Hyundai Engineering & Construction

History

2024: Opening of world's largest organic waste-to-hydrogen plant

At the end of September 2024, Hyundai Engineering opened the world's largest plant for processing organic waste into hydrogen with a capacity of 30,000 tons per year.

Organic waste such as food waste, sewage sludge and manure generate large amounts of methane, which exacerbates the problem of global warming. The conversion of this waste into hydrogen prevents the formation of excess methane and embeds it again in the industrial chain, increasing value by using hydrogen as an environmentally friendly energy source.

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Kapil Kajal/IE

The waste-to-hydrogen plant accepts organic waste and breaks it down with the help of microorganisms in the process of anaerobic fermentation. This process allows you to convert waste into biogas. The biogas is then converted to biomethane, removing CO2 and impurities, and the biomethane is converted to hydrogen. Such recycling into hydrogen is an advanced technology that has been tested and is already being applied in the city of Chungju, Korea. Hyundai E&C and Hyundai Rotem took part in this demonstration project, and this plant already produces 500 kg of hydrogen per day using 60 tons of food waste. Plastic that is not recyclable and is eventually burned or dumped, such as contaminated plastic and composite waste, can also be used to produce hydrogen.

The most important advantage of processing organic waste into hydrogen is the creation of mini-centers for the production of hydrogen at the regional level. By reducing the cost of transporting and storing hydrogen, this energy source becomes extremely profitable, so Hyundai plans to develop a specialized resource circulation project that adapts to different regions.^[1]

2022: Agreement with Westinghouse to help build AP1000 reactors

In May 2022, Westinghouse Electric Corporation and Hyundai Engineering & Construction (E&C) signed a strategic cooperation agreement for the construction of nuclear power plants on AP1000 reactors around the world. We are talking about generation III + reactors, the fate of which turned out to be unenviable. Numerous problems with the construction of the AP1000 in the United States and China had previously led to the bankruptcy of Westinghouse.

Reactor AP1000. Image source: Westinghouse

By this time, four Westinghouse AP1000 reactors had been built and commissioned in China. The two reactors are under construction in the US and are due to be launched in the coming months. Almost all facilities had certain problems that delayed the start of operation and inflated the budget. In the end, Westinghouse filed for bankruptcy and severely undermined the business of the Japanese company Toshiba, which owned its assets.

However, preliminary agreements have already been signed for the construction of these reactors in India, Poland, Ukraine and other countries.

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