Vladimir Potapov

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resident of the Russian Academy of Sciences Yuri Osipov and general director of the company Norilsk Nickel Mikhail Prokhorov signed an agreement, under which the company would annually invest up to $40M in developing the hydrogen power engineering. "This is the largest national project of the Russian Academy of Sciences and representatives of Russia’s business community", said Yuri Osipov. He stressed that the cooperation would have a positive impact on the development of the Russian science and the economy as a whole.
he world’s efforts to find ways of transferring power-consuming industries to the hydrogen fuel have been made for a long time. More than $500M are invested annually in developing fuel cells as well as hydrogen-based power installations. About 1,000 firms, companies, concerns, university laboratories, science and technology associations are taking part in this search. The most successful studies are being conducted in the U.S., Canada and Japan, where, along with the strong state support, there is a commercial participation of business communities that has recently become more prominent. A large number of hydrogen power installations with different capacities has already been developed. They are quite capable of competing with traditional units that use the hydrocarbon fuel.
Having made its own unique advances in this promising area Russia, however, could not put them in practice so far due to the lack of the necessary financial support. That is why the agreement on cooperation in the hydrogen power engineering signed by the Academy of Sciences and Russia’s largest metallurgical company produced much resonance in the scientific world as well as in the business and public circles.
General director and chairman of the management board of Norilsk Nickel Mikhail Prokhorov stresses that motives of the company’s decision to start financing this complicated and costly project go beyond corporate interests: "We believe that intensive efforts to develop the hydrogen power engineering and fuel cells give Russia a unique opportunity to join the world’s leading powers".
Noting that the world "is on the verge of a new engineering revolution and the industry’s advance to a new technological phase" Mikhail Prokhorov recalls strategic miscalculations in the country’s recent history. In his words, in the 1960s the USSR "in fact, lost an opportunity to make a technological breakthrough" and, as a result, by the end of the 1980s the industry’s technical lagging became practically insurmountable". The head of Norilsk Nickel believes that now Russia has a chance to correct itself. In his opinion, as things are moving on to a new technological phase, "those countries, which are now riding high, can radically fall behind in developing a modern infrastructure by missing an appropriate moment of technological re-equipment". Russia does have "an opportunity to try making an immediate breakthrough with respect to a new economy". "What is more, I am sure that we simply have no other choice", Mikhail Prokhorov points out.
The main goal of developing hydrogen technologies is to reduce the dependence on the existing energy carriers, i.e. oil and gas. "This is precisely what is now the core of our economy, the basis of our budget", says Mikhail Prokhorov. "If in 15 years the country manages to cut down the consumption of oil and gas as a result of creating a new economy, then, Russia will get the depression model of development", he adds. Thus, " we can and we should begin to actively develop the hydrogen power engineering", indicates Mikhail Prokhorov.
In order to achieve success in the hi-tech market, it is necessary to have competitive advantages. In the opinion of the general director of Norilsk Nickel, Russia has at least two advantages in this respect: the availability of fundamental developments within the system of the Academy of Sciences and significant reserves of palladium that is needed to make a hydrogen engine. Reminding that Russia controls about 50% of the world’s production volume of this metal Mikhail Prokhorov says: "This factor makes me conclude that we have in our hands a historic opportunity to propose to the president and the government of the Russian Federation to regard the program of developing the hydrogen power engineering as the national economic idea of restoring Russia’s status of the great economic power. And, in my view, it should be done through the Council of High Technologies with the Russian president".
In the opinion of Mikhail Prokhorov, activities in this area should take into account actual economic conditions existing not only in Russia but in the world as a whole. "First, we should outstrip the development of the world market", he says. Since the Russian market has not yet developed so much as to absorb the latest technologies, they should be brought to the Western market instead. "This means that we should thoroughly analyze the similar Western developments and make products that would surpass them and, accordingly, would be in demand by the market", stresses Mikhail Prokhorov. "Second, in order to make a quality breakthrough at once, we should be looking into the future and keeping an eye on the market prospects for the years between 2010 and 2012", notes the general director of Norilsk Nickel.
Norilsk Nickel, of course, possesses a major investment potential. Nevertheless, its leaders realize that a company, however large it may be, cannot fully finance such projects alone. In any case it should not act as a monopoly. In order to make a breakthrough, state programs and federal budget resource are needed. Besides, it is only natural to assume that profits of oil and gas companies should be also used to implement energy projects.
As Mikhail Prokhorov sees it, it is not enough to have just funds for financing further developments. It is necessary to arrange a state order for introducing innovations and for this purpose a separate program is required. Also, training personnel for a new system of economic relations should be started right away. It is important not to waste time, not to slacken the pace.
At the present stage, the ore mining and metallurgical company Norilsk Nickel and the Russian Academy of Sciences agreed to jointly work on starting and financing the most important fundamental scientific research and experimental development projects in the main directions as well as on producing fuel cells and power installations based on them. In a sense a technological chain will be created. Right now the most important thing is to choose the key directions of developing the hydrogen power engineering and efficiently coordinate the joint operations of Russian scientists and businessmen.
As Mikhail Prokhorov says, the "rapprochement of mentalities" is still going on. The Council of the Academy of Sciences should play an important role in this respect. In its turn, the leaders of Norilsk Nickel are placing big hopes on setting up a palladium center, which is designed to speed up as soon as possible developments in the area of using this metal.
Experts believe that the agreement between the Academy of Sciences and Norilsk Nickel gives grounds for starting to implement hi-tech priority projects, for producing competitive import-substituting equipment and materials of the hydrogen power engineering and fuel cells. In the foreseeable future all this will determine whether it is possible to solve problems of having renewable and ecologically clean energy resources, of perfecting power and heat supply systems of various objects: from cellular phones, computers and motor vehicles to residential apartment houses and large industrial enterprises.
As Mikhail Prokhorov points out, the Academy of Sciences and Norilsk Nickel "have in their hands the key to developing a national program of our country’s return to the ranks of the leading economic nations of the world. This is almost a historic task".