 Hey, hello and welcome to Stan the Energy Man, Stan Osterman here, coming to you live and direct from Makapu Beach, that's the scenery behind me with Rabbit Island in the background, and this is my two-bit to get you to come to Hawaii and have a vacation. This is Makapu in the middle of winter, or the winter surf, and just for some perspective we're up about 200 feet above a cliff that looks down on the ocean, and those waves that are right around my left ear on the right side of your screen are about 10 to 15 feet on the front. They're not little tiny waves, they're actually pretty huge waves, and it's a great place to go body surfing and boogie boarding, that's where I grew up doing my surfing when I was a kid, so here's my pitch for the Hawaiian Visitors Bureau, come see Hawaii, beautiful place. Anyway, today's show is a little bit about hydrogen safety, I want to talk about some hydrogen safety stuff, and I have a video that was done, actually done I think around four or five years ago, based on the age of the people I see in the pictures, but it's a really good video done by Paul Panthio, featuring Paul Panthio from Blue Planet Research. He's actually given a demonstration of hydrogen from a safety perspective, this demonstration has been given to several hundred firefighters, especially here in Hawaii but also on the mainland, to tell them what it's like to deal with hydrogen as a combustible fuel in a fire, particularly in a transportation fire, and this demonstration just kind of shows some of the interesting aspects of hydrogen that most people don't think about, and maybe they read about hydrogen on Google or on the internet, and they hear things like the flame is invisible, and things like that that scares people like they could walk into a hydrogen flame and not ever see it and burn themselves to death instantly, and how it gives hydrogen some negative connotation, so we're going to dispel those, and what I wanted to talk about today with hydrogen and safety is hydrogen is a way to store energy, and it's a way we store energy for transportation for electric vehicles, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are electric vehicles, that's the first thing you got to know, hydrogen is used in what's called a fuel cell, and if you're familiar with wet cell batteries and price cell batteries, you also have fuel cells and fuel cells are self-charging batteries, so a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle uses hydrogen and air to make electricity in the fuel cell, just like a battery gives you electricity from a dry cell or a wet cell, hydrogen makes electricity in a fuel cell to provide power to motors, and electric motors are obviously much cleaner than internal combustion engines, extremely powerful, react extremely quickly, you get off the line quick, and pollution free, no carbon but hydrogen in particular, there's a lot of people, they think it's unsafe, they think of them safe because of the videos they've seen of the old Hindenburg catching fire, and they get worried about H-bomb hydrogen bombs, like could this thing blow up and things like that? Well, number one, the Hindenburg is actually a very complex aviation event, and the folks, including folks from NASA who have looked at that scenario and what happened, they found out that really hydrogen probably had more to do to save lives on the Hindenburg than actually hurt people, for example, the covering of the Hindenburg is actually some kind of aluminized paint, which was meant to protect the fabric on the Hindenburg, which and the fabric was used to be lightweight, so that they could have a more buoyant zeppelin. Unfortunately, the side is the covering, that metal metallic covering that kept a reflected heat and light and also protected all that fabric was highly flammable. In fact, the chemical compound would be a lot closer to thermite, which is an explosive than to the typical paint that we see at the hardware store today. And so when the zeppelin was approaching the towers in New Jersey, the one thing you notice is they let all the lines down, and that's to help ground the airplane, and you let the lines hit the ground first, so that the electrostatic electricity that builds up will hit the ground and discharge. So anyway, in the Hindenburg case, those ground lines hadn't touched the ground yet, and as they approached, a lightning storm was also happening, and it struck the Hindenburg, discharged, and caught the skin of the Hindenburg on fire. And as the fire started spreading, because that material on the in the paint actually is highly flammable, and it's going to keep burning, unless you get an extinguisher up there, and obviously on the top of the Hindenburg, you're not going to have people fire extinguishers. So once it started burning, it actually started burning aggressively and burned through the skin of the zeppelin itself, and also because of the radiant heat burned into the bladders, storing the hydrogen. And as soon as that hydrogen started to release, it added fuel to the fire, and therefore you have the big fireball that you see in the pictures of the Hindenburg, but that's where the story gets kind of interesting. If it wasn't for the hydrogen, which is much lighter than air, starting to burn and pulling, pulling the heat away from the passengers in the gondola underneath the Hindenburg, many more people would have been burned to death in the incident. As it is, as the hydrogen started escaping out of the top and burning, the Hindenburg of course settled down to the earth, and when it did, the heat from that fire was drawn away and above and taken out the top by the hydrogen. And so when the when the gondola hit the ground, the people actually had time to escape, and the folks that died in the Hindenburg most of them died jumping out of the gondola thinking they were going to burn to death. And if the people stayed in the gondola and got close to the ground, they actually had a chance to make it. So the folks that survived actually were able to survive because they stayed in the Hindenburg until it got close to the ground, and then they jumped out and ran away before the rest of the Hindenburg came down on top of the gondola. So that's something that most people don't really think about in terms of that incident. But it's what we'll explore today. So whether you're talking about gasoline or propane or diesel fuel or bunker oil or batteries or any other way of storing energy, you have to have consideration for a power in that energy. Now, energy and power are different in definition in that energy is the ability gives you the ability to do work and power is the work times time. So when you have power, you can take that energy and spread it out and control it like in an engine to give you acceleration in a car. Or you can take all the energy and release it at once and then you have an explosion like in a kinetic bomb of some kind. But then hydrogen bombs are a whole different story. That's a whole different side of physics that we don't deal with in the hydrogen we're talking about today for using in transportation. We're not talking about fusion or fission or any other kind of nuclear reaction. But when it comes to any kind of energy storage, you have to always treat it with respect. I think people would be amazed when they learn exactly how many fires happen in gasoline stations when people are pumping gasoline and there's a static spark that sets off fuel at like a small five gallon tank they're filling up or something or in their car because they're they get a discharge from their phone or a static static spark or something from themselves. There's actually quite a few and it doesn't make the news a lot. But when it comes to any kind of energy, you have to treat it with respect. Tesla vehicles are a classic example. We have great lithium cobalt technology and batteries now that are just amazing and how much energy they can store. But if you happen to disrupt the continuity of those batteries with a Tesla runs over a big piece of metal or something or gets in an accident and ruptures some of the cells in there, they can start releasing that energy immediately. And quite frankly, it looks like an explosion and it catches fire and it's a really, really hot, very intense fire. And that's all the energy being released from those batteries all at once. So no matter what kind of energy source you're talking about, whether it's batteries or gasoline or any kind of fuel, if you don't treat it with respect, you can pay the price. Now, fortunately for us, the technology that's used in battery vehicles is pretty well contained and safe. It's just a really nasty accident that you have an issue with those batteries. But most of the time they're perfectly safe just like gasoline vehicles. And as long as you're just driving it, you don't ram it into a big tree or something, they're pretty safe. But any vehicle that ruptures its fuel tank, and a little spark, and you can set that gasoline into a big fire. So what do you have to do with hydrogen to be more safe and secure? Well, number one, we design the tanks specifically for hydrogen. And you'll see some of these tanks as you look at the video, you'll see a small one. But the tanks that are made to hold hydrogen in vehicles are specially designed to be extremely sturdy in terms of holding pressure, because the hydrogen is stored at very high pressure, and in some cases up to 10,000 pounds per square inch, which is a scuba tank is 2,500 pounds per square inch. So 10,000 pounds per square inch is four times the pressure of a scuba tank. But those tanks are very robust. The tanks are metal pores with carbon fiber wrapping and resins that keep the tank from literally turning into a bomb or fragmenting and exploding. And the valves that are built into them are meant to release pressure on an impact, or if there's over-pressurization in the tank. So even if the station could over-pressurize your tank in your car, your car would release that pressure, would have let the tank over pressurize. Or if the car was in a fire, maybe the fuel cell car ran into a big tanker truck full of fuel, maybe that fuel catching on fire could heat the car up so much that it would span the hydrogen in the tank. Well, the car will actually release the hydrogen if the pressure gets too high as a safety issue. Another thing that's interesting is that hydrogen, when it's stored in its pure state, 100% pure, we call it 99.9959 purity, that's a requirement. The standard set in the industry for fueling vehicles is 99.999% pure hydrogen. At that purity, hydrogen is non-flammable. So when it's in the tank, it can't burn. When it comes out of the tank, if it mixes with air, it can burn. So the idea is if you have the hydrogen in the tank, even under pressure, if somehow something like a rifle bullet could penetrate the tank, it would release the hydrogen and the hydrogen would come out in a jet. And you can hear it. It would be really, really loud, like freight train loud. And if there was a spark that could ignite that hydrogen with the right mixture of air, if it could ignite, it would turn into a blowtorch. And anything that wasn't in the direct line of that blowtorch would not be heated up. And we're going to show you this video here shortly. And when I bring it up, I'm going to let Paul Pontiou explain some of the heat characteristics of hydrogen. So this is my friend Paul Pontiou from Blue Planet Research. I'll spell some of the myths about hydrogen because most people are afraid of hydrogen. Most people think it's the most explosive thing on the planet. And that if you have a small leak in a hydrogen system, then it's just destined to explode and burn to a building. Well, the reality is that since it's the lightest element in the universe, it's 14 times lighter than air. It goes up at 45 miles an hour when it's let loose. That's 66 feet a second. So think about it going 1,001 and it's six stories away. It's gone. And because of that, it's very difficult to get a concentration that's flammable at the source of a leak unless you're right at the leak source. And what we do in the classroom is we do it by showing this. So you got a really audible major leak of hydrogen. It's blowing up right now like crazy. And most people would think it's just a spark. It's going to blow up. Well, it'll blow the flame up if I get close enough to it right now. It won't ignite until I get down closer to where it's concentrated enough. But as it's leaking out, it's hitting the ceiling of this building and it's going out that net. So before I lit it, the hydrogen that had leaked out, it already left the building. It's gone. It's moving really, really fast. So the other cool thing about hydrogen is that since there's no carbon in it, it's just purely hydrogen. It's a little windy in here. But there's no radiant heat. And because of that, you can put your finger about an eighth inch from the flame. And there's no heat. It won't burn. But above right here, it's 500 degrees plus. It's very hot. And if you come here, you can actually put your hands over and you can feel the humidity in the flame because it's making water vapor with the oxygen in the air. I'll turn it down a little bit. The other thing is the other big myth or misunderstanding is not a myth. It's that hydrogen is invisible when it burns. Well, it is outside. So if we took this in the sunlight, you wouldn't see the flame. But indoors and in subdued light, it burns orange. And nighttime burns bright orange. You can get really, really close. And this tubing will actually, it's actually colder than room temperature right here. It's hot by the jet, but it's pulling the heat out of the air and cooling down. And this is a little carbon fiber tank. We used to run this off of a propane tank, which was kind of bulky in a pane. This holds twice as much hydrogen as that five gallon tank, but it's at 4,500 PSI. It's actually a paintball tank. And you said it was how much? A hundred and what? A hundred bucks? How much? Yeah, a hundred and with the regulator, it's about a hundred and twenty five hundred thirty dollars. So they have a nice miniature regulator. This is a super low pressure one puts out 275 PSI, which is very close to the propane tank. Yeah, you can you can feel that the moisture and I used to have a pot to show, but what's cool about that is if you barbecue with it, it doesn't dry your food out. The other thing that to notice about the lack of radiant heat, you know, the significance of it is that if you have a fire at a fueling depot where you've got lots of hydrogen tanks stored, they're not going to heat each other up and start cascading into explosion. It's just going to go up and burn itself up. And that's usually the preferred method of dealing with the hydrogen fire. Just let it burn out. Put it out with water or something else like that. Then you've got hydrogen gas ready to ignite again. So you don't want to do that. Just let it burn out. And the cars and trucks all have a thermal release valve that will basically dump all the contents and less than a minute. So if it senses enough heat, it'll actually open the vent really. But the heat goes straight up. So if you had a hydrogen leak in a set of tanks, it would be more like a torch than a billowing flame. And so that and that probably that torch would be a foot or so above the tank. Yes. By the time the air mixture is great to ignite. And so it would actually be above the tank with no radiating heat. So much safer than... Yeah. There's a famous video on YouTube that shows a hydrogen fire coming out of a fuel cell leak on the car right out of the trunk. And the windshield rubber on the back didn't even get melted or burned. And you can see that here. And it demonstrated more. This has got half the time that this has on it, but it was used for coping. So you can see how oxidized the finish was on there. This is actually new. And it gets really hot. So it's hot in the I'm going to stop the video there and thank Paul Panchio for letting us watch the demonstration. It's really a great demo to watch up close and to put your hand right next to that flame. The picture that we have now up there is a picture of actually a burner that I made out of some copper tubing and some fitting just to experiment on the size of the openings because the burners have to be developed differently than regular propane burners because the holes have to be smaller. And you don't let the hydrogen mix with air before it goes to the burner. You have to literally just let the air mix after the gas escapes from the burner. So this is basically a homemade burner. And then the next picture I have is a professionally made burner that Paul built that shows how good a flame you can get for cooking, like in a stove or something. If you really wanted to make a hydrogen-powered stove in your house to cook with, you can not only use the hydrogen to store the energy to make electricity, but you could use the hydrogen for cooking and also for heating your water and things like that. So this has been just a quick review of hydrogen itself as a safety thing. Again, so long as you keep the hydrogen, respect the hydrogen, use the proper safety equipment, store it in the proper type tank, it's just as safe as any other. And if it does escape from its container, it doesn't hang around the ground where it can soak into your clothes and catch you on fire. It goes up in the air and it's gone to make clouds. It's non-toxic as a gas, so if it does escape, you're not letting a bunch of toxic fumes in the air. You're letting some of the nature out to make more water and more clouds. So that's a little bit of hydrogen safety. Now what I'd like to do is just kind of talk to you a little bit about some of the things that have been going on, some hydrogen news. This one I found myself, it's from Reuters, a new service, and it comes out of Paris, July 6th, which is today. It says the Hyvian, H-Y-V-I-A-N hydrogen venture between car maker Renault and the U.S. company Plug Power will start selling products throughout Europe and will assemble fuel cells and hydrogen fueling stations at the Flynn's factory in France in late this year, 2021. This next series, and I'm not going to read stories, I'm just going to read headlines. I think the headlines will give you a clue and you can look these things up and search for them on the internet if you're more interested in them. I think just the headlines will give you a flavor for how much is going on in the hydrogen world right now. These headlines are from the California Fuel Cell Partnership in Keith Malone. Building a green economy, government of Canada is requiring 100% car and passenger truck to be zero emission by 2035 and that includes hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. The world's largest green hydrogen plan to tap 45 gigawatts of wind and solar is being built in Kazakhstan so this isn't just a for rich countries thing, this is all the countries in the world are starting to get into hydrogen. South Korea has got H2 mobility on the mind and it says H2 mobility plus energy show is going to showcase the future for the hydrogen industry and it's going to be held at Kintech in September of 2021. So look up Kintech, K-I-N-T-E-X if you want to get tickets for that. The global green hydrogen pipeline is dated 200 gigawatts. There are 24 of the largest scale projects going on around the world to help contribute to that large scale production and transportation of hydrogen. Green hydrogen from floating wind adds up for Europe even in the Middle East imports are cheaper. This story talks about some of the hydrogen in Norway and the North Sea that is being produced from North Sea wind and is able to be produced and used cheaper than buying imported oil and stuff from the Middle East. Lessons in trucks, hydrogen fuel cells and batteries are being united to help address climate change. Joint call by the Renewable Hydrogen Coalition and Hydrogen Europe, a revised RED2 should unlock the integration of more renewable energy by increasing renewable energy targets, removing regulatory barriers and improving the regulatory environment. That's an intergovernmental effort to help batteries and hydrogen gain use in the transportation sector and on grid. Racing for hydrogen, how gas giants are vying to stay relevant. You'll find if you look at the whole energy industry there are a lot of natural gas and oil companies that are investing in hydrogen right now because they see it as the future. Sunday Electric City fuel cell bus begins testing in Europe. How mirrors could power the planet and prevent wars and that's using solar power to concentrate heat and make electricity and energy. Mayor launches England's first hydrogen double decker buses in England. A consortium successfully increased support for fuel cell electric vehicles and buses. I forget where that was at. Nicola Motors, if you're familiar with them, invested $50 million in a Wabash Valley resources to produce clean hydrogen in the Midwest for zero emission Nicola trucks. For those of you that aren't familiar with Nicola Motors, they were one of the early companies that actually produced several prototypes and I think they're in a pilot mode now of vehicles that can go 1,000 miles on a fill up of hydrogen fuel and they've developed a lease system that includes the fuel. They're going to be building hydrogen stations across the US and try to do long haul trucking with these very efficient and apparently even taking into account the cost of producing the hydrogen on their own. They're able to do it and save money and clean up the environment compared to using diesel the diesel truck we use now. Manchin led committee put forth a sprawling energy infrastructure proposal. Lansing and air GM plans to expand the fuel cell business beyond EVs. I think I talked about that on one of my last shows. BMW starts European road tests for hydrogen fuel cell cars. GM technology could help commercial jets shed two tons of weight at takeoff. So that's from the California fuel cell partnership but I also got an individual one from a friend of mine. There's a company in California that's already starting to gin up business and they have solved energy storage hydrogen energy storage for aircraft and they've got modular basically modular tanks that are roll on roll off so that instead of having to refuel tanks on the airplane when the airplane pulls in and it's loading cargo and stuff they would just basically pull off the old hydrogen tanks slide in the new hydrogen tanks and connect them up and now the plane's ready to go and it makes the fueling much safer and much quicker and it's being incorporated on several of the aviation projects that are currently in the works and you'll be flying on probably the next 10-15 years. Call of Ohio fuel cell partnership had a couple great stories. Volvo vows to make hydrogen fuel cell construction equipment a thing, clean technical interviews. So that's from clean technical and Volvo by the way makes heavy equipment construction equipment they're in the hydrogen. I already know of one electric caterpillar that's going to be converted to a hydrogen fuel cell here in Hawaii pretty soon. A truly sustainable transport sector must incorporate fuel cells that's from automotive world. The mayor of London launches the first buses double deck buses I talked about that before Lieber and GM to develop a hydro tech fuel cell based electrical power generation system that's from aerospace manufacturing. From Stamford Health, newly okayed fuel cells could power 88% of the Tully Health Center operation and that's from the Fairfield Citizen publication. Two German operators to run in-service trials for Hyundai's Electric City fuel cell buses that's in ET Auto. Aravaco sees major hydrogen marketing forming amid historic pressures as they test big oil and that's from CNBC. Let me see there's a couple more stories here. This one's Norway. Norway's track craft has lined up to provide green hydrogen for a 88 meter long zero emission ship and that was also on CNBC. As you can see there's a lot going on and we're really happy here in Hawaii that one of the bills Senate bill 934 just got signed into law and it actually takes away one of the barricades to selling hydrogen to vehicles. I'm really happy to see this bill and I want to send out a big mahalo to the legislature for passing and getting it through and that's governor for signing it. This will make a huge difference in the local market for getting hydrogen fuel cell vehicles really adopted in the state of Hawaii and I'd encourage other states to look at that bill and adopt it as well to help relieve some of the pressures of getting getting hydrogen fuel meter in the stem. So that's going to about do it for Stan the energy man today and I appreciate you joining us being with us and come out to Hawaii. The waves back there are waiting for you so just grab your boogie board and come on out. It's a good time. Until next Tuesday, aloha.