Francis Bainier
Panelist
Francis Bainier started his career in the gas industry in 1990. He applied his multidisciplinary engineering training as a maintenance team leader in various gas storage facilities.
After his maintenance experience, Francis applied his practical and technical knowledge as a Duty Engineer at the National Dispatching Centre.
After 12 years in dispatching, he joined the National Maintenance Centre to manage the GRTgaz SOLAR turbine fleet.
Francis then took up the position of expert for the definition of maintenance policies and he supports the implementation of new compression facilities. He also carries out international expert missions and shares his knowledge and experience through publications and patents.
At the same time, Francis Bainier has the opportunity to be involved as a consultant in environmental projects such as combustion emissions, methane emissions and pipeline transport of new gases such as biomethane, CO2 and hydrogen.
As far as H2 is concerned, since December 2020 he has been the leader of the “Compression Station” working group of H2GAR (Hydrogen Gas Assets Readiness).
Panel 2: Technological, regulatory and economical challenges in the hydrogen value chain
Wednesday, January 17th
15:40 – 17:00 HG F 30 | Audi Max
Panelists: Christer Björkqvist (ETN Global), John Gulen (Bechtel), Francis Bainier (GTRgaz), Oscar Mene Castiñeiras (Linde)
Chair: Renaud Le Pierres (Meggitt)
Panel Abstract:
Hydrogen is one of the most spoken topic of late when considering Net Zero and how to decarbonize existing and future energy systems and propulsion: only in 2023 tens of events directly related to Hydrogen took place around the worlds between workshops, conferences and exhibitions covering these topics.
However Hydrogen use is not new given Jules Verne described it as an inexhaustible source of fuel in his 1894 novel “Mysterious Island”, or more recently when John Bockris first coined the term “Hydrogen Economy” in 1972 to describe a future in which we use hydrogen as an alternative to fossil fuel and to date these visions did not fully realise.
This panel will cover many challenges be it technical, regulatory and economical that need to be addressed to properly deploy a hydrogen economy as an ultimate replacement for the current fossil fuel energy model which we know is incompatible with the global warming threat while fuelling geopolitical and associated economical instabilities.
