Reporting on the business and technologies
driving today's global industrial gas industry

Marc Metyer, President and CEO of the Compressed Gas Association, highlights the CGA’s goal of continuing to standardize hydrogen production, storage, and usage. Since hydrogen is increasingly being considered as an alternative fuel source, it is now more important than ever to establish guidelines for its use. CGA began setting standards as early as 1966 and is now working with public service officials and the international community.

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Eduardo Pelitti, CryoGas International’s Latin American Correspondent and Associate, examines the growth of the Latin American market in 2007. Sales continue to be strong and growth is high, but energy issues and economic woes in the U.S. and Latin America threaten to curb development, but the Latin American industry should experience more growth in 2008.

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The National Hydrogen Association’s Annual Hydrogen Conference, the largest and longest-running hydrogen conference in the US, will be held at the Sacramento California Conference Center between March 30 and April 4. The NHA has been the leader in the transition to a hydrogen-based energy infrastructure and its conference will focus on tackling the challenges and taking opportunities in the market for hydrogen fuels. The NHA is a conglomeration of industry, university, research, and small business members to promote the use of hydrogen in various applications.

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Robert W. Boyd shares his insight into the development of hydrogen fueling statements. Although hydrogen fueling stations are similar to natural gas stations, the different properties of hydrogen necessitate changes in the design of hydrogen stations. Because hydrogen gas is less dense than natural gas, higher pressures are required so significant amounts of hydrogen can be stored. The current ASME and DOT steel tubes are insufficient for this high pressure storage and are being replaced by carbon composite tubes. The Compressed Gas Association has provided guidelines outlined in its Position Statement-26 for carbon composite tubes.

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Demand for cleaner fuels in the refinery market kept the global hydrogen business on the fast growth track again in 2007.  Environmental regulations implemented in most industrialized countries have resulted in increased hydrogen requirements at refineries for gasoline and diesel desulphurization.  Rapid increase in large scale on-site and pipeline hydrogen supply to refineries and other large chemical processors supports cleaner fuels. In addition, oil-sands processing, gas-to-liquids, and coal gasification projects that are ongoing, all require enormous amounts of hydrogen.  It is expected that these will boost the size of the hydrogen market significantly in the next five years.  Today's rapid increase in dedicated, "on-purpose", hydrogen capacity is being driven by tighter fuel specifications and the increased processing of heavier and sourer crudes.

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In Part I of this series, the problems of pollution were defined (see "A History of Environmental Problems & Industrial Gas Solutions Part I: The Problems Defined," page 38, CGI January 2008.) In this article, the applications developed by the indsutrial gas industry to solve the varied problems created by the pollution of air, water, and land are reviewed.

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Without fueling stations, the emergence of hydrogen as a fuel for transportation is essentially a mute point.  Designing and building these stations presents a wide range of both economic (replacing the ubiquitous gas station that dots the landscape today) and technical challenges.  These challenges are being met through demonstration projects that develop and test new hydrogen fueling infrastructures.  At least 50 additional hydrogen stations are planned in the enxt few years in the US, Canada, China, denmark, India, Italy, Norway, Spain and Sweden. This special report looks at the different companies that are advancing in hydrogen fueling technology around the world. 

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