This week saw hydrogen innovation hitting the streets, rails, and seas.
In Vienna, Wiener Linien announced that 10 fuel cell buses – produced by the Italian manufacturer Rampini – will start serving inner-city routes, marking a step forward in urban decarbonization. Meanwhile, Austria also became home to the world’s first railway track made from hydrogen-based steel , a symbolic fusion of clean mobility and green industry.
Photo: ÖBB
Offshore, the world’s first floating and grid independent hydrogen production platform set sail in the North Sea – a pilot aimed at unlocking scalable maritime hydrogen.
Photo: PtX-Wind
PtX-Wind is fueled entirely by offshore wind energy, turns seawater and air into synthetic fuel without any grid connection or drop of fossil fuel…how impressive!!!
The platform uses high-temperature electrolysis to convert desalinated seawater into hydrogen and oxygen, a system for directly capturing CO2 from ocean breezes, and through Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, combines the produced hydrogen and CO2 into ready-to-use synthetic fuel.
The project is designed by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology with support from the German Aerospace Center and Technische Universität Berlin.
It is backed by German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space.
Germany is quite serious about hydrogen! The country launched a consultation for a €400 million hydrogen auction with Canada, advancing its bilateral clean energy trade strategy. The goal is to bridge the cost gap between green hydrogen production and consumer affordability.
This joint tender will involve procuring renewable fuels of non-biological origin (RFNBOs), specifically green hydrogen and its derivatives produced in Canada for consumption in Germany.
