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Who can Help?
Actually, we all can help.
There is a core hydrogen community of scientific and engineering professionals developing the technologies for hydrogen applications, as well as individual entrepreneurs and large corporations who are commercializing hydrogen systems.
Between this core community and the public, for whom the products and systems are intended, there is another group who is key to the successful introduction of hydrogen into our social infrastructure. These are the facilitators and they include:
- Educators
- Local regulators
- Insurers
- Investors
- Politicians and public service officials
Safety Issues
The novelty of hydrogen also attracts the attention of special interest groups and the general public when applications are introduced into their communities.
In many new application situations, we have little or no previous experience. Just as we did with gasoline, natural gas, propane and other fuels that are common today, we need to create a common consensus on the use of hydrogen. The facilitators will be active participants in this exercise.
We can address the safety issues through a number of approaches, including:
- Education
- Safety Analyses
- Comparison
- Codes, Standards and Recommended Practices
- Legislation
- Demonstration
Education
The coming generation will suffer the bulk of the consequences of climate change. Educators have a critical role to play in informing members of their organizations about the importance of a clean energy system to their well-being, while preparing them to reap the benefits of hydrogen in their society.
A threefold approach to education provides an objective platform for evaluating hydrogen as a viable energy source, while assessing hydrogen technologies and projects:
- It begins with an objective description of the changes taking place in our environment as a result of global industrialization and increased population density.
- This is complemented by a description of the role of various energy sources in this environmental change, with the introduction of the unique characteristics of hydrogen.
- It culminates in a discussion of the contemporary hydrogen technologies and related issues, such as safety, technology and economics to place hydrogen in its proper context.
Basic Topics
As a hydrogen community of scientists, engineers, regulators, insurers, investors, and politicians evolves and extends into the general public, there are a few basic topics that each member of this extended community should understand:
- Putting the hydrogen history into perspective: present energy system; primary and secondary sources; fossil fuels and their use.
- Environmental issues such as harmful emissions from fossil fuels and their effects on the environment, health, the economy, water and food supplies; the benefits of hydrogen in a clean and renewable energy system.
- Basic facts about hydrogen - its properties and its behaviour when it is confined, then released, then burned.
- Hydrogen as a secondary source of energy found chemically bound to other elements on Earth and extracted using a primary source of energy such as the sun, hydroelectric power, or wind energy, or from fossil fuels by reforming.
- Comparison of hydrogen with other fuels.
- Fuel cells: what they are and how they compare with internal combustion engines from the point-of-view of efficiency and harmful emissions.
- Other new hydrogen-enabling technologies.