As N.L. firm pivots, scientists say Canada's green hydrogen dreams are far-fetched
ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — A Newfoundland energy company's embrace of data centres is raising doubts about eastern Canadian hopes of harnessing the region's howling winds to supply Germany with power from green hydrogen.
Chemical engineer Paul Martin said the notion that "rich Germans" will pay for hydrogen energy made from Atlantic Canadian wind farms and shipped overseas as ammonia is "not reasonable."
Martin, a Toronto-based consultant, is co-founder of the Hydrogen Science Coalition, a group of international academics and scientists "working to bring an evidence-based viewpoint" to global hydrogen energy discussions, according to its website.
"It's not economic, and it's extremely unlikely to happen," Martin said in a recent interview. "It's the age-old East Coast Canada dream of making something of value that you can sell to people outside the country for money."
A race to establish Canada's first commercial green hydrogen operation is playing out in Atlantic Canada, where several projects have been pitched in Nova Scotia and in Newfoundland and Labrador. World Energy GH2, led by seafood mogul John Risley, is near the head of the pack. Its multi-billion-dollar Project Nujio'qonik includes plans for a hydrogen and ammonia plant in Stephenville, N.L., that would be powered by several sprawling onshore wind farms.
Risley was on hand when German Chancellor Olaf Scholz flew to Stephenville in 2022 to meet with Canadian officials, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The governments signed an agreement to develop a green hydrogen "corridor" across the Atlantic, with a goal of first shipments arriving next year.
That timeline no longer seems possible. World Energy GH2 recently announced that it was taking longer than expected to set up a European market, and it was considering setting up a data centre to use its green energy in the meantime.
Martin doesn't believe such a market will ever exist. Energy is lost at each step of the process to convert wind energy to hydrogen, and then to ammonia, and then back to hydrogen energy once it has arrived in Europe, he said. And each step of that process adds cost.
"When you look at it from the point of view of dollars per kilowatt hour, or dollars per megajoule of energy, sense doesn't come into it," he said.
Martin added that he has concerns about public money funding large portions of these projects, pointing to the recently announced federal tax credit for clean hydrogen initiatives that covers up to 40 per cent of costs.