Climate Change

Methanol as a central building block of a sustainable energy future

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© Global Energy Solutions
© Global Energy Solutions

Guest commentary by Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Franz Josef Radermacher

Germany focuses too much on national goals in the fight against climate change (climate nationalism). However, these are of little relevance in the global context. This focus leads to unfavourable strategies, for example in the areas of green electricity, green hydrogen and synthetic fuels. All considerations are dominated by scarcity and too high costs. Because in Germany people want to produce themselves what should be imported wisely. Just as 70 per cent of energy has been imported up to now.

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There will be FC mobility and an H2 industry

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Prof. Angelika Heinzel
Prof. Angelika Heinzel, © ZBT

There is a lot going on in the energy sector at the moment. As a result of numerous activities and events – be it diesel scandals or CO2 pricing, driving bans or Fridays-for-Future demonstrations, flight shame or real laboratories – more and more players are committing themselves to more sustainability as well as to hydrogen as an energy storage.

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Climate change means structural change

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Climate change is very unpleasant. But it also becomes uncomfortable to do something about climate change. In Germany, the Coal Commission was formed with the task of conceiving and planning the phase-out of coal. It can last up to twenty years, it’s been agreed. The affected regions painfully fast, and the climate protectors unbearably long. Germany’s withdrawal from coal is not enough for global climate protection. Around 1,300 new coal-fired power plants are currently being built or planned worldwide. And 90 percent of all new coal-fired power plants are built in developing countries. Those who understand these figures will think that the game against climate change has long since been lost.

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France’s Own Energy Transformation

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la-poste_renault_maxity_electric_hydrogen
La Poste uses H2 vans by © Renault

Not too long ago, France’s capital had been the venue for the UN Climate Change Conference COP21. Even if hydrogen and fuel cell technology was not a separate item on the agenda, it is a good bet that many of the around 40,000 participants – from government officials to business associations and unions to environmental and religious organizations – have developed a basic understanding of this technology

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FuelCell Energy: Stock Price Gets Cosmetic Changes

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Fuelcell-energy-module-lineup
Fuel cell power plant, © FuelCell Energy

To free FuelCell Energy from the shackles of “penny stock life,” the company based in Danbury, Connecticut, took the radical step of merging its shares (reversal stock split) at a ratio of 12:1, effective from Dec. 4, 2015 (see graph). Considering the organization’s more than 300 million outstanding shares (more to say, 475 million fully diluted ones, and 40 million after the split), this move was to be expected: The company was running the risk of being dropped from Nasdaq

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It is Time to Act – Thoughts on the German Strategy

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Dear Reader, I would like to present you with some short number examples: The German Callux program installed 474 fuel-cell heating systems within eight years; the original target was 800. Japan currently has over 140,000 of these systems. The German 50 Filling Station program was supposed to set up 50 H2 filling stations until the end of 2015. In the end, there were only 19. Until the middle of 2016, another 23 are said to be added. Meanwhile, Japan has already had 80 of these stations in operation (On a side note, the CEP predecessor, the Verkehrswirtschaftliche Energiestrategie, had envisioned 2,000 public H2 filling stations until 2010).

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