HySafe, the international association for hydrogen safety, held its annual General Assembly on September 15 in San Francisco (California, USA). It gave the vote of confidence to the Executive Board by re-electing all four core Board members without votes against them:
- Andrei Tchouvelev (Canada), president
- Thomas Jordan (Germany), vice president
- Iñaki Azkarate (Spain), treasurer
- Benno Weinberger (France), secretary.
The chairpersons of the four permanent committees of the board were not up for re-election; their term ends at the General Assembly next year. They are:
- Hervé Barthélémy (France), industry relations
- Marco Carcassi (Italy), International Conference on Hydrogen Safety
- Alexei Kotchourko (Germany), research
- Ulrich Schmidtchen (Germany), PR and dissemination.
HySafe president Andrei Tchouvelev thanked the members for their trust in the Executive Board and announced a rather ambitious program of activities for the time to come. One key activity is the preparation of the next International Conference on Hydrogen Safety to be held in Brussels in September 2013. Another is the publication of a series of hydrogen safety issues of the International Journal on Hydrogen Energy with a goal of developing a scientific journal devoted to hydrogen safety together with the International Association for Hydrogen Energy (IAHE). HySafe will also be represented at important events like the Hannover Fair in April 2012 and the World Hydrogen Energy Conference in June 2012 in Toronto, and will organize and co-host a number of workshops on various aspects of hydrogen safety, including in collaboration with the IEA Hydrogen Implementing Agreement Task 31.
Representatives of the US Department of Energy and of the European Commission who were present as guests emphasized a great value in having an international organisation that devotes itself entirely to this important area critical to commercialization of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies.
About HySafe
HySafe is the global focal point for all hydrogen safety related issues. Founded in 2009, it is an association under Belgian Law with seat in Brussels. Its purpose is to promote the safe use of hydrogen as an energy carrier. The association facilitates the networking for the further development and dissemination of knowledge and for the coordination of research activities in the field of hydrogen safety. So it supports cost effective hydrogen safety research, enables innovative technologies and engineering, and provides education and training on a professional level. Based on its leading position in hydrogen safety research and development, HySafe determines the state-of-the-art in hydrogen safety and continuously develops further the associated strategic research agenda.
Media contact:
Dr. Ulrich Schmidtchen
BAM Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing
Unter den Eichen 87, 12205 Berlin, Germany
Phone: +49 (30) 8104-4402; Fax: -3433
Mail: com-pr@hysafe.info