’How safe are hydrogen refuelling stations?’

Nicole Huijts. (Photo: Hans Stakelbeek/FMAX)

Name: Nicole Huijts
Nationality: Dutch
PhD supervisors: Prof.dr. Bert van Wee and dr. Eric Molin (faculty of Technology, Policy and Management)
Subject: The public acceptance of hydrogen technologies
Thesis defense: In less than three years (part-time)

“If a hydrogen refuelling station is built in your neighbourhood, what would you think of it? Would you be afraid it might negatively affect your health or would you applaud it? I’m studying the public acceptance of hydrogen stations. For the development of hydrogen technology in transport it is essentially important to know how the public will react to this, because the implementation of hydrogen stations is the key to the success of hydrogen technology. If there are no refuelling stations, people will not buy hydrogen cars.
There are plans for a hydrogen refuelling station to be built in Arnhem. I will focus on this in my research. I’m currently working on a list of about fifty interview questions. I will ask people for instance how much trust they have in the government and industry for making it a safe station, and if they believe the government will define the correct safety measures for a hydrogen refuelling station.

Over the past two years I’ve studied the public acceptance of other similar initiatives, like carbon capture and storage and biotechnology. It seems that people who have trust issues with the government do not trust new technology. It also works the other way around. The people who have more trust in the government are more likely to embrace new technologies.
If they build the station in Arnhem, I could also study the reactions over time. It is possible that the reactions change with the years, that people who are initially afraid that the station will be hazardous, will become less afraid if there are no incidents. If there appear to be safety problems, then everyone will probably be more frightened and regard the stations much more negatively.
How people respond to the information that is sent to them is also something I would like to study, although I’m not yet sure exactly how I will do this. But I will probably send two groups of people different kinds of information regarding the building of a hydrogen station in their neighbourhood. To a third group I will not send any information at all. Finally, I will analyse if the people in the different groups have different perceptions of the station. The results will help to formulate advice to policymakers.

Very often engineers develop technology because they have a great image of the usability of what they have devised. But the people who use it look at the new technology in a totally different way; they do not share that same image with the engineer. I’m fascinated by this gap between engineers and users and the question of how one could close it.”