Archives: History

Hydrogen, 2053 and all that

January 5, 2021 | By Stan Thompson | Comments Off on Hydrogen, 2053 and all that | Filed in: History, Infrastructure, Myths.

by guest blogger Stan Thompson If you’ve ever seen a slow-motion video of a dropped glass object shattering, then—the video reversed—reassembling to form the whole again, you have some notion of futurism. Futurists pay attention to the moving fragments all around us:  which are biggest; how they are shaped and spinning; and the direction toward • Read More »

Bullet Points for Hydrogen’s Synthesis Epoch

September 6, 2020 | By Stan Thompson | Comments Off on Bullet Points for Hydrogen’s Synthesis Epoch | Filed in: Green Hydrogen, History, Hydrogen Economy, Hydrogen Education.

by guest blogger Stan Thompson In case you came in late, the synthesis epoch is when we started making stuff like fertilizer from renewable energy which, in the previous extraction epoch, we sourced by digging or pumping matter out of the ground. • Natural gas hydrogen is to electrolyzed H2 as jumper cables are to • Read More »

Hydrogen: lighting the path to liberty

July 26, 2020 | By Stan Thompson | Comments Off on Hydrogen: lighting the path to liberty | Filed in: Advocates, Green Hydrogen, History, Hydrogen Economy, Infrastructure, Political Issues.

by guest blogger Stan Thompson Very different processes distribute the earth’s mineral wealth and the political configurations of its surface. Though different, they coincide in ways that profoundly impact our destinies. In the late industrial period, the relative value of energy has been so high, and energy extraction as oil and gas has been so • Read More »

“Why Nations Fail” — A great read with an H2 epilog

July 16, 2020 | By Stan Thompson | Comments Off on “Why Nations Fail” — A great read with an H2 epilog | Filed in: Advocates, Green Hydrogen, History, Hydrogen Economy, Hydrogen Education, Hydrogen Fuel Production, Infrastructure, News, Political Issues.

by guest blogger Stan Thompson Davidson College is near our NC home and its proximity offers neighbors access to an astonishing parade of great minds. In 1962 I met cosmologist George Gamow there and got to ask him a few questions. Albert Einstein had died only seven years earlier; some would say Gamow was his • Read More »

The Hydrogen Transition: Kubrick’s “2001” monolith

June 20, 2020 | By Stan Thompson | Comments Off on The Hydrogen Transition: Kubrick’s “2001” monolith | Filed in: History, Hydrail, Hydrogen Aircraft, Hydrogen Economy, Hydrogen Education, Hydrogen Organizations, Infrastructure, Myths, News, Political Issues.

by guest blogger Stan Thompson The world may little note nor long remember the routine June 8, 2020, press release by Germany’s venerable Thyssenkrupp industrial giant. But to me it is a transition marker that’s profound in the same way that the tiny band of iridium and ash around the world marks the cretaceous-tertiary boundary • Read More »

Could Russia pioneer high-speed hydrail?

December 21, 2019 | By Stan Thompson | Comments Off on Could Russia pioneer high-speed hydrail? | Filed in: History, Hydrail, Infrastructure, News, Political Issues.

by guest blogger Stan Thompson When Russia and Japan recently exchanged econdev ideas (December 2019) at the ministerial level, two of the specifics discussed were hydrogen production and greater use of the Trans-Siberia Railway. Those two dots, connected with others, could lead to Russia leaping the high speed bump now obstructing the way to wireless fuel cell • Read More »

Can we just acknowledge the “hydrogen transition”?

December 1, 2019 | By Stan Thompson | Comments Off on Can we just acknowledge the “hydrogen transition”? | Filed in: Advocates, Fuel Cells, History, Hydrail, Hydrogen Economy, Infrastructure, Myths.

by guest blogger, Stan Thompson Let’s limit the damage to hydrogen progress caused by “friendly fire.” Good reportage, scholarship and fair play do not require that every article point out that most hydrogen comes from extracted carbon. It’s true, it’s undeniable—but it’s totally irrelevant. The vast amounts of hydrogen produced from hydrocarbons to make petrochemicals, • Read More »

From Russia to Charlotte and back: a hydrail odyssey

November 15, 2019 | By Stan Thompson | Comments Off on From Russia to Charlotte and back: a hydrail odyssey | Filed in: Conferences, Fuel Cells, History, Hydrail, Hyrail.

by guest blogger Stan Thompson Everything seems to have a Ukraine connection these days. Why not hydrail (H2 fuel cell rail traction)? Per Wikipedia, in 1880, several years before Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee, a Ukrainian engineer named Pyotr Pirotsky introduced the world’s first electric “tram” (European for “streetcar”) in Saint Petersburg, Russia.  Soon Pirotsky connected • Read More »

Shirtsleeves Hydrail Stations

September 26, 2018 | By Stan Thompson | Comments Off on Shirtsleeves Hydrail Stations | Filed in: History, Hydrail, Hydrogen Vehicles, Hyrail, Infrastructure, News, Uncategorized.

by guest blogger Stan Thompson On Sunday, September 16, 2018, at Bremervörde, in the State of Niedersachsen, Germany, I boarded the first intercity hydrail train—my dream since 2003! It was Alstom’s shiny new blue Coradia iLint Hydrogen Multiple Unit light rail train, wireless electric and silent as the wind turbines on the North German horizon • Read More »

Will hydrail connect North and South Korea?

May 13, 2018 | By Stan Thompson | Comments Off on Will hydrail connect North and South Korea? | Filed in: History, Hydrail, Infrastructure, News, Political Issues.

by guest blogger Stan Thompson Last Thursday (10 May 2018), Choe San-Hun wrote in the New York Times that, during their recent historic encounter, South Korean President Moon Jae-in handed North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un a “USB drive” containing an infrastructure vision including railway modernization. Mr. Choe does not mention hydrogen fuel cell railways but, • Read More »