Hydrogen Realities webinar

There’s one adage that can help point to what the next big thing will be: Follow the money. If companies and investors and researchers are spending money—and time—on something, it probably deserves attention.

Hydrogen is one of those somethings right now. Practically not a day goes by without a company, an industry group or governmental body releasing information about how they’re trying to achieve “net-zero” emissions with the help of hydrogen.

Hydrogen, or more specifically hydrogen produced by renewable energy, is “currently enjoying unprecedented political and business momentum,” according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). My inbox tends to agree.

Is hydrogen the future? It’s worth exploring. That’s why Diesel & Gas Worldwide chose hydrogen as the topic for our first webinar: “Hydrogen Realities—challenges and opportunities of the wide-scale adoption of green hydrogen.”

Our discussion included Dr. Jacqueline O’Connor, who is director of Penn State’s Center for Gas Turbine Research, Education, and Outreach—one of the only places in the world with research addressing every single part of the gas turbine as well as the systems they integrate with.

For hydrogen to play a major role in decarbonization, solving challenges around its transportation, storage and distribution will be key. All of those steps involve compression, and as the lightest element, hydrogen has special requirements for efficient compression solutions. Dr. Klaus Hoff, one of our speakers, is managing director Compressor Solutions and Neuman & Esser Group.

Dr. Jeff Goldmeer is known as GE’s fuel guy—he is an Emerging Technologies Director at GE Power. In this role, he is responsible for developing and executing strategies for the decarbonization of gas turbine-based power plants. He spoke about what GE sees in the market.

The presentations of Dr. Hoff and Dr. O’Connor are below.