 Hey, Aloha and welcome to Standard Energy Man, Stan Osterman here at Think Tech, Hawaii, where we're trying to keep you up to speed on all things energy, especially hydrogen, and we're still getting used to our new studio, so we'll keep on pressing. But we've got Mike Stritsky, he's been on before a couple times actually, and he brings to us a lot of information from across the U.S. He keeps his finger not only on the pulse, but he actually lives the hydrogen world from the hydrogen house in New Jersey, and then he goes coast to coast, he's working in California on another hydrogen house set up, and he's going to give us an update on those, and then we're going to talk about, I like to kind of talk mostly about transportation and cars, because a lot of people still don't realize how fast hydrogen is becoming ubiquitous here on the planet, which is a good thing. But it's below most people's radar, it certainly isn't on the news, because all they're talking about is impeachment and elections and nonsense like that, which really isn't important compared to hydrogen, but we'll try and bring up to speed. So Mike, thanks for joining us today all the way from California this time, and I appreciate you calling in. Yeah, no problem, Stan. It's good to hear from you as always. Yeah, this has been a big couple weeks for hydrogen with the amount of interest that's going on. In the northeast now, they're just getting ready to open the hydrogen stations there. They're going to soon to have the approval for the tunnels, so that's going to be some big news and everything else is going to follow from there. There are five stations in New England up in Massachusetts that are ready to open, and there are a number of other ones that are getting ready to open in New York State. So the hydrogen economy is getting accepted worldwide now. For the first time in a long time, the Department of Energy is actually doubled the funding for hydrogen. In all sectors, everything from outreach to new, less expensive tanks, better cheaper electrolyzers, things like that. The industry is making some crazy investments, so you're seeing a lot of major companies investing. I was at the hydrogen H-TAC meeting in Long Beach a couple of months back, and we had a presentation from Microsoft that the next cloud is going to be powered by hydrogen, which is the equivalent of tune for your power plant. That was really eye-opening. A few weeks after that, they're announcing that the next power station built in California is going to run on hydrogen. You have Erie-Liquid basically saying they just got approved for the power from renewable in Nevada for a liquid hydrogen station. So we're going to have one of our first liquid hydrogen refueling stations made off of solar within the next year or so. Infrastructure, which is the last piece that makes this thing work, there are a lot of people working on this, and it's going to happen very shortly. You're seeing fuel cells and everything from boats and planes. I built a hydrogen-powered fire truck for Pujo in France a number of years back, and they just put out a grant for hydrogen fuel cells for emergency vehicles, which makes a lot of sense. I'm sitting back in real time. There's not a day goes by that something to do with hydrogen is not here. The Olympics are going to be powered by hydrogen in Japan, and Toyota is already doing a city-inch pan-powered by hydrogen. Now, you've got to remember, Toyota is betting the farm on this technology. They released 5,500 patents free to the world, and then the president of Toyota says that fuel cells within the next year will be cheaper than the Toyota Corolla Motors that they're producing today, and that's because of graphene and non-noble metal catalyst. So that's the game changer for both the electrolyzers and the fuel cells. So all of this stuff is happening in real time. It's tripped out here to California. I'm going to pay a visit to the Tesla factory where they're putting together the prototype trucks and the first refueling stations for their large orders from the majors for hydrogen trucks. These trucks will do 600 miles. They've got about 250 kilowatts, and they'll fill up in about 15 minutes. This is absolute game changers as far as transportation goes when all you're going to be making is water. So it's every flavor, and now we're seeing a lot of the major companies all investing in hydrogen. We saw hydrogenics just got walked from Cummings Diesel. So a lot of these engine companies are seeing that the next generation of their product is going to be fuel cells. They're fast approaching the point where they can't meet the missions regulations any longer. So this is the only thing that's left on the table. And you know this technology doesn't have the potential to turn the ship around and go the other way. The greenhouse gas emissions are divided by 54 percent for transportation and 46 percent for industry households, homes, things like that. By adopting fuel cell technology, we can eliminate that number down to zero. And since hydrogen is 80 percent of every molecule in the universe, it can be made from everything, including us. So there are more people jumping on the bandwagon every day, and there's more research money, and there's more awareness happening. It can't happen fast enough as far as I'm concerned. Over the last 30 years, I knew this was the answer then. We've been able to discuss about it 30 years ago, but I'm just glad we're doing something about it now. You know, island nations like Hawaii, this is critical. Nobody's coming to rescue you 5,000 miles out in the ocean, you know, and you get all that sunshine, and you have a nice water supply. This fits in perfectly with what everybody else is doing. You're starting to sound like me, Mike. You're starting to sound like me. Well, you know, you've lived it this long, you know, I'm actually seeing, you know, the fruits of all my labor for all these years. And so we need to cure this disease, not treat it. You mentioned something early about the New York fueling stations coming online and the East Coast. You know, the East Coast folks have been working like you on hydrogen for a long time, but, you know, people forget that the infrastructure isn't just the fueling stations or the cars and, you know, production of maybe liquid hydrogen, but you mentioned tunnels, you know, getting approval from municipalities to go through tunnels with hydrogen, which is, you know, something they've never had to deal with before, they think, and it just becomes a nightmare. Yeah, this is an educational thing. So think about it this way. You know, they allow natural gas vehicles to go in and out of the tunnels every day, buses and everything. As far as the amount of energy that you're carrying and the safety of it, it's much safer to carry hydrogen. I hear you. You know, at the end of the day, you know, we let things more dangerous go through the tunnel, tunnel like gasoline vehicles, natural gas vehicles, diesel, all of those. But how long has that issue been rolling around? How long has that issue been rolling around with the state of New York to get it approved to go through those tunnels? It's got to be at least four or five years, I would think. At least, you know, like I said, you know, governments are slowed without new technologies till they figure out the tax base. You know, right now fossil fuel pays for a lot of taxes. So they're not going to let you get hydrogen unless they figure out how to tax it. I think you've just hit on the crux of the problem. You've hit the crux of the problem, you know, unless people can make money off of it. Now, industries figure out how to make money on hydrogen, but the governments haven't. So they can talk about greenhouse gases and climate change all they want, but they ain't helping anything until they start helping hydrogen get, you know, get going. And I think it's time that the legislature in Hawaii and the legislatures in all the cities and counties and states around the US start to get a clue that they're in this game, whether they want to be or not, because it's coming. And they can either start figuring out how to do safety checks, how to standardize measure units of measure for dispensing hydrogen, how to get things through tunnels, and everything else that comes with hydrogen, because it's coming. And you and I have talked about this offline. Yeah, I mean, still much of the population thinks the fuel cell is a gas pack. Exactly. They have no idea that it exists or it's on the menu. I mean, if you don't know something's on the menu, you can't order it, and that's the way they've kept it for years. Now, we've got to now let people know that there's something else on the menu. We have to let people know that there's a cure for the disease, not just the treatment. We're at the point right now where we don't have any other elements left on the periodic table. When hydrogen solves the disease, it's not the treatment. So we're at the turning point right now and Toyota's got the whole company on this. So people bigger than me are betting it off. They're putting it all on the green. And all we can do is keep moving the same way. In order for this to happen, the equation is simple. You have to let people know it's on the menu, and people need to vote with their checkbook. You want a cleaner planet, you've got to buy things that are cleaner than what you've got. So, I mean, the solution is simple. The rest will follow. They'll figure all the rest out once capitalism kicks in. Yeah, and I think to add to that, you've got to start telling the manufacturers you demand the product because, you know, you sent me the conversion kit for our gem vehicle, the kids, the high school kids, and I converted the vehicle. One of their learning points was when they went to visit the salespeople that sold us the vehicle because it was a full-spectrum education form. They were talking to the people that run the dealership and the guys that run the dealership said, look, if people don't ask for it, we don't order it. So, you as consumers, besides voting with your checkbook, you've got to let people know that you want hydrogen vehicles. You want to intermarize. You want the Hyundai Nexo and the other, the bigger vehicle, the Clarity they got in, you know, and Hyundai has a Clarity, and, you know, there's other vehicles coming out. Hummer just announced during the Super Bowl, they're doing an electric Hummer. You know, hey, if you've got an electric Hummer, there's a hydrogen Hummer right behind it. You know, you've got to ask for those things. Well, you've got to realize that fuel cell vehicles are electric vehicles. Exactly. The difference is, instead of using batteries that go dead in five years and have less and less storage every cycle, you put out the same amount of power for 25 years, and you generate 12 gallons of drinking water every tank full. Exactly. I mean, it doesn't get any better than that. You know, once the car is recycled, we get lithium-ion back, fair enough. It's a constant education process for us. You're right. I tell people that, you know, and by the way, HCAP, my former office, I think they're going to be competing on that emergency vehicle grant. They wanted the Air Force and HCAP, I think, want to build that. And, you know, that's an important factor. You know, the guys building these vehicles have got it down now. Like you said, Toyota's refined the patents and everything and the technology down to, you know, one atom thick technology. And as long as you get the right mix of battery with fuel cell, you know, I mean, all electric vehicles are going to have some battery. But trust me, you're a lot better off to have smaller battery and larger fuel cell than large battery and small fuel cell. Yeah. I mean, man, you know that from all the things that we built, and the technology is getting better. I see batteries going away entirely once ultra-capacitors come up to speed. Exactly. You know, that's really the ultimate battery. You've got 18 million cycles on an ultra-capacitor. So, you know, you've got to use the right technology, you know, and the more people use it, the more cost-effective it's going to get. So, you know, we're doing homes up in Grass Valley right now here in California because the utility is failing. So, they found out when they get prices for batteries that it's much cheaper to store the kilowatt hours in hydrogen than it is to store it in battery. And they have subsidies here in California for being your own grid and for grid storage. We also have the same thing in New Jersey. So, just like solar, they're starting to put in incentives for people to buy the technology. So, right now, if you wanted to do hydrogen fuel cell rather than batteries, the government's going to pay for it. Yeah. Great deal, right? You know, people just have to know it's on the menu. Yep. Hey, Mike, we're at break time. We're going to take a quick break here, back in 60 seconds with Mike Stritsky talking to us from California. Usually, we have to do a five-hour, six-hour time difference on New Jersey, but we've got them for two hours. We've got them a little cheap this time. So, we'll be back in 60 seconds. I'm Keisha King, host of Crossroads in Learning on ThinkTech Hawaii. On Crossroads in Learning, our guests and I discuss all aspects of education here in Hawaii and throughout the country. You can join us for stimulating conversations to enrich and liven and educate. We are streamed live on ThinkTech biweekly at 4 p.m. on Mondays. Thanks so much for watching our show. We look forward to seeing you then. Aloha. Hey, welcome back. Stan Energyman here, Stan Osserman, and we're talking to Mike Stritsky over in California. And before we get started back talking to Mike, I want to show a quick video that Mike sent us. It's one of a couple that we'd like to get on the air here if we can. We're going to show you this one because it just gives you a taste of how committed some of the bigger companies are to hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and hydrogen technology. This home in the Manhattan suburb is a model for hydrogen adoption. It is North America's first solar hydrogen-powered residence. The brainchild of inventor Mike Stritsky, the hydrogen house project uses a solar-powered electrolyzer to split water molecules, storing hydrogen in repurposed propane tanks. Using a fuel cell, it converts hydrogen into electricity that powers the home. The only emissions are oxygen and water. Stritsky is also committed to using a clean fuel in other applications to achieve a carbon-free society. Fielding is committed to realizing a hydrogen-powered future because of you. So Mike, we're back on the air. I've got, you know, that's a great video from Hyundai and it reminds me of some of Toyota's early videos from their CEO talking about their company's commitment to a clean future. And Japan certainly has led the way and they're going to show it this summer in the summer Olympics, as you mentioned earlier. And Hyundai, I think as well, I think Korea is going to be doing one of the Olympics, I think in two years or next year. And I think their plan is to do the same thing Japan is doing this year. So have you ever driven any of the Hyundai vehicles? I've driven their larger one. What is that, the Tucson or? Yeah, they had a Tucson at one point and now it's the Nexo. Okay. I've driven the Tucson and actually I was really impressed with that vehicle. It was the only SUV type vehicle that they had out there for the test drive. And Toyota had one of their forerunners, I think, converted earlier. So there's some people have driven that. But that Hyundai SUV with a hydrogen fuel cell on it was really peppy, had great interior, good acceleration, quiet, comfortable, real easy to it was real natural to go into that vehicle. It wasn't like you had to learn a whole new system. A non fuel cell driver could just jump in and start driving and feel really comfortable. And I think people would be really impressed if they really had the chance to get their hands and get their seats and some of those bucket seats and start driving these vehicles. I know you just picked up a Mariah. How do you like it so far? I've got 10,000 miles on this Mariah. I drove it to Vegas and back. I drank the fuel cell water at the at Death Valley. If anybody wants to see the videos right on my front page hydrogenhouseproject.org. But the vehicle itself I love. I think I'm the only one in the world that's actually is filling his vehicle from solar hydrogen. I make three months of the year. Basically, this stuff is not as difficult as people make it out to be. I mean, I basically built my hydrogen refueling station on spare parts. You know, this is not rocket science. Hey, how much, how much PV do you have in terms of kilowatts of PV? How much do you actually have in total? So I know you've got several different. How much? Yeah, I have seven arrays and they total 27 kilowatts. 27 kilowatts. Okay. That's respectable. That's a decent amount of, that's a decent amount of solar. I can do pretty much anything I want to do. And you basically run them from what month and what month in New Jersey? The house works on an energy cycle. So during the spring, I have no heater air conditioning bills. So I take that 27 kilowatts, I put it into my electrolyzer, and I split water in 100 in an oxygen and fill 12 1000 gallon propane tanks. Once that's done, I'm done for the year. So I basically back feed the grid the rest of the years. The house only uses two of the 27 kilowatts. The 25kw solar goes back to the grid. And that happens to the end of September. From September to December, I'm neutral, which is batteries and solar. And then December, January, February, part of March, the fuel cell runs anywhere from two to six hours a day, depending on whether the panels are covered or what the, what the sunlight conditions are at the time. So, and then it goes back to making hydrogen again, and the cycle starts all over again. I always make more hydrogen than I use the year before. So I'm always coming up with new ways of figuring out how to use it. Hence the lawn mowers, the motorcycles, the ATVs, the weed whackers, all that stuff. Yeah. Hey, you have two vehicles. I know you actually hand built a vehicle. Are you still driving that one too? Yeah, I still have the New Jersey Genesis that's been with me now for about the past 10 years. It's the last AIV left, which is a limited intensive vehicle. It was originally built from the partnership for new generation vehicles around the 1994 as their all-aluminum car. So, yeah, it's a real piece of history. So I'm trying to preserve it. There's not any more left. You got the Smithsonian lined up for it? Well, they got the other one. They've got the Venturer, so. Yeah, but they don't have a Stritsky. They don't have a Stritsky original yet. That's true. Well, somebody will be fighting over that when I'm gone. So out in California, are you seeing a lot of the fuel cell vehicles now that you're out there? They're gearing up for the next wave. More fueling stations are going in every day. They've used the carbon tax to basically pay for another 200 stations. So hopefully within next year and a half, we'll have 200 stations here, and a deal was cut with all the major automakers to put in another 200,000 parts. So now you're talking a real dent in both the infrastructure and the amount of vehicles out there. Now things are starting to get serious. You know, we're looking at, like for the Nicola trucks, major, major players are stepping in now that are used to making things in very big quantities, which is going to drive the price down. So for Nicola, you're looking at Siemens and Bosch partnering together to, you know, mass produce these trucks, the drive lines, the wiring harnesses, the fuel cells, all of that stuff. So the mass production end of it is now the next part of bringing the cost down. And then advances in technology, like we've seen with vapor deposition, non-noble metal catalysts and graphene, and, you know, better programming logic, better subcomponents, you know, higher energy densities. We're seeing all of this stuff. Right now, 100 kilowatt fuel cell is the size of a suitcase. If you look at the one that's in the mori, it's under the driver's seat. Yeah, can you imagine putting a V8 engine under your driver's seat? Say that one more time, please. Can you imagine having a V8, you know, five-liter V8 under your driver's seat? I don't think so. Yeah, I can. Just from the noise and the heat. Remember, the military loves to go to fuel cells because there's no heat signature. I know, I sold them on that about five years ago. They kept asking, I mean, they kept telling me they wanted to go battery, battery, battery. And I said, why? You're missing some big points. Number one, the batteries cost too much to ship when you have to deploy. And number two, there's no heat signature, no noise. And you can run the vehicle, just squirt hydrogen when you need fuel, just like you do now and not have to pull it offline and go charge it for six hours. So they caught on pretty good. Yeah, the things that's coming up fast and heavy is, you know, landfill gas, sewage treatment plants, methane, pickpons and calpons. All of these things are very, anything organic is a rich source of hydrogen that can be used for fuel cells. And a lot of it is already carbon that would already go out into the atmosphere. So you're going to see more and more people tapping in to naturally occurring forms of carbon. Since hydrogen, 80% of every molecule in the universe, you know, I'm sorry, all matter in the universe, it's the most abundant fuel source. We're mostly water. You can make fuel from us. Exactly. So we're going to see, this is why this is going to win out of what we're doing. The batteries, they're not going to build an infrastructure nine times bigger or put that much copper in the ground. Yep. I mean, right now, it buys oil in other 10 years. And we don't have 10 years. Hey, you were mentioning that about Ehrlichied and some of the companies putting in large liquid hydrogen plants. And one of them, I think you said it was going to be in Nevada, or I understand it's in Nevada, probably part of Nicola Motor's system. Anyway, you drove your car from LA to Nevada into Vegas. Is Nevada and some of the neighboring states around California, are they starting to clue in and start to build hydrogen infrastructure? Are they starting to take it seriously now? Not quite yet, but soon. Like I said, it's kind of like, you know, you're watching what your neighbor does. And once your neighbor does it, you know, then you've got to do it. You've got to keep up with the Joneses. Exactly. Yeah, it depends on what the resource is. I mean, Arizona is a perfect place because of all the sunlight. It is. And they've got folks in Phoenix that are regular hydrogen pioneers. Roy McAllister and a bunch of the guys down there that, I think Roy's got 150 patents in hydrogen. And they certainly should be watching that stuff and doing stuff. Anyway, we've got just the last minute. I want to leave it to you to kind of wrap up the last minute and give us your picture of what's going on in your world in hydrogen. I mean, in my world of hydrogen, I have a whole team of legislators showing up my house on March 23 to get an education. It all starts with, you know, you have to let people know what's on the menu. By coming to my house, everything is full circle. You'll see where it starts and you'll see what then ends. You can't show somebody a dot in the circle and expect them to connect the rest of the dots. And in most cases, they can't be connected. So everything that we're building in our lives is called a system. So every piece has its job to do. And if you're missing that piece, the job doesn't get done. It wouldn't be a computer if it didn't have a monitor, a hard drive, a mouse or a keyboard. So, you know, we have to show people that all the pieces fit. Everything works together. And you know where things start and end and they end in the right place. So education is key, mass production, voting with your checkbook. People are starting to do all of this stuff. And the new generation is taking over that cares about the plan, you know. What's your website? So people can go and look at some of your stuff. It's hydrogenhouseproject.org. Okay, hydrogenhouseproject.org, not .com. And we put .com on the screen, but it's .org. And there's a lot of other great things. You can tell your listeners are more than welcome to vote with their checkbooks. If you don't, a button when they visit me. Okay. And we had Keith Malone from California fuel cell partnerships on last week. And I just got my newsletter from the Renewable Hydrogen Alliance. That's a great newsletter also. So events coming up, they've got the World Hydrogen Fuel Summit in Amsterdam from 10, 10 and 11 March. So if you want to spend my birthday in Amsterdam, that would be a great thing to go to. And also a hydrogen fuel cell international forum is happening in San Diego on February 26 and 27. And the International Renewable Energy Storage Conference is in Mies, Germany again over my birthday. So a lot of great things happening in March on the 10th, 11th and 12th. So look them up on the internet, get your airline tickets and start participating in the H2 world, right, Mike? That's it. Okay. They have hydrogen in the car now. All right. So you can go watch your NASCAR with fuel cell vehicles and electric vehicles. All right. Well, thanks, Mike, for being with us. And until next week, STEM Energy Man signing off. Aloha.