YOU’VE SEEN THE EVIDENCE, NOW LET’S GET MOVING ON HYDROGEN TRANSPORT

If you, like me, are involved in trying to help the UK reach its carbon reduction targets by 2050, you probably go to your fair share of events – hydrogen summits, forums, showcases – there’s a new one every week it seems.  So, I am delighted to report that the event ‘Delivering the Hydrogen Economy’ www.hydrogeneconomynw.com/ was probably one of the best events I’ve been to recently.

I was launching the report from Cadent’s HyMotion project, researched and produced for us by Progressive Energy and Element Energy.  My colleague, Ed Syson, discussed our larger  project HyNet, the transport opportunities of which were my focus.

It was so rewarding to present to a room so obviously full of really positive people who are committed to reducing carbon emissions and realising the wider job creation and growth potential benefits that a hydrogen economy in the North West can bring.  There were some very astute questions from the floor and several people came to find me afterwards for further discussions which I am always happy to have.

You can download the report from www.hynet.co.uk/transport now and read the detail but the bottom line is this: Network-delivered hydrogen is the only way we’ll get the economies of scale needed to make fuel cell transport options a reality for buses, trains, HGVs and cars all across the country, and reduce our transport carbon and NOx emissions by the levels we need.

The key challenge of all of these projects now is to scale them up successfully to a regional, and then national, level.  That’s where the UK gas network – which already covers the country – offers a major advantage in terms of speed and cost effectiveness in comparison to other options such as trailer delivered hydrogen, or some of the electrification projects we hear about.  So let’s keep talking, but more importantly, let’s start doing.