18th World Hydrogen Energy Conference 2010 - WHEC 2010 proceedings : speeches and plenary talks

摘要

A comprehensive and renowned conference offers the opportunity to extend the scopebeyond mere technical issues. It allows for having strategic presentations and discussingaspects of market introduction, industrial and Governmental target setting as well asapproaches to and actions for implementation. The 18th World Hydrogen Conference 2010,WHEC2010, succeeded in exploiting this opportunity and satisfied the expectations. Strongpolitical support in Germany and in the State of North Rhine Westphalia in particular made itpossible to have high profile decision makers at the conference presenting their strategiesfirst hand.Hence, a full day was dedicated to plenary speeches and overview talks. The WHEC2010came handy at a time when fuel cells are developed to suit the requirements for vehicles,except for cost and durability. At a time when the competition with batteries and whether orhow a hydrogen infrastructure can be established and afforded were hot topics in the publicdebate, which needed answers on a well informed basis. Considering fuel cells andhydrogen at a time at one conference and supplementing it with the current knowledge onbatteries and hybridization clarity on the future role of these technologies was gained. Verylikely fuel cells and batteries will coexist in a future of electrified vehicular transport. Theirdifferent technical characteristics will open the doors to different market segments.Implementing hydrogen infrastructure, being a requirement for fuel cells in transport, isconsidered doable and affordable.This book presents the speeches and overview papers from the plenary session of theWHEC2010 on May 17, 2010.Six further books of this issue contain the papers of the oral and poster presentations, exceptfor the introductory talks of the sessions. The latter are published separately by Wiley in abook named Hydrogen and Fuel Cells . In total the 18th WHEC is documented on over 3800pages in a structured way in order to reach the broad spectrum of potential readers.The editors gratefully acknowledge the strong and sustained support of the State of NorthRhine Westphalia and the EnergieAgentur.NRW.