据彭博社3月3日报道，德国正在采取初步措施，建立一个以氢燃料而非化石燃料为基础的经济体，力求实现绿色增长，同时避免被少数供应商联盟所困。
德国政府一直在和包括尼日利亚在内的一些国家达成协议，这些国家可能在不久的将来利用可再生能源生产氢气。其目标是减少德国对石油和天然气的污染，并减少对生产燃料的国家的依赖。
德国正在寻求实现《巴黎气候变化协定》规定的目标。这将需要一种像氢气这样的燃料，既可以为重工业提供热量，又可以储存可再生能源在阳光最充足、风力最强劲的时候产生的多余电力。一些部长担心，进口更多的氢气可能会使德国依赖于那些氢气生产能力较强的国家，比如俄罗斯和欧佩克国家，这些国家已经为德国提供了大量的能源。
教育与研究部是负责制定这一战略的政府部门之一，国务秘书沃尔夫-迪特尔?卢卡斯(Wolf-Dieter Lukas)表示：“不受阻碍的竞争将全球经济的主要动力，与石油经济不同，我不认为会形成卡特尔组织。”
柏林的四个独立部门一直在研究用清洁的元素替代石油、天然气和煤炭的蓝图。该计划将于本月晚些时候由经济部长彼得·阿尔特迈尔(Peter Altmaier)宣布。去年年中，阿尔特迈尔设定了让德国成为氢燃料第一大国的目标。转向使用这种世界上储量最丰富的元素是一种有吸引力的气候解决方案，因为它在燃烧时只产生水蒸气，可以满足从水泥、炼钢、炼油等行业所需的1000摄氏度或更高的温度。
能源智库的资深专家Fabian Huneke表示：“氢能不是完美的解决方案，但它似乎是迄今为止最好的解决方案，特别是对行业脱碳生产来说。如果没有氢能，你不可能设计出一个能源结构中可再生能源比例超过70%的能源系统。”
德国即将签署一项未来10年乃至更长时间的氢能源战略。一位高级助手表示，这一计划得益于数十年来从石油和天然气进口中吸取的教训。石油占德国一次能源消费的三分之一以上。天然气是发电中日益增长的燃料，能源的价格和供应受到卡特尔的影响。
卢卡斯表示，“氢计划”提出了增加氢供应途径的方法，以及一些将成为氢能的大消费者的行业。该计划的初步草案显示，德国愿意在未来几十年对这项技术提供初步补贴，以刺激生产能力，但只是在一定程度上。
为了降低进口成本，德国希望从更多的国家获得氢气。上个月，其与尼日利亚签署了一项协议，共同研究西非15个国家的氢供应链。
王佳晶 摘译自 彭博社
原文如下：
Germany Moves Into Hydrogen With Lessons From OPEC and Russia
Germany is taking its first steps to build an economy based on hydrogen instead of fossil fuels, seeking to deliver both green growth and to avoid being trapped by a small cartel of suppliers.
Ministers have been quietly lining up deals with nations including Nigeria that might produce hydrogen from renewable energy in the near future. The ambition is to reduce Germany’s pollution from on oil and natural gas — and to cut reliance on the counties that produce the fuels.
Chancellor Angela Merkel government is looking to meet goals under the Paris Agreement on climate change. That will require a fuel like hydrogen, which can both provide heat for heavy industry and store excess electricity generated by renewables when it’s most sunny and windy. Ministers are concerned that importing more hydrogen may leave Germany dependent on places with the capacity to produce the most, like Russia and OPEC nations that already supply much of the nation’s energy.
“Unhindered competition will be the mainspring of this global economy,” said Wolf-Dieter Lukas, state secretary in the Education & Research Ministries, one of the wings of government working on the strategy. “Unlike in the oil economy, I don’t expect cartel formation.”
Four separate ministries in Berlin have been working on a blueprint to substitute the lightest element for oil, natural gas and coal. The program is due to be announced later this month by Economy Minister Peter Altmaier.Altmaier in the middle of last year set the goal of making Germany No. 1 in hydrogen. The world’s most abundant element is an attractive climate solution because it creates only water vapor when burned -- and can supply the temperatures of 1,000-degrees Celsius or more needed by industries from cement to steelmaking and oil refining.
“Hydrogen isn’t the perfect solution, but it seems to the best available so far, especially for the industry to decarbonize production.” said Fabian Huneke, senior expert at Energy Brainpool. “You can’t really design an energy system with more than 70% of renewables in the energy mix, without hydrogen.”
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government is about to sign off on a hydrogen strategy for the next decade and beyond. That plan is informed by lessons learned in decades of importing oil and gas, where price and supply are distorted by a cartel, said a top aide. Oil accounts for more than a third of Germany’s primary energy use. And gas, a growing fuel in power generation, mostly comes from Russia.
The hydrogen plan sets out ways to boost supply of hydrogen and what industries will become big consumers, Lukas said. An early first draft of the plan shows that Germany is willing to subsidize the technology initially to spur production capacity in the coming decades -- but only up to a point.
To keep import costs down, Germany wants to get hydrogen from many more countries. Last month, it signed a deal with Nigeria to jointly research hydrogen supply chains across 15 nations in West Africa.
