Why is there so much focus on public transport worldwide? Is hydrogen really the future? And why are large high-tech companies sharing knowledge with small ones? Wednesday, November 6 CDA States members from Fryslân answer these and more questions, during a high-tech safari.
After the successful working visit, DGA Bas de Nooijer from door producer Ventura Systems in Bolsward pocketed an invitation to share his knowledge about the future of public transport at the provincial government building. Because it is logical that sustainable public transport is on the minds of members of the provincial government. After all, the pressure on mobility is increasing. Not only because of the harmful emissions of CO2 and nitrogen, but also to ensure the accessibility of urban areas and, importantly for Fryslân, to keep the countryside livable. According to De Nooijer, the Northern Netherlands is the ideal test region for new forms of public transport, including autonomous driving. ’’We have the infrastructure with 5G, there is high-tech knowledge and our roads are very suitable for it.''
Worldwide
During the tour of his ‘bus door factory,’ he shows how complete bus, subway and train door systems are delivered to customers within six weeks. Worldwide, because only two bus manufacturers in the Netherlands use Ventura's doors. ,,All buses in London, Singapore and Sydney run with bus doors from Bolsward. As many as 30 thousand doors leave our factory every year and this number is growing,’’ De Nooijer says by way of example.
Share knowledge
Chairman of Innovatiecluster Drachten, Binne Visser van Philips, summed up the cooperation of our high-tech companies at the beginning of the working visit. ’’We are not a talking shop, we do something!'' The stories of plant manager Sybren Reinsma of Stork Turbo Blade from Sneek and DGA Rob Castien van resato from Assen. The cooperation of our high-tech companies works. Where knowledge sharing is concerned, but certainly also to recruit or retain technical talent for the Northern Netherlands once the degree is obtained. Castien sums up the motivation for cooperation like this. ,,We work together on subjects for which we are too small independently. We learn from each other because we speak the same language, all develop our own products and run into the same problems in international sales and service.’’ With open arms, Castien welcomes interns, who make up as much as 10 percent of his workforce. ’’And we help write the hydrogen policy for the Northern Netherlands. We now have 40 people working full-time with hydrogen, and this number will continue to grow significantly in the coming years.''
3D printing
Reinsma of the ‘paddle factory’ for power plants wants to be at the forefront within Stork (18,000 employees in 100 countries). ’’We want no Stork branch to be able to ignore us. And that will succeed, partly thanks to the cooperation within Innovatiecluster Drachten.’’ Stork in Sneek gets production allocated from different locations, because of their lead with 3D metal printing. ’’We make use of the 3D metal printer in the ICD shared facility center in Drachten with other ICD companies. Starting with a few hours of development time, an employee of ours now sits there two days a week.'' Together with the other companies and students from the University of Groningen, Reinsma is discovering the possibilities of 3D metal printing. ''It means a different way of thinking and working. With printing, you design products to build on whereas with milling you design according to the principle of removing material. The best part is that we can now make things that we couldn't get done with metal milling before. And colleagues at other Stork sites see that too.''
Hydrogen
Great interest in hydrogen is shown by the Statesmen as Castien tells of the construction of special filling stations throughout the Netherlands that his company is collaborating on. He does not entirely allay their fears about hydrogen being hyper-combustible, although they understand that the technology is in good hands at Resato. After all, Resato is a specialist in extreme high pressure of 14,000 bar. One state member wants to know if the wild stories about the unfeasibility of the infrastructure are true. Another has questions about the range of hydrogen buses. But the key question is: will everything be electric or not? Castien believes everything that runs on gasoline now will become electric and all diesels will become hydrogen. ’’In both cases we speak of electric driving and only the storage of the energy differs.’’ Fuel cells (with hydrogen) are necessary because otherwise the current electricity grid would have to be five times as heavy. That is not realistic, according to Castien. ''That's why we are discussing with other parties a plan for good coverage of hydrogen fueling stations. Because just watch, within five to 10 years driving on electricity will become cheaper than fossil fuel.''