 Welcome to Stand the Energy Man here on another beautiful day in Hawaii and I hear it's really nice in Austin Texas today too so we're gonna jump right into visiting with our guests. The title of today's show is basically energy without wires or power without wires and that's because if you think about our energy situation in the US we generally break it into what's on the grid and transportation fuels. You either have gasoline or diesel or you have electricity run through wires but we're moving quickly to pretty much all electric transportation and probably a different design on the grid and as we move in that direction you're gonna see a lot more renewables a lot more intermittent renewables in particular that need energy storage and that energy storage and when we transmit the energy a lot of it won't be in wires it'll be in gases and things like that. So today's program is a little bit different it's about how we're going to be storing energy and how we're going to use that energy and transportation and grids but storing energy in a gas is a lot different than storing it in a liquid and our guest today Kevin Harris is from Hexagon a group and coming to us from Austin Texas so Kevin thanks for being on the show today I appreciate you being able to join us and can you tell us a little bit about yourself first and I know you actually work with my predecessor Tom Quinn so you've probably been in the hydrogen business even longer than me and I'm pretty bullish on hydrogen so I'm sure you are too but tell us a little bit about yourself. Well mechanical engineer by trade also have a business degree I started in the hydrogen area around year 2000 so I'm getting close to 20 years there and I'm doing more business development sales and marketing side of things but my technical background allows me to work with engineers as well. Hexagon itself is basically a composite pressure vessel company they make tanks cylindrical tanks for natural gas and hydrogen primarily we do some LPG as well and those tanks can be found on onboard applications like on vehicles like cars and trucks and buses but they can also be found at the fueling stations as well we call that ground storage or stationary storage and then as well we are involved with transport of hydrogen so if you need to transport the hydrogen from the point of production to the refueling station for example we have transport trailers that allow you to do that and as a side note our Norwegian headquarters they make LPG tanks so they do barbecue tanks and they've made I think over 11.5 million of those are out there right now primarily in Europe but they are coming to the States as well. All right well let's let's talk a little bit about tanks there's all different kind of tanks I mean we're kind of used to seeing welders with metal tanks and scuba divers with aluminum and steel tanks but your tanks are specifically basically carbon fiber woven or not woven but spun in specific shapes and gives it some very specific advantages but I know also that sometimes they come with liners so like type 3 and type 4 different can you kind of describe the difference between type 3 and type 4? Sure so type 3 and type 4 are both composite overwrapped tanks that have a liner in them and the liner is used basically to allow the hydrogen not to escape and the carbon fiber or the composite overwrap is used to hold in the pressure. A type 3 has an aluminum liner or a metal liner typically aluminum and the type 4 tanks which is what we do have a plastic liner inside of them both are very good in terms of being more lightweight than a traditional steel tank but the automotive industry has basically I would say the majority has gone to type 4 tanks because of the lightness that they need you don't want to be hauling around a lot of steel if you can help it you want to have more room for the payload itself whether it's passengers or in a truck the actual freight that it's carrying so the type 4 is very good in terms of its lightness in terms that it doesn't have fatigue effects like metal containers do so type 4 is basically the lightness is what you get out of it. Are there on the type 3 tanks are there any issues with the embrittlement because I mean that's kind of a not a controversial issue but you know I hear a lot of people that really say embrittlement is a big deal and other engineers tell me it's not that big of a deal unless you have high pressure and high temperature combines yes what's what's your company's take on on metal as a not so permeable membrane inside the tanks are they worried about embrittlement or anything? Well with the type 3 tanks they are like I said aluminum liner so they don't have the embrittlement issue or at least probably not as bad as steel tanks. I will say though that I have heard that there are certain steels that reduce the embrittlement risk and so it's possible that they can do it as well but the fact that there is essentially no metal in our tanks there is some metal on what we call the bosses which is the ends where the actual like piping would be connected to the tank and that's typically stainless steel for for hydrogen so there's no embrittlement issues for us per se so but it's definitely something that you always have to think about it as an engineer you have to look at all the failure modes and embrittlement is just one of those things and one of those things you don't have to worry about with our particular tanks. So your tanks are in many cases made for hydrogen at fairly high pressures I know that we consider low pressure between maybe 100 and 350 bar which is around up to 5000 psi and then 700 bar is high pressure at 10 000 psi I know that we have storage tanks at our station at Hickam that go up to 12 000 psi but that's their rated pressure capacity but the tanks are actually certified to hold I mean if they're rated at 10 or 12 000 psi what's their actual failure failure pressure and what kind of pad do the engineers build into those tanks? Yeah so it depends on the code that you're building to but typically you will have what we call a stress ratio or a burst to service ratio of two and a quarter to three so if your tank is designed for let's say 5000 psi the burst would happen upwards of like 12 000 or even 15 000 psi so that's how much of a safety factors put into those tanks. To me that's important because that's a big comfort factor as we try and get the public to appreciate the safety margins that are put into tanks and other parts of hydrogen vehicles and you know that's you know I'm a former scuba diver I got certified back in the 60s and you know we were always scared to death about 2500 psi in a scuba tank you know because it'll take you know you knock the valve off it'll it'll take off and start zooming around the room. So it's critical and you know I'll tell you I just came back from the hydrogen mirror review and you were there in DC and were you in the briefings where the army showed them shooting rounds at the tanks? Yes I was there. Were those your tanks? Those were not our tanks actually but I can tell you that we have one tank that's rated at 950 bar and it's used for stationary and there is one test we have to go through it's called the gunfire test or the bullet test and that test is basically used to see that if if a bullet pierces the tank that the tank won't be destroyed basically there'll be a leak just through the the bullet hole you will. Our 950 bar tank for example goes through this test and we found it to be literally bulletproof they try to penetrate and they could not penetrate the side of the tank and that tells you the strength of that carbon fiber and also I've seen vehicles that have had tanks I'm not sure if it was our tank but it was it was a carbon fiber tank of one manufacturer another and they had like a caterpillar type vehicle like a bulldozer or a tank or something like that that has run over that tank the car is completely flat and except for a small bulge in the back and that's where the hydrogen tank is located and you know undamaged so very very strong. Yeah I was really impressed when the army did show the videos and so whether they were your tanks or not I was just super impressed it was like you say they're they're virtually indestructible and to give the audience an idea of what the series was the first thing they did was they shot basically a 30 caliber or 30 out six round or three or eight round through a tank and it bounced off the tank then they took an armor piercing 30 caliber round and shot it it went through the tank but it just let the gas out then they took a 30 caliber armor piercing high explosive incendiary around and fired it through the tank and it went through the tank and it started a fire but it was like a blowtorch and it burned for 10 minutes and then it went out and all these three tests the tank was virtually there intact except for the 30 caliber hole in and the 30 caliber hole out which is what you described yes what I thought was really intriguing was what they did after that because these guys are like mythbusters on steroids they they couldn't do it with a bullet so they took a RPG warhead and they pointed it straight at the tangent of the tank and they set it off and you just see this massive explosion that fills the camera up with with a big flash and dust and everything the dust finally clears and there's like a two inch hole going in and a two inch hole coming out and the tank is still sitting there and we're all just rolling on the floor thinking this is hilarious because you know they're they're trying their hardest to destroy this tank and they can't do it and then finally they take a bunch of c4 or plastic explosive and pack it all around the tank and they set it off and they managed to actually damage the tank but most of it was still sitting there strapped to the pallet with metal straps and I just thought we were by then we were in tears about how funny this was because the army tried their darnedest to destroy this tank and they couldn't do it so my my comfort level with the safety and security of of your your style tanks is uh is just I have no question about the safety of it at all and it's a very comforting feeling but let's let's go to me okay oh just gonna say I mean the automotive companies um I mean they they have uh they're gonna have liabilities as they sell these vehicles to the the general public and so they wouldn't put this type of technology in there if there is uh you know any risk at all so um that's very telling that the the automotive OEMs are using these tanks in their fuel cell vehicles I agree you know out here in Hawaii we've had some vehicles you're familiar with some of the hydrogen vehicles that Tom Quinn had uh underway out here and so we've had fire department and um federal fire and state fire and county fire folks all trained in responding to hydrogen vehicle fires but you know just the process of getting transportable tanks through the federal department of transportation wickets and test them is a challenge in itself and so could you give us an idea of what it takes to get your equipment through those rigors on the federal side yeah yeah absolutely um I think the key takeaway really here is that because we're building a pressure vessel we're we're very heavily regulated um you know for good reasons back back in the 1800s when they had boilers and what not that weren't made to any codes they would explode all the time and people would get injured so there are a variety of codes and standards that we must adhere to depending on the application and um we have a team of people with over a hundred person years of experience in dealing with these codes and standards um but in any case that is really in the whole product development when we're developing a new tank that is the bottleneck if you will um in getting uh our product out to market so one example going back to this 950 bar tank um the we we wanted to get DOT approval meaning that we can use this tank as a in a transport trailer that took almost two years to get through the system probably because it was the highest pressuring that that they had dealt with at the department of transportation uh so there's a lot of education involved there's a lot of testing that has to be done like I mentioned the gunfire test there's a bonfire test there's an acid test there's a torque test there's there's quite a few tests that have to get done um so it's important to know that because um if someone comes up to and comes up to our company it says I'd like to buy a tank and I want you to custom make it to a certain diameter a certain length um just know that because we have to hear these codes and standards we have to do a bunch of tests so that's going to take quite a bit of time um and so iterating is not difficult it's just it takes more time so to juice a tank and then change the tank dimensions unfortunately we have to go through a lot of the tests if not all the tests uh over again so that that that can be difficult but with with the experience people we have on board I think we're a leader in terms of not only working with codes and standards but actually developing them as well on a on a global scale okay well we hit up the midpoint of the show here we're going to take a 60 second break and be back with Kevin and talk to him a little bit more about some of the safety aspects of these tanks Aloha I'm Cynthia Sinclair and I'm Tim Apachella we are hosts here at Think Tech Hawaii a digital media company serving the people of Hawaii we provide a video platform for citizen journalists to raise public awareness in Hawaii we are a Hawaii non-profit that depends on the generosity of its supporters to keep on going we'd be grateful if you'd go to thinktech hawaii.com and make a donation to support us now thanks so much Hi my name is Amy Ortega Anderson inviting you to join us every Tuesday here on Pinoy Power Hawaii with Think Tech Hawaii we come to your home at 12 noon every Tuesday we invite you to listen watch for our mission of empowerment we aim to enrich and lighten educate entertain and we hope to empower again maraming salamat po mabuhay and aloha hey welcome back to my lunch hour and stand energy man here we've got Kevin Harris over in Austin Texas talking to us about storage tanks for my favorite element in the world each two hydrogen and we're talking about some of the rigors that the tanks have to go through for Department of Transportation testing to go on highways and one of the things I was curious about Kevin is I'm not sure if you guys make the valves that go on the end of the tanks or you contract that out but can you don't give us an idea of some of the safety features that those pieces of the tank have yeah we don't supply those components themselves but they have their own set of tests that they have to go through that you actually use similar testing service suppliers that we use but that's you know when you're dealing with these high pressures you safety has to come first and they have to go through those tests and ensure that it's it's going to work out you know in the in the public so definitely they have to go through some tests and and you know we're obviously thankful for that because a lot of times we're not just building the tank itself we're building a tank system so in a bus or in a class A truck for example the OEM will want to have not just the tank but they'll want to have the the valving the plumbing that goes around that perhaps even a fire protection system and so we work with those sub suppliers if we were to build up the system and yes they have to go through their own tests okay and I was going to ask you this before the break um we're just for the folks that aren't mechanical engineers or aren't familiar 950 bars your your highest pressure tank how many pounds per square inch pressure is that that is 13,775 if I'm not mistaken so just under 14,000 psi which is a lot of pressure and and why would yeah why would you want to use that it would be because you know people don't realize that when you have a liquid tank and you just start taking fuel out of it the fuel level lowers down and eventually run out of fuel but when you're working with a gas the gas tends to stay at a uniform pressure in the tank so as you're dispensing the pressure drops and when you're trying to squeeze that into a car that's 10,000 psi if you start with 10,000 psi pressure and you start filling the tank you're going to be below 10,000 psi in a couple seconds and you'll never get to the 10,000 psi so you start off with a higher pressure like 12 or 13,000 psi and you start filling the vehicle and you can get it to 10,000 psi and do things like cascade fills what we call and and try and get the maximum amount of pressure into the vehicle so yeah what are the different size you folks build some trailers are commercially available what are the different size trailers that you build in terms of kilograms on a set of trailer wheels yeah well we have a trailer called a Titan trailer and if you can envision a 40 foot trailer or a larger one at 53 feet long and picture four tubes on that trailer each two being around 52 feet long and having a diameter about three and a half feet you have four of those tubes on there and we're working on getting that one certified for hydrogen and you could expect to carry 860 kilograms or so of hydrogen on board and those tanks are operating at approximately 250 bar okay is there a plan to try and get that size tank to a higher pressure yeah we have plans I guess or visions of getting to higher pressures 500 bar for example that seems to be a popular spot but we recently got a special permit from the Department of Transportation as I said before to move around the 950 bar tanks so we could build a tank if we if we see the the market is there or if we had a customer who wanted us to build that we could build a transport trailer full of 950 bar tanks and then that could allow having a larger compressor at the production site hydrogen production site and then potentially no compressor at the hydrogen refueling site Department of Energy week there we saw that compressors make up as far as a capital cost basically the highest portion of the of the station so imagine if you could get rid of that compressor and just have 950 bar tanks on trailers used at the hydrogen station and have that cascading as you say into a 700 bar tank that's that's on the vehicle so that's something you know I want to get into with potential customers and see if there's an appetite for that type of paradigm if you will and what's the smallest trailer that you folks make commercially and if you and then do and does anybody make trailers with your tanks that are like on a pickup truck scale or you know a smaller scale right well the smallest one we have is a 20 foot container and I you know to be honest I think it holds around 350 kilograms of hydrogen at 250 bar then we have a european version as well but as far as something on a pickup truck we do have what I call a mini container for the kid one of the industrial gas companies and that's who 950 bar tanks it holds a total of 24 kilograms and they're using it in a mobile hydrogen refueling trailer so they can now move this trailer around to places that they want to have a hydrogen fueler but maybe can't afford to put in a permanent fixed station at this point they can have this mobile trailer and once the amount of fuel cell vehicle increases to the point where it justifies a permanent station then they could move that trailer to another location to further extend the coverage of the hydrogen station network to allow people to go further out from the let's say the center of the network so that two tank 950 bar mini container it's about 10 foot long maybe two feet high four or five feet wide that's something that could go on a pickup truck that's exactly why I asked the question because Hawaii is in its infant stages of standing up stations we have one commercially available station stood up by surf go Hawaii the main Toyota dealer here on this island and we're looking for other ways to kind of bring hydrogen in at the pace of the demand and right now we don't have demand for 900 kilograms of hydrogen at a pop but you know but high pressure and a small volume would be would be real handy you know we're really actually getting close to our end time and I wanted to talk a little bit about stationary but how adaptable are your cylinders your storage containers for larger scale like grid scale hydrogen storage I mean there's you can use multiples just like you know the Tesla vehicle uses I don't know how many hundreds of those like D cell batteries at least that's my understanding the same thing can be used for ours but what I would suggest is the transport trailers themselves they are they use the tanks in a container that you put on a trailer so theoretically you could take the 45 or the 40 foot container that holds in that case like around 800 or so kilograms or you can take a 53 foot which is closer to 900 kilogram these are ISO containers so you can stack these potentially six or seven high so it would be very easy very modular to take let's say 500 600 kilograms per container and then multiply that by how many containers you need and stack them high and save real estate and then you could have very large scale hydrogen storage and you know we're talking to to wind developers people who are who are making hydrogen through electrolysis at large scale and they need to have a place to put it and what the nice thing is is if it's on a trailer chassis they can use that as ground storage as they fill them up and then they can just hook them up to a truck and then the truck can bring them to the users of the hydrogen which could probably be fuel cell vehicle fueling or could be the steel mills it could be the refineries or ammonia plants something on the industrial side of things the other thing too is that the 950 bar which is used in these transports uh they can be used in stationary storage as well so once you get past the stage of not needing the temporary station you can use those 950 bar tanks for example in a stationary permanent station if you so desire great well we're not coming we've lasted through 30 minutes talking about hydrogen storage tanks and you know I feel like I've learned a lot from you and I'll definitely be on on the phone or on the emails with you talking about what they cost because I think we're going to end up needing some here in Hawaii but thanks so much for your time today and uh and including us in on the inside story with a tough storage problem hydrogen and high pressure so thanks again and we'll we'll talk to you again I'm sure I'll have you on the show again because this was fascinating perfect well thank you for having me really appreciate it sorry I couldn't be in Hawaii yeah well you have to come out in person next time absolutely that's plan okay and to everyone out there in viewer land thanks to Robert the control room and Cindy here mic'ing me up and everything and we'll see you next Friday aloha