A few days ago, Tesla chief executive Elon Musk said, "The real currency of the future will be energy." The logic is that if AI and robotics advance to satisfy all human desires, the importance of money will fall sharply, but because generating energy is very difficult, future humanity will have no money and only energy.
It is very radical, but worth listening to as a recognition of the importance of energy.
Around the same time, an expo envisioning the hydrogen value chain was held in Korea. On Dec. 4 at KINTEX in Goyang, the World Hydrogen Expo 2025 opened. This expo is a newly presented hydrogen industry fair that integrates the domestic representative hydrogen industry exhibition H2 MEET, held since 2020, and last year's largest domestic international hydrogen conference held during Hydrogen Day (Nov. 2).
Before this event, an important hydrogen meeting was taking place in Korea. The Hydrogen Council CEO Summit was held in Korea for the first time.
The Hydrogen Council, launched during the 2017 Davos forum, has about 100 member companies, including Hyundai Motor Group. Hyundai Motor Group is a co-chair of the council. About 200 people attended the Hydrogen Council CEO Summit, including CEOs and senior executives of member companies and government officials from key countries such as Korea, France, Germany and Australia.
The World Hydrogen Expo 2025 and the Hydrogen Council CEO Summit were connected in timing. As the Hydrogen Council summit concluded on the 4th, it naturally led into the hydrogen expo. The directions discussed at the Hydrogen Council CEO Summit were mapped out to be materialized at the World Hydrogen Expo 2025.
At the series of events, the hydrogen ecosystem sketched out by Hyundai Motor Group, a co-chair of the Hydrogen Council, felt like a future on the verge of realization.
Because Hyundai Motor Group is a co-chair, the co-chair of the Hydrogen Council is Hyundai Motor Group Vice Chairman Jang Jae-hoon.
Vice Chairman Jang told domestic media in an on-site interview at the expo, "We plan to expand hydrogen not only for automobiles but to various applications."
"Various applications" referred to the full life cycle of an expanded hydrogen ecosystem.
Vice Chairman Jang said, "We gathered the group's entire technology corresponding to the entire hydrogen life cycle, from production to distribution and use, at this expo. We wanted to show the overall usability of hydrogen, not only as a fuel but also as an energy source."
Vice Chairman Jang's words are demonstrated exactly in Hyundai Motor Group's exhibition at the World Hydrogen Expo 2025.
Hyundai Motor Group's hydrogen ecosystem starts at the hydrogen production stage.
At WHE 2025, Hyundai Motor Group is showcasing various hydrogen production technologies to improve energy production efficiency and support building distributed power grids, such as PEM water electrolysis, W2H and ammonia cracking. At the exhibition, mock-ups of large-scale equipment and video content using transparent LED explain the production principles in detail.
PEM (polymer electrolyte membrane) water electrolysis is a technology that produces high-purity clean hydrogen by electrolyzing water using the reverse reaction of hydrogen fuel cells. Hyundai Motor Group plans to produce the PEM water electrolysis system domestically for the first time at the new Ulsan hydrogen fuel cell plant scheduled to be completed in 2027. It also introduced projects to build 1MW-class water electrolysis-based hydrogen production sites under way in Buan, Jeonbuk, and Boryung, Chungnam, and a plan to develop a 5MW-class PEM water electrolysis facility on Jeju Island by 2029.
They plan to build a large 1GW water electrolysis plant in the renewable energy-rich southwest coastal area and develop nearby infrastructure such as hydrogen shipping centers and refueling stations to promote the future creation of a hydrogen AI new town.
Models for resource-circulating hydrogen production, W2H (waste-to-hydrogen), being pursued in Cheongju, Chungbuk; Paju, Gyeonggi Province; and Indonesia, and the ammonia cracking demonstration being carried out in cooperation with Jeonbuk State are also on display.
W2H is a technology that refines methane generated from organic waste such as food waste, sewage sludge (sediment generated in the water treatment process) and livestock manure into biogas and then converts it into hydrogen. Ammonia cracking separates ammonia into nitrogen and hydrogen at high temperatures to extract hydrogen. These technologies greatly contribute to lowering hydrogen production costs.
The hydrogen produced in this way then moves on to storage and transport stages.
At this exhibition, Hyundai Motor Group showcased a second-generation 700-bar mobile hydrogen refueling station. A mobile hydrogen refueling station is an integrated facility mounted on a truck or large trailer that carries core equipment such as hydrogen compressors, storage containers, coolers and dispensers, and can be deployed first to areas lacking refueling infrastructure to discover initial demand and overcome space constraints.
A "package-type hydrogen refueling station" was also introduced. It is a refueling solution that modularizes core equipment into containers and can be freely arranged horizontally and vertically, and by combining multilayering and undergrounding technologies, it increases space utilization. It can be expected to expand refueling infrastructure in space-constrained urban areas.
Devices that do not require separate refueling equipment such as high-pressure hydrogen storage tanks, compressors and pressure reduction devices were also introduced. It is an "exchange-type hydrogen storage system." By replacing hydrogen storage tank modules, a precharged tank can be mounted and detached in a short time using an internal crane when fuel runs low. About 32 kg of hydrogen is stored in one module. This means hydrogen supply is possible even in cities or remote areas.
Once storage and transport problems are solved, hydrogen must be used.
The most common use is automobiles.
The completely redesigned model The All-New NEXO, introduced seven years after the first release in 2018, is already on domestic roads. The high-speed large bus Universe hydrogen electric bus, capable of driving up to 960.4 km on a single charge, has also been commercialized. There is also the world's first mass-produced hydrogen fuel cell large truck, the Xcient hydrogen electric truck.
WHE 2025 shows even more advanced appearances.
The hydrogen all-terrain vehicle (ATV), an eco-friendly light tactical vehicle powered by hydrogen fuel cells, generates less heat and noise than internal combustion engine vehicles and is designed to be lightweight enough for air transport. The hydrogen fuel cell-powered boat and agricultural hydrogen electric tractor equipped with hydrogen fuel cell systems show that hydrogen fuel cell solutions are useful not only for high-output, high-load work but also for long-distance navigation and long-duration operations.
Hydrogen expands as an energy source for various industries.
An electric steel plant in the United States, scheduled to start operations in 2029, plans to introduce hydrogen into the iron ore reduction process in the long term. Clean hydrogen energy will be used in steel production.
The hydrogen burner, an eco-friendly facility that uses the heat generated by burning a hydrogen-air mixture, also draws attention. Hyundai Motor Group plans to start with the painting ovens at Hyundai Motor's Ulsan plant and gradually expand hydrogen burners for manufacturing processes that require high temperatures, with a plan to convert about 5,000 LNG burners in domestic production processes to hydrogen burners in the future.
Generators that produce electricity using hydrogen are already in distribution. Soon, a 100 kW-class hydrogen fuel cell generator will be introduced at the Pyeongtaek port Kia and Hyundai GLOVIS vehicle export-import terminal.
Hyundai Motor Group Vice Chairman Jang Jae-hoon emphasized water electrolysis technology among the "various applications."
Vice Chairman Jang said, "There is a lot of expectation for efficiency and value when water electrolysis is connected to renewable energy."
The water electrolysis Vice Chairman Jang mentioned refers to PEM water electrolysis, and it can be inferred that substantial technical progress has been made in terms of efficiency.
Vice Chairman Jang said, "We are planning innovations in fuel cell performance and hydrogen cost. We expect around 2027 that durability and performance will be superior to existing ones and costs can be greatly reduced." 2027 is the scheduled completion time for the new Ulsan hydrogen fuel cell plant using the country's first PEM water electrolysis system method.
The hydrogen ecosystem envisioned by Hyundai Motor Group is very comprehensive. It differs in scale from the days when it developed and commercialized hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Losing the lead in the eco-friendly mobility competition to battery electric vehicles turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
Vice Chairman Jang said, "Traditionally, Hyundai Motor Group has been vertically integrated around automobiles, but the hydrogen ecosystem we are heading toward is horizontal. Hyundai Motor Group is now at a point of integrating vertical and horizontal approaches."
He added, "At the intersection of vertical and horizontal integration, energy is the base into which robots and AI are incorporated. AI and robots ultimately combine with energy. It seems the right frame for the entire Hyundai Motor Group to move forward one step is to focus on energy and AI."
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