 This is Stink Tech, Hawaii. Community matters here. Hey, Aloha, and welcome to Stand Energy Man. This week on Aloha Friday on my lunch hour, it's been a busy month this month. I have no idea how it's going by so fast, but what I wanted to do is throw a poster up and show you how I spent the early part of the month in New York City. I went to the Hydrogen Council, and I wanted to throw this up there because I wanted people to understand that the hydrogens start to make a move. So this is the Hydrogen Council, so like one liner, but you can see the companies down below that are involved, Kawasaki, Honda, Shell, Toyota, you know, Air Lequid, big companies, Audi. There's big car companies, big oil companies, and other folks that are really contributing to this organization. And they've moved up from 17 CEOs, you see in the upper left there, but they're talking 10 billion euros in investment money and assets, and their goal is to reduce carbon emissions to zero, and they want to focus on hydrogen as the tool. So I tried to bring this graphic in in the last two shows, but didn't get a chance to throw it up, and I wanted to bring it up for a little bit today. Anyway, to today's show, as a result of that meeting in New York, I was connected with an handsome gentleman from Paris who does consulting work and does some great stuff over in Europe, and I had a chance this week to talk to him. It's a great opportunity for me to kind of get a European perspective on hydrogen and for him to look at what we're doing out here in Hawaii, on an island community with hydrogen. So I've got Joelle Royette from Paris, thanks for spending some time with the city. Very happy to be here. I'm really glad you could be on the show today. It was kind of touch and go, but thanks for carving out a little bit of time. I really appreciate it. Perfect timing for me. Thanks. Thanks for the invitation. Well, tell us a little bit about what you do with the bridge tank, and that's your organization, what it does and the kind of work that you do and maybe a little bit about why you're interested in hydrogen. Yeah, we're basically a think tank. So you're a think tech, we're a think tank, and I think this is the kind of two organizations that have to work together when new systems, new innovations have to come up. A think tank generally is a box, a tank where you put ideas and out of the tank you put out influence to policy makers, but also to investors, and this is what we do, and we do that on mostly on energy, mostly on energies that can accompany the fight against climate change, and we've been associated with the Paris Agreement with the COP22 the year after in Marrakech in Morocco, where they've tried to put the agreement of Paris into actions and will be associated on this process. So we are working with guys like you all around the world to have some new initiatives see the ground that the action takes place, but the policy makers have often to know more about that so that we can push them. And this is our job to flag it. Yeah, like they say, words without action or hallucination, right? So think tech, or the think tank makes it go from just an idea to reality. Exactly, but we have to be rooted into projects and we have to be rooted into real technology so it's not for the day after tomorrow, it's for something which is very next to happen, but which is sometimes missing this little twist, or you know this little pinch of push, and this is what you're trying to do. Well, tell us a little bit about what you did in New York during that climate week, what are some of the events that you were involved in or that you enjoyed about the week in New York? Well, you know, there was a climate week, but there's also every year at the same time, there's what they call the UN General Assembly, and this is the week for, you have the week for the heads of state. So it's the moment in the year where you have the highest density of those policy makers, which you can approach more or less different events, and where you can push the agendas of the industry, of researchers, of innovators. So as a think tank, we've been associated with a variety of events from side events, organized by some organizations, like for instance the California State had a side event where they want to promote their next 2018 climate gathering in September. So from those kind of events to side events next to the hydrogen council, or side events of the United Nations themselves, where to try, for instance, this ideal in international development of law organization, they've launched a new initiative to help developing countries receiving legal assistance when they have investments, because sometimes when we have the systems, we want to deploy them not just in rich countries, but also in fast-growing emerging countries. And investments are needed, but all the consultancy expertise around is important. So this is all what you find in this very bustled week in New York, and this was fascinating. Do you find that some of these countries that want to, say, maybe move into new technologies don't have the legal structure to really handle it themselves, the complex contracts and international companies coming into their country to protect themselves? Is that some of the things that you look at? I would say you have to talk about two groups of countries. You have what we call the emerging economies. And our think tank, we work a lot with emerging economies. We are a European-based, European-based think tank, but we also have our board members from China, from India, from countries like Morocco, which are emerging economies already. Now, these economies, they don't lack the system they have. And they even have the space. They are laboratories, if you want to try that. I'll just give you one example. Morocco is the only country in the world which has designed a set of policies that allow them to be under the 1.5 degree change. You have this two degrees change goal from the Paris Agreement. You have only six countries, which are below two. You have only one country, which is below 1.5. This is Morocco. And you have many countries, which are beyond two. So you would have those emerging countries, can be leaders in that. And then you have what we call least developed countries that is in United Nations' parlance. Now, it's still very important to have them on board, because they can have 6% growth, 7% growth sometimes. Or 5% growth is already a big change. With a 5% growth, you double your economy in 15 years. And these countries have the potential, have some investors, and they can have some legal advice from the United Nations-specific organizations, for instance, or from think tanks. OK. Well, you know, I was in New York for the Hydrogen Council. So your trip here, and I think some of your time in New York, you were looking at hydrogen. Can you tell us kind of your general impression of the future of hydrogen in the world? You know how it's going to be used, and kind of give us that future look that you do as a think tank member to get us two years down the road and tell us what you see. And I know I missed you in New York. That's why I had to chase you and come to Hawaii. I'm glad you found me. I'm very glad I found you. Now, I think this year is very special. It's a combination of things. We can get back to that. But with our think tank, we've been lucky to examine what's happening in the US. So the East Coast, both the West Coast and Hawaii. We have opportunities to look at the policies they have in Japan, what happens in Europe, of course. I was mentioning Morocco or China. What we see is that through our network of experts, we see that we're maybe not yet at the tipping point, economically speaking, but technologically speaking, in terms of projects and in terms of interest and awareness, hydrogen is back on the scene. Hydrogen is becoming a real subject for the energy transformation. People are realizing that it will not be an old hydrogen economy. Of course, it's not that we're shifting oil for hydrogen, where the one system would have only one system. No, it's not that. But they're realizing that you can't think of any single system without having hydrogen as part of the equation. Yeah, because I mean, what we have a challenge with a lot of times is in a transportation sector, you have people that love battery electric cars. And those people tend to not like hydrogen. I mean, Elon Musk, who makes the Tesla, he doesn't like hydrogen at all. But the hydrogen people, we think batteries are OK. I mean, we don't have a problem with batteries, but it just doesn't seem to fit. We're not quite like you say at that tipping point where everybody understands that we need to make a lot of changes in our transportation sector and clean it up. And it's going to be electric, but it's going to need plug-in electric. It's going to need maybe even natural gas for a while. And it's going to be hydrogen as part of the mix. We call it all of the above solution to get us to where we need to meet those goals, the climate goals that you're talking about. For us, as a think tank, it's very important to be neutral. So we cannot be on the likes of this. We have our likes, but we're not supposed to tell. So we're not about the likes and dislikes. We have to have the same kind of neutrality as the researchers are supposed to be. But we have to do one thing further, which is to identify what are the next projects, which are possible, what are the next moves, what is needed, what are the bottlenecks, so that those possible things develop and see the day of the light. And then the market will choose as the first aspect. The second aspect is that if you're talking battery, if you're taking hydrogen for mobility, well, I think that more and more the consumer will see electricity at the end. Now, what's at the back up? What's at the backbone of this electricity will be a combination of system. And it can be battery for part of it. It can be hydrogen, fuel cells for part of it. It can be combination within the same system, of course. And I'm not entering into the technology. You know that way better than I know. But it will be a combination. Now, the key question for think tanks like us, for economic think tanks like us, and for the policymakers is to try and understand in a foreseeable, rather near future, what will be the technologies for which kind of segment of mobility. Passenger car in the next two, three years is in this system or that system, or both. Same question in five years, same question in 10 years. Now, same question, same set of questions for the trucks, for the lifters, for different uses. And we have to try and design a map and plan like that. And of course, as one of the Beatles, I think as John Lennon said, life happens while you're busy making plans. So we draw the map and then reality and fast taking guys are upsetting those plans. But we have to keep up at that. And I think there's ample space for all technologies, but I think there's no sustainable system without hydrogen. And this is recognition on that. We had a little bit of a discussion about the relationship between hydrogen and the grid. And I think we both came to a common ground on that, that most people don't realize that connection, that with this electric transformation and transportation, one of the key things is maybe the grid has to understand hydrogen as well as the transportation sector. Do you have any kind of more thoughts on that? Yeah, to keep at peace with the grid people, I'm myself a former grid people. In the 20th century, I started my career with grid planning. Now, grid is something incredibly complex. People have no clue, no realization of how incredibly complex it can be. The thing is that today it's a given, it's a taken. We've designed, we've developed in every country, we've developed a grid for decades. We have this grid. Now, those new renewable energies will kind of not upset the grid but will... Challenge it. Challenge it, you know? Challenge it in a big way. The way it's operated today, the way it runs, and the way it's gonna be planned for the next 10 years or the next decades. And for that second question, frankly, we don't know because how much, which extent of a grid do we know? Do we need, sorry, in the future, a grid is to interconnect different parts. Now, if those different parts are securely enough, I would say autonomous, then you need much less of a grid. But as of now, the grid will be challenged by that. So I think it's your responsibility also, you people in the industry, you people in the think text, to convince the grid people that you can help them that one technology can help securing the challenges that all the technologies are bringing. And this is why I'm saying that we need all of the technology. So batteries are needed for the grid. Hydrogen storage are needed for the grids. That's for grid stability. And then you have another issue. And I think that gradually grid people are recognizing that. Maybe not, as far as I saw, not so much in the US, but I can tell you that in Europe, and especially in Germany, for instance, in the northern Europe, the grid companies are realizing the potential that they have in storing through hydrogen. In Morocco, just this week, there was an agreement with the region of Marrakesh that got signed that some part of their renewables will be stored through hydrogen. They have one of the largest single piece photovoltaic station in the world. That's a lot of challenge for their network and they'll have storage for through hydrogen. This got signed just a couple of days ago as we're talking now. Terrific. Well, we're gonna take a quick break here and show off some of the other shows here on Think Tech Hawaii and we'll be back in 60 seconds. Hi, I'm Pete McGinnis-Mark and every Monday at one o'clock, I present Think Tech Hawaii's research in Manoa where we bring together researchers from across the campus to describe a whole series of scientifically interesting topics of interest both to Hawaii and around the world. So hopefully you can join me one o'clock Monday afternoon for Think Tech Hawaii's research in Manoa. Aloha, my name is Mark Shklav. I'm the host of Think Tech Hawaii's law across the sea. Law across the sea comes on every other Monday at 11 a.m. Please join us. I like to bring in guests that talk about all types of things that come across the sea to Hawaii, not just law, love, people, ideas, history. Please join us for Law Across the Sea, aloha. Hey, welcome back to my lunch hour. Stan the energy man here with Joelle Ray from Paris and from the bridge tank, which is a think tank out of France that helps investors and other folks kind of put it all together and look into the future and decide how they're gonna spend their money and where they're gonna help push technologies and help governments push policies that will help investors and grow economies and things like that. So welcome, I'm glad that we had a chance to snag you while you were out here in Hawaii for a few minutes, so. You got to spend a little bit of time last week, Friday, a week ago at the Oktoberfest where my organization had some portable lights and a generator up and running and some grills, actually, some barbecue stuff that runs off hydrogen. What do you think about all that? Was that okay or? We thought it was pretty cool. I thought, I enjoyed the invitation, first of all, but I thought that was a great, besides then, that it was a great occasion to showcase to people. You know, there's little systems in your hand where your hand, solar energy or wind energy that transforms into those bubbles. Right. Which is hydrogen. We had a little hydrogen. It shows that it's very simple. If it can be produced on a small table, that means everyone can produce that in your own car, in your own house, in your kitchen, maybe. So that's very important to showcase that because we think it's industrial systems, it's, you need a lot of hundreds of millions of dollars. No, you can't do that on a table. At a small scale, of course, but that was important to show that at the end of the circuit, you're back to electricity. And we all know, we've all known for the last 100 years that with electricity, you do everything. Mm-hmm. Yeah, in my office, I didn't show you when you were there, but I have a 12-volt battery and I have an old cookie container from the store, plastic container. It's got water and a little bit of sodium hydroxide to make an electrolyte. And then I have two stainless steel balls of stainless steel wool. And I put it inside the water and I connect it to the battery and I go, we're making hydrogen. And it's making a lot of hydrogen and oxygen. I can't run it for too long or I end up blowing up my office, but you can show people how fast and how easy it is to make the hydrogen in place. And I learned something, which is that when you have a gas burner out of hydrogen, I learned that thanks to you, that you don't burn yourself because the heat was up and you don't burn yourself on the side and you don't have to clean the mess after cooking and it's a try. And I love to cook, so I would want to have that. And you can even light cigars off of hydrogen. I've been told so, I've been told so. Yeah, it was actually a really fun evening. It was a good evening. You should do it again. We'll try that. They do it every year, but we'll try and be part of that all the time. Make it quarterly. That was Rachel's song. People should get a chance to see that. Okay. Did you get a chance to go over and look at the Toyota Mirai on the car? Yeah, briefly, there was one on the side and I'm happy to see that they're gonna deploy these cars on the island. And I'm told there would be some stations as well. So maybe I would have a question. There's something I'm not very clear about is how in Hawaii do you follow the California model? How will you have a Hawaiian model? I think what I've seen is that you have a potential to have a very integrated energy position here. And that's a great advantage that islands can have and developed islands. That's a good discussion to have right now because I propose that Hawaii, we actually learn a lot from California. We steal everything we can from California in hydrogen. Good. They're developing the standardized technology. That's a sign of success when you steal from people. That's a sign of their success. Well, when they say when you copy from one, it's plagiarism. When you steal from many, it's research. Exactly. We do a lot of research from California. Good. But we bring in the standards. We look at their training. We try and learn everything we can from the other states that are into, especially California, doing hydrogen. And California is pushing way ahead of most of the states. But the nice thing is that in Hawaii, we have some in-house incentives. Like we import so much fossil fuel and we don't have local fossil fuels. So it's a huge economic drain on our state to be buying oil and refining our own gasoline when we could be producing it from the sunlight, wind power, geothermal. Ocean thermal. I mean, the list goes on and on of the natural resources we have, energy resources that we have. So the challenge is, as you mentioned, getting the resources that need all the electricity to support the grid, to understand that they could also be using hydrogen as a load when they have too much power, as a storage entity when they need to store power, and as a way to put power back on the grid as a distributed generation from where it's produced, put it right back in the system instead of starting at the power plant and pushing it through substations and transformers for 20 miles where you have it stored, you use it back on your grid right there. So that's the model that we're trying to socialize here. And we think it's a good model and we think that if we can show it here in an island state that the bigger grids, the more complex grids in LA and in other states around the US, they could maybe take some of what we've learned in absorbing renewables and helping the transportation sector as well grow. So, do you... No, what you say is something very important about the kind of external dependency you have on fossil fuels. And my testimony here is that those areas in the world which are the most heavily dependent economically to fossil imports might be, in the future, the most advanced technologically speaking. You've made the point with Hawaii. This is the very same for Japan. Somehow Europe, the western part of Europe is very heavily dependent on gas imports from Russia and etc. I'm not entering geopolitics here, but it's a fact. So there could be a huge potential and these parts might be leading the technological revolution. Now, you have also leaders you wouldn't expect. Some countries in the Middle East know that the transition will happen. They know that oil is going phased out sooner or later at a point. They know that even gas at that time, natural gas at that time will no longer be considered to be clean. In California today, for instance, gas is no longer even considered to be clean. So some countries in the Middle East know that and they might become advanced players. So if we could have a piece of advice to the government of the USA and the mainland, and this is our job to give advice as we are a think tank and we are part of the G20 specific group of think tanks. It's called the Think20 that are gathering how we have working groups on investment and trade and climate change. And we produce advice to the leaders. Our advice, our contribution would be that despite the mainland US is now self-sufficient in terms of fossil energy, don't take a chance. Don't risk being delayed compared with other areas in the world where the hydrogen revolution will take place. It's already a bit of the case for the car industry in this country. So I think there's a point of observation today to be made by the current administration. I think you're right. And fossil fuels are going to be around for some time yet. It's not going to transition right now. It's going to be a long time before hydrogen is really on the forefront of anything. And we need the time. I mean, economically, we can't make enough hydrogen fuel so far as we don't have enough hydrogen stations to support entire communities with tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of hydrogen vehicles. So it'll take a while. But eventually, we'll have better uses for that oil to make durable goods, to do carbon fiber, to make the plastics, advanced plastics that we need, rather than burn it. We're burning a valuable resource. And we probably should be saving that resource for some other things rather than lighting it off. It's like burning money to me. And to burn oil in your car is like burning money. Where hydrogen, you put it in your car, and it turns back into water. And then you make more hydrogen. And you're just borrowing the energy from the atoms. And the beauty of it is that the beauty of hydrogen is even when you crack your oil molecules, you can have greener oil products at the end, because the hydrogen comes from green and renewables. So that's the beauty of it. I would say my taking a look at all this, my kind of main conclusion is that whatever the time hydrogen might take to really find its position and find its fitting into different systems, I think there's a higher cost not to invest now than the cost to invest. Because if you look at it, it's not very costly to invest in. You were mentioning about the battery versus hydrogen. It's true that many car makers or many investors have invested heavily in batteries. And this has brought down the cost tremendously. Of course, those investments should be reimbursed. Those investments should be profitable now. But those investments were big. Let them be profitable. The investments you need to make in hydrogen now are not that high. So there is no competition. You can still invest into the future and not neglecting hydrogen. Because the cost of being the very late people in the class at the end would be much higher. Well, let me ask you this. As long as you're not going to send me a bill from your think tank. Unfortunately, we are not for profits. Because you've been here in Hawaii and you've got a chance to look at what we have and what we're thinking of doing. And what is your impression of Hawaii's ability to actually make the transition that we're planning? Well, first of all, it's compact. These are islands. There's a clear boundary. Second of all, you have 1 million people, if I'm correct. And 700 on this island on Oahu. That's neither too big nor too small. So it's great. You already have some grids which would need expansion. So we are at the tipping point where you are thinking about bigger expansion or investment in more stabilization because you're already putting the renewable. You already have renewables of all kinds. Plus potential in geothermal. So I think it's an ideal case to do that. Now, you have several islands in the world where you could have this ideal case on paper. But Hawaii has another advantage. It's rich. So the investment you would need to do is just marginal. And I was told there used to be a plan some years ago. If I'm correct, I understood it got canceled under the subsequent. Yeah, about a decade ago. Yeah, administrations in the US. And that's why I'm thinking it's about political will. I understand there is the political will here. If the political will here has the support of actual doers like you people plus the support in DC, well, I think it can showcase for the rest of the world. I think you just said it perfectly. I've even used the words political will myself several times. And I think we can do it. Well, that takes us to the end of our show today. And I'd like to thank Joe for spending some time with us over here in the middle of his business trip to let everybody else know a bigger perspective on hydrogen for Hawaii. So thanks for being with us on Think Tech where community matters. And join us again next week, Friday. Aloha.