Yokohama, October 21. Three days can appear very short. This must have been the feeling of many participants of the 6th International Conference on Hydrogen Safety when they attended the closing session of the conference today in Yokohama. The exchange of information and contacts will certainly have effects long after the conference.
Some 250 participants from 18 countries had been present. This can be considered as an indication of the rising interest for the topic, because the number is higher than for the last ICHS 2013 in Brussels.
Jay Keller, head of the research committee of the HySafe board, announced the installation of a fellowship program for students doing work in the field of hydrogen safety. He also told the conference that a “Best Paper Award” for the ICHS had been created. The award was given for the first time to a paper on quantitative risk analysis.
And after ICHS 6? HySafe vice president Thomas Jordan and the scientific conference head Marco Carcassi invited everybody to ICHS 7. It will be held in Hamburg (Germany) from September 11 to 13, 2017. Germany as a whole is a leading country on the way to sustainable energy, and within Germany Hamburg excels by quite a number of hydrogen activities. So a favourable climate for the conference appears to be guaranteed.
Many thanks were given to the local organizers of ICHS 6 which had done everything they could plus a bit more to make the stay of the participants in Yokohama pleasant and successful.
Organizer Akiteru Maruta mentioned that the organizers of the 2013 conference in Brussels had given him a small memory of Brussels to keep the spirit of Brussels alive. He presented HySafe vice chairman Thomas Jordan from Karlsruhe (Germany) with a beautiful handkerchief from Yokohama to make this spirit live longer, enhanced by a strong Yokohama component.
The first ICHS in Asia was an event which will not be forgotten very soon. The event gave strong impulses to the field from which the participants and their colleagues will profit for a long time – until ICHS 7.