#cycling4planet: 10,000km through Europe and North Africa on a bike for green energy

Author credit – Stephen B. Harrison, Managing Director, sbh4 consulting

6,000km ago, Antoine Abou set off from Lyon in France on a 10,000 km bike tour to interview players in the hydrogen value chain. After 6 months of cycling, he took a pause to spend two days in the company of Stephen B. Harrison, Managing Director at sbh4 consulting. Harrison is a member of the Scientific Committee for the AQE 2021 and CEM2023 conferences, organised by Environmental Technology Publications.

“The time I have spent in Gelting with Steve and his family has been incredible”, says Abou. “We have shared food, laughter and insights into the hydrogen economy. On Wednesday he invited me to join a 3 hour training session on blue hydrogen production with 11 other international participants and I learned so much.”

Abou posts videos and photographs of his tour on various social media networks and has received more than 1000,000 views of his videos since he started his 10,000 km bike tour. This is the way that he is spreading information and hope about the role that hydrogen will play in protecting our planet and helping to control climate change.

“I have interviewed 170 C-level players in the European hydrogen economy”, confirms Abou. “From France to Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and now in Germany. I also talk with members of the public and ask them what they know about hydrogen. The answers range from: ‘hydrogen is the future’, through ‘I know nothing about hydrogen’ to ‘hydrogen is dangerous’… there is clearly a lot of work to do to raise awareness of hydrogen and assure people that it is a viable and safe part of our future.”

Abou was also delighted to have received a major sponsorship donation from sbh4 GmbH which will ensure that he has enough funds to continue his adventure through Austria, Italy and through North Africa. Renewable solar power in north Africa is likely to be a key input to green hydrogen production as an energy export to Europe through the European Backbone hydrogen pipeline in the future.