The e-Journal on Hydrogen and Fuel Cells
People need to experience electric transportation on their own, something which is true for drivers of both battery and fuel cell cars. At least an adequate number of purely battery-driven vehicles have already made it onto the public roads in Germany. But how can people today gather their own personal experiences of driving fuel cell vehicles?
As predicted several times before, #dieselgate is the driver of upcoming changes at German carmaker Volkswagen. In March 2016, it was said that the Wolfsburg-based corporation would concentrate all fuel cell activities at its Audi subsidiary. This will necessitate a move of most of the fuel cell research, which has so far been conducted in the German city of Salzgitter. Stefan Knirsch, board member and head of development at Audi, told the magazine Automobilwoche: “This January, the task of corporate research on fuel cell engines was given to Audi.” And VW’s board of directors had supported the concentration of activities.
Five years ago, some called carbazole the “wonder fuel” and “fuel source of the future,” although basic research hadn’t even been concluded yet. After intensive development, Hydrogenious Technologies has just presented a potential successor to the carbazole legacy: dibenzyl toluene. On Jan. 29, 2016, the company based in Erlangen, Germany, brought its first hydrogen storage unit based on this liquid organic hydrogen carrier (LOHC) into operation at the company’s headquarters. Around 150 people were present when Ilse Aigner, Bavaria‘s economy minister, inaugurated the system.
First things first: This isn’t one of these test drive articles narrowly reporting all the various technical details or complaining about a not-so-perfect weight distribution. It is about the experiences made with Tesla’s Model S on one single day of driving, during which it quickly became clear that the author had found his new dream car.
What furthered my interest in hydrogen was a presentation in 1989 by Joachim Gretz, the head of the EU’s Joint Research Center in Ispra, Italy, about the then running Quebec project. I had already been interested in the technology many years prior to that event: I can still remember clearly how the board chair of German Shell, Johannes Welbergen, told me during a conversation that H2 was the future for which we still had to wait
“Through the first six weeks of this year alone, we received more requests than during all of 2015,” Andreas Frömmel from German FuelCell Energy Solutions reported during the E-world 2016. That should come as no surprise: Large-scale fuel cell plants have gained in popularity ever since the German parliament amended the CHP Act at the end of last year and put the transition rules on paper (see New Rule for Fuel Cell Heating Systems). Plants ordered until the end of 2016 and built by the end of 2017 can still receive the full CHP benefits as per the CHP Act from 2012 – independently of their power output. This section of the law will benefit even megawatt-size power plants.
Both the author Arno A. Evers and the publishing house Hydrogeit Verlag decided to donate the book The Hydrogen Society – More Than Just a Vision? to the worldwide H2-community. This book written by Arno A. Evers was published in April 2010 on the annual Hanover Fair where the author had established a global meeting point for companies and interested people
It was exactly last Christmas that the Springer publishing company started to offer a new specialist book on Hydrogen and Fuel Cells. The book takes a broad approach toward the topic, including everything from H2 generation to future fuel cell applications. The editors are Dr. Johannes Töpler, Chair of the German Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association (DWV), and Professor Jochen Lehmann, also from DWV’s management board. The industry professionals asked renowned experts to enrich their 281-page book with chapters full of know-how and expertise on their specialist subjects.
Not too long ago, France’s capital had been the venue for the UN Climate Change Conference COP21. Even if hydrogen and fuel cell technology was not a separate item on the agenda, it is a good bet that many of the around 40,000 participants – from government officials to business associations and unions to environmental and religious organizations – have developed a basic understanding of this technology
Umicore and Solvay, the former mother companies of SolviCore, sold their joint venture in July 2015 to Toray Industries, a chemical company based in Japan. On Jan. 1, 2016, business management was handed over to Greenerity, a 100% subsidiary of Toray. SolviCore was founded in 2006 as a specialist for membrane-electrode assemblies (MEA). The headquarters in Hanau-Wolfgang is said to be kept, as is the entire staff.