As hydrogen technologies continue to expand, strong safety practices remain essential to building confidence and supporting responsible deployment.
Leading that effort is AIChE’s Center for Hydrogen Safety (CHS), a global, non-profit community dedicated to advancing hydrogen safety and best practices worldwide.
A key part of that work is the Hydrogen Safety Panel, a group of experts who identify risks, share lessons learned, and guide safer hydrogen projects across the industry. Through the panel, CHS draws on the expertise of specialists like hydrogen systems and safety consultant Larry Moulthrop, who has spent more than 40 years in hydrogen technology.
In this interview, Larry reflects on the industry’s evolution, the safety lessons that shaped his work, the role of standards, and how outreach can help communities better understand hydrogen technologies.
You’ve worked with hydrogen since 1978. What has surprised you most about the industry’s evolution?
I’m happily surprised that the advancement of renewable "green" hydrogen as a key energy carrier has survived so many up and down development cycles. When I started my hydrogen R&D career in the 1970s, much of the world was grappling with Middle Eastern conflicts that interrupted oil exports. The US DoE responded by promoting large-scale "bulk hydrogen" water electrolysis development, among other H2 initiatives. But economic and political interest in hydrogen waned in the 1980s as oil overproduction created a glut in the petroleum market. We’ve seen more cycles through the decades—driven by regional conflicts, political and economic influences, and fluctuating recognition or denial of environmental crises. Yet despite these cycles, hydrogen energy infrastructure development and deployment has continued to accelerate and mature, because hydrogen is a fundamental part of our energy and environmental future.
What were some of the biggest safety lessons you learned while helping build Proton Energy Systems?
Proton’s founding team promised our investors we could adapt rarefied aerospace and military PEM water electrolysis technology for a new market: packaged commercial hydrogen-generating appliances and systems. Our challenge was straightforward: how could we simplify the product design to reduce system cost without compromising safety? We minimized internal H2 (and O2) inventory volumes and mapped the optimal placement of internal air ventilation to reduce internal hazardous area classification. These measures significantly cut product costs while also reducing hazard levels. Our biggest safety lesson? We verified and validated these innovations through rigorous hazard analysis and testing, applying the training we had as former aerospace engineers. As Proton grew, we learned the importance of maintaining a quality management system that mandated thorough multi-participant safety reviews, starting from our initial design through each and every product and procedure change. We learned the value of rigorously documenting these reviews and the reasons for each change of product design and fabrication, installation, operation, and maintenance procedures.
Why is standards development such an important part of hydrogen safety?
Standards reflect expert consensus on the best safety practices to apply. Importantly, good safety standards are regularly peer-reviewed and updated to incorporate new data-based safety findings and lessons learned.
Why is community outreach important as hydrogen technologies continue to grow?
Through community outreach, we can help folks accept hydrogen-based energy technology by relating it to other accepted energy technologies and their own experiences. In 2014, while at my former water electrolysis company, Proton Onsite, Toyota asked us to help tell a story of commonality and technology development to gain acceptance for its hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.
You can see the results in the Oil Creek short film project. Early settlers around Titusville, Pennsylvania, named Oil Creek for the oily sheen from crude oil seeps on its banks. In 1858, Col. Frank Drake developed the first commercial petroleum oil well on an island in Oil Creek. Just as petroleum was drawn from the ground and refined to make automobile fuel, our short film shows how we asked students to help us draw water from Oil Creek to make hydrogen fuel that could power Toyota’s vehicles. Through this story, we made hydrogen-based energy technology both relatable and more acceptable by linking it to local Oil Creek history and to the students’ shared experience.
See the Oil Creek short film below.
