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Do not block the road to hydrogen with pretexts
DWV chairman Toepler's comments on the generation problem
Activities for the introduction of hydrogen energy must be initiated or supported immediately, if we want to leave a perspective for the future of the next generation. This holds for research, development, demonstration, and fleet tests and above all for the introduction of an infrastructure for road traffic.
DWV chairman Dr. Johannes Toepler made these comments today in Hamburg to respond to the opinion that we have still a few decades to do this and that there are not yet any products which need hydrogen. DWV is clearly in favor of hydrogen. The developments mentioned are necessary in the long term, and we must start them now. DWV hopes that the German Federal Government will support the development as emphatically as the governments of the USA and Japan are doing it already.
Toepler reminded the Federal Government to the statement made by the Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs, Joschka Fischer, in September 2000 to the UN plenary assembly: „It must be in the interest of all states to bring about the transition from the oil to the hydrogen age as quickly as possible“.
Toepler added: „The means available today to generate hydrogen with little or no CO2 emission should be used for the introduction phase. This is the only way to respond to the question of the origin of hydrogen in the short or medium term.“
He said that renewable primary energies are obviously the basis for the solution of the energy and environment problem. Hydrogen will be just one, but an important element of the transition to a quite new quality of energy economy, which is sustainable and friendly to the environment.
Toepler made his statements during the opening ceremony of the third H2-Expo which is held from 9. to 11. October at the Hamburg Fair Ground and offers an overview of the field. Find more information about the fair in the web under www.h2expo.de.
Published by the German Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association (DWV), Berlin
V. i. S. d. P.: Dr. Ulrich Schmidtchen, Berlin
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