June 03, 2021 • Paul Rodden • Season: 2021 • Episode: 17
Welcome to The Hydrogen Podcast!
In episode 017, Today let’s take a look at hydrogen in North America. I’ll highlight some waymakers in this space. I’ll cover a hydrogen fund that’s making all the right investments. And I’ll finally talk about the H2@Scale initiative and what it means for hydrogen development in the United States. I know it’s about time I talk about it, all of this on today’s hydrogen podcast.
Thank you for listening and I hope you enjoy the podcast. Please feel free to email me at info@thehydrogenpodcast.com with any questions. Also, if you wouldn’t mind subscribing to my podcast using your preferred platform… I would greatly appreciate it.
Respectfully,
Paul Rodden
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Transcript:
Today let’s take a look at hydrogen in North America. I’ll highlight some waymakers in this space. I’ll cover a hydrogen fund that’s making all the right investments. And I’ll finally talk about the H2@Scale initiative and what it means for hydrogen development in the United States. I know it’s about time I talk about it, all of this 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.
Okay, so first, I’d like to talk about two companies in the hydrogen space who have banded together to advance hydrogen development in the US. So Hyzon motors and Raven SR have joined together to build 100 waste to hydrogen hubs, and are claiming that the green fuel produced will be cost comparable with grey hydrogen. And so a little background on Hyzon the company was established as a new business of horizon fuel cell, which is a global supplier of zero emission hydrogen fuel cell powered commercial vehicles. And even though they have operations around the globe, they’re headquartered in Rochester, New York. And recently, they’ve announced that they partnered with Raven SR. Raven SR, was a company established to revolutionize the waste to energy, renewable fuels and clean hydrogen businesses.
Their technology can minimize landfill waste process Pacific Ocean garbage waste, clearly dispose of medical waste, while converting them into renewable fuels like transportation grade hydrogen at competitive prices. And along with that hydrogen creation, they can also create cleaner burning Fischer–Tropsch fuels. The Fischer–Tropsch process is a collection of chemical reactions that converts a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen or water gas into liquid hydrocarbons. Then the Fischer–Tropsch process then converts those gases into synthetic lubrication oil or sin fuel. But what makes Raven SR so unique is that against their competitors, the raven SR systems are non combustion, resulting in a cleaner process and higher efficiencies.
This allows the resulting sin gas to be higher in hydrogen, enabling Raven SR are to produce more renewable hydrogen or Fischer–Tropsch’s fuels per ton input. So now with these two companies working together, they’re looking to create about 100 hydrogen hubs which could convert over 5000 tons of waste per day and power over 10,000 trucks with the first hub according to Hyzon to be built in the San Francisco Bay Area and is expected to be commissioned in 2022. And like all the other hubs, will use Raven SR’s patented steam co2 reclamation process, and is initially expected to process about 50 tons of solid waste per day and up to four and a half tons of renewable green hydrogen, which is enough to power about 100 heavy duty commercial vehicles. And keep in mind that future hubs may be able to scale to five times larger to accommodate sites with higher hydrogen requirements.
Now I’ve got to say I’m excited about the joining of these two companies. Raven SR’s technology could be one of the game changers this industry is needed to see especially since it doesn’t just create hydrogen from waste, but can also utilize natural and renewable gases. And with Total’s recent investment in Hyzon, I’m very much looking forward to seeing what these two companies can do. And now talk about an amazing fund, that’s not only backing Hyzon and Raven SR, but also has Helios, Warp forge and H3 Dynamics in their portfolio of investments. The fund is called the Ascent Hydrogen Fund, and was launched in 2020 by Mark Gordon, with former president and CIO of Warburg Pincus John Vogelstein, and former chairman of capital markets for Fosun International David Wu. The fund has teams based in New York, London and Singapore, and has a global mandate working closely with private late stage Growth and Innovation focused founders and companies across hydrogen production, hydrogen conversion, and hydrogen applications.
So in a very short time, this fund has already started making some very big news in the hydrogen space. And lastly, I want to talk about the H2@Scale project. Now this will only be a high level overview and dedicated full episode to it a little bit later. Okay, so what is H2@Scale? Well, H2@Scale is a US Department of Energy’s initiative that brings together stakeholders to advance affordable hydrogen production, transportation, storage and utilization to increase revenue opportunities in multiple energy sectors. It includes DOE funded projects and national laboratory industry co funded activities to accelerate the early stage research, development and demonstration of applicable hydrogen technologies.
The DOE’s H2@Scale consortium facilitates r&d projects that leverage the world class capabilities of the National Laboratories in partnership with industry and academia. Partnerships with key stakeholders like power generators and technology developers on early stage r&d projects can be facilitated through cooperative agreements with matching DOE funds, r&d challenges, to enable the goals of H2@Scale, Pan hydrogen production, delivery storage, infrastructure, and use in diverse applications. While DOE’s role focuses on early stage r&d, such as new concepts for dispatch-able hydrogen production, delivery and storage, reliance on private sector for demonstration is critical. first of its kind demonstrations can allow cutting edge technologies to be integrated into existing systems and validated to show a business case for future deployments and guide future r&d plans.
Now one of the targets of the H2@Scale initiative is supporting efforts to help cut the cost of hydrogen production. And over the past few years, H2@Scale has overcome technical barriers to enable efficient and affordable production of hydrogen. R&D advancements have reduced the cost of hydrogen production from electrolysis to five to $6 per kilogram, that being with electricity costs of five to seven cents per kilowatt hour, with the target cost being $2 per kilogram of hydrogen. And one of the projects that hits close to home here in Houston is the H2@Scale project launched in Texas, Frontier Energy is partnering with GTI, UT Austin, One H2, Texas gas service, So Cal gas, Toyota Motor North America, Shell, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Air Liquide and Powercell Sweden AB to conduct two related projects.
The first at UT Austin will host a first of its kind of integration of commercial hydrogen production, distribution, storage and use, the project partners will generate zero carbon hydrogen on site via electrolysis with solar and wind and reformation of renewable natural gas from a Texas landfill. This is the first time that both sources of renewable hydrogen will be used in the same project. The hydrogen will power a stationary fuel cell to provide clean reliable power for the Texas Advanced Computing Center and supply a hydrogen station with zero emission fuel to fill a fleet of Toyota mirai fuel cell electric vehicles. The second project is at the port of Houston, the project team will conduct a feasibility study for scaling up hydrogen production and use, the team will assess available resources perspective hydrogen users and delivery infrastructure such as existing pipelines that supply hydrogen to refineries.
The study will examine policies, regulations and economics. So that industry can develop a strategic action plan to present to policymakers to enable heavy duty fuel cell transportation and energy systems. And both of these projects are critical in advancing the hydrogen industry in North America. Hopefully they succeed. Okay, that’s it for me, everyone. If you have any questions or comments about today’s episode, look me up at www.thehydrogenpodcast.com and leave a comment or question. I’d really love to hear from you. And as always, take care. Stay safe. I’ll talk to you later.
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.
