Shin-Etsu Chemical Co., Ltd. implement close to ¥110 billion in facility investments for its silicones business, one of its main businesses. It will expand its production capacity of silicone monomer, the intermediate product of silicones, and various types of silicone fluids, resins and rubber end products at the company’s main bases in Japan and globally.
These facility investments will be implemented in stages over about a period of two-and-a-half years, and the expansion of the production capacity of both silicone monomer and silicone end products will proceed in parallel.
The breakdown of investment amounts is expected to be about ¥50 billion for the expansion of production capacity of intermediate products such as monomers, about ¥50 billion for the expansion of production capacity of end products and about ¥10 billion for the expansion of other secondary facilities such as infrastructure and shipping.
The expansion of capacity for silicone monomer will be done at the copmany’s existing bases in Japan and Thailand. In addition to Japan, the capacity expansion for Shin-Etsu’s group of end products will be carried out at existing bases in six overseas countries.
By Mary Page Bailey
Source: Chemical Engineering
France has launched an offshore green hydrogen production platform at the country’s Port of Saint-Nazaire this week, along with its first offshore wind farm. The hydrogen plant, which its operators say is the world’s first facility of its type, coincides with the launch of another “first of its kind” facility in Sweden dedicated to storing hydrogen in an underground lined rock cavern (LRC).
The project sets up the Hydrogen Valley in Rome, the first industrial-scale technological hub for the development of the national supply chain for the production, transport, storage and use of hydrogen for the decarbonization of industrial processes and for sustainable mobility.
At first glance, hydrogen seems to be the perfect solution to our energy needs. It doesn’t produce any carbon dioxide when used. It can store energy for long periods of time. It doesn’t leave behind hazardous waste materials, like nuclear does. And it doesn’t require large swathes of land to be flooded, like hydroelectricity. Seems too good to be true. So…what’s the catch?
