When I began writing about hydrogen just over 11 years ago, I couldn’t have envisaged a National Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Day and may well not have believed that we would have the kind of infrastructure for hydrogen fuelling that we do today.
I can’t remember what I thought exactly, but as a younger and less schooled professional in the world of industrial gases and clean fuels, I don’t think I truly believed the hype back then. Looking back, I do think there was a lot of exactly that – hype. But clearly, there was a lot more ingenuity and forethought. Because look at what we have achieved in that decade gone by.
Admittedly, the hydrogen fuelling infrastructure today is far from at an advanced or perhaps even ideal level. I have been among those to point this out before, highlighting the need for ever greater stations, vehicles and commitment to both. I have actively compared the conventional fuelling infrastructure today to that veritable lack of a credible hydrogen fuelling infrastructure not just today, but potentially tomorrow as well (if funding commitments are anything to go by).
But on this, the fourth National Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Day in the US, let’s take a moment to celebrate what we do have. Because a lot has been achieved already and this day aptly coincides with the release of a somewhat damning report this morning into climate change, whereby the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) gives the most extensive warning yet on the risks of rising global temperatures and state that the world is completely off-track in its goal to keep temperature rises under 1.5ºC.
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