Messe Frankfurt's talk series took up the topic of hydrogen recently, where experts from Arthur Bus, Cryomotive, Gumpert Automobile, Hydrogen Europe, Linde, Mobil in Deutschland, and UnternehmerTum discussed the question: What role does hydrogen play in CO2 -neutral mobility?
In the discussion round, the experts agreed that hydrogen is needed for emission-free mobility. The mobility turnaround will not succeed with electromobility alone. Open technology is the order of the day.
Different technologies would probably be used in parallel, depending on the purpose, mode of transport and distance to be covered. There was also agreement among the participants that the networking of the actors was important and that the discussion had to be continued.
Michael Johannes, Vice President, Mobility & Logistics, Messe Frankfurt, explained, “We created the expert talk series because there will be no mobility turnaround without alternative drive energies.”
Matthias Braun, Advisor, Aramco Research Center (Paris), added, “I very much welcome the fact that Messe Frankfurt is organising this Energy4Mobility talk, which I am happy to support. There are several types of drive systems, and they all have to compete with each other. Hydrogen is a very important future type of alternative fuel.”
Reasonable Use Of Hydrogen In Transport
In his presentation on 'Reasonable use of hydrogen in transport', Dr Ing Simon Herzog, Senior Project Lead, UnternehmerTUM GmbH, used the example of a long-haul flight to illustrate that it would not be possible to electrify all modes of transport completely. Hydrogen will play an important role in the future, especially since it can be assumed that the costs of hydrogen will decrease.
Dr Herzog said, “Like Henry Ford, who made the car a mass product with the invention of the assembly line, we need an assembly line production for hydrogen and all the components involved in hydrogen.”
The fact that hydrogen refuelling has been possible for many years and that the technology is state-of-the-art was emphasised by Thomas Schaefer, Business Development Manager Linde GmbH, in his presentation on efficient refuelling technology for H2 vehicles.
“There is no energy problem, but a distribution problem,” Schaefer explained. Daniel Duschek, Head of Requirements Management and RCS, Cryomotive GmbH, spoke on the topic of cryopressure hydrogen for heavy-duty transport. He pleaded for a set of rules and the establishment of an international standard on hydrogen.
As per him, standards also need to be developed for the infrastructure; for example, there are many systems for refuelling hydrogen.
Alternate Fuels
Dr Michael Haberland, President, Mobil, Deutschland e.V., gave an outlook on e-fuels and the future of the combustion engine in Germany. He explained that with 48 million combustion engine vehicles in Germany, it would not be possible to operate them all electrically in the future, as the capacity for charging the battery at peak times would not be sufficient.
Climate protection and climate-neutral mobility are also possible for combustion engines. For example, vehicles can easily be operated with e-fuels - or in the future, with other fuels such as hydrogen. Pleading for openness to technology, he said, “We need competition among technologies.”
Roland Gumpert, CEO, Gumpert Automobile GmbH, expressed his preference for using green methanol as the future fuel. The company developed the 'Gumpert Power Cell' with a methanol fuel cell. In general, the 'Gumpert Power Cell' can be used for all modes of transport, but the company's focus is on trucks, as the transport and logistics industry urgently needs a solution here.
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