Environmental solutions

http://j.people.com.cn/n3/2024/0625/c95952-20185211.html https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05379-5 The team of Xie Heping, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and professor at Shenzhen University, has collaborated with a team from Oriental Electric Group to directly produce hydrogen from seawater using offshore wind power. The team has developed a new method and technology for direct seawater electrolysis hydrogen production in a real marine environment where wave motion cannot be controlled. They also systematically analyzed the interfacial vapor pressure difference due to the difference in the concentration of seawater components in Shenzhen Bay, Guangdong Province and Xinghua Bay, Fujian Province, and elucidated the self-adjustment and adaptation mechanism of the phase transition process due to the dynamic change of concentration. After that, they built a theoretical model of direct hydrogen production without desalination from phase transition seawater in actual wave motion, and simulated the marine environment in the laboratory, achieving stability for more than 500 hours. To verify the feasibility and reliability of the laboratory simulation environment, the team also designed and developed a 1.2 standard cubic meter per hour offshore renewable energy on-site direct electrolysis hydrogen production float without desalination, and achieved direct connection with offshore wind power generation despite the interference of 3-8 grade strong winds and 0.3-0.9 meter waves in Xinghua Bay. After 10 days of stable and continuous operation, the seawater impurity ion rejection rate reached more than 99.99%, and the purity of hydrogen production reached 99.9-99.99%.

http://en.people.cn/n3/2024/0627/c90000-20186316.html A CETROVO 1.0 subway car is on display in Qingdao, east China’s Shandong Province, June 26, 2024. The CETROVO 1.0 subway car was launched in Qingdao on Wednesday. With a carbon fiber composite body and frame, it is lighter and more energy-efficient than the traditional subway train. (Xinhua/Li Ziheng)

http://j.people.com.cn/n3/2024/0613/c95952-20181026.html Zhou Guanghong, professor and laboratory director at the university, began in 2009 with research on “stem cell meat”. In 2019, the team cultivated 5 grams of “pork”, resulting in the birth of China’s first “cell-cultured meat”. In 2023, they achieved pilot mass production of a 500-liter bioreactor for cell-cultured pork fat, and finally produced 5 kilograms of “cell-cultured meat”. According to data from German research firm Statista, it is predicted that by 2040, 40% of the global meat product market will be conventional animal meat, 35% cell-cultured meat, and 25% plant protein meat. According to Zhou, once cell-cultured meat reaches the mass production stage, energy consumption can be significantly reduced, and according to rough calculations, greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced by 78-96%, land use by 80-99%, and water use by 82-96%.

http://j.people.com.cn/n3/2024/0611/c95952-20180050.html The Tarim Desert Road to the Tarim Oilfields, opened in 1995, is 52 kilometers long. It runs north and south through the Taklamakan, China’s largest desert. In order to prevent sand erosion on the road, China Petroleum, which operates the Tarim Oilfields, since 2005 has planted 436 km2 of environmental protection forest on both sides of the road irrigated by drip technology. To this end, 109 well huts were built along the road to pump up groundwater from the desert. In January 2025, 86 of these well huts that previously ran on diesel were upgraded to solar power generation. Associated energy storage cabinets can store seven hours of electrical energy, allowing the pump equipment to operate normally even when there is no sunlight. The total power generation capacity of the solar power plant is said to have reached 3,540 kilowatts (kW), with an annual power generation of 3.62 million kWh. This power generation meets the daily irrigation needs of the environmental protection forest. As the protection forests on both sides of the desert road have an annual carbon fixation capacity of 6.4 tons per ha, the entire protection forest can fix 20,000 t of carbon per year. This is calculated to neutralize the carbon emissions of passing vehicles, realizing a “zero-carbon desert road”.

http://j.people.com.cn/n3/2024/0612/c95952-20180477.html China’s hydrogen-fueled trucks have entered a stage of rapid growth in long-distance transportation. The Yutong 49-ton hydrogen-fueled heavy truck, the first vehicle to explore the Beijing-Shanghai Hydrogen Energy Corridor, is equipped with a 180-kilowatt (kW) fuel cell system and has a range of 600 kilometers. It has outstanding advantages such as fast hydrogen refueling, long life, low hydrogen consumption and high safety. Test vehicles traveled through six provinces and municipalities, including Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu and Shanghai, and were refueled at seven hydrogen stations along the way. In recent years, China has successively formulated related documents such as the “14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) Energy Science and Technology Innovation Plan,” the “Mid- to Long-Term Development Plan for Hydrogen Energy Industry (2021-35),” and the “Guiding Opinions for Energy Activities in 2024,” to promote a new qualitative transformation of the hydrogen energy industry. According to Liu Ke, dean of the Institute of Clean Energy at Southern University of Science and Technology and director of the International Hydrogen Energy Association, hydrogen-powered vehicles have the advantages of quick energy refueling, long range, and long-distance heavy load carrying. However, for many years, the application of hydrogen energy in transportation has been limited due to the lack of a hydrogen station network and high hydrogen costs. According to data released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, China’s sales of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in 2023 was 5,805 units, up 72% from 2022.

https://m.ne21.com/news/show-195635.html http://en.people.cn/n3/2024/0605/c90000-20178227.html A hydrogen fueling station for CHN Energy’s heavy-haul trains recently started commercial operation in Batuta, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, north China. The station is equipped with a low-temperature resistant automatic hydrogenation robot and a high-flow hydrogenation machine, independently developed and manufactured in China. The robot can refuel a hydrogen-powered train within 30 minutes, which will power the train for eight hours, and the train boasts a range of 800 kilometers before it needs refueling. The robot can not only achieve all-weather continuous operation and large flow automatic hydrogenation at temperatures as low as minus 25 degrees Celsius, but also ensure safe and stable operation, effectively reduce personnel errors, control safety risks and save operational costs.Boasting explosion-proof, electronic control and air-operation systems, the robot’s anti-interference 3D camera combination can conduct visual positioning of moving targets. Under the outdoor lighting, it can automatically complete visual identification and fueling without manual intervention. The fault self-diagnosis and alarm functions can monitor the operating environment of both trains and the robot in real time and ensure a reliable, stable and safe hydrogen fueling service. CHN Energy, one of the robot’s developers, promised to continue promoting the application of intelligent robot technology and to extend the research on automatic petrol refueling robots and non-petrol service robots. From 2015 to 2022, China’s annual production of industrial robots soared from 33,000 units to 443,000 units. The latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics shows that the production volume in the first quarter of this year reached 120,000 units.

http://en.people.cn/n3/2024/0605/c90000-20178153.html A research facility to incubate core technologies used in power generation of fusion energy that powers the sun is under construction in Hefei City of east China’s Anhui Province. The facility will develop and test fusion energy reactor’s key components from 2025 on. fusion hefei