On January 29, German chemical giant BASF announced that it will cooperate with Envision Technology Group, the world's leading green technology company, to accelerate the conversion of green hydrogen and carbon dioxide to electric methanol to promote the global renewable energy transition.
Envision Technology is the world's leading new energy system technology company, and is the only company with core technologies such as renewable energy, hydrogen production equipment, energy storage, and zero-carbon industrial parks, and BASF Process Catalysts is a leading provider of innovative catalyst technology.
Envision is involved in both lithium battery and hydrogen energy, which essentially reflects a strategic balance between new energy enterprises and the uncertainty of clean energy development.
In 2021, China officially announced the dual carbon goal of "striving to peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and striving to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060". The country's formulation of the "dual carbon" goal means that in the next 30-50 years, the state and society, enterprises and individuals will widely participate in the exploration and practice of the green and sustainable development model of low-carbon transformation and energy upgrading.
Low-carbon, clean and efficient energy upgrading is the general trend of energy upgrading, and the dual carbon goal is the beginning of the transition of the domestic energy composition pattern from the fossil energy era to the non-fossil energy era, and it is also an inevitable choice to focus on solving the outstanding problems of resource and environmental constraints and achieving green and sustainable economic development. Whoever can seize the opportunity of the era of energy structure reform will be able to lead the trend in the future and obtain a broader development space in the new era.
At present, the new energy industry, as the main force to achieve the "double carbon" goal, has been rapidly implemented in China and has produced industrial scale effects. Among them, hydrogen energy and lithium battery industry are the new energy application directions that have attracted much attention from the market in recent years. Hydrogen energy is a green and efficient secondary energy source, with high calorific value, rich reserves, diversity, wide application, and many forms of utilization, and is regarded as "the ultimate energy in the 21st century" by many scientists; Lithium batteries have long been widely used in the electric vehicle industry.
According to statistics from the Traffic Management Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security, by the end of 2023, the number of new energy vehicles in China will reach 20.41 million, accounting for 607%, the number of lithium battery electric vehicles is about 15.52 million, accounting for 76% of the total number of new energy vehicles04%；The number of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is 12,682, accounting for 0 percent of the total number of new energy vehicles06%。This indicates that China's lithium battery electric vehicle market has gradually matured, and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are still in the early stage of piloting and exploring the development stage of commercialization.
In terms of the number of ownership, the market's acceptance of pure electric vehicles is much higher than that of fuel cell vehicles, which is mainly due to the significant reduction in the cost of industrial scale of electric vehicles in recent years. However, from the perspective of applicability, the energy density of hydrogen fuel cell fuel is much higher than that of lithium battery electric vehicles and fuel vehicles, and the energy efficiency ratio advantage is prominent. Based on the existing standards, the energy efficiency of hydrogen fuel cells is about 29%, which is still higher than the 28% of lithium-ion battery electric vehicles and 14% of fuel vehicles. In terms of range, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are similar to traditional fuel vehicles, with a range of about 600 kilometers, which is better than that of lithium battery electric vehicles; In addition, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles also have the advantages of no noise, high charging efficiency, and low temperature resistance.
However, it cannot be ignored that due to the limitations of industrial scale and supporting technology, the production cost of hydrogen and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is still high, and the cost of use has failed to form a leading advantage compared with lithium battery electric vehicles and fuel vehicles, which has hindered the large-scale implementation of the hydrogen energy industry to a certain extent. Some experts **, with the advancement of technology and the expansion of production scale, it is expected that the production cost of hydrogen fuel cell systems will be reduced to 50% of the current level in the next 10 years.