In April of 2002, the United States sent out a questionnaire to likely PATH members. It asked for responses to assess the needs of potential members, PATH’s potential roles and the view of PATH’s potential. Responses were received from three countries: Argentina, Japan and the United States. These responses were compiled in an email and sent out to PATH representatives. A brief summary of the responses was revealing in demonstrating areas where interests merged and diverged.

There seemed to be general agreement that the greatest challenge faced by all hydrogen associations is obtaining attention and resources from government for hydrogen and fuel cells. In this regard there was divergence as to the role of PATH. The U.S., Canada and Japan saw information exchange as the most important activity that PATH could facilitate while Argentina looked to PATH to support its internal efforts to obtain governmental interest. The Japanese and Canadian information exchange activities focused on technical and standards information while the U.S. was more interested in PATH raising international awareness and facilitating exchanges between governments. All responders agreed that PATH should develop common materials that could be used to obtain governmental support.

As to the role of PATH, the general feeling was that PATH required three things: organization; promotion of its advantages and activities; and membership recruitment from Pacific Rim countries such as China, Australia and Korea. The activities that the responders said were most important were developing topical reports, sharing experiences and information about projects, and developing an information database for hydrogen. The responders indicated that invitations to PATH meetings and personal member contact were two effective ways to grow PATH membership.

On the issue of demonstration projects the U.S., Canada and Argentina were positive about PATH having a role in such projects while the Japanese had no specific hydrogen project which they could propose for multi-lateral participation. On the specific role of PATH in demonstration projects, there were diverse opinions: Argentina saw PATH as a co-financier, consultant and possible participant, Japan did not see a meaningful role for PATH, and the U.S. saw PATH as a facilitator and disseminator of information about the projects. On a related question, there was strong support for PATH conducting hydrogen workshops in support of emerging hydrogen associations.

On the question of PATH’s role with respect to research exchanges, Argentina, Canada and Japan were strongly supportive while the United States saw PATH only as a facilitator of this activity. There was general agreement that this activity be directed toward universities, national laboratories and research institutions.

PATH is currently undertaking research on codes and standards in the U.S., Canada and Japan. What follow-on topics should be considered for study? The topics are the regulatory framework for each country, the process for deregulating the hydrogen infrastructure and a study of government and non-governmental research support for hydrogen by country.

In other parts of the survey questions were asked about research topics to be performed by research organizations. The responses to those questions included: studying implementation of codes and standards, global study of natural resources to produce hydrogen and the potential to utilize them, and developing an approach to elevate discussion of the hydrogen economy to international bodies like the UN and World Bank in order to gain international acceptance.