CCB Magazine

What can hydrogen do for culture?

Photo: © Gavin Evans

By 2030, 65 percent of our greenhouse gas emissions are to be curbed. One hope lies in green hydrogen. What can culture do to achieve this? What role does it have to play? We talked about this with Jacob Silvester Bilabel from the Aktionsnetzwerk Nachhaltigkeit.

INTERVIEW  Jens Thomas     ANDJosephine Lass

CCB Magazine: Hello Jacob, you founded the Green Music Initiative more than ten years ago and now  you are the head of the Aktionsnetzwerk Nachhaltigkeit. At the moment you are working on the topic hydrogen.  Will your office soon be powered by hydrogen?

Jakob Bilabel: That would be desirable, but it's not yet possible. For that we would need a fuel cell in the basement and a hydrogen supply that feeds the fuel cell with hydrogen. We could then generate electricity from hydrogen.

CCB Magazine:But hydrogen alone does not make usable energy. You want to test in a new laboratory the extent to which it is possible to convert hydrogen back into electricity and what culture can do for it. What exactly do you have in mind?

Jakob Bilabel:We want to set up the Hydrogen Creative Lab to clarify these very questions: To what extent hydrogen from regenerative sources can become a new energy carrier, also and especially for culture? And what does culture gain from it? After all, hydrogen is in itself only a gas and thus a store of energy. We would therefore have to produce hydrogen and energy from hydrogen - this could be used in the future to replace climate-damaging energy sources. There is already a national hydrogen strategy that is considering precisely such questions. Around nine billion euros have been earmarked for it, but zero for culture. Here we want to bring culture into play.

We could generate sustainable energy from hydrogen. For example, there could be a solar system on the roof of a museum, a hydrogen production plant in the basement and a fuel cell that generates electricity from the stored hydrogen

CCB Magazine:And how? In which areas could green hydrogen be used?

Jakob Bilabel:In many ways, because culture needs one thing above all: energy to produce, distribute, store and archive. But this energy still too often comes from non-sustainable sources. In the future, however, there could be a solar system on the roof of a museum, for example, along with a hydrogen production plant in the basement and a fuel cell that in turn generates electricity from the stored hydrogen. Thus, a museum consumes up to 12 million kWh annually, mainly for cooling, heating and ventilation. A theatre has an annual electricity consumption of a few hundred thousand kWh. This energy has to be generated first, and it will be expensive in the future. Hydrogen could also be used at music festivals or film shoots. Compared to the booming, smelly diesel generators used at festivals, a mobile fuel cell could be a real alternative. And hydrogen is a good energy carrier instead of diesel or petrol. Hydrogen is also relatively easy to produce on one's own, and it's comparatively safe to transport. And if it is produced from renewable sources, it remains emission-free when converted back into electricity.

CCB Magazine:One criticism is that hydrogen is inefficient to produce. Studies have shown that heating with hydrogen, all costs included, would be two to three times as much as with heat pumps or district heating. And to generate electricity from hydrogen, it would take twice as many wind turbines or solar parks as it does now.

Jakob Bilabel:Oh, I hear that again and again. But we forget that gas, petrol and oil also require a similar amount of energy to produce and transport, and they are also harmful to the climate. In other words, I think the discussion about the efficiency of hydrogen is misguided. Hydrogen production makes sense where we have a surplus of renewable energy, then hydrogen is a sensible storage medium. Real green hydrogen is a clean energy that allows us to do what we love without a guilty conscience. But honesty also means that if we power our fuel cells with hydrogen from non-renewable sources, we can forget about the whole process. On top of that, if you look at the energy demand of culture, you start to get drowsy. Music festivals alone consume around 400 million litres of diesel every year in Germany. To compensate for that, you would have to produce many, many tonnes of green hydrogen, and we don't have that capacity yet. The fuel cell is still more expensive than the diesel generator. But a fuel cell that is just as expensive as a diesel generator is only a question of time. It may already be available in three years.

Jacob Bilabel in front of an electrolyser that can produce green hydrogen from renewable energy. Photo: Bilabel 

CCB Magazine:You are asking for about ten percent of the nine billion from the national hydrogen plan for culture. Isn't that a bit much? What should the money be used for?

Jakob Bilabel:I don't think it's too much at all. And I see three areas in particular: First, the money can be invested in the production of green hydrogen in the context of culture. Culture could become a prosumer, i.e. a consumer and producer of renewable energy. Secondly, there is a need for pilot projects for the storage and transport of hydrogen, for which culture, with its large houses, also lends itself. And thirdly, the money can flow into the application and conversion of green hydrogen into electricity.

I am demanding around ten percent of the nine billion from the national hydrogen plan for culture. Because we need new forms of cooperation between science, technology and culture

CCB Magazine:But shouldn't the money be used where the technical expertise is located? It is irrelevant whether experiments take place on the roof of a museum or a sports club. To complete them, quite different disciplines are needed, such as those of environmental technicians or engineers.

Jakob Bilabel:Well, sure, it needs this expert knowledge. I am not asking for culture to become the place of engineering. But culture can lead the way as an example of application and work together with the smartest minds from science, research and project planning. What is needed are new forms of cooperation between science, technology and culture, because everyone is doing research on this right now: the Fraunhofer Institute, the big energy companies or companies like HH2E, enapter or 2hi. That's why prototypes are so important, and they can also come from culture or be tested in it. I would even go so far as to say that the economy can learn a lot from culture.

CCB Magazine:Oh yeah, what would that be?

Jakob Bilabel:Firstly, culture thrives on exnovation, the opposite of innovation, creative destruction. Because it is always reinventing itself. Secondly, there is room for experimentation in culture. Not everything goes straight to the big stage. But there is room for trying things out and testing them. And thirdly, through constant exnovation, culture is able to learn new things and invest in new ideas, all the time. Many industries can take a leaf out of these three qualities.

CCB Magazin:Why has it taken so long to launch a national hydrogen strategy? Why are we only having the debate now?

Jakob Bilabel:Yes, why did everything take so long in the first place? Why have we slept through the sustainable transformation over all these decades? For years we thought that cheap oil and gas were permanent solutions, only now are our eyes opening. The short answer is: there was too little pressure for a long time. We felt we had cheap electricity at all times and didn't have to worry about alternatives. That time is now over, and it is up to everyone: politics, civil society, business and culture.

CCB Magazine:In culture, there has long been a fear of economisation. Could a new horizon open up here if cooperation between sustainable business associations and sectors and culture were to emerge? Could a new bond for a new sustainable culture and culture economy emerge?

Jakob Bilabel:That is exactly what we are working on. We want to create and exploit this potential with the new lab. Because a real lab is an attempt to explore new technologies under real conditions. A new technology must always be arranged with people, otherwise it remains a naked idea. An interesting dovetailing of culture and hydrogen would be that of an energy cooperative, for example. Let's say the subscriber of a theatre annual ticket pays an additional amount and thus becomes part of a cooperative that produces green hydrogen. In the meantime, we are even cooperating with the German Energy Agency and others. So let's get going, we have long since lost sight of central areas like solar and electric mobility, the Chinese have outstripped us here. Hydrogen is one of the last fields where we in Germany can still become a driver of innovation, and if so, when not now, and if so, then please with culture.

Category: Specials