March 2007

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Scouting the globe for hydrogen: A group of German engineers has pitched the idea of setting up a solar hydrogen-producing industry in Brunei, a major oil and gas producer in Southeast Asia, to the country’s energy minister. Brunei, on the northeast coast of Borneo, is described as a “small, wealthy country” by Wikipedia. The Feb. 16 issue of the English-language “Brunei Times” quoted German ambassador Conrad Cappell as saying that while hydrogen production so far is a niche industry, “it defnitely has the potential to become” a world market product. “The engineers said hydrogen fuel is the next generation after oil or parallel to oil,” Cappell told the paper. There are “a lot of potential opportunities here,” he added. The story didn’t identify the engineers or the company; the embassy, contacted by telephone, indicated the engineers came from a small specialized company but said it couldn’t provide names because of German data protection laws. Six years ago, German carmaker BMW proposed a similar idea to the Dubai Emirate, part of the United Arab Emirates, during its six-month Clean Energy World Tour with ten liquid hydrogen-powered luxury sedans (H&FCL March 01), but apparently nothing ever came of it.