The World Runs to Hydrogen

Aiming to be the banner-bearer and trailblazer in the sustainability endeavors of the cement sector of Turkey, TÜRKÇİMENTO addressed the hydrogen fuel that takes place on the agenda as an alternative fuel in its Vision Talks.

TÜRKÇİMENTO, the umbrella institution of the cement sector, continues its Vision Talks to become the banner-bearer and trailblazer in the important issues of the sector. In this scope, the hydrogen fuel that takes place on the agenda as an alternative fuel was addressed in the webinar titled “Carbon Capture and Use in the Cement Sector on the Way to Target 2050” held on 4 February 2021. Volkan Bozay, TÜRKÇİMENTO CEO, acted as the moderator of the event that took place as hosted by the R&D Institute of TÜRKÇİMENTO and presented by Prof. Dr. Iskender Gökalp.

In his statement he made in the webinar, Volkan Bozay, TÜRKÇİMENTO CEO, said, “While the use of hydrogen shown as one of the solutions in the zero carbon target, as fuel is a powerful alternative, time is needed for the improvement of the solution. The most important drawback here is the need for a quite substantial investment. Addressing this issue as a country strategy is important. This solution can be put into practice only through the collaboration of the state, private sector, and the nongovernmental organizations.”

In his presentation, Prof. Dr. Iskender Gökalp highlighted the requirement that industrial institutions, research universities, TÜBİTAK, public and nongovernmental organizations must be the essential actors. He pointed out that such entities must work in inter-sectoral and interdisciplinary collaboration. Gökalp also invited attention to the fact that an approach that is innovative, that brings solutions to the environment and waste issues, and that assumes the circular economy system must be adopted in terms of the ways to be followed to determine Turkey’s hydrogen strategy and applicability of technology.

In the event, the fact that hydrogen can be used as a substitute to fossil fuels as it has an energy-carrier property and, when it is taken through a clean production process, it will reduce the CO2 emissions and at the same time provide support to circular economy by means of production from organic wastes, was mentioned. It was underlined that production operations must be carried out with the processes that will minimize the hazards like fire and explosions and by identifying the risks in the use of hydrogen arising from its chemical and physical properties.