 I'm going to stand the energy man here in Tekaua'i, Stan Osserman, coming to you live and direct from beautiful downtown Kailua, Hawaii. I've turned off my rooster for the day and my dog is sleeping, but she's been kind of antsy lately, so I may have to go mute, but that's good because I have a really good guest today and he'll be doing most of the talking. You know, 2020 was a kind of a wild and crazy year with a lot going on, especially in not just the political world, but in the energy world, and one of the guys that I know that keeps his finger on the pulse of energy, particularly hydrogen energy, is Keith Malone from the California Pulse Health Partnership, and he is on with us today, and we're going to talk a little bit about what happened in 2020, what were the predictions, how did it actually turn out, and he's going to bring up his crystal ball after the break and try and help us figure out what's going on in 2021, assuming we don't have all hell breaking loose someplace on the planet. And so anyway, Keith, welcome, welcome, welcome to the show today. You've been on before, so, but why can't, can you just give the viewers just a few seconds of your background at the California Pulse Health Partnership and energy over there in California? Eight and a half years with the partnership, I do public affairs, government relations, news media relations, communications, I'm paid to talk and write about that. And you're very good at it. You put out a really awesome newsletter. I mean, I tell you, I've actually, if you don't know this, you can probably sue me in court or something, but I'll take your newsletter and I'll give you full credit for it, but I go through your stories and I just capture them and summarize them and put them out there. You give everybody a hint about what's going on in the world because your newsletter captures everything so well. So I do plug your organization and your newsletter quite a bit, but let's take a look back at 2020 and can you give us an idea of what were some of the predictions in January of 2020 that kind of gave you some hope and then maybe we get into how did it actually turn out in 2020? Well, for the last several years, I was personally predicting that 2020 would be our year. I mean, we had the Tokyo Olympics coming and it somehow just it seemed that there was enough momentum if you've been tracking it well. And it just seemed like 2020 seemed to be the right moment when we would really kind of have our world debut. And some of that was just me. And but, you know, January hit and then COVID hit and I thought, and I think many in the hydrogen and fuel cell world globally thought this is going to slow down and then to everyone's amazement completely the opposite. It accelerated beyond I think what any hydrogen or fuel cell stakeholder imagined it would be. It just I think a lot of us are reasonably shocked at how much the pace is picked up and the kinds of announcements that have taken place. It's just it's a little hard to get your arms around. Yeah, I think you're right. And I remember back in actually in late 2019 and then into early 2020. One of the things that got my attention really big time was announcement by several companies that up to three liquid hydrogen plants were being built in the U.S. and I think all of them were 30 tons a day and it just so happened I just finished talking with folks at the Department of Energy and asking them what what's the minimum size high liquid hydrogen plant that you can build and expect to break even or make money and they said 20 tons a day and here we get three announcements I think by two different companies that they were building 30 ton a day hydrogen plants in the U.S. and all of the public announcements said for transportation and I just at first I couldn't believe it. I thought this can't be right. I mean it's got to be for something else. But they've been they've been pressing on COVID and all they've been pressing forward and I think one of the one of the plants is in Texas and one or two of them I think are in California. You would know that better than me. Not one in California. I think there's going to be some interesting announcements in the next couple of months but one of the big plants that's being built specific hydrogen plants that's being built specifically for transportation is the air liquid plant in north Las Vegas and that's intended to serve the West. And for the time being primarily California that's one of the big ones. That kind of came out of 20 late came out of 2019 and their products followed with an announcement. I don't know where they're going because they wound up buying up buying up a number of hydrogen plants in California over the last year or so. But it's clear that a lot of moves were made for any number of reasons and it's hard to just focus on the United States because this really is. I don't know how else to say it but it's really a global launch not just to fuel cell electric vehicles but hydrogen as well. And so but so many major projects announced around the world. Some breaking ground like the air liquid plants started breaking ground. I'm hoping I think we're supposed to see it open this year probably at the end of this year. I've learned never to be too specific about dates because construction is just it is what it is. It's like building a bathroom and they tell you it's going to take four weeks the next three months later and you're finally getting most of it done. I learned a trick when I was in the military from our civil engineers when it came to construction. They'd always say it'll be done in February or it'll be done in November and they'd never say the year and after a while it started it started to connect why they never said the year because they could be two or three years off because we're doing military construction you have to deal with congressional funding and stuff and like one time the price of steel in China China was buying up all the steel the price of steel went up and our military construction exceeded the congressional ceiling for spending on the building. We literally had to go back to Congress and and ask for them to re-approve the money for our building. Yeah it's um it's it can be sometimes it feels a little frustrating like the California our light duty fueling network in California had a bit of a slowdown for a couple of years but just in 2020 in September confirmed in December that the California Energy Commission funded more than a hundred light duty stations for the state. They'll be funded and built over the next probably three to five years. How many do you have in service right now? We've got uh so today we just welcomed the Berkeley station to the network. So we're at about I'd say about 45 again like numbers I really am aloved to cite a specific number because sometimes stations come online there are others that go offline it may be their time but we have a station map that shows the stations that are open the stations that are in development and it gives a really good perspective on what's going on we don't have all of those newly funded uh hundred hydrogen stations we have some of them and because there's some that they have yet to designate a location for and as those come on and we identify them they'll be added in. Okay and so some of the other things that really caught my attention in 2020 were Nicola Motors the purchase of what is it what was it hydrogen hydrogenics by Cummins diesel some of those things could could you kind of expand on on what you learn on on some of those transactions or some of those activities? Well I think I can probably break some of these down by categories because there's a lot going on probably over the last two three years but especially in the last year the heavy duty fuel cell category has really taken off not just trucking we're also talking about marine vessels you're seeing major players enter the market you're seeing light duty automakers like Toyota and Hyundai entering the heavy duty field Hyundai had their announcements about the 1600 truck project in Switzerland they're now looking at the US as well Toyota has been building on its earlier announcements prior to 2020 with their fuel cell trucks Cummins has been over the last year very aggressive in its communications about where it intends to go not just trucking but also we're also talking about in the bus category as well as the rail category. Yeah people forget about train that's a perfect fuel cell market right there. Absolutely we saw a lot more indications about it even California is looking at it the state of California as they kind of build they make plans for where things are going we also saw Daimler Daimler and Volvo a joint venture with trucks Toyota and its heavy duty subsidiary Hino building heavy duty trucks as well as medium duty trucks kind of delivery trucks I'm trying to think of what else in the heavy duty category but there's a lot going on and Nikola certainly had it's had some difficult moments this last year but I think they're pulled out of it they're showing stability they inked their deal with GM they're going to be using GM fuel cells which are really GM Honda fuel cells GM and Honda have that joint manufacturing facility in the Midwest so so in the heavy duty category a lot of activity going on and I think we're going to hear more announcements this year as well. So how's that San Francisco ferry doing the fuel cell ferries did it launch yet? Not yet not yet we should see that happen it looks like there's another project it's really early it's too early to kind of describe what's going on there as well you're seeing the Norwegians begin to move aggressively in that category I mean that's where they excel and they should I mean if they're not going to be if we don't see them as a leader in fuel cell marine efforts I'd be really surprised but we are seeing a number of projects that are launching so hats off to them but it's on the marine side and then even beyond and when we're talking marine there's almost where you want to talk about kind of medium duty marine and then when we're talking about the really the big transport and container ship something yes there's a lot of discussion going on there as well and that we're starting to see some focus they're looking at hydrogen it may not um there's a lot of talk going on but they see hydrogen as an opportunity they see hydrogen as one means of really decarbonizing their sector yeah because they are big carbon producers and you know I mean you know the people don't realize I did I did one of my shows here on the sorry on maritime um and people don't realize about I've actually designed to build a couple boats and my current one is is really fuel efficient it only burns uh two and a half gallons of gas an hour at 10 knots which and it's 33 foot um but but you know what I know about the non-compressibility of water and trying to push something through water those big ships are displaced in an awful lot of water and it takes a huge amount of power to keep them moving and they don't just crawl along they may not look like they're moving fast but they're moving 15 20 knots um to get you know to get their cargo where they need it and that's a that's a huge challenge but the fuel cells are up to it um and they're up to it because compared if you want to go like to all battery boats you'd be carrying so many batteries you wouldn't be able to carry any cargo but when you start to look at hydrogen and fuel cells in that mix now you're starting to look at real potential to produce enough power there and not have to be carrying tons of uh cobalt lead or whatever um to store your energy and you could carry hydrogen which is 14 times lighter than air um and liquid hydrogens you know perfect for that kind of stuff but I I agree with you I think that's again another future thing that we can look forward to is getting shipping and what I'd like to see here in Hawaii and I think you're working on it in California um is like your drainage trucks and also cold iron what they call cold ironing where you your big ships when they pull into port they're not allowed to use their own generators they have to use port power so they don't pollute and um you know those are two areas where I think Honolulu could really jump on it right now and start cleaning up the harbors and exploring possibilities with hydrogen um to provide the power absolutely and you have companies like here in southern California at the LA and Long Beach ports um you're likely going to see something coming out of Toyota Suzhou which is a kind of sibling um in the Toyota kind of family of companies to Toyota Motor Company and they're going to be working on I think a project to kind of demonstrate making hydrogen onsite at the ports for variety purposes for fueling as well as for generating power for those ships coming in um you know in the trucking sector this this this marine kind of discussion reminded me we also saw one of the Toyota talked about one of their trucks going up and over Pike's Peak um you know which also kind of replicates uh one of the buses out of AC Transit in Oakland going up and over the Donner Pass so you know really depending on the type of fuel cell you have how many fuel cells you've got on fuel cell stacks and whatnot you've got on board I mean they can do they can do the tough duty they can really do a lot I learned I learned from US Hybrid they're in torrents they did a lot of our conversions for our vehicles for the Air Force and um the real trick is um balancing fuel cell and battery in the vehicle um for example the the vehicles that we made for the Air Force were battery dominant they were primarily battery but they had a fuel cell to recharge the batteries and keep them charged up um and for certain for certain purposes that works really great but Toyota uh in their Mirai did just opposite they have small batteries and they have a really big fuel cell so I think the new Toyota is like like up to 120 something kilowatts and the old one was 114 kilowatts that's that's a huge amount of power out of a fuel cell for just the car so depending on what use you want to do what you want to try in a class A truck like you say or a car you know you decide what the battery fuel cell mix is going to be and design it for the kind of terrain it's going to go on in the altitudes and things and you're often off and running and uh it's just getting that right mix right and you've got a really good electric vehicle and and I think it was great you brought up the the new Toyota Mirai the 2021 Toyota Mirai which kind of debuted in December and they're launching right now and for anyone who hasn't seen it go online type in 2021 Toyota Mirai because right now you have on the road first generation Mirai and you have the 2021 version which is beautiful it's a beautiful car absolutely and they've done amazing work it's gone from a four-seater to a five-seater they've increased the mileage by 30 percent it's a beauty and I am looking forward to seeing the reactions to it if you even look at the the kind of the motor trend and others that have reviewed the vehicle you're seeing things like CNET in one of its the captions for the vehicle said lovely lovely lovely Toyota and they had previously panned the design of the first generation Mirai which is a nice design this one really tops I mean really kind of takes it well beyond that and motor trend even grudgingly admitted we like this car more than we thought we would have and so I agree Toyota really Toyota has been amazing I mean they started off with the Prius and everybody panned and who pood and stuff and and here we are now look at how many are on the road and then they started off with the Mirai and everybody said it'll never take off and looks kind of plain Jane and it's okay but it's nothing special and now they're they're showing them that they can compete with the big boys and in hydrogen so I'm I agree well also a shout out to Honda and Hyundai for their cars the Honda Clarity fuel cell great car five-seater sedan great to drive I've had a couple of chances to drive it long distance over a period of days loved it the Hyundai Nexo which I'm driving right now here in Los Angeles all three cars are great and we're going to see more coming coming to market BMW announced it's gonna it's gonna start off with a small run but it's coming to market and they started their online I'll call it chatter messaging about the vehicles and really this is about the more we can get that hydrogen infrastructure in place or at least planned and funded the more stability we create for automakers the more they're going to be coming to market with these cars I mean this year or late last year we actually welcomed Ford back into the California fuel cell partnership where they were they were one of our original members we're glad to see them I'll also add other new members included Daimler trucks North America we also welcomed our second city the city of Lancaster which is in northern Los Angeles County and they just declared themselves about a month ago they intend to be the US's first hydrogen city well I tell you what Keith we're gonna we're gonna take a quick break here and we'll be back in 60 seconds and let's talk a little bit more about the future and what's going on in 2021 with hydrogen hey welcome back to stand the energy man here Stan Osterman and Keith Malone coming to us live and direct from beautiful California and we've been talking about what hydrogen did in 2020 that have pretty much amazed all of us I think we were all a little bit surprised when when in spite of COVID and everything else the hydrogen world just kept on taking off and growing and I can tell you right now that growth continues this morning when I talked to Keith on the phone I and when I started off here I asked him if he knew what plug power's price was on their stock because a year ago they were trading in around two dollars and fifty cents a share and today their stock is it's over 60 dollars a share so that just gives you an idea of what the industry is is doing right now and some of the big companies like plug power and hydrogenics and air liqueed some of the big big companies in hydrogen or in gases industrial gases are there they're doing amazing amazing working let me ask you this one question Keith in 2017 the hydrogen council stood up and I was fortunate enough and to be in New York for their second meeting and I was actually trying to get them to host a meeting in Hawaii and that was so selfishly to get tourism dollars into the state of Hawaii and they told me well are you having any big international events in the next year or two and I said no there there weren't any really big ones and they said because we only go where there's either a big banking convention like the Asian Development Bank or the the meeting I met them at they were there because the UN General Assembly was meeting and and I went hmm and it it's because they're so tied in to large industry large political and like like UN type operations international operations that they want to meet with those movers and shakers and make sure they're aware of what's going on in hydrogen and they started off in early 2017 with you know maybe 17 or so initial members and now they're up probably around 60 no what has been the impact it's even more than what impact been yeah they're now at 100 members as of like today or yesterday yeah I think that they've had a huge huge impact because you know the the Department of Energy has been promoting hydrogen for decades yeah and it never just never seemed to take off never seemed to move but boy when the hydrogen council stood up within two years they had people's attention they had investors attention they had industries attention and and they're rocking and rolling and like you say if they're up to over a hundred members now that's a that's an impressive group and and I gotta put my hat hat off to them for the work that they've done because they have moved mountains in the hydrogen world and made it aware made the rest of the other industries aware of what hydrogen can do for them and and they've done us just a bang-up job of it no pun intended well I'll say this mark if you look at the fuel cell partnership the California portion of our membership really is government based you have air quality management districts the state of California for the most part representing government and two cities San Francisco and Lancaster but if you look for the most part at our private and and certainly the California part includes the universities and the transit agencies some transit agencies but if you look at our private sector members they are at minimum national but really most of them are international in nature and it really I I don't see this as much with the battery electric side of the equation but on the fuel cell and hydrogen side this isn't this is an international launch this I mean remember for the vehicles we really got out early we got out in front and he is a really bad lord of the rings reference one nozzle to fuel them all no at least on the mobility side of the equation so okay I tell you Keith we've got about three minutes or so left and thanks can you talk I know that airbus made a big announcement I don't know sometime in the not too distant past they're going to roll out three hydrogen powered aircraft by 2035 they're they're actually designing them now and they're they're going to get them all certified they they plan to put them into service and start selling them by 2035 you have any any insight onto what aviation's doing I know that zero avia and some of the other smaller companies are doing things but have you heard anything more on the aviation side coming up in 2021 not not really for 2021 I think it's a little a longer stretch of time I think 2021 really represents again more activity but also we're beginning to see that sort of mad scramble of a lot of stakeholders who hit the snooze button on hydrogen five to ten years ago and they were caught off guard they stopped watching and a lot of work has happened and so all of a sudden they're seeing it really kind of come out and you're going to see over the next year you started to see it in 2020 but this year they're really going to try and get their arms around it and understand it in a way they have it and I think the utility sector certainly the natural gas utility sector they were already working on hydrogen and exploring it I think the electric utility side of the equation is really working to get their arms around it we already have a national sort of initiative the low carbon resource initiative which is being kind of guided by GTI and EPRI the electric power research institute so I think we're going to see more of that this coming year as the utilities start to stand up and say we're exploring we're going to be exploring hydrogen more than we ever had and see where it fits into the decarbonization toolbox I think sometime in the next couple weeks I'm going to I'm going to do a show on the natural gas slash turbine generation industry on the utility side because a couple of months ago a small group of us as consultants worked with a mainland solar company that was installing a utility grade solar and they wanted hydrogen to be in the mix and part of the mix was they wanted to have a gas turbine that ran on hydrogen so we got we got into talking with Siemens and GE and a couple other companies about the efficiency and and all the pluses and minuses and I'm here to tell you that they're pushing hard to get turbines in that you can run on hydrogen because they know that hydrogen's got a long long legs in front of a long future and they're trying to bridge the fossil fuel world with the hydrogen world that using turbines and I got a wake-up call for you folks it's you might as well just go to fuel cells because the the turbines are to put in the short short piece if you're burning hydrogen you're not efficient at all and fuel cells don't burn hydrogen they they use it at the most efficient level now it it may not be as efficient as a battery in battery out but it's certainly way way better than any kind of combustion whether it's internal combustion or turbines or anything fuel cells still way more efficient than those and I think that's we got to start looking at that seriously because here in Hawaii we have a mandate to be off of fossil fuels by 2045 and we're still talking batteries for energy storage and I just don't see how that works so you and I are going to have to strategize on that one and come up with a way that let the utilities know in a polite way that they're marking up the wrong tree when they're looking at lithium cobalt batteries well we've started to see the solar and wind categories begin to look at hydrogen now in a way they never have before we began to see that in late 2019 so don't be surprised but it's an evolution you know there's an evolution to all of this and it's just it's the in-between part it's the how and when are we going to get there we know we're going to decarbonize we're know we're going to go to renewable hydrogen and zero carbon hydrogen and the question really between now and then is how are we going to do it and what's it going to look like and that's where all that that's where the devil is in the details you're right key and I thank you again for being on the show today and and also sending out the great publications that you do from the California fuel cell partnership keep up the good work and I'll need me to get you back on the show probably in a couple months and get updated again but keep up the good work over there in California keep it from falling into the ocean so that we we don't have oceanfront property here up at high levels in Hawaii and keep on keep on doing what you're doing because you're doing a great job and thanks for being on again today glad to be here right all right that's going to do it for stan energy man today and we'll see you next Tuesday