Japan needs scale to make hydrogen imports viable

The lack of capacity to generate renewable energy in the densely populated island nation means it will need to rely on imports to fulfil its multi-decade hydrogen strategy

The postponement of the Olympic Games, where Japan planned to make fuel-cell vehicles the official means of transport, has done nothing to reduce the country’s need for scale in its budding hydrogen economy.  Hydrogen is “very much on the strategic agenda”, says Tim Buckley at thinktank the Institute for Energy Economics & Financial Analysis in Sydney. The postponement of the Olympics, he says, gives Japan an extra year to make its hydrogen economy “more credible, rather than a show pony”. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), lack of hydrogen infrastructure is a barrier to adoption that governments and industry globally must work together to overcome. “There has been a sea