SERC Engineer Jim Zoellick leads a hydrogen safety and awareness training for first responders.
In order to promote the safe use of hydrogen as a transportation fuel and energy commodity, we need to educate and train industry professionals, emergency responders, government officials, permitting officials, and the general public about the promise of hydrogen and its safety characteristics. SERC is doing its part to spread the word. In recent years, we have developed and delivered hydrogen safety presentations to numerous groups.
Training teachers about renewable hydrogen and fuel cells during a National Hydrogen Association annual conference.
SERC has developed a hydrogen awareness and safety training that has been delivered for numerous clients throughout the United States, including AC Transit, Chevron Technology Ventures, UTC Power/CT Transit, SunLine Transit, the City of Palm Desert, and SUNY Buffalo. The training explains how hydrogen energy can fit into our national energy picture, describes the use of hydrogen as a transportation fuel, discusses hydrogen safety and emergency response procedures, and covers hydrogen safety details for specific hydrogen energy facilities.
Our expertise in working safely with hydrogen energy systems comes from nearly 20 years of designing, installing, and operating systems, including fuel cell powered electric vehicles, stationary and portable fuel cell power systems, solar hydrogen energy systems, and hydrogen generation and vehicle fueling facilities. By offering our services in hydrogen safety consulting and training to others, we have found a valuable way to share our expertise.
Students participate in a pilot test of the HyTEC curriculum's electrolyzer and fuel cell experiment.
SERC engineers present training workshops for teachers to increase their capacity to teach energy and electricity concepts in their own classrooms. These workshops have been well attended, and the feedback has been very positive. Teacher training is an important aspect of our education program because we can affect a greater number of students through their instructors than through direct efforts.
In partnership with the Lawrence Hall of Science at UC Berkeley, SERC is developing the Hydrogen Technology and Energy Curriculum (HyTEC), targeted at high school chemistry and environmental science classes. The curriculum is a two-week module that features hands-on laboratory activities, readings and calculations, and issues based role-play activities. As part of this project, SERC has been involved in curriculum development, teacher training, pilot testing in the classroom, and the development of hands-on laboratory kits that feature student operated fuel cells and electrolyzers.
