Dr. Ulf Bossel

Abstract: The fossil fuels era is slowly coming to an end. Dwindling resources, global warming and dependence on energy imports are calling for energy from clean domestic sources. Time has come for the establishment of a sustainable energy future. But which way shall we go.
Energy from renewable sources is abundant, but can satisfy the needs of society only if most rationally used. With the exception of biomass nature provides mainly physical energy: solar radiation, motion of wind and water, heat from the ground, all harvested as electricity. Today's chemical energy base will change to an electrical one. This involves much more than a simple replacement of gasoline by hydrogen. Chemical energy converters like heat engines and even fuel cells may become superfluous after electricity has become the base energy. Natural gas fired power plants will disappear and heat pumps will become real energy multipliers. The entire energy technology will gradually adapt to electricity. The sustainable future will be based on an "electron economy".
Chemical energy carriers have to be synthesized from biomass or electricity. Synthetic liquid fuels, not hydrogen will be derived from biomass. Hydrogen has to be produced by water electrolysis. But too much energy is lost by converting renewable electricity into hydrogen, packaging the gas by compression or liquefaction, transport the energy commodity to the user and converting it back to electricity by fuel cells. Distributed as hydrogen, not more than 25% of the original energy will be available to the energy user while 90% may reach the destination via existing power lines. As a consequence, hydrogen electricity will be four times more expensive than power from the grid. People will improve the thermal standards of their homes and switch to electricity, or use electric cars for the daily drive to work. Hydrogen energy can never compete with its electrical source energy. There is no room for a hydrogen economy in a sustainable energy future.

Short-bio: Diploma Degree in Aerodynamics (ETH Zurich), PhD in Engineering (UC Berkeley), Assistant Professor at Syracuse University, Head of the Free Molecular Flow Division at the DLR in Germany. Co-founder and first president of the German Solar Energy Society (1975), fuel cell project manager at ABB Switzerland (1987), freelance fuel cell consultant since 1990. Founder of the European Fuel Cell Forum and organizer of the Lucerne Fuel Cell Forum, an international annual event of highest reputation. Since 1973 Ulf Bossel has been one of Europe's leading figures in the renewable energy debate.