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With a worldwide market estimated to be worth over $2.5 trillion a year by 2050, experts are looking to hydrogen as a huge opportunity for Alberta. It's going to require a coordinated approach from all three levels of government, however, to do it.

In this episode we talk with David Van Den Assem from Alberta Innovates and Kirk Hamilton from C-FER Technologies about hydrogen and what it could mean for Alberta's economy. They also discuss what Alberta Innovates, C-FER Technologies, InnoTech Alberta and Emissions Reduction Alberta are doing to propel it, and much, much more!

Welcome to Shift.

Bios

David Van Den Assem
David is a senior manager of clean technology at Alberta Innovates. He focuses on advancing innovative technologies from proof of concept through to field pilot stages in the field of carbon capture, utilization and sequestration (CCUS).  The CCUS focus area is open to innovative next-generation technologies along the value chain within this area, including capture, compression, transport, mineralization, conversion, use, storage and measurement/monitoring/verification. 

David also manages the hydrogen focus area and the critical minerals, mining and novel materials areas.  These also are open to innovative technologies across the value chain and are aimed at building a low carbon hydrogen economy in Alberta, and advancing the extraction and use of critical minerals in Alberta to develop new industries, as well as developing high-tech materials to support energy storage, renewable energy development and other advanced materials such as carbon nanomaterials, etc. 

David brings over 24 years of project management, business unit management and environmental leadership in several sectors, including power, oilsands, mining and real estate.  His vision is to lead efforts to improve the ecological, social and economic footprint of these sectors, to improve our relationship with the natural environment. 

Kirk Hamilton
Kirk Hamilton is a Senior Engineering Advisor with 20 years of advanced applied research and development experience at C-FER Technologies in Edmonton, Canada on a wide range of upstream and midstream energy topics. In his current role, Kirk works on strategic and business planning for C-FER identifying, developing, and implementing C FER’s strategic diversification objectives.

His current scope is addressing the technical challenges faced by global stakeholders in the transition to a hydrogen-based economy, in particular around pipeline transportation and underground storage of hydrogen.  As part of this scope of activities, Kirk is working closely with the Transition Accelerator to assist the Edmonton Region Hydrogen Hub in building up the hydrogen economy in the Edmonton area as one of the world’s first hydrogen energy hubs.

In addition to his work for C-FER, he is also an active member of a number of American Petroleum Institute (API), Canadian Standards Association (CSA) and International Standardization Organization (ISO) technical committees on equipment and materials codes and standards. Kirk obtained a BSc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Alberta in 2001.


More reading

• Alberta's hydrogen roadmap
• Why hydrogen...and why now?
• Alberta government's Hydrogen Roadmap acc

Shift by Alberta Innovates focuses on the people, businesses and organizations that are contributing to Alberta's strong tech ecosystem.