The German Aerospace Center (DLR) is celebrating 40 years of energy research in 2016 and lets the protagonists of the early days look back. One of them is Prof. Dr. Carl-Jochen Winter, hydrogen researcher from the very beginning. From 1976 to 1992 he was head of the "Materials/Construction and Energetics" department at the then DFVLR. Just two years after the establishment of the new "Energetics" research area, the DFVLR presented Europe's first hydrogen car in 1978. In an interview with science journalist Tim Schröder, Winter talks about the beginnings of hydrogen technology and why this time was extremely exciting for the developers.
The first hydrogen car in Europe
1978: For the first time in Europe, a car can be refueled with hydrogen
Image : 1/3 , Credit : DLR CC BY 3.0.
Prof. Dr. Carl-Jochen Winter studied structural dynamics at the Technical University of Darmstadt and then worked for the aviation and technology group Dornier and taught at the University of Stuttgart as a professor for energy technology. Winter was Vice President of the International Association for Hydrogen Energy (IAHE) until 2012, where he was responsible in particular for Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
Mr. Winter, in the 1987 article " Think the unthinkable! " , DER SPIEGEL described you and your colleague Joachim Nitsch as "the smartest lawyers who have sun and hydrogen in the country". You are still regarded as a pioneer in hydrogen research in Germany. In 1976, when you came to what was then DFVLR, was it foreseeable that just a few years later hydrogen would be traded as a permanent fixture in the energy mix of the future?
It was clear to us at the time that the world's energy supply had to be completely restructured. We had the idea of using the sun to generate hydrogen in large quantities and thus cover a large part of mankind's energy needs in the future. For us technicians, that was quite obvious. We were familiar with hydrogen from the development of rocket engines. Transferring hydrogen to cars, for example, was just a small step for us. The industry and the public, of course, to a large extent still saw things very differently.
It sounds like getting the hydrogen on the ground was child's play...
...of course not. Technically, we developers were constantly overwhelmed because we kept encountering questions for which there were no answers. But that's what made the work so fascinating. We worked on completely new technologies. With success, by the way: in 1978 my colleague Walter Peschka converted a BMW into a hydrogen car. The tank filled the whole trunk. The car was refueled at a newly developed semi-automatic fuel pump. As a board member, I had a special responsibility because I had to set research priorities in my area and promote technologies whose future was not really foreseeable. The BMW, for example, was a great success. There was nothing else like it back then. Our development became known worldwide and our DFVLR Group became known beyond the borders of Germany. With the BMW we were also on the road in the USA. Incidentally, the car is now in the BMW Museum in Munich.
Despite its success, hydrogen has not yet established itself as an energy carrier on a large scale. How do you explain that?
My motto is: Energy needs time! A form of energy needs many decades or even half centuries to establish itself. Coal has powered the world for more than 200 years. The diesel engine is 120 years old. Both could now be replaced. But this transition will take many years.
Did you expect at the time that hydrogen would become established more quickly?
In a way yes. For us, hydrogen was the energy carrier of the 21st century. But of course we also realized that we were too early. The large industrial groups regarded sun, wind and hydrogen as small things. At the time, the board of directors of a large electronics company told me that he thought that nice, large gas turbines with efficiencies of almost 50 percent would point the way to the future. Technologically, however, we had already understood hydrogen in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In 1987, a test facility developed by us went into operation in Saudi Arabia. " Hysolar" was the name of the project in which hydrogen was generated in an electrolysis plant using electricity from photovoltaics. The plant had an output of ten kilowatts (kW).
And where is the hydrogen today?
I see a positive trend. Unlike then, hydrogen no longer has any opponents today. Research, industry, politics - everyone sees hydrogen as something positive and part of the future energy landscape. Of course, hydrogen is far from established. But still: Today there are a good 50 hydrogen filling stations in Germany. When I was at the DFVLR, there were three. In addition, the topic of climate change is right at the top of the agenda today - this is an important driver, an "enabler" for regenerative energies and also for hydrogen produced from renewable sources.
At the moment, however, wind and solar power are undoubtedly in the lead.
Yes, in this respect we actually imagined the future to be a little different. 1986 published Joachim Nitschand I the book "Hydrogen as a source of energy - technology, systems, economy", in which we described the energy future as a hydrogen economy. Hydrogen does not play this role today. We assumed that hydrogen forms the basis of the energy industry. Today, it is more likely that wind and solar power will be the drivers. Hydrogen is considered an important technology to store surplus electricity from photovoltaic and wind turbines. In this context, hydrogen is likely to play a major role in the future. And in view of the delays in the introduction of electric cars, the discussion about battery technology and range, large automotive groups are now working more intensively on the development of hydrogen combustion engines. At the moment, however, the economic interest is not so great that hydrogen can finally prevail. Overall, I view the history of hydrogen as a long-wave positive development.
During your time as a board member of the DFVLR, you also promoted the development of solar power plants in addition to hydrogen. How do you rate this research work today?
The development of solar power plants was also something completely new. In 1977, an international consortium, in which we as DFVLR were significantly involved, was commissioned by the International Energy Agency to build two solar power plants in Almeria, Spain, each with an output of 500 kW. The power plants should demonstrate the technical feasibility of different technologies. The DFVLR was entrusted with the planning, the award of contracts to the industry as well as construction and operation. As head of energy research, I was appointed head of the "Executive Committee". The systems in Almeria have been optimized and expanded many times to date - and this is a visible success of our work. All in all, I had a great deal of scientific freedom during my time at DFVLR. We were able to deal with different technologies and an almost infinite number of technical aspects. In summary, I would say that we had to start from scratch and have achieved a lot.
So your view of today's energy landscape is positive?
Absolutely. Just one example: When I was at DFVLR, we weren't allowed to say the word decarbonization because nobody understood us. I remember politicians shaking their heads at the time. Today the whole world is talking about it. At the UN climate summit in Paris last December, the heads of government all over the world officially set themselves the goal of decarbonising the global economy. For me, that's a sign that we've made good progress. Of course, it will not be possible to replace fossil energy overnight. Coal, for example, is also an important social element. Today, millions of workers around the world are dependent on coal. We know how to change the energy system. But there are still many steps to be taken in the coming years.time !
