How the hydrogen economy could make a comeback

Changes in the politics and  technology of energy mean that the idea of a hydrogen economy might be about to make its mark in a number of practical arenas

It might be thought that as the hype of the last decade has declined, the idea of a hydrogen economy is once again on technology’s back-burner. But not only did it never go away, it is seeing some real progress in many areas that might make some aspects of the old hydrogen economy concept come much closer to fruition.

There is a large and active ‘hydrogen community’ in the UK, organised as part of a network called H2FC Supergen (H2FC, meaning hydrogen fuel cell, is one of the many abbreviations and acronyms that proliferate in this sector, while Supergen is an acronym for SUstainable Power GENeration). Now in its sixth year of operation, the H2FC Supergen is administered from a hub organisation at Imperial College London. It funds multidisciplinary research and produces white papers on how hydrogen and fuel cell technologies can affect energy policy.