 Welcome to Hawaii, the state of clean energy. I'm Mitch Yuan. I'm your host today. My day job, I'm at the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute. This show is sponsored by the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum, who works to identify and support good energy policy for the state of Hawaii. We've been around for about 18 years almost. And we've been involved in many of the really good energy legislation that has been passed over the last 17 years or so. I'll be talking about Hawaii's hydrogen economy and how we're supporting it. And just so you know, it's the law. So let's start rolling. And I just want to highlight my awesome little logo that we've got here, H2YE, in case you missed that. And my young tech over on the Big Island did the jazzed up the logo a little bit by adding the Hawaii Islands at the end of the two, if you can just see it there in the green. So he did a great job. So next slide, please. So big question, why hydrogen in Hawaii? You may ask. So really, in my opinion, everything on the show is my opinion, has the potential to displace imported fossil fuels for transportation and other applications and use energy applications. So it could be one of the solutions to addressing climate change and also getting Hawaii off fossil fuels and keeping the money in our own economy. We can manufacture it from anything. Any of our indigenous renewable energy resources here in Hawaii, geothermal, sun, wind, eventually wave energy when it gets there. Biomass is a really good source of hydrogen and others. And what it also brings is energy security to Hawaii. Like what happens when the oil tankers stop coming? Not because we can totally convert it off fossil fuels, but there's some kind of a glitch in the oil economy, whatever, for whatever reason that ship doesn't show up. We're in big trouble because we don't have a lot of stored fossil energy on the islands. And really important, it retains money in the Hawaii economy, which all that oil, all that money we export, I have a slide on that, I think next slide, is exported out of our economy. But if we keep it in our economy, it supports lots of great jobs for Hawaii residents. So that's good for the economy and it's good for the job. Lots of good reasons of why hydrogen in Hawaii. So really, the point of this slide is to show all the different kinds of vehicles that are currently commercially available that run on hydrogen. And 30 years ago when I got in the hydrogen business, there would have been zero vehicles on that slide that run on hydrogen, except maybe the space shuttle and a few aerospace applications, but not like we have today. So, but the challenge or what we don't have is we don't have the hydrogen infrastructure to support all those vehicles. So it's sort of like the vehicle manufacturers are just chomping at the bit to be able to sell their product, but until we have hydrogen infrastructure, they can't do it because if you can't fuel your car, you're not gonna buy a hydrogen car. And if it's not convenient, that's also a factor in your decision to buy a hydrogen car. So that's what we're focusing on at HNEI, Instantly is looking at helping to develop the hydrogen infrastructure here in Hawaii. So next slide. So what are the building blocks we need to support this effort? So number one, and I highlighted it in red because it's so important, is we need the political will. We need the political class to jump on board and provide the leadership and take the risks and most of all, gather the resources and set goals and objectives, hold people to that so that we can implement a hydrogen plan for Hawaii. So out of that political will, and it has to be consistent. It can't be just up and down, oh, we're gonna do it for two years, and then we stop, it has to be consistent. And the money that comes in also has to be consistent because this is all long-term stuff. So you have to have the right policies and plans and I'm happy to say, and we'll talk about another slide, Hawaii's done a really good job on putting together hydrogen policies and we are developing plans. Obviously you have to have the resources, I said before, we have great renewable energy resources here that you can use to make hydrogen. Then I call it a strategic project, like not make work projects or nice to have projects, you gotta have a strategic imperative in mind. I mean, this project is gonna do this and it's important because of that. Then you have to have your community supporting you because after all they pay the taxes and they ping on the politicians to say, hey, we want this Mr. Politician. And we're already seeing that certainly on the big island, we've got a lot of political support and we've got a lot of community support for hydrogen buses on the big island. We'll talk a little bit about that as we go through. And then you need strategic partners here, both here on Hawaii, it'd be great if all the utility companies climbed on board because they could be very, very important strategic partners and supporting it rather than fighting it. And then our suppliers, the people that supply us the equipment, the electrolyzers, the compressors, the vehicles themselves, like we have one company, US Hybrid, who is here in Hawaii that's been supporting us for the last 20 years and a really important partner. And so as a little tagline says at the bottom of the slide, we're doing all six of these in a good way and we've really come a long way in the last 15 years. Roll on to the next slide. So as I said at the opening, it's really important to have the right policies and plans in place to support this effort. I mean, it's a key, so I drew the little key icon on there in case you didn't notice that. But as I said, it's enshrined in the law, it actually says in the Hawaii revised statutes that it is Hawaii state policy to establish a Hawaii hydrogen economy. And I don't know of any other state that has that and that was like 10 years ago that was put in place. So really forward thinking and I'm gonna give a lot of credit to the legislature at the time who put that in and the continuing legislatures that have kept it on the books really important and that provides consistency because as long as it's on the books, it really helps in your justification when you're rolling out some of these long-term projects where you can point to the statute and say, look, this is actually the law. Now, how well it's implemented and enforced, that's another thing, but at least it's there on the book. So I don't know of anybody else that has that on the book. And a lot of people now are looking, a lot of organizations and not Hawaii are looking at Hawaii for leadership and lessons learned and how can we do it too. So next slide. So the program, the overall objective as the top line says, I hate reading slides, but I have a poor memory so I gotta use them as a crutch. It's really a transition the state to renewable hydrogen economy. And it's getting that infrastructure in place, as I said, is the key element because the vehicle manufacturers, they've got it nailed down now. And so, I mean, I can go here in Hawaii and on Oahu through the Toyota dealership at Servco and they're actually leasing hydrogen vehicles, the Mariahs, an awesome car. They have their own hydrogen station there so they can support it. And it's a really great deal as far as a lease rate because you get the car, you get all your maintenance for three years and you get all your hydrogen for three years. This for the low, low price of whatever it is. I don't know what it is today so I don't wanna put a false number out there, but go down and talk to the people at Servco and take it for a test drive. It's really an awesome car. You'd be really impressed. So, you know, we have to do all the normal stuff. We have to do our strategic R&D, which is what we do at H&E I. We test stuff. I mean, sales people come along and say, God, my electrolyzer, my compressor is the best thing since sliced bread. It won't rust. Not even the salt air environment guaranteed. And we put it out there in places like the Marine Corps base and at Nelha and, lo and behold, we find out a lot of things that do rust, because they just, like they're just trying to make the sale so they gloss over the fact that the guy in the shop putting together just picks out the non-stainless steel bolt to do something else because it's easy for them. We need to jump on them and make sure they enforce QA and that I'm just using that as an example because, you know, it's really expensive to change out equipment that rusts out. And the Marine Corps base, I have a station there. You wouldn't believe the level of rust that we've even counted a level of corrosion is really a eye opener. Even the guys from Toyota corporate were amazed, but wow, this is unreal. So we do that kind of stuff. Obviously, when we're running these systems, we take data on how well they do engineering or technical-wise, how they perform and then also how much they cost, A to buy and then B to maintain because, you know, when things rust through, you got to change parts. You got to bring people in to do maintenance on it. Sometimes the expertise is not available here in Hawaii, so you got to bring a guy in from the mainland. So, you know, you have to pay his travel time, his air time, his hotel, his local transportation, plus his time when he's actually doing the work and then you have to pay for him going back home. So that all adds up. And so obviously we want systems that you don't have to bring the guy out from the mainland. We want to have our own people here in Hawaii who know how to do it. So we just have to bring him in from Mililani or from Campbell Industrial State to pick your compressor, for example. So we want to look at how electrolyzers and hydrogen systems can support the reliability of our grid either through backup power or like as a variable load and also for security projects to increase the penetration of renewable energy so that we don't have to rely on that ship coming in. And we also do the demonstration projects, you know, because, you know, like I said, we're gathering all this equipment, we're putting it together, we're putting it out there on the field. How well does it work? And it also gives us an opportunity to do outreach and demonstrate it to our local population, the local taxpayers and give them the experience of, you know, why should we have this here in Hawaii? Wow, this is a great Merike vehicle. I'd really like to have one. Where do I get the hydrogen for it? And then of course we're also promoting our renewable resources to investors who can come in and say, gee, if I put up this big PV array, I can be making electricity, maybe I can make hydrogen with it, or a wind turbine, I can be, maybe if it's dedicated purely to hydrogen, I can, you know, find a way to do that. Also, a new legislation that came out thanks to Riley Sato of the County of Hawaii R&D department, it's a transportation services contracting has now been approved for the counties so that private industry can come in and supply the buses and all the infrastructure and they charge a usage fee, like so much for vehicle mile travel or for passenger mile travel. Great innovative program that nobody else is doing and this is gonna be really good for the good old US of A on the main line as well. Next slide. So one of the legislations that the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum helped to implement or bring to life was the formation of the Hawaii Hydrogen Implementation Working Group. So when I originally wrote the Hawaii Hydrogen Plan, I put in there this working group idea to help coordinate all the various departments in making sure that we try to knock down any of the barriers or the speed bumps through implementing hydrogen and also to keep the legislature and the governor and his staff informed on the progress, where the holes are and where we need help. And so that was headed up by Hcat, General Stan Osserman who unfortunately for us and maybe fortunately for him, he's just retired like last month. So we've got to rejuvenate that but it was established by the legislature, like I said, it coordinates the Hawaii Hydrogen Program and all the major stakeholders are represented the government, industry, academia, meaning like academics like UH, reports the legislature, the meetings are open to the public. So we exercise the sunshine law and right now it really needs, in my opinion, needs a rep from the governor's office to provide a little bit more authority. Originally in my hydrogen plan, I called it the Hawaii Hydrogen Authority and nobody liked that word authority. So it was much easier just to say implementation working group so that they didn't have to have somebody imposing something on them. Although I still think that's a good idea and we should make it an authority so that a referee listens to everybody and he helps make the decision blows his whistle so that's it, got it, we're off. This is what we're gonna do. I like authority. Now, we have to make a break. The authority running this show says I need to come in for a short commercial so we'll be back in one minute. Aloha, I'm Winston Welch, host of Out and About. It's a show that we have every other Monday on Think Back Live here. We explore a variety of topics that are really interesting. We have organizations, events and the people who fuel them in our city, state, country and world. We've got some amazing guests on here like all the shows at Think Tech. So if you wanna catch up on stuff, tune into my show every other Monday and other shows here on Think Tech Live. It's a great place to learn about stuff, to be informed and if you have some ideas, come on my show, let's talk about it. See you later and Aloha. Aloha, I'm Keisha King, host of At the Crossroads where we have conversations that are real and relevant. We have spoken with community leaders from right here locally in Hawaii and all around the world. Won't you join us on thinktechhawaii.com or on YouTube on the Think Tech Hawaii channel. Our conversations are real, relevant and lots of fun. I'll see you at the Crossroads. Aloha. So we're back, we're alive at Hawaii, the state of clean energy and look at all that clean energy out here behind me. That's all kind of wave energy, there's sun energy there and I bet if we put a wind turbine we'd never be able to get it approved but there's lots of wind there too. So there's an example and of course we're looking at a bunch of hydrogen in there. Of course it's connected to oxygen which is water and so we need to be able to split that hydrogen off all that water you see in the background and all my classmates up in Canada eat your hearts out. Anyway, let's carry on with the next slide. I don't want to run out of time so I want to talk a little bit about our resources so we'll move on to the next slide. So by resources in this case I'm not talking about the energy sources. I'm talking about money because money makes this stuff go. You can't do it on air and you can't do it on vaporware. Eventually you gotta stand up onto the plate and you gotta actually spend some real money on it. So I remember speakers say, we had a meeting about 10 or 11 years ago during the summer break and he went around the table and asked everybody what they needed and I put my hand up bravely and said, we need money to be career. We need real money in the million dollar range. Up till now we've been able to do these little projects through creative accounting or whatever you want to call it, 50, $60,000. I know that probably sounds like a lot of money to some people out there but to get these big projects, these multi-million dollar projects in here we have to come up with our cost share and the cost share could be one or two million dollars to leverage four or five million dollars so for a total pot of maybe six or seven million dollars. So we can't do that on just vaporware. At the end of the day, you have to have cash because you actually have to buy things and you actually have to pay for people for engineering and all the things you have to do. So they formed out of that they formed the Hawaii Investment Capital Special Fund which was really innovative and I don't think anybody else has done that once again. This was world-leading stuff and we did this 10 years ago and they put $10 million into that fund. If you look at it on a per capita basis, say Hawaii, let's round numbers so I don't have to do any special math, like we have a million residents here in Hawaii compared to California which has 30 million residents. So if you do it on a per capita basis that was like equivalent to a $300 million deal. If you look, if you kind of compared it to the population so that was a big investment and so what they were gonna do with that is first of all to, like I said, cost share this federal money, the research money where we needed the cost share and also they wanted to look at funding startups and good ideas. And so the source of the funds was the legislature. Right now it is, but anybody can contribute. So any of you very wealthy individuals out there who wanna make a contribution please contribute to the Hawaii investment a hydrogen investment capital special fund. Never happened, but you don't ask, you don't get. So next slide please. So as I said, funded at $10 million. I won't read through the whole thing. Basically the fund has now been depleted. All the funds have been dispersed. A lot of the infrastructure projects I've been working on were beneficiaries of that fund and we use it to leverage quite a lot of federal money. It also went to support Hawaii Volcano National Park supported their hydrogen bus. Little update on that because of the eruption the two buses that were gonna be deployed at the Hawaii Volcano National Park have now been transferred over to the County of Hawaii the Big Island bus. So they will now have three hydrogen buses. I could call that fleet of buses. And so H&EI will be supporting that providing the hydrogen and all the technical support to help them run that. So they also as I said they made like kind of venture capital investments like they made an investment in Pacific biodiesel to help them with their biodiesel plant over on the Big Island. And that was a big help and they're still in business and doing well. And that's it for now. I just wanna cut to the next one. So the other sources of resources i.e money is the barrel tax. So as you can see that was enacted in 2010. It's a dollar five per barrel of oil and generates about $30 million a year approximately. That's what that little weekly sign means. And 60% of it goes to the general fund. So the legislature at the time that's when Hawaii was in pretty bad financial shape. So they hived off the 60%. It was all supposed to go to renewable energy project pretty well. Although some of it went to the oil spill clean up fund state energy office, department of ag and some of it went to H&EI. In fact, we've used some of that our barrel tax money to fund the bus for the county of Hawaii, the Big Island bus system. So that their third bus is one that was purchased out of barrel tax money. It's a beautiful bus. I think I have a picture in one of my next slides or the next show off for sure have it. And right now we need some more money to replenish that fund. And so that's one of the asks that I think we're gonna be asking for in this legislative session. Next slide. So one of the things is as I said earlier you can't just do projects for the sake of doing a project just to keep researchers employed. There has to be a strategic need for it. So the programs have to be seen as being a cost effective, providing effective solutions for the tax paying public. What's the benefit of that to the general public? Why should I be doing this? Well, in this case, by looking at the hygiene infrastructure and the public transportation, that's helping us transition to this hygiene economy, non-fossil fuel economy and demonstrating it to the public and allowing the public to actually ride in one of these vehicles because they can take the bus. These things will be used in revenue service on the Big Island. These projects, we're competing for scarce resources. I mean, there's just not a lot of money just lying around. So that's why we have to make our case. And we have to have a long-term strategy versus just like I said, some short-term make work project. And then we need success stories. Like once we accomplish something, we need to tell everybody, like the technology's been validated, hey, it's affordable, and then we need champion. And that's starting to happen now on the Big Island in the hygiene scene. So the city, the county council is really stepping up to the plate in supporting this both with policy and eventually I hope with funding. Basically rejuvenate their whole bus system, which is based on diesel engines. Out of 65 buses they're supposed to have, they only have nine buses on the road belonging to the county. And then they're renting buses from Roberts to fill in the schedule. And so they don't have a legacy system. Those buses, even the ones they have on the road are old and pretty well worn out. Most of them are. There may be a couple of newer ones. So the idea is to look at replacing them with zero-emission buses. And some of those could be hydrogen, some of those could be battery electric buses. Of course, I'm pushing the hydrogen bus. So we need the champions, but we in the research community and we need to come up with winning projects as well. I mean, we need to show success that this has been a worthy investment. Next slide. One of the things we did, both on Oahu and on the Big Island, is we need to get the first responders on board, our firefighters, because like it says, the name says they're the first responders. And so when we're looking to get systems permitted and looking at safety and all that kind of stuff, the first thing the permitting guys do is they turn to the fire chief and say, is this okay? Is this safe? Because the permitting guys are really dedicated to safety. They take that on as their mission and they're very, very careful. And the rules and reggae and the codes and standards are like a book about that thick. It takes a lot of work to follow your way through it. So if you get the first responders on board and they can tell the planner or the permitting guys, yeah, this is okay. We've checked it out. It worked. We're comfortable with it. And that makes it much easier for that permitting guy to sign off on your permit. So we trained over 300 first responders, about 150 on each island. I was both classroom and field working. You see some of the pictures we took out there in the field where they had this fake car. It was all like, you know, stainless steel car with a dummy in it, a real dummy. And then they'd have hydrogen and or natural gas or, you know, copain piped into the car. And they'd look at the difference between the two types of fires and then how you address it. And then a lot of the classroom time was focused on electric vehicle stuff. Like what wires do you have to cut? Say a car is turned over or it's fully wrecked so you can get the people out of the car but you don't want to electrocute either the first responder or the person in the car. So, you know, about 60% or more of the program was just involved in an electric vehicle whether it's a battery electric vehicle or a hydrogen vehicle, it didn't matter because a hydrogen is an electric vehicle and it does have batteries. We want to have batteries on a hydrogen car because we have to have a place to put the regenerator braking in there. Well, that's it. And the fire department really loved it. They thought it was great and they're pretty comfortable with it. We need to do another series of these tests or training sessions with them to refresh it. That's the show for today and I will continue doing hydrogen shows as we go along so that I can roll it out in biteable bites and not try to overwhelm you. And so that's it for today. We'll be back next Wednesday and I'm not sure who we're gonna have. If I can't get some other person to come on and talk about their project then I'm gonna talk about hydrogen some more. So, you're on notice. So anyway, thank you very much and until next Wednesday, aloha.