THE world’s first hydrogen double decker bus passed by Knutsford today (Wednesday, October 20) en route to the crucial UN climate change summit in Glasgow.

The Wrightbus Hydroliner may not have stopped this time, but it left behind a very clear message for the people of Cheshire about the importance of hydrogen to tackling global warming.

“People need to understand net zero by 2050 will be impossible without it,” said Professor Joe Howe, executive director of the Chester Energy Research Institute.

For when hydrogen is burned as a fuel – in the home or on the road – all it leaves behind is water that is good enough to drink.

“We could use hydrogen to heat our homes, run our cars, buses and HGVs and power industry,” said Professor Howe. “It can do it all.”

INEOS-owned INOVYN in Cheshire has been safely producing hydrogen as a by-product for more than 100 years.

Most of it is currently burned in its boilers to make steam to run its plants, but that steam could easily come from other sources.

“We are only burning the hydrogen because it is better for the environment than burning natural gas,” said Richard Stevenson, INOVYN’s Storage projects manager. 

“But if we had somewhere to store the gas instead, the benefits to society would be significant.”

The bus, which is powered purely by hydrogen, is due to arrive in Glasgow on Friday after its five-day, 600-mile Hydrogen Roadshow UK tour of the UK.

En route it has stopped at companies which are pioneering the use of hydrogen in boilers, heavy plant machinery and planes.

Wrightbus and INEOS, the two companies which organised the tour, are now working together to explore how hydrogen can be used more widely.

“The world has committed to hugely reducing its carbon emissions and hydrogen is unquestionably going to play a large part in accomplishing this goal,” said INEOS chairman Sir Jim Ratcliffe.