Paul Rodden • Season: 2024 • Episode: 297
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In episode 297, The US Department of Energy and Department of Transportation officially announced their EV refueling network for medium and heavy duty vehicles meaning a massive boost to several hydrogen markets. Also, Plug secures a massive amount of cash in the form of two government grants for over $75 million to ramp up their manufacturing output. But will it bump up their stock price? I’ll go over this news and give my thoughts on today’s hydrogen podcast.
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Transcript:
The US Department of Energy and Department of Transportation officially announced their EV refueling network for medium and heavy duty vehicles meaning a massive boost to several hydrogen markets. Also, Plug secures a massive amount of cash in the form of two government grants for over $75 million to ramp up their manufacturing output. But will it bump up their stock price? I’ll go over this news and give my thoughts on today’s hydrogen podcast.
So the big questions in the energy industry today are how is hydrogen the primary driving force behind the evolution of energy? Where is capital being deployed for hydrogen projects globally? And where are the best investment opportunities for early adopters who recognize the importance of hydrogen? I will address the critical issues and give you the information you need to deploy capital. Those are the questions that will unlock the potential of hydrogen and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Paul Rodden, and welcome to the hydrogen podcast.
In a press release on March 12, Biden Harris Administration released his first ever national strategy to accelerate deployment of zero emission infrastructure for freight trucks. The Biden Harris administration on March 12, released the national zero emission freight corridor strategy developed by the Joint office of energy and transportation, the US Department of Energy or the DoE in collaboration with the Department of Transportation or the DOT, and the Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA, the strategy will guide the deployment of zero emission medium and heavy duty vehicle charging and hydrogen fueling infrastructure from 2024 to 2040. The strategy is designed to meet growing market demands by targeting public investment to amplify private sector momentum, focus, utility and regulatory energy planning, align industry activity and improve air quality and local communities heavily impacted by diesel emissions.
And a quote from US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm for over a century petroleum fueled freight has transported vital food and resources to American families. But at the same time, these vehicles have also contributed to lower public health, especially in densely populated communities. The Biden Harris administration is addressing this issue head on with innovative strategies to transform freight, so it not only supports American families and businesses, but also protects the environment for future generations, providing ubiquitous and convenient access to electric vehicle charging and hydrogen refueling along our nation’s freight corridors. And at Intermodal Freight facilities and high usage ports is key to achieving us goals to promote at least 30% zero emission medium and heavy duty vehicle sales by 2030 and 100% sales by 2040. The goal of this strategy is to align public policy and investments by prioritizing sequencing and accelerating infrastructure along the National Highway freight network in four phases.
A core objective of the strategy is to meet freight truck and technology markets where they are today, determine where they’re likely to develop next and set an ambitious pathway that mobilizes actions to achieve decarbonisation, and alignment with the joint offices national zero emission free quarter strategy, the Federal Highway Administration is announcing the designation of national evey freight corridors along the National Highway freight network and other key roadways. The designations which are required by the bipartisan infrastructure law are a critical part of the Biden Harris administration’s strategy for building out a convenient, reliable and made in America national EV charging network that supports individual drivers and commercial needs.
Battery electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicle technology, along with other zero emission forms of freight transport have considerable potential to save Americans money on consumer goods thanks to reduced fuelling and maintenance costs associated with transport, all while delivering significant health benefits for historically disadvantaged populations that suffer the worst impacts of pollution from freight emissions and helping achieve national climate goals. And a quote from Federal Highway Administrator Shailen Bhatt. The Federal Highway Administration is pleased to announce these new freight EV corridor designations along our national highways medium and heavy duty trucks in our current freight network contribute approximately 23% of greenhouse gas emissions in the US transportation sector. These new designations and strategy will help to grow our national EV charging network encouraged clean commerce within the free community and support President Biden’s goals of achieving net zero emissions for the nation by 2050. Under President Biden’s leadership, the number of publicly available EV chargers nationwide has increased by more than 80% to more than 173,000 and at least 40 US based facilities to produce EV chargers have been announced or open.
President Biden’s investing in America agenda has attracted more than $25 billion of investment in the US EV charging network. The freight quarter designations are expected to create an even more investment for EV charging with a particular focus on the needs of medium and heavy duty vehicles. This is an all of government approach to aligning investments and accelerating society envelope and scalable deployments of reliable zero emission medium and heavy duty vehicle infrastructure. Focusing on deployment on areas with substantial freight volumes starts deployment in areas with the most opportunity to spark further investment. Deployment factors include corridor segments usage by freight volume, Port usage by annual freight tonnage, projected zero emission medium and heavy duty vehicle volumes disproportionate environmental and air quality burden from MHDV transportation and non attainment for criteria air pollutants states with CEV deployment enabling policies and on the ground planning through the DoE’s commercial the EV corridor planning grants.
As stated earlier, there are four phases to this rollout. The first is to establish priority hubs based on freight volumes. That is slated to happen from 2024 to 2027. The second is connect hubs along critical freight corridors that should happen 2027 to 2030, expand corridor connections initiating network development is phase three happening between 2030 and 2035. And the last phase is to achieve national network by linking regional corridors for ubiquitous access from 2035 to 2040. Okay, so a big announcement from the US federal government on EV corridors throughout the US now most of you know I find the idea of battery EV heavy duty vehicles rather absurd. Hydrogen fuel cells really are the only answer when looking at Long Haul Trucking. And I would bet that this is where the bulk of investments for this infrastructure will focus. Meaning that for those looking for hydrogen offtake This is huge news. And with the scale that this announcement brings into play, we should begin to really see economies of scale impacting the costs associated with developing hydrogen development technology, as well is hydrogen refueling infrastructure and class eight hydrogen trucks.
Next in an article in the Times union.com Larry Rulison writes plug power wins $75 million grant from the Department of Energy. Hydrogen Fuel Cell manufacture plug power has been awarded $75.7 million in two grants from the US Department of Energy to refine and expand its manufacturing output at factories that operates both here in the capital region. And in Rochester. US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York made the announcement Wednesday afternoon. The DoE grant money will come out of the $1 trillion infrastructure bill that President Joe Biden signed in 2021.
Many of the grants coming through that Bill focus on development of renewable energy sources and clean energy technologies being developed to combat climate change. Schumer announced a total of $90 million in DoE grants on Wednesday going to plug power into other upstate New York companies that are also focused on fuel cells, and so called green hydrogen used as fuel in the devices. In a quote from Schumer with this federal funding, plug power and other cutting edge companies will be able to increase production capacity, and spark new innovation to reach the frontier of clean hydrogen manufacturing and research all while supporting good paying clean energy jobs and boosting the fight against climate change. The two other companies receiving the grants are Rochester based Ionomr Innovations and Ecolectro out of Ithaca. Okay, so another big win for plug as they get even more federal money to continue ramping up production.
One of the things I find interesting about this article is the focus on plugs fuel cell operations, when so much of the news coming out recently has been around their hydrogen production. But it sounds like these two grants are already earmarked for their fuel cell development. A big question I have is this, just how fast can plug ramp up production? Given the projected demand for fuel cells in the next five to 10 years? Will they be able to bump production that fast? Also, will they look to develop larger fuel cells for different applications? Or will they continue to focus on their forklift models? Either way, this is a big win for plug. Now, let’s hope their q1 and h1 releases, show some decent revenue to get that stock price back up.
All right, that’s it for me, everyone. If you have a second, I would really appreciate it. If you could leave a good review on whatever platform it is that you listen to Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google, YouTube, whatever it is, that would be a tremendous help to the show. And as always, if you ever have any feedback, you’re welcome to email me directly at info@thehydrogenpodcast.com. So until next time, keep your eyes up and honor one another.
Hey, this is Paul. I hope you liked this podcast. If you did and want to hear more. I’d appreciate it if you would either subscribe to this channel on YouTube, or connect with your favorite platform through my website at www.thehydrogenpodcast.com. Thanks for listening. I very much appreciate it. Have a great day.
