April 11, 2021 – Peter van Barneveld | Reading Time: 5 minutes
It is a beautiful summer evening in February, in the year 2032. I sit with my family at the beach in Santos and we are enjoying a coconut water. From this place at the beach, we have a magnificent view on the colorful light bubbles. They are so wonderful to see in real. Especially when you know that microbial fuel cell technology generates energy from the water to power the lights.
The color bubbles also use the energy to measure the water quality, where the color of the light visualizes the wellbeing of the water. Santos realized this project ten years ago, in 2022. It was part of a bigger plan to attract more tourists.
We still make jokes in the family about the first results. The red color of the bubbles showed that the quality of the water was extremely poor. When tourists started to ask what the color of the light meant, Santos didn’t like to tell that it was visualizing the bad water quality.
Santos’ Hydrogen Journey
That moment was decisive for Santos to do something about the water quality. What started as a plan to attract tourists, transformed into a bigger plan where the well-being of the environment was equally important. To improve the water quality Santos wanted to get rid of ships powered by oil. Instead of forbidding the dirty ships, they created an environment to welcome hydrogen ships, and stimulate their coming.
To welcome the hydrogen ships they build worlds first hydrogen fuel station for ships, where hydroelectric power produces the green hydrogen! To drive the coming of hydrogen ships, Santos lowered the tax for docking the hydrogen ships. Santos was convinced they could finance this by the extra income streams coming from tourists.
Hydrogen Tourist Tour
What great about this project is that they designed and the developed the needed infrastructure, platforms, and hydrogen transport ships with a great focus on tourism. Two days ago, I did the hydrogen ship tour with my family. The tour begins with boarding a hydrogen transport ship, which lays close to the beach.
First, we sailed to the hydroelectric dam, where they produce the green hydrogen. The environment we sailed through is so fabulous, that we really could experience the beautiful nature of Brazil close to a big city like Santos.
At the dam we went of the ship to get a tour through the hydrogen production facility. They explained how they generate the energy with the power of the falling water, and how they transform the energy into hydrogen. It’s great to see how all these different technologies are combined to produce the green hydrogen.
Before we jumped onboard the ship again, they asked the kids of the tourist group to help with loading hydrogen into the transport ship. After the ship was fully loaded, we sailed to the hydrogen fuel station in the port of Santos.
It was incredible to see that the kids couldn’t stop talking about loading the tourist ship with hydrogen. They really took part in it, by pressing all kind of buttons to start and stop the hydrogen filling process. Luckily, it is not possible for the kids to press the wrong buttons, because by the start of the process design, they considered that tourists could experience interacting with it. While sailing to the fuel station, the kids were already looking forward for the arrival, because they could participate again!
Santos did a fantastic job by designing this tourist experience with a smart focus on kids. The tour increased the number of tourist visits, which makes it an enormous success for Santos!
Now we are sitting here at the beach, and while we talk about this remarkable tourist trip, the lightbulbs showing us the results of this journey. The color of the bulbs is green which means the water is extremely healthy!
Afterword
Even though the story is fiction, it is all based on future signals. So maybe this future is closer then you think.
Please let me know what you think about living in this future. Or if you are curious how this future will help you, or your organization. You can contact me by using the contact form, or send me a message by LinkedIn or Instagram.
Thanks for taking the time to read my future story!
Peter van Barneveld
Future Signal Sources
Nova Innova – POND floating lights
POND – | Dutch Design Week
Special thanks to Ermi van Oers for providing the beautiful images of the POND project.
Topeka ship
Wilhelmsen’s Topeka hydrogen project awarded NOK 219 million
Special thanks to Marius Steen for providing the beautiful images of the Topeka ship.
Hydrogen produced by hydropower
First green hydrogen project becomes reality: thyssenkrupp to install 88 megawatt water electrolysis plant for Hydro-Québec in Canada
