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HYDROGEN REFUELLING STATION PLANNING REFUSAL SHOULD NOT BE A SURPRISE – Mon 29th September 2003

The Financial Times (September 27/September 28 2003, Dan Roberts, Industrial Editor) reported that BP has been forced to suspend plans to open the UK’s first public hydrogen pump after Havering councillors rejected planning permission for the development. BP is to appeal the decision, which appears to have been prompted by safety fears by local residents.

The article states that “The recent opening of stations in Germany, Spain, Iceland and Japan, and reassurances from the Health & Safety Executive, Environment Agency and Fire Brigade were not enough to satisfy local campaigners.”

Cambrensis has never argued that the development of the hydrogen economy is unsafe, or that the real safety issues involved in transferring this technology to a wider use by the public cannot be overcome.

But we have consistently pointed out – in seminars and meetings in London in January 2003, in Washington D.C. in March 2003, in Brussels in June 2003 and in Cardiff on 26 September 2003 – that there are real and substantial safety issues involved in handling, storing and transporting hydrogen which deserve to be fully explored, fully explained to the public and properly addressed by industry.

“Industry will probably react to this decision by legal appeals and by spending millions of pounds and dollars on “public education” designed to tell the public that there are no safety issues,” said Cambrensis Director William Wilson “in fact, it might be better advised to spend that time and money demonstrating convincing answers to the real safety questions – such as hydrogen’s diffusion coefficient, ignition energy, flammability limits, shockwave overpressure, character and flame temperature. It may well have those answers or be able to find them, but the public can smell propaganda at 40 paces and it will not buy superficial science. My colleague Dr David Slater has pointed out these issues in a paper given at our Cambrensis Hydrogen Economy seminar in London in January 2003, but I don’t find them much reflected in all the glossy literature produced on the potential for the hydrogen economy. ”

Havering councillor Frederick Thompson is quoted in the Financial Times article as saying …”What I resent is the pressure from Europe to force our country to adopt this very dangerous technology. The HSE is living in a fool’s paradise if they think this is safe. When we were in grammar school labs, we were taught to treat hydrogen with respect.”

“It is a classic case of where science meets politics and public opinion” said Cambrensis Director William Wilson. “BP, the HSE and the Environment Agency may be entirely right about the safety of this particular installation, but they have not taken the public with them. The burgeoning hydrogen industry spends so much of its time addressing technical issues that it sometimes overlooks simple facts. Hydrogen vehicles will not be driven around by trained technicians with gas handling facilities, but by mothers doing the school run, or commuters, with liquid hydrogen tanks in their cars. Vehicles and refuelling stations need to be designed with all of that in mind, and the public that will use them needs to be thoroughly convinced that that has been done. Government agencies could usefully spend more time wondering why their advice on scientific issues such as this has not been accepted or believed.”

“Nothing will do the growing hydrogen industry more harm than to come to be regarded as yet another example of the public being “sold” a scientific “line” by industrial vested interests. When the industry pretends that there are no safety aspects to the hydrogen debate it does itself and the public a huge disservice.”

Global warming potential
Again, leakage of hydrogen, for example from vehicles or refuelling facilities, will result in global warming effects as the hydrogen interacts with other gases in the upper atmosphere. This was explained in a paper given by Dr Dick Derwent of the Met Office at a Cambrensis Hydrogen Economy seminar in London in January 2003, in findings since reflected in a Caltech study.

“Some motor manufacturers are basing their fuel tank design on liquefied hydrogen that will vent to the air after being left unused for about a week” commented Cambrensis Director William Wilson. “It would help the upper atmosphere if they were required to address the Global Warming Potential issue at the design stage. Once again, we are not saying that this problem cannot be overcome. We are asking that it be addressed.”

For further information on Cambrensis’ input to these debates, please contact Cambrensis Director William Wilson, tel. +44-(0)1432-269-860, e-mail wwilson@cambrensis.org , mobile 07970-577-492, or Dr David Slater at e-mail dslater@cambrensis.org.

For background information on Cambrensis and for the presentations from our various seminars, please see our website at www.cambrensis.org.

Note to Editors:

Cambrensis is an environmental policy, strategy and consultancy advice company. It was formed by William Wilson, an environmental lawyer formerly, for nearly ten years, with the Department of the Environment, Transport & the Regions, and Dr David Slater, formerly Chief Inspector of HM Inspector of Pollution. It includes as an Associate Dr John Murlis, formerly Chief Scientist of the Environment Agency of England and Wales and Visiting Professor in Environmental Policy at University College London.

 

 

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