Hydrogen: too dangerous to base our future upon?

Growing concerns about global warming, air pollution, the depletion of fossil fuels and geopolitical fears regarding their future availability are driving massive investment in the search to meet the future energy needs of the world economy in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way. Hydrogen based technologies have been identified by many countries, multi-national companies and institutions as a major “energy carrier” in their multi-strand future energy scenarios. Hydrogen, however, is a dangerous substance and some commentators express the view that this highly flammable gas is too hazardous to form a significant element of our future energy policy. In common with other technological systems, those based on hydrogen will inevitably involve risks associated with possible hazardous situations posing threats to safety, public health or the environment. This paper objectively reviews the key hazardous properties of hydrogen and compares them with those of current fuels in common usage by drawing on an extensive review of relevant literatures. It then illustrates the way in which prospective risks associated with hydrogen are currently assessed and represented by various experts and communicated to the wider public. The picture emerging from this review is an inconsistent one, where uncertainties and knowledge gaps abound, despite an overall “unspoken consensus” on hydrogen. The paper proceeds to explore how the issue of risk perception, as conceptualised within the sociology of risk, relates to the development of hydrogen as the fuel of the future. According to the latest published studies, public awareness and risk perception of hydrogen energy have received comparably less attention than other emergent technologies, such as biotechnology or nanotechnology. The paper discusses the various factors that may affect and mediate public attitudes to hydrogen-based technologies and considers how the balance of benefits, costs and risks may change in the medium term, by building on insights from relevant perception studies and recent fieldwork conducted by the authors with stakeholders and members of the public in the UK.