment in ZeroAvia, which is developing hydrogen-electric aviation engines.
- In the UK, SSE and Siemens are partnering to covert 100MW of onshore wind energy into green hydrogen.
Hydrogen: some facts and figures
- Hydrogen is central to reaching zero emissions and has the potential to reduce 80 gigatons (GT) of CO2 by 2050.
- That’s equivalent to 20% of the total savings needed to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees.
- Hydrogen could reduce more than the combined annual emissions of the UK, France, and Belgium as soon as 2030.
- The FCHEA’s Road Map to a US Hydrogen Economy report projects that continued investment in hydrogen will support more than 3 million jobs and $750 billion in revenue by 2050, meeting 14% of total energy demand and reducing total carbon dioxide emissions by 16%.
- In the US transportation sector alone, hydrogen energy can provide 33% of fuel for heavy trucks and aviation globally and 60% of fuel for marine shipping, helping to reduce US transportation system emissions by 30%.
