This is a late subjective feedback from the General Assembly 2009 of the European Joint Undertaking for Fuel Cells and Hydrogen, which took place 26th and 27th of October in Brussels.
Compared to the years before there were maybe only 2/3 participants. Additionally, I had the impression that the industry was not represented as it should be in a industry led initiative. I realised a majority of non-industry guys from research, SMEs, universities instead.
Coming to safety at least the US DoE representative Sunita Satyapal and the chairman of the IEA HIA Antonio González García-Conde addressed international cooperations and educational activities
A general disappointment was felt regarding the serious delay in the first round of evaluations and negotiations. I heard that at this time not a single project was approved. Some complaints were openly communicated that so far no production topics were supported so far.
Not lacking was general political phrases and speaches. Potentially most is contained in the published slides on http://ec.europa.eu/research/fch/index_en.cfm?pg=sga2009_presentations . There is no relevant information on the Industry Grouping homepage http://www.fchindustry-jti.eu/.
Safety issues were only mentioned by the US DoE representative Sunita Satyapal, the IEA HIA chairman Antonio González García-Conde and Heinrich Lienkamp, Head of Energy and Process Engineering, Infraserv Höchst. The latter referred to a refuelling station accident, whereas the first two mainly addressed cooperation in educatinal frameworks. Antonio González García-Conde mentioned the ICHS conference and the cooperation of Task 19 with HySafe as a sort of prototypical example.
Moreover in the light of some recent negative reactions on safety relevant, prenormative project proposal(s), I wonder what has to happen to make the executive board of the JTI willing to invest the minimum for a safety culture.