 Welcome to Stan Energy Man on Think Tech Hawaii. I'm your host, Stan Osterman, and our show today is called Hydrogen. It's not just for zeppelins anymore, a little tongue-in-cheek there. They don't do it in zeppelins anymore. And we're going to talk about the latest in technology news from the U.S. Department of Energy's annual mirror review held in Washington, D.C. last week. The mirror review is where all of the heavy hitters from the academia, government, and the industry come together and share notes on the latest breakthroughs in hydrogen technology. That's right. Live from Think Tech Studios, Sharon Honolulu, Ms. Rachel James will fill us in on the latest cutting edge outside the envelope, highest ranked, and voted most likely to save the world ideas from Washington, D.C., of all places. Who'd have thought that Washington could actually produce anything worthwhile? But they did, and Rachel will be here to fill us in with all the latest. With none of the media spin associated, or none of the political guano attached, that's guano. G-U-A-N-O. It's a real world. Look it up in your Funkin' Wagonal or just look it up on Google, I don't care. By the way, if you want to ask any questions or participate in today's discussion, you can tweet us at thinktech-h-i or call us at area code 415-871-2474. Operators are standing by. So Rachel, welcome to the show. It seems like just minutes ago we had our last talk. Have you fully recovered from your trip? I have. At least I think so. We'll see what comes out of my mouth, and then maybe. You didn't bring back any of the slimy political stuff we did. I tried to wash most of it off. Okay, good. Thanks. Appreciate it. Think Tech, we appreciate it here. Yes. So tell us what the merit review is all about. We talked about it in the intro a little bit, but give us a little bit more in-depth insight onto what the merit review does. Okay. So the merit review is the Department of Energy's way to allow, essentially, allow the partners in the industries and stakeholders across the board to come and see where the money is gone. So I think particularly it's an awesome way for people who are interested in the technologies that the Department of Energy is hoarding to learn about them, but it's also an awesome thing for people in the industry. As you mentioned, the academics, intellect and industry, it's kind of a mash-up of those two. So it's a good opportunity for the projects to be reviewed. They're critiqued as well, so that merit review pieces, you have not only just academics doing review, but you have industry partners, you have stakeholders in the field, you have people from different countries, different states, who are looking at your projects and looking at what you ambition to do, and then also look at what you've done and how it could apply, and it's a good opportunity for you to kind of test yourself along the process as you forward the project that you've gotten from the Department of Energy. And this is all hydrogen focused, it's not all energy projects, it's strictly hydrogen. Right, so this annual review was both the Vehicle Technologies Office as well as the Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Office. So we had two kind of concurrent areas underneath the Department of Energy moving forward. And about how many folks attended this year's talk? Oh, goodness. And roughly, I know it's probably you weren't going to count. You know I can't count, I went to law school. I'd say there were hundreds. Okay. It's usually pretty big. It's usually several hundred people, two thousand people. Yes. They ran out of popsicles at the break, so I feel like that. That says a whole story right there. Yeah. Okay. Were there any particular things that stood out in your memory from projects that came up or breakthroughs that were announced? Definitely. So simple fuel is one that stood out kind of immediately. Last year they won the competition for hydrogen fueling stations. And so the project that they won was the project wins, and then if they're able to execute what they proposed they win a million dollars. And so they were able to, and they showed their progress over the past year. And so they had a fueling station that they proposed built and available for the community. And really what it does is it showcases a different way of doing hydrogen dispensing. Because much of the efforts in hydrogen have gone toward making a smooth transition from how you regularly fill up your gas tank to now just fill it with hydrogen. So you have a lot of fast fill. You do your five to four minute fills, and it's oftentimes co-located with existing gas stations. But the simple fuel is a standalone. It's kind of meant to be in a community or in a common space where you can plug in or link up your car to this fueling station and leave it for a little bit. So whether that's 30 minutes, whether that's an hour, whether it's at your house and overnight. So it's really meant to provide the flexibility of personal hydrogen use and not necessarily that commercial scale across the board use. So I thought that was pretty innovative and it just really displayed the accessibility that communities can have to hydrogen infrastructure that is relatively low impact. There's not a lot of hoop-de-hoot to get it into a community, so they're taking orders. So if you recall, how much can they make a day hydrogen-wise? So they don't store the hydrogen, so they make into a dispense. But I don't remember the numerics for how much they dispense each day. I want to say two kilograms, because I believe they said that if you didn't fully deplete your vehicle, you should be able to cap it off in a night's time. So it kind of is almost like battery charging your car. It gives you the option to be a hydrogen quick fill if you go to a regular station or do a slow fill at home or a slow fill at work. Maybe you have PV at work that can supply the electrolysis or whatever, but you fill over a whole day, eight hours at work or whatever. Very much like that. That's great. Any other projects that stood out to you? Yeah, so they had reports on H2 at scale, which is Sandy. It's actually a conglomerate of the national labs, but Sandy is really leading the charge, as well as NREL, and what they showcase is hydrogen as grid stability, as well as making that transition to other industries. So using it as storage on the utility, but then making it available as well for transportation sectors and using it. I mean, we talked kind of about using it in cooking and just the various applications of hydrogen. H2 at scale is a model that explores what that could look like. So that was first introduced last year. They got a lot of input from the different people who came, and then they used that input to put in data and showcase the different ways that hydrogen can be deployed at scale. So would that be something that maybe the state could bring? Is it Sandia? It's a bunch of labs. It's like all of the labs, I think. It's like five, at least, I believe. Could bring them out to make a pitch to HECO? I definitely think it's information that HECO should have available, yeah, for sure. So and it did apply to like a nine gigawatt scale? I think the input you, like the parameters that you input into the model is kind of what dictates the sizing, but you can kind of identify what applications you'd like to use hydrogen and what numerics, and then the models supposed to be able to represent how that can be done, and then depending on what the economics are for whatever region you are that helps to identify like, okay, yes, it's technically possible, it's engineering possible. These are the savings that you could see. This is a manner in which you could deploy these technologies. So it's a baseline of what you want to see, what capabilities you're looking for, and at what scale you need it, and then identifying how that information could then apply for you to be able to integrate it. It sounds like they had a business case built into it, too? It's super comprehensive. The business case is something that whatever the user would have to identify better. They did have some models that talked about like hydrogen at scale deployed, essentially, like how do you do it? How do you take this model and the information and then bring it to industry or bring it to communities, bring it to governments, but they're still working on that. So it's an ongoing project. The first year was kind of the baseline of establishing the model, and I think this next year they'll be working more on seeing how you can take that information and then if in some way deploy it. Any specific transportation breakthroughs or fuel cell transportation announcements or anything? I don't recall any huge announcements. They were small as in nano. Don't get me going, please. There are a lot of like, okay, so I'm not that smart, but there are all these tiny ways. Nano technology. Yes, nano technologies in ways to store hydrogen. So essentially getting things super lightweight, allowing a lot of versatility and multiple applications. So especially when we talk about like mid-sized vehicles or like heavy duty vehicles, they definitely emerge as a better way to use renewable energy in larger vehicles because we couldn't do super gigantic batteries to carry large vehicles. To expand this conversation and get away from the puns. The nano technology, as I understand it, allows you to store hydrogen at a more dense level than liquid hydrogen, but not have to deal with the temperature, the super low temperatures. In other words, if you have nano storage technology available, you can store more hydrogen and put it in a smaller space than if you had liquid hydrogen. Liquid hydrogen is like minus 460 degrees Celsius or something, so super cold and super hard to get there. And then that takes away all the compression. You don't have to add all the energy in to compress the hydrogen because it goes into these nano particles. It's kind of like a sponge made up of one atom thick layers and it'll just suck up the hydrogen until you release it with heat or some other component that makes it release. So, good. Well, that's good. Were there any folks doing drive demos or anything out there? I know they were talking about doing that a little bit because now DOE has their own fueling station in Washington, D.C. Yes. I think that was something that you had to sign up for and I didn't. They did have a car door. I'm not exactly sure what was in the car door, to be quite honest. There were a ton of people standing around it and I don't know what the man was saying who was at the car door. But they did, my understanding was they had sign-ups for vehicle trips. I know you were busy getting your popsicles ahead of everybody. Right, popsicles and nano things. You got it. All right. So, did you meet any interesting folks there? I did. So, there's a team from NREL, I mean there's many people on the NREL team, but it was just interesting to see the breadth of material that they cover. And I think just the national labs generally, they're doing a lot of different projects. But it was nice to run into a lot of people who had actually done projects here in Hawaii and were interested in our technology developments and were really pitching for the information that they've learned in the recent past and their knowledge of Hawaii and kind of knowing where we're going with our energy future and really wanting to re-engage. So, I think we'll see some of them at Verge, but others are just interested in stopping by to see our progress and hopefully share what they've learned along the way. So were you surprised by how many people knew what we were up to out here in Hawaii? I was pleasantly surprised, particularly because there were only a few Hawaii folks there. So, I think that our attendance as well as the work that we've done has really made an impact for the people that come here regularly because they're, again, folks from all over the world and the country who are at least familiar with, I'd say, a couple of our projects. I'd say about everybody I spoke to knew at least two things that were happening in Hawaii. Great. Good job, Steve. We've been doing some of our work anyway. Thanks, Tick. But also, were any presentations made by Hawaii folks like Mitch or anybody or even our contractors? Yeah, so we had Mitch from H&EI, Hawaii Natural Energy Institute, as well as Abbas from US Hybrid. And so both of them had very interesting... Mitch's was about hydrogen electrolyzers as grid stability. And then Abbas is just entering a new project. And I want to say it's with Nissan's. They're electric vans. There's a fleet of vans. And so, the audience was really excited about both of them. Just because, again, recognizing the integration and that interoperability that hydrogen provides. So it's kind of neat to see two people talking from two different sides. But, again, still being able to kind of plug into that H2 at scale model. So, yeah, we had Hawaii folks well represented. Great. Well, we're going to take a quick break here and cut away for some advertising here on Think Tech. And we'll see you back in a few seconds. Freedom. Is it a feeling? Is it a place? Is it an idea? At Dive Heart, we believe freedom is all of these and more regardless of your ability. Dive Heart wants to help you escape the bonds of this world and defy gravity. Since 2001, Dive Heart has helped children, adults, and veterans of all abilities go where they have never gone before. Dive Heart has helped them transition to their new normal. Search diveheart.org and share our mission with others. And in the process, help people of all abilities imagine the possibilities in their lives. Hey, welcome back to Stand the Energy Man. And I don't have to say it's on my lunch hour today because now I'm getting a debrief from Rachel, which I have to do at work anyway. So we're working right now. Thank you very much. But I haven't had a chance to catch up with her since she came back from last week's trip to Washington, D.C. So anything else that sticks out in your mind about your trip to D.C.? Truthfully, I was just really excited to see so many people come. And, again, just pleasantly surprised by how many folks were aware of what we were doing in Hawaii. And were supportive and super willing to engage. So even just talking to the folks in the California fuel cell partnership, the information that they had about codes and standards and getting first responders on board and identifying safety information. I mean, they had free videos to hand out. So I came back. I know. They had my picture on the front. Yeah. The fire chief looks just like me. It's strange to like this. Except he has no hair. Unless we have hydrogen. I have almost no hair. Anyway, okay. Well, thanks for that update from last week. Let's switch gears now and talk a little bit about what's going on at Hcat, which maybe the folks here in Think Tech Land would like to know about. Let's start off with some of the stuff we've been receiving in the mail lately, like those light carts and stuff. We've got shiny new light carts. So hydrogen fuel cell light carts. It's funny, we were on Maui yesterday. And as we were driving out of the airport, we were passing a light cart. And it was just a regular diesel generation one. And I pointed it out to the folks in the vehicle. And I said, one day that could be a hydrogen fuel cell light cart. We've got them at our office. So it's really exciting to have them obviously on site. But just to also drive around the island and the state and recognize places that they could easily be deployed. And what's next coming from the same company? From the same company is coming similar technology, but just the generators. So in the same places where we have our carnivals, our EK Fernandez, we have our street grinds, just outdoor events where we need portable power. Instead of having those loud, buzzing, stinking diesel generators, we'll have two brand spanking new, clean, fossil fuel free fuel cell generators. Terrific. Yeah, those are 5,000 watt generators, 5 kilowatt generators. And they're really awesome because we're going to be able to provide the hydrogen right off of our Cook Street dispenser. And we can take them out and run them. We've actually already talked to the folks in D-bed that do TV and movie promotions. And I've been hyping these things for a long time because I had friends who did sound tracks on movies and things. And not only do they not like those noisy generators in the background, a lot of times when you're out in the field, you have to live with it. But they also demand high quality on the line. In other words, the signal, the power signal that comes from those generators is kind of sloppy, depending on the gents that you have. But when it comes from a fuel cell, it's very stable and very clean. So really excited to show the folks in movie and TV production that this technology is actually great when they have to do remote stuff. It's quiet. It's clean. And the signal is clean so that their sound people don't have to deal with some of their issues when they do movie production. So we're going to start using those in that respect too. And then I think next Monday or Tuesday, we're supposed to take delivery on our range extender for the gem. So why don't you tell everybody what that's all about? Yes, all things hydrogen. So for the folks who've been watching Stand the Energy Man, I'm sure they saw the students that we had on from Center for Tomorrow's Leaders. So those students will be forwarding their conversion project, which is taking our low speed vehicle, so a little golf cart looking like vehicle, a gem, and adding a range extender with a hydrogen fuel cell essentially to be able to keep the life of the battery going longer with less plug-in capability. Well, not capability, but less plug-in necessity. Yeah, being that we couldn't afford to buy a brand new Toyota or Honda, you know, no Mariah or a Clarity or a Slotting. We'll make our own. We basically said we'd make our own. And we got a bunch of high school kids to help us. So it's kind of cool because it shows how basic the technology is that we can get some high school juniors and seniors to come in and help us turn some wrenches and actually convert a vehicle. So, and we get to drive. We drove the gem vehicle over here to the show. So that's the kind of technology we get to drive around town. And I have to tell you that just driving the gem around, I went past a couple of Hawaii 5-0 shooting setups and the guys out there working the reps and everybody go, hey, where do we get one of those made no noise? And they really liked it. They thought it was cool. So I get a lot of looks from people on the street when we're driving that around because it's quiet, it has plenty of pickup. And pretty soon it'll be able to go 200 miles without having to be charged or refilled. We'll have a fancy signage thing happening, hopefully. So we can actually drive people around because we want to always show people the technology. But when we're doing just Air Force projects alone, especially with a 25-packs bus, we have to find somebody with a commercial driver's license. And at least now we can say, hey, jump on in. Jump in the driver's seat. Go drive it yourself and get some of our state legislators and mayors and stuff to actually drive a hydrogen vehicle. We'll get our kids out with driver's license, of course. You're scaring me now. No. Well, the kids scared me for a minute. We don't have our licenses, Miss Rachel. I'm like, what are you doing working on vehicles? But we'll just turn ridges. We'll get them up to speed. But let me see. What other kind of stuff we've got coming down the pike? This week we're talking to the Air Force because they provide us a majority of our funding. In fact, pretty much all of our funding. And we're working on our 95% review for the grid. And also talking about some of the other projects we have online, like the vehicles that we do have and where we're going with them. So that's keeping us really busy. And actually stressing us out a little bit. Whenever you have to talk about money and funding and stuff, it always gets kind of stressful. But it's been a pretty busy week for us, a pretty hectic week. And we've got Dave taking them out to the Big Island to visit Blue Planet. So Paul, get ready. They're on their way. They're coming to see you. And they'll be getting to see a microgrid in the works out at Opuva on the Big Island. We're looking forward to that. Then come back and finish. Next week we do our program reviews for Bessie and Abbas will be out again. Yes. I'll have to freshen from the merit review. They'll be coming back to WoW us with what he's got in store. And I'll pitch in that we've had some great discussions with some of our contractors and some of our local companies in terms of providing hydrogen locally for our transportation sector. So we have a couple of folks who have been talking to me about some big companies that have fleet vehicles and also want to put PV on their roofs. But they know they're going to have extra photovoltaic power available. And they want to know what to use the PV for. So we're connecting them with manufacturers that make electrolyzers and make vehicle conversion kits. And they'll be able to actually take that hydrogen, store it, use it in their vehicles, and start to convert their fleets to green fleets. So I'd say within the next 18 months to 24 months, you're going to probably start seeing a little bit more vehicle traffic out there that runs on a hydrogen. What do you think? Is that realistic? It's not a gas. It's for real. It's very realistic. I know. I know. I can't help it. Can't control this one. She's out of control. Anyway, but any other predictions you have for Hawaii over the next couple 18 months? Great things. I predict great things. Now, I mean, we have verge coming up next week. So that's an awesome opportunity for folks in Hawaii and around the world again to come and convene on what's happening here in Hawaii to bring their lessons from around the world, around the country. So it should be a good opportunity. Abbas will be speaking. You'll have a hydrogen panel there. So again, if you don't get enough from ThinkTech, you can get some more at verge. And that's at the Hilton. Hilton Hawaiian Village. So next week Thursday, block your calendar after you finish watching Okulia this weekend. Next week Thursday, come out to the Hilton Hawaiian Village. And if you don't attend any other part of verge on the morning of the Thursday morning, 22nd, we have the hydrogen panel. That's the first time that we've had a chance in the state to have a panel at an energy conference in Hawaii that's just talking hydrogen. So that's really exciting for us. And we're looking forward to it. Well, Rachel, let's about do it for our timeline today. And I want to thank you for coming out and taking some time off from work. I know your boss is really upset about that, but I'll have a chat with him and we'll square him away. Thanks for being out here. Thanks for having me. And thanks for sharing your insight on the Merit Review back in DC from last week. So until that brings us to the end of our show, we've enjoyed bringing it to you. And I'm your host, Dan Osserman. Our guest has been Rachel James, the Princess of Papakulea. And we've been talking, of course, hydrogen. So until next week, aloha.