Sir, The opening of Britain’s first hydrogen fuel station marks an important step in the possible transition to a new energy carrier in the UK.

Edmund King, president of the AA, cautioned (report, April 16) that “images of the burning Hindenburg airship could undermine confidence in carrying hydrogen tanks”. This comment relates to the airship accident some 70 years ago which claimed the lives of 36 people.

Presumably King would hesitate at making a comparable, disturbing statement about our ubiquitous use of dangerous carbon-based fuels — paraffin, petrol and diesel, the first of which was responsible for the highest single-accident loss of life, some 583 people in the ground collision of two airliners, just over 30 years ago, in Tenerife.

It is now recognised that the Hindenburg disaster was probably caused by ignition (initiated by static electricity) of highly flammable skins covering the airship, not a leak in the hydrogen tanks (the cloth canopy was coated with what nowadays would be called rocket fuel, and the metal framework construction was based on iron oxide and aluminium — a potent combination )

The “hydrogen fear factor” raised by such evocative comments therefore needs to be taken in context. Of course, hydrogen, like any other fuel, can burn or explode if improperly managed or controlled; it can be safer than conventional fuels in some situations and more hazardous in others.

Hydrogen, nature’s lightest chemical element and first in the Periodic Table, in association with fuel cells as a potential future energy carrier, must be rigorously tested and proven as a safe fuel, and on par with reliability, longevity, ease of maintenance and ultimately low cost. Intensive systems-testing efforts are currently under way by industry, organisations, codes and standards bodies and world governments.

Recall also that the hydrogen industry has an enviable safety record spanning more than half a century of operation: the world’s existing hydrogen industry produces one-fourth as much volume of gas each year as the global natural gas industry.

Finally, there is an alternative approach to storing hydrogen for vehicular (transportation) use — not in high-pressure gas tanks, or as an ultra-cold cryogenic liquid, but in the form of new-generation, advanced materials which are designed to act as solid-state “sponges” to absorb hydrogen, and then release the gas for fuel cells, etc, under controlled operating conditions. It is in this area of hydrogen storage materials that the UK reseach and development efforts are recognised as being as advanced as those of Japan and the US.

Peter P. Edwards

Professor, and Head of Inorganic Chemistry, University of Oxford

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