My second adventure to Westminster

This week I went to the second hydrogen themed UKHFCA and PRASEG event entitled:

Hydrogen and Fuel Cells: European success stories across the energy and transport landscape

I could see just from looking at the list of attendees that it was much more popular than the last one of these events I went to (see previous blog post). I think it was a surprise to everyone that there was standing room only!

The evening began with Dennis Hayter introducing the field of hydrogen technology as a “global industry with global opportunities” and the tone remained just as positive throughout the event. There were three short presentations detailing the current level of implementation of the hydrogen economy in the EU (Bert de Colvenaer), Germany (Hanno Butsch) and the UK (Adam Chase). It was interesting to see how the same sorts of technology such as prototype buses, are at similar stages of development in these three markets. The motivations for developing hydrogen technologies were also similar: protection against climate change; energy security and securing the economy. We heard that, in Germany, there has been the promise of long term investment in a 10 year programme, giving reassurance to the private sector. The shift from governmental control to industrial responsibility has also begun to occur and it was stressed how important this was for the future of hydrogen and fuel cells.

The second half of the evening was a panel discussion, chaired by Adam Chase and open to questions from the floor. I asked the panel about public perception of hydrogen technologies and whether they thought this could be a barrier to adoption. Both Hanno Butsch (from a German perspective) and Amanda Lyne (giving a UK view) agreed that the general consensus is that there is very little knowledge about hydrogen technologies, but those that understand what it is and the benefits have a positive opinion. She stressed that any UK initiative for introducing hydrogen technology should also include informing potential consumers.

There were then a number of questions addressing the lack of UK policy on hydrogen and fuel cells, leading to difficulties for small UK businesses trying to remain competitive with overseas markets. Amanda Lyne encouraged us all to write to our MPs to get the issues raised in parliament, while Ian Williamson gave Korea as an example: Alastair Rennie agreed that the UK is trying to get it perfect straight away, but this is proving to be a barrier to doing anything! Bert de Colvenaer addressed the problem that hydrogen is providing a solution to an unseen problem, and that only a large scale event such as a European blackout will cause people to stand up and take notice.

The discussion was lively and interesting, but I left with the same feeling as last time: that I had just left a room of people who know what the problem is and are developing a technology to solve it, but that there was no-one there who disagreed or, more crucially, who really had the power to implement change. So the problem remains: how do we get people and, in particular, policymakers to listen to us?