 Okay, we're back. We're live. It's the 4 o'clock clock. I'm Jay Fiedel. This is Hawaii the state of clean energy our flagship energy show here on Wednesday afternoons and We have an arrangement by which our host Mitch Ewing and joins us from the University by Vmix call and we have our guest Mike Mark Markridge who was the president of Rebuild Hawaii, which is a a nonprofit that rebuilds things and and One of them is a hydrogen project. Okay, we're going to talk today about the hydrogen Festival, okay, which is coming soon, which you need to know about and which more Mike can tell you about and Mitch I'm going to turn it over to Mitch because he's the true host of this show. Hi, Mitch Aloha y'all This is really cool Yeah, I got caught in a really vicious thunderstorm I guess you don't want to hear about that, but I just was nowhere I could make it down in the studio. So I Think Tech Hawaii worked their magic and I'm talking to you from my very busy office studio that I have here Aloha and Mike, thank you so much for agreeing to Come out and be our guest today. We're going to talk about this 2019 Hydrogen Festival. I think this was number one. It's going to be the first one we've had here in Hawaii So Mike, why don't you give us a quick little background of what your background is and How you came about? You know putting this whole project together. So I started working as an economist 20 years ago and I started doing papers on different things in Hawaii and I'm looking straight ahead now. So one of the things that came about again and again was the cost of energy and over time I found out about hydrogen and it occurred to me that one of the things we needed to do was educate people about the importance of a hydrogen and Why we need to include hydrogen in our lives and hydrogen is a fuel and How this is something for the future and so We came to the idea that maybe we should have a festival, you know This is a scientific thing and normally when you you talk about fuels you talk about energy you're talking about a Lot of people sitting around panels and holding conversations about very weighty issues But oftentimes it takes a long time to go beyond that and we wanted to do something what which could was more aspirational and which would capture the public's imagination which could involve school children the Department of Education different aspects of Hawaiian society and That's the idea for the Hawaii hydrogen Festival, which is scheduled for August 16th this year and we want to have all the major players who are doing hydrogen hydrogen vehicles people who are cooking with hydrogen people who are using hydrogen for to create power and people in Hawaii and people on the mainland and people in Japan and South Korea and in Europe where Hydrogen is part of much more part of the conversation than this with many people today in the United States So that's the idea. It's a hydrogen festival. Well, it's great that you're taking this initiative Mike we in the Academic and engineering communities to get about the general public then we just naturally assume they know everything about hydrogen And where the industry is but in reality unless we like get out and and show Show the flag as we used to say in the Navy They're not going to know what's going on. So for example, everybody thinks that hydrogen is like 10 years down the road Well, the news is that hydrogen has arrived Hydrogen vehicles have arrived and they've actually arrived in Honolulu and in Hawaii In the form of the Mariah Toyota Mariah, which served though stepped up to the plate. I mean hats off to serve though They took their initiatives. They went to corporate. They got agreement to Currently lease the Mariah vehicle here in Honolulu and out of their own pocket No government money. No grant. No, nothing. I mean they just dug into their hip pocket and put together the funding required and they built the first public Hydrogen fueling station in Hawaii by public I mean that they've even offered that anybody who has a hydrogen car can come and fill up at their station I don't know Puna Puna and I mean what what leadership is that and vision and Going for it. So now they have The Toyota Mariah available for lease and I don't want to quote what the lease rates are But from my point of view, it seemed to be very attractive and they do include like a three-year supply of hydrogen and all the operation and maintenance costs are free as I understand it I'm qualified that so it's a really good deal. And so essentially Hydrogen and hydrogen vehicles are now here in Hawaii. We have other projects, of course I mean Stan Osserman and the HVAD have been working on Hygiene for at least 15 or longer about 20 years with the US Air Force Hickam Air Force Base and we also have a hydrogen station that H&I is put up at the caniola Marine Corps Base Unfortunately, those stations are not accessible by the general public because they are on you know military bases So it's very difficult to be able for you know, a member of the public to come in and kill it and they're frankly not set up to be a Traditional fueling station like they don't have a point of sale and you can't swipe a credit card or whatever So you're not so your vehicle. So I've been doing a lot of talking. So let me go back to our guest You're supposed to be doing a little talking and asking a little bit more put them on the spot We had a discussion at lunch today. So a little bit more of what the plans are How are you envisioning this all coming together? So Mike? I'll get some of that out to you and I'll fill in the blanks. Go ahead. Okay. Well The way this came about was I was I was doing research on early motorcars in Hawaii And you can kind of think you know, what what does this have to do with hydrogen? But you know around the turn of the century, you know, Hawaii was always kind of news. We have your photographs. We can show Okay People don't realize that the motor car goes back to 1765, you know, we can but if this is a little later Can you can you flip that on the side so we can see that's Okay, wait, we're gonna we got to turn it the right way Okay Anyway, so anyway, okay, so so people were saying oh well hydrogen is taking a long time to come along We don't know what's going to happen But I became very interesting because how fast the motor car once it started once people got really involved when they became interested Once it became really important the motor car just kind of took off and at first when when people were Coming up with all these different kinds of motor cars, I think you know, they're like more than a thousand companies more manufacturers You know, there were there were people who are using steam and and and there were people who wanted to use gasoline And you know people weren't sure what would work best and you know if you had a steam car You know you had to get the thing percolating and you had to you know Heat up the boiler and yet you had to get it going and they were how does you get the brakes going and so forth? And and then and then came along people who said no, no, that's just too complicated We should use gasoline and and people said not that won't take off and then people you know It started experimenting and one thing it led to another and and and then it very fast it went to gasoline cars and you know the Model T and very much to and What we know are very familiar with today And so suddenly we were transitioning to an electric car and the next thing will be and what is now is the hydrogen car And why this is important is that? 30% of our transportation is fossil fuel emitting and you know when we're thinking about the future we have to think figure out How can we reduce this how can we reduce this in a meaningful way at a very at a very basic way? And and that's what the public has to do because the public has to choose to use hydrogen They have to have to choose these electric vehicle They have to choose not to use fossil fuels and and they have to want to make that choice And so by having a hydrogen festival, which I hope will be the first of a number of festivals we'll be able to you know Capture the public's imagination the way people did with the motor car and say well, you know Here's another path. This is aspirational. This is something that anybody can do and just look around the world How fast this is changing how you know of large? Trucking companies on the mainland now are gearing up for hydrogen trucks and in Japan You know the the designer of the Prius, you know is now the designer of the Mara, you know, they You know, they're saying look this is happening. We're doing this and so we're gonna have Panels as you always have where people can Experts from the wrong world will come and talk about hydrogen and how it fits in our society and different ways that it fits You know, whether it's the motor car or if it's in marine transportation or Maybe in aeronautics You know, we're gonna have talk about how this could be used on our grid to make our Our grid so we can use less fossil fuels, you know, we're gonna look at all the different aspects of how this new hydrogen economy Will fit into this new Hawaii economy, you know people always say that things don't change that fast But actually they really do you know, you know You know People say, you know, if you look at the history of Hawaii, for example, and you say, okay Well, you know first, you know, they're When people came here, you know, the Hawaiians were here and they developed this tremendous technology with fish ponds and all this amazing things that they did and then Europeans came and then they had, you know, the whaling industry people thought the whaling industry was gonna be here For a long time, but you know within about 50 75 years it changed it It disappeared and sugar came in and then people thought well sugar will be here Forever it'll always be here in 50 years. It was it was gone and now, you know, we're in this very urbanized space and we're We're looking at you know, how do we cope with all these people? How do we cope with all these cars? How do we cope with all these fossil fuels and maybe that path is hydrogen and You know the hydrogen is festival is the way to learn about this to look at this to involve all the different aspects of our community into this New path is rapidly coming our way. Yeah, okay. Well, I'm gonna take a break now gentlemen Mitch and Mike and we come back I wonder if you could address the question of where hydrogen cars fit in a diversity of Renewable vehicles and how they play with electric cars and what to what extent if any Our electric cars gonna be on display at the hydrogen festival think about that question We'll take one minute off. We'll be right back and then we'll return Aloha, I'm Wendy Lo and I'm coming to you every other Tuesday at 2 o'clock live from think tech Hawaii and On our show we talk about taking your health back and what does that mean? It means mind body and soul anything you can do that makes your body healthier and happier is What we're going to be talking about whether it's spiritual health mental health fascia health beautiful smile health Whatever it means. Let's take healthy back. Aloha Hey, loha. My name is Andrew Lanning. I'm the host of security matters Hawaii airing every Wednesday here on think tech Hawaii live from the studios. I'll bring you guests. I'll bring you information About the things in security that matter to keeping you safe your co-workers safe your family safe to keep our community safe We want to teach you about those things in our industry that you know may be a little outside of your experience So please join me because security matters. Aloha Okay, we're back. We're live. This is Hawaii the state of clean energy I'm Jay Fidel and our host Mitch Ewan joins us from his office and UH Manoa HNE I And we're gonna talk some more with Mike Markridge our guest today Who is from rebuild Hawaii and we're going to talk about the hydrogen festival which is in August and Mitch I hope that you ask Mike to talk about the relationship and presence of electric cars at the festival I'm going to ask that question I'm just going to editorialize slightly here in that Basically a hydrogen car is an electric vehicle now. We've been trying for years to get our legislation in place so that you know, I A hydrogen car, which is an electric vehicle can have the same basic advantages as a battery Electric vehicle. It looks like this year. It's going to make it and I'm sure some of that credit must go to serve code probably been helping please offer a legislature legislators on the fact that actually a hydrogen car is an electric car and You know the hygiene is just a way another way to store electricity. So Mike how about doing that some idea of What we can expect at the hydrogen festival, I know I know it's like early days and Like we just had our meeting at lunchtime But what what kind of highlights do you think that we should be talking about and looking at well? What I want to do is I want to bring in international Visionaries leaders in hydrogen Transportation to talk about things people are doing how they're doing it I can't really give very many names right now because what this is still in the planning stage But you know, maybe you could mention some of the people we talked about at lunch. Oh, I can sure yeah Well, we're looking at all the major hydrogen players like NEL hydrogen, which used to be called photon Amoresco means a local energy services company US hybrid who actually is a fuel cell developer Manufacturer more than just developing and they've been in Hawaii for 23 years and the buses I've been I've procured have all been converted to hydrogen by US hybrid So we would expect them to be here and we're going to show off the US fuel cell Who else can we talk about? That's all it comes to mind right now, but yeah, I want to put in a plug-in for you Mike that we are looking for sponsors for the show and so the long arm was going to come out to some of the major players Surf code. We really like surf code to be be there and do some riding drives with their On the line, but I don't want to take all your thunder there Mike. So you go ahead and fill in the gaps Okay, so Because we're just getting started. We're going to be in writing letters. I can't really mention any specific names Well, you could mention Stan Osserman. I can Because Stan Osserman doesn't show up. I mean, it would be a back of gaping hole No, no Stan has been a big supporter of this and Stan as you know is a visionary and Stan has Made possible so many different opportunities for the use of hydrogen and you know, and again like Mitch He's a very visionary thinker So, you know, it's like how to use this on the military side how to use it from the civilian side You know, how do you make this accessible to the average person now? I mean, you know, well, you know, one of the People I read about was dr. Katsuhiki Hirose who was is in charge of the Toyota hydrogen program and he's saying that you know They're that right now, you know people are Contesting you know, are we gonna have which kind of electric vehicle are we going to have is it going to be the Battery powered hydrogen vehicle or is it going to be you know the fuel cell electric vehicle? You know, he's going to be you know battery or fuel cell and he's saying that well eventually It's probably going to be the fuel cell and it's going to be the fuel cell because you know in Hawaii for example You have batteries, but you have to dispose of batteries. You know, you have all these problems batteries You know an island you accumulate That's right. So, you know and with with hydrogen, you know, the waste products are water is a waste product, right? so that's less of a problem and and so We hope to be able to talk about the advantages and disadvantages of the different opportunities there are in electric vehicles and Also the different kinds of ways we can use hydrogen. There's going to be a hydrogen cooking demonstration we're going to ask school children to Perform doing certain things hydrogen And how they maybe could envision hydrogen in their lives because basically we're talking about this is going to be their world This is going to be their world that we're trying to free of the burden of fossil fuels So how how can we help them? One thing you guys might consider is a program. I don't remember whether you were there Mitch You might have been that was done by the fire department a year or two ago at the fire station I guess it's a training facility near Pearl Harbor and They were showing What what happened? With the burning of hydrogen in the open air. They were showing that it was totally transparent And you had to have a certain device to tell When it was burning and I guess this was relevant to a fire that might be involving hydrogen gas And they were preparing themselves for that possibility But it was it was also an example of the properties of hydrogen what it's like how you store it How you move it how you how you deal with it in general? And I was really an eye-opener for me to see it, you know close up that way The other thing I wanted to ask you sorry Mitch go ahead Yeah, that was the first responders training. We put on that was several years ago Now about five or six years ago jet not two years ago I'm going quickly when you're having fun But yeah, we were able to train up 150 of our first responders here on the long view and on the big island And like you say it was really Also an outreach opportunity like you said show the properties of hydrogen and the really interesting thing was that the fireman was able to put his bare hand like this Now within three or four inches of the flame front of the hydrogen and not even get singed Because hydrogen has no carbon in it. So it doesn't it doesn't radiate any heat So that's one of the properties of hydrogen. The fact is it goes up 45 miles an hour or 90 or 60 feet per second Thousand and one that's already gone up 60 feet six story building So it just naturally wants to get away and actually it gave our firefighters our first responders a lot of confidence in being more comfortable with the whole idea of hydrogen and safety and That's very important to any kind of a hydrogen program I'd also like to do a quick little shout out while I have the floor here very briefly to call Pontio Planet research over the big island. He's built a little walk burner that operates on hydrogen brings out around the various places to demonstrate the fact that this flame, you know, doesn't radiate any heat and we hope that It doesn't radiate you know, it's plenty hot inside it But there's a lot of interest in using hydrogen as a cooking seal And so you have to be able to display that over here at the hydrogen festival and they don't have hydro burners and I go hot dogs So over to you Mike MJ Well, I'd be interested in seeing a electrolyzer at your festival I don't know if it's at a price or a scale where the average You know homeowner or citizen could buy one But I'd be interested in seeing one because it's it's a key to how you make hydrogen And maybe going forward you'll have to tell me but maybe going forward That would be useful to as to create the fuel in the event you need to create the fuel for your your hydrogen device like your car I know I know Henke Rogers has one But maybe there are others and maybe we could see one touch one turn one on see how it works That would be very useful to again appreciate the properties of hydrogen and how you create hydrogen and finally I wanted to ask you guys About the Mariah, you know a mission. I have talked about the Mariah. It's a it's a very attractive car I've seen it at the car show for a couple of years already Made by Toyota. It's it's actually beautiful. You know when some of these other Electric cars or hybrid cars have come out You can't say they're beautiful. I'm sorry, but the Mariah is beautiful In terms of the lines of it, you know the way it hangs together And for that matter the way it operates and I hope you have at least one maybe more than one there So people can see them. Also. I recall that I think you guys set it up Mitch it was at at the at the research facility you have or had at the Hawaiian Electric property on Ward Avenue you had a bunch of hydrogen cars to actually drive. Do you remember that? And could you set that up for the festival? Yeah, we we supported a project that actually Hawaii gas was the main instigator behind that whole provides the leadership to get that program going we had the 15 General Motor Equinox Steel-cell vehicles here in town That was the vehicle that you and I rode around in J and then had plenty of performance. I mean, you know You can actually burn rubber in those in those cars. They have such good torque and then pick up so yeah Those cars unfortunately have been returned to GM. I mean they were experimental and they've probably taken them all apart to analyze You know how well they they worked But there's always a chance to get other makers cars out here as well if we give them enough time to ship their vehicles out You know Hickam has a bus that they may be available, you know, that is certainly Maybe a as a static Display I have a bus that'll be eventually on the big island. I'm not sure that I can ship it back to Honolulu and then back to the big island But we can certainly have a video of all that kind of stuff and demonstrate it to show it to people Yeah, that's a great idea Yeah, the other thing I wanted to ask before we before we close to see if you guys could help us with this So right now in the mind of the public, you know, the electric car per se rather than the hydrogen car has been You know, it's been talked about and advertised and what have you and there are what? 7500 of them running around so the high in many ways the hydrogen car is more attractive and I wonder if one or both of you could just answer this question for me How do I make my mind up assuming that both on the market assuming my ride takes off? What considerations would I entertain to make my choice between an electric car and a hydrogen car? I think one of the things with Hydrogen car is that you can just you know takes three minutes to Refuel it, right? I mean just isn't that right Mitch five to ten minutes Actually the whole the whole objective of a car company is just to make the experience of Owning a hydrogen car the same as your existing car So you don't have to change anything in the way you do business So electric cars you still have to plug them in You know unplug them coil the cable and put it up. I know that sounds like totally insignificant but here, you know we You know the general public I mean they just don't want quote any kind of a hassle factor Yeah, it's like the more you can make it exactly of what they're used to the better it is and You know the more accepting they may be of this technology. There's certainly a place for us a straight battery electric Vehicle I'm not knocking them at all. In fact, you know in the hydrogen vehicle We have batteries like you know for to absorb a regenerator for a king You know when you break instead of using your brakes you use the generator You use a motor as a generator and so you can recover quite a lot of that energy Just like you do in a battery electric vehicle now. So yeah You know it'll come down to price and and and how easy is it to get fueled and all these other kinds of considerations Certainly a guy who has a battery electric vehicle and has great loose pop solar that you can charge at his house Well, you know, there's a certain there's a certain Advantage in being able to charge your own car up with the loose pop solar and you don't have to pay anything extra So that's that's a good thing and that's that's tough to overcome. So one of the interesting things What are you gonna say something? That was that was brought up at lunch was So Batteries make use of cobalt cobalt comes from It's very expensive comes from the Congo. There's lots of lots of politics with cobalt That's right. So it's it's expensive and and you know and then just as we talked about disposals and SU but you know hydrogen cars use lithium and lithium comes you can get from seawater and You know one of the things that we've always wanted to do was was to try to make electricity, you know from the ocean, you know and One of the byproducts of that would be lithium so You know the lithium will provides all kinds of opportunities Let me ask one more question. It's related Before we close and that it's about buses, you know We know for example that the Department of Transportation Services in Hawaii in Honolulu is Testing these two-section buses their electric buses and they cost three quarters of a million dollars a piece You know and they may have to make it They will have to make a choice at the end of the test period as to what they do whether they actually buy these buses and Deploy them or not But it seems to me not only through you Mitch, but through Stan Osserman that that hydrogen is a better bet for buses Hydrogen's been you hydrogen buses have been used on the military bases and in Various places in the state for the past few years and they work well and my sense of it And I like you to agree or disagree. I think I know your answer Seems to me that hydrogen is a better fit for buses in general, and that's where we should that's one place anyway Maybe the primary place that we should focus our efforts on deploying hydrogen for transportation thoughts Answers remarks agreements disagreements by I'll let Mitch address that he's the buses. I Totally agree with that. I mean the Major barrier speed buff we have now is hydrogen infrastructure like where do I feel and with the bus first of all You're looking at fueling a fleet So you only have to build like one hydrogen station for a bus fleet. Of course, it's going to be a big one In California, they allow early adopters of light vehicles like the Mirai to they put up dispenser outside the gate So it allows the early adopters To come in and feel their vehicles and then set up a program to do that Also, you know at this stage of the game we rely on government money and public funding from the taxpayers and by Operating the buses in addition to all the other advantages allows the general public to actually experience The bus anybody can get on the hydrogen bus and experience what it's like and at the same time You're doing public outreach and they're going to say wow This is really quiet and what happened all those diesel fumes I don't have to breathe and the other one thing I want to get plugged in here Is that we fit it out our bus for the big island County bus with a export power unit? Basically, we can export 110 220 volt AC power for when you have a civil defense Emergency like a tsunami or a hurricane knocks down all your power You can use your bus and as a mobile Generator to go around and plug in critical any critical load that you have you want to keep powered up And so if you have a whole fleet of buses like example, let's just assume the County City and County Honolulu like those a hundred percent hydrogen fuel cell buses you have like five hundred and sixty five mobile Power packs that can be dispensed or dispersed anywhere to provide You know power and then when you want to you know make quite about 30 hours of power at full power and then when you want to recharge it all you do is you bring it back to the station and It takes like 15 to 20 minutes to refuel it with hydrogen and you get for another 30 hours or more So that's something that we totally have not looked at closely But the bus on a big island that we're just getting ready to deploy now will be a beautiful example And a demonstration of that capability and we'll help justify that cost differential between the existing diesel buses and an electric bus or a hydrogen bus and Perhaps from a different budget to offset the cost of your bus so you get down to parody and you can make the business Value proposition of why should I be buying these buses? So those are some of the thoughts I have on buses on the big fan of buses I didn't know that like you wanted to add something No, it's just that you know what what Mitch is doing is so important because you know They the longest journey begins with a single step and and so this is the way we know We're stepping away from fossil fuels. We're stepping forward in another direction And and and so I just think when we talk about you know on the one hand, which is more efficient the diesel powered or the Hydrogen where the other thing is well, we want our future We want a future for young people want a future for the world And so what is what is the price you put on that future? The longest journey begins with clean energy. That's the point Thank You Mike Markridge. Thank you Mitch Ewing Great to have you great to have this discussion. Good luck on the festival I hope we have more about it from you between then and now great. Thank you. Aloha. Aloha, Mitch