In China, packed ballrooms, big ambition and parties for hydrogen
Reporter's Notebook
SHANGHAI — When I signed up to attend a hydrogen and fuel-cell trade show in Shanghai in September, I expected it to be a relatively dry affair. What I didn’t expect was the palpable enthusiasm about this highly technical topic.
On the opening day, hundreds of people from all over China and the world, including Australia, Germany and France, filled a grand ballroom at a five-star hotel at 9 AM sharp to listen to speeches by local government officials and the country’s top industry experts. The presentations were so popular many who arrived late had to stand at the back of the room. Others lucky enough to secure a seat had to do whatever it took to hold on to their spot — meaning minimal toilet breaks.
There were dozens of speakers — mostly men — over the course of a day. One of them was Ling Wen, the chairman of China’s hydrogen energy association, who explained how the eastern province of Shandong had been bringing hydrogen energy to thousands of families. There were also a few solar-panel entrepreneurs who had expanded their businesses to hydrogen. Those on stage delivered their speeches so enthusiastically they often overran their time limits. Eventually, one staffer started holding up a sign saying “five minutes remaining” to prompt speakers to wrap up.
Sitting through the back-to-back presentations, I realized how much Chinese hydrogen executives and researchers are not only interested in selling hydrogen and electrolyzers — the machines that make hydrogen — overseas, but also are intently focused on growing the domestic renewable hydrogen supply chain from scratch, and fast.
But China has a mammoth task to build its own renewable hydrogen industry; it is at the very beginning of that venture.
Today, less than 0.1% of the hydrogen produced in China is made with renewable energy sources. To turn the remaining 99.9% carbon-free is no easy feat, even for a country that has the massive manufacturing capacity and high production efficiency China does.
The first day of the trade show ended with a luxurious dinner banquet said to be featuring live performances, a dozen courses and an award ceremony for the industry’s business leaders. As a journalist, I wasn’t invited to this occasion. When I left the hotel at 7:30 p.m., I could hear music, cheers and rounds of applause issuing from the ballroom.
Perhaps the feast says something about China’s renewable energy industries: work hard, expand hard and celebrate hard.