For over 40 years, industry has used hydrogen in vast quantities as an industrial chemical (50 million T/year[1]) and fuel for space exploration. During that time, industry has developed an infrastructure to produce, store, transport and utilize hydrogen safely.
In many cases, hydrogen is safer than the fuel we currently use to power our cars. Carbon-based fuels tend to spread as liquids. When it burns, conventional fuel produces hot ash, creating radiant heat. This isn’t the case with hydrogen. In its pure form, hydrogen burns no carbon and produces no hot ash and very little radiant heat.
Hydrogen is being used for a long time already and has been produced, stored and transported all across Europe for decades. Several thousand customer sites are supplied with bottled hydrogen and thousands semi-trailers deliver several 100s million cubic meters a year with an accident rate that is no different from that of any other gas transported. Unfortunately, there are still misperceptions that spring from the absence of knowledge that hydrogen is already on the market and a promising energy carrier that could help decarbonize industry and transport.