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Hydrogen is clean and safe as well
International conference on hydrogen safety finished
Hydrogen is not only clean and sustainable, it can also be used safely by everybody. This insight is not entirely new, but it has been confirmed again by experimental and theoretical scientists as well as by developers who gather practical experience in field tests.
More than 200 experts on hydrogen safety from 25 countries met last week in Ajaccio (France) for the 3rd International Conference on Hydrogen Safety (ICHS). It was organised by HySafe, the International Association for Hydrogen Safety, this time in cooperation with the International Energy Agency IEA. With a considerable financial support the Corse regional government as well as the French government and the city of Ajaccio demonstrated their interest in modern and distributed energy technologies and the related scientific efforts.
An event which left its mark on the conference was the closure of the EU funded Network of Excellence “HySafe” (precursor of the association with equal name) early this year after five years of work. The activities within the frame of the network are finished, and quite a number of the final reports were presented at the conference. A lot of progress has been made, many open questions could be answered, and the remaining knowledge gaps are now better defined so that future work can be focused towards directions which promise success.
The international commitment to introduce hydrogen as an energy carrier was underpinned by several satellite events organised in conjunction with this conference; one of them was a summer school for hydrogen safety with more than 80 students, the other the HySafe general assembly. As in the previous conferences 2005 in Pisa (Italy) and 2007 in San Sebastian (Spain) the International Partnership for Hydrogen Economy IPHE integrated its workshop on regulations and standards into the conference.
During the closing ceremony in Ajaccio HySafe chairman Manfred Wilms announced that the next ICHS will be held in September 2011 in the USA.
For more information about the HySafe association please look up http://www.hysafe.info.
Published by the German Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association (DWV), Berlin
Editor: Dr. Ulrich Schmidtchen, Berlin
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