 live with Stan Osserman. Hey, Aloha from Connecticut. Nothing is too good for the ThinkTech audience here in Honolulu. So my HCAT team has traveled all the way here over 6,000 miles from Honolulu to Connecticut to be with the folks from US hybrids, US fuel cell detachment that makes some of the best fuel cells, at least in my opinion, in the entire world. And we're here with Dan Olowski and Michael Harrington, the program manager and chief engineer respectively here at the at the plant. And we just finished having a tour in the back there and looking at all the magic stuff. But we like coming out this way and talking to the guys who have done this as a whole career, basically, and have some great insight on the technology, because that's what the show is all about, talking about the technology, the energy technology that makes tomorrow the thing that we need to do to clean up our environment and do transportation right. And that's what these guys do. They make some great fuel cells that we're hoping to see a lot more of in our vehicles. So, Dan, thanks for being with us today, all the way here from Connecticut. And it was a great tour we just had. So, why don't we start with Dan and just kind of tell everybody how you got into this kind of work, you know, what this line of work. Yeah. Goodness. I was working for only Connick's contract manufacturer that was building the electrical balance plant for the fuel cell buses that are running out in California. And that's how I got involved. I'd been applied and got into United Technologies in the way I was UTC fuel cell. And that's how I started my career in fuel cells and spent five and a half years with United Technologies. My dad said, get a job. And so move out and get a job. So I went to an engineering school, actually the same engineering school that Dan went to. And when I graduated, I had a few different choices and, you know, Air Force, Navy and fuel cells. And I was like, wow, what's that? And so United Technologies offered me an opportunity to clean up the planet. And it was what my research at and during my master's degree was. And so it really fit in. So I spent eight years in the fuel cell world jumping in with United Technologies, working on automotive products, working on stationary products. And then moving off and doing some lithium-ion battery work as well. Six years in the lithium battery world. But, you know, I started as a Mechie and somehow I ended up in electrical and I've been doing electrochemical ever since. Great. Now, here we are, working for U.S. I've been working for a boss. We had a boss on for a couple shows earlier last month. And he did a great job of explaining logic behind fuel cells, especially the fact that technologically we're there. And the real choice is economics at this point, you know, getting the economics to match up, getting the infrastructure out there so the fuel cells can be used. And that's really the point that we're at. But one of the things that I'm always faced with in Hawaii, I always get this question and with your battery background and the two of your experience is, you know, when we compare batteries and fuel cells, it's always this, well, batteries, more energy out for energy in than a fuel cell. Basically, you get more bang for the buck when you have a battery and people stop there with the efficiency of power and power out. But there's more to it than that. So, you know, what are some of your thoughts, Mike, on that? Well, batteries still have a finite storage and they're still very heavy. So it's, you say power in and power out and the efficiency can be high, but they're still very susceptible to environmental changes. And the hydrogen source is it's much more pure and available, actually, than the electricity. So you can have a long term storage. So batteries are really good for short term storage to make economical sense. But if you're looking for a long term opportunity to store energy, say seasonal, which is something I hadn't really thought of until I actually got to talking to some of the great people who were saying, you know, we need to store energy for a long time. We've got this excess energy from the grid. What do we do with that? I can't put it in a battery. My battery is going to fill up too quick. Or it's going to be, you know, a battery besides the taxes. Right. So they said, well, I can, you know, pump hydro is pretty popular. But if you don't have hydro, I can roll up a hydrogen tank. And I can actually, you know, store it as hydrogen, save it for not just, you know, like daily periods where most of us stop thinking about, but for monthly or even longer term, where you actually see seasonal changes. And Mike talked about the weight and also the control of the climate climate piece. You know, one of the things that I think people get confused is they hear that fuel cells basically just expel water out the exhaust pipe. And so they immediately think, well, then it won't work in cold climates because it's got water in it. Why doesn't she explain that technology and fuel cells? Well, it's all how you manage the water. That's where whether or not you can be freeze capable versus freeze tolerant versus not tolerant at all. Being able to be freezes is how do you deal and manage your water on as an engine as a whole. So not only is your, you have your cell stack technology has to be freeze tolerant and freeze capable. But then the rest of your balance plant, as we call it, there are all the other parts of your engine, which comparably to a internal combustion engine will be your water pump and oil pump and all those other heat exchangers and things like that. Also, you need to just deal with it in a way to make that engine as a whole survive those conditions. So your fuel cell, assuming it's built for cold climates, it's engineered properly for a controlled expansion and things like that and keeping your seals tight, they don't leak. If you have a battery and a fuel cell side by side, what are some of the consider, I mean a fuel cell starts to make heat as soon as you turn it on. But a battery, if it's cold soap, is cold soap. You know, so I mean. You get less energy out of it and certainly when a fuel cell is initially cold, you're not going to get as much energy out of it. But as it warms up? As it warms up. But because your battery was your energy storage medium, if the energy storage went away because it got cold, it's gone. It's there. The charge left. And so that's part of the problem. And the efficiency of the battery at low temperature, like negative 30 or negative 20 is usually on there around 60%. So if you tried to do that normal commute of 40 miles in your bowl, you'd only have 60% of that range. Right. Batteries stayed at that temperature. So I didn't even think about that. You just had a purely electric vehicle and you're purely counting on batteries and you also have reduced performance just to the climate. Yeah. I mean, I've never even really thought about that. Even the Chevy Bowl, they intentionally heat the coolant system to bring the battery up to temperature. Right. So do these internal battery power or I mean, is that something when you're plugging in, it's like a block heater. When you plug it in, it keeps it all warmed up. And they also have the control space they set up so that when you turn on the bolt, it has a gas engine. So it actually heats using the internal combustion engine at the low temperature. So it's more than if they get around it. See, these are some of the things that in Hawaii, we don't talk a whole lot about because if it gets down to 60 degrees, we bust out the parkas. And if it gets down to 50, we declare our state of emergency and things like that. But these cars are going to be built for everybody, not just for Hawaii. So they've got to be able to work in 30 below 40 below and also 110 or 115 in Arizona. You know, they've got to be able to survive that full climate range. So the fuel cells do as well in that full spectrum and some type of fuel. So I mean, if it's made for transportation and I mean, I'm assuming that for transportation, you make a pretty rugged. Yeah, the fuel cells that we've made, certainly now and in the past have been capable of doing a negative 30 degrees seat all the way to 50 degrees seat. Right. And you have the equivalent to Tesla. Yeah, and we have really big internal chambers that can go from negative 50 to 80 degrees seat. Yeah. So it's a good time in the summer. If you want to cool down, you just open up the chamber. Okay. So what size fuel cells? I mean, give us an idea in a motorcycle, you might use or that kind of a vehicle, how big a fuel cell versus all the way up to maybe electric train like a city, a city train. What are the size fuel cells that would fit in those kind of vehicles? How you want to use it, right? So when a motorcycle, if you want performance, you want like your Harley David's, you want to speed up you like that feeling of speed, you're going to need more power to do that. But how many watts or kilowatts? 100 to do something like that. I mean, but these days, you can't get an electric drivetrain. So no matter what, you're going to be electrified. Right. You never usually see a fuel cell by itself. You usually see a fuel cell better than the battery. Right. And so, you know, the fuel cells great for, you know, doing the five to 10 kilowatts that you would use on a bike, right? And then you have a high power battery basically to, you know, get you that maybe even a capacity or a capacitor, some kind of the electrification is here, though. Yeah, trains need megawatts power to move them megawatts. But they're used there. They consider fuel cells these days for hotel loads, that is lights, heating air conditioning, maybe a refrigerated car, more so than attraction. Right. This attraction takes a lot of power. It's more efficient, and certainly more energy that's to use the other means. Okay. So we have a couple models here. And these are scaled out, of course, in their 3D printed models. But this is basically, and I know it's pretty hard to see we put it up a little closer, but this is basically 150 kilowatt fuel cell model from from the company here. Can we talk a little bit about what kind of vehicle this would be used in? And what are some of the things that make it really good at what it does compared to maybe at somebody else's fuel cell? Sure, man. So this particular fuel cell produces 150 kilowatts, and it can be scaled up to around 200. It is good for those train applications. It's also good for high end military applications, where maybe power takeoff is important. It is not sized for your typical bus. We're talking the 50 passenger buses, 40 foot buses. Because those, the average load on those buses, the average load is more towards the 80 kilowatt range, even 60 kilowatts. So battery dominant. Batteries can take the acceleration. And what's most important about batteries and those applications in buses is they take the stopping load and regen fuel cells don't provide you the regen. So this you see more as that hotel hotel, maybe even a stationary like around a trailer type application where you need some power, maybe a military. Some of the things I've noticed about this when I first thought was that it's built a lot like a military jet engine or an engine that would go inside of a military vehicle. Because the main component that normally doesn't need a whole lot of work is in its own weatherproof and protective case. And then your accessories, blowers, pumps, things that you might need to change out fairly frequently are all on one side accessible. So you could actually design it to fit in the vehicle where this side could have a door that comes down. The mechanic could go and work on it, change the parts, close it back up, change the filter, just open and close. And then if you did have to take the whole thing out, there's lifting points, you can just pick it up with an engine wise, pull it out, replace it with a new one, plug it in, and you're off and running again. So I thought the modularity of this design was was really nice. How about how about the ruggedness of the design compared to I mean, you talked about stationary fuel cell applications and UTC did that in the past as well. What makes a stationary fuel cell different than something used in transportation? Oh, mainly the fuel. It's this runs off of the pure hydrogen supply, which you wouldn't normally use in a stationary application because you wouldn't be paying for your hydrogen all the time, you'd want to use natural gas. But these, if you were to stationary, do a stationary, where you then look at those maybe a direct methanol fuel cell or the phosphoric acid fuel cells, which can take reformate a little better than a 10 fuel cell doesn't take, or at least ours, don't take the reformate as well as maybe a solid oxide fuel cells, there's so many different types of fuel cells. But the important thing is, is when you look at your type of fuel that's coming in, and what you're going to put through the cell, so you have to pick four. But when you're talking to difference between a 10 and a solid oxide, there's a difference in startup time. Oh, big time. And that's why maybe a someone who's got stationary application can deal with a longer startup time, just leave it running, right, set it, forget it. But when you are mobile world, vehicle world, you want to turn it on in 30 seconds later. At most, you want to drive, right? Now you want your power. And so that's what these engines are based upon. Okay, great. Well, we're coming up on our first break here. So we're going to take a 60 second break and talk about some of the other programs on think tech and then be back to Connecticut. Hello, and Aloha. My name is Raya Salter, and I am the host of Power of Hawaii, where Hawaii comes together to figure out how we're going to work towards a clean and renewable energy future. We have exciting conversations with all kinds of stakeholders, everyone who needs to come together to talk about renewable energy, be they engineers, advocates, lawyers, utility executives, musicians or artists, to see how we can come together to make a renewable future. Tuesdays at 1pm. Hi, I'm Tim Appichella. I'm the host for Moving Hawaii Forward. And the show is dedicated to transportation and traffic issues in Oahu. We are all frustrated by sitting in our cars in bumper to bumper traffic. And this show is dedicated to talking with folks that not only we can define the problem, but we hopefully can come to the table with some solutions. So I invite you to join me every Tuesday at 12 noon. And let's move Hawaii forward. And we're live with Stan the energy man. Hey, and welcome back to my lunch hour, of course, right now it's my dinner hour, because there's five hours time difference. But same same. I've got Dan and Michael here from United US hybrid, rather, fuel cell section. And we swapped out models here. This is actually, I would call it the half size of the model we just showed a lot more of the accessories on the bottom in the back. But this is their their new version, they're 80 kilowatt. And this will be used for what kind of applications? Well, this will be used for anywhere you have a diesel engine. Okay, anywhere. We see trucks. We see buses. We can see street sweepers. You can see garbage trucks. Anywhere where there's a diesel engine, it could even be a stationary gen set. This would pop right in. Okay, that interest for emergency backup, right? For like cell towers and things like that. More like a relief efforts. Okay, Japan, you know, after Fukushima, they carry interested in portable power emergency power. So it's a great portable emergency power. And again, it has a quick pickup time, compared to solid oxide fuel. So Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay, but again, on this one, all the components are accessible for service on the outside. Engine mounted. Engine mounts right here. I hope everyone can see that. But it's basically it's built around the idea that it's not going to take an engineer to fix anything on this. This is going to take your regular auto mechanic to troubleshoot, repair, install. And it comes with a fully integrated DC to DC. So you don't have to do your own power conversion. So you basically get the type of power out that you want. You can set it to a default or command power voltage current. Okay, well, as you bring up a good point, that is the training or, you know, as we grow into this new technology, there's always a training aspect to it. And, you know, do we do we talk to the community college and set up a special program to train mechanics to do this stuff? How hard is it to get folks trained into a fuel cell? I mean, I look at this technology, and I'm not a super mechanic or anything, but I go, Well, that looks pretty familiar. And that looks pretty familiar. And you know, well, compared to what an auto mechanic has to deal with it, do you think overall, it's easier to take care of or, you know, easier transition or something like that? Certainly, it will be a lot easier. One of the very first things we did was we start stuck calling it PowerPoint. That was the very first thing we did. We start calling it an engine. That's, that's important for acceptance, the industry acceptance. But also, it helped then lead the way to pointing out that, you know, here's your air blower. It's the same air blower you see on automotive. This is a turbocharger. It's just electric drive, which is also becoming a little more prevalent. This here where we bring in the 200 psi of hydrogen fuel. This is your carburetor on the car. It does the same thing. It regulates how much fuel goes into the pistons. In this case, would be the fuel cell. And then on the bottom, we have the water management system, which, just like in a car, it's a lot like how it manages water and oil, right? So instead of an oil pan, we have a pan for water. And it's got a water pump in it, just like in the car, but instead of being belt driven, it's electric driven. So everything's pretty familiar. The better thing about this is that the number of rotating parts is two. You have a water pump, you have an air blower. That's it. Those are your rotating parts. Those are the wear and tear items. Everything else we use is everything else is automotive. We use a waste gate for overpressure and protection. That stuff's all very familiar to people. Automotive fuse box, automotive controllers, and I've talked about taking the regular code reader or whatever. Regular code reader. This is this was very important to us because a lot of the people who started into fuel cells ended up having to get you know, thousands of dollars worth of equipment and special programs and software to talk to their terminals to talk to their battery pack, you have that laptop to talk to your fuel cell engines, this laptop to talk to your power train, it's the other laptop with that software. Now this uses the diesel engine code reader. The person who's trained to service diesel engine will be able to look at the thing, look at the code, and the code is already translated to say, the code you get to say that your turbo wasn't working right is the same code that we've spent on. I'm not sure you can probably get an app for that. Yeah, there are apps. Probably on your iPhone or anything. Yeah, well, you know, one of my favorite things is only human being that enjoys change is a wet baby. And most people are afraid to change are afraid of this technology because they how hard is it going to be to train to or how complex is it going to be or how expensive is it going to be? You know, you've been working in this field for at least a decade, I would say, you know, each goes to it. How how much has the price dropped in technology and the simplicity, I mean, all those factors that you, you put into something like our cell phones used to be these big clunky bricks with antenna forged five inches long, you know, and they weighed a ton, they cost a lot, they had way more power than they needed, probably radiating your ears or whatever, you know, put that in fuel cell terms. I mean, has the technology really come that far in 10 years? The technology has, I don't know if the market has quite for it, but the technology started out really with, you know, wire harnesses everywhere and tubes and custom weldments for everything. And now you have 3D printing options for a lot more customizable components. It went from the lab, it went from the lab to to a real product. That's where it went, you know, and there were those first few customers that really made it happen, where they they took those lab products and and accepted them and that was good, because we need that field data. So you think about the technology part, we've got wire and the cost has come down quite a bit and the ruggedness has come up. And the lifespan has come up on these things. It's just the finances and get people used to it and get the market built. Capitalizing too. Yeah, it takes a little bit to actually, you know, put all the factors there. Okay, so we showed two of them. What are some of the other sizes that you're looking at? So we've got the 150, you've got the 80. What are some of the other sizes you guys actually are in the words building or designing? I think you'll be most excited to know we're going to build you 40 kilowatts. Yeah, that would be cool. Now, that's right in that sweet spot for the kind of small trucks and medium trucks and things like that. And the smaller buses, the the shuttle type buses that a lot of people use, I know that Kinect had one for a while. It's very useful. It'll also be more accepted with the automotive fueling stations, because those stations are going to be built more towards the size of the Marais and stuff. They won't be built to support full size buses, right? It won't be supporting. They probably won't allow 40 foot buses to show up in the gas station. Yeah. So well, so what are some of the other I mean, besides vehicles, besides trucks, buses and cars, you know, where do you see these applications going? I know you both of you have experience in the aerospace side and space. You know, fuel cells have a long history in the submarines and spacecraft. So they've already been there and that's where a lot of the maturity happened with the technology. But what are some of the other applications you see for fuel cells? I think the big one that's really taking off now is material handling, you know, the warehouses. So the forklifts and they're not huge fuel cells. They're 10 kilowatts, 15 kilowatts fuel cells that are doing it. But they've really helped a lot to just get fleets of data. So, you know, Podpower and other companies are out there selling hundreds of thousands and able to collect field data. And that field data is very valuable to the engineering staff, because the more that you have, the more you can understand when things need to be changed, like an air flow or a filter or things like that. And you guys have a 10 kilowatt in the future? We actually have, we're working on one right now for a range extender application, which is another good one. You know, everybody wants to do battery electrics. But the battery electrics, they just don't have enough energy right now. The big advantage of the fuel cell isn't the power density. It's really the energy density. So batteries, they talk in, you know, 150, 200 watt hours per kilogram. Fuel cells, we're looking at thousands, like 7,000 watt hours per kilogram for the same equivalent. That's really the big advantage of the fuel cell. We'll take a look at it, right? In a way, look at it. And I think the boss point of selling on your shows was that you, to get the range, yes, the batteries are out there, but you don't have the axle weight, right? You just cannot, you're going to sacrifice your battery load, your cargo or more battery. And then you're hauling all that battery around all the time. Yeah, you're using a lot of your energy just to haul around your battery. So it just has a diminishing return. We're not saying batteries don't have a place. They sure do. Because there is a definite benefit to the ability to accelerate and then and the deceleration and storing the energy back is very important. But where the battery industry is going right now, they're going to higher and higher energy densities, which means more and more energy in one little cell. And then you put, you know, thousands of these cells of your Tesla together. And that energy stays there and it's rather dangerous there too. The fuel cell, you know, it's, you know, it's a big, it has hydrogen air in it. Okay, but it really only has, at any one point in time, the energy content of maybe one or two of those little cells. So if something happens there, it's not that they can deal with. Shut off the rest of Bob's point. You shut off the engine. The reaction is stopped. You stop the flow hydrogen and up and air into the product. It's just like turning off your engine in your car. The idea with size battery is the one that's high power and safe. Something like an LFP chemistry. And, you know, the base load being hydrogen and the fuel cell. That's the safest vehicle I've ever done. Fuel cells, I think a lot of people don't find are going to be far more safer, even than gasoline. We actually work with the University of Hawaii and they've done a fair amount of training of our firefighters, both city and county and federal firefighters because a lot of the vehicles we've had come through our station and hit them and also at Kaniwe were Michiu and has his station were being driven on the city roads and highways and the state highways. So we had to train firefighters so they knew what to expect. By the time they finished their training, they're all much more comfortable with hydrogen than they are with the gasoline or vehicle incident. And at the end of the day, if nothing else, they have nothing to clean up afterwards. If the hydrogen escapes, it just goes straight up and makes bugs after a while and that's it. Yeah. And they don't have to worry about any kind of hazardous cleanup. No oil to fall on the ground. And that's Stan the energy man. Aloha.