One of the most challenging aspects in the energy sector, isn't necessarily producing the energy as much as it is in storing it and transmitting it. The ability to get the power where it needs to be and storing it can be the limiting factor on how clean our energy sources can be. Today we are talking with a company that is working on that challenge
Hey everybody, this is Chris Brandt, here with Sandesh Patel. Welcome to another FUTR podcast.
Today we have with us, Chris Larsen, Senior Director of Clean Energy at Dynapower a company that is connecting Power to Purpose through clean energy storage and conversion systems to make our clean energy future a reality.
So lets talk with Chris about how they are doing this.
Dynapower
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FUTR.tv focuses on startups, innovation, culture and the business of emerging tech with weekly podcasts featuring Chris Brandt and Sandesh Patel talking with Industry leaders and deep thinkers.
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One of the most challenging aspects in the energy sector, isn't necessarily producing the energy as much as it is in storing it and transmitting it. The ability to get the power where it needs to be and storing it can be the limiting factor on how clean our energy sources can be. Today we are talking with a company that is working on that challenge
Hey everybody, this is Chris Brandt, here with Sandesh Patel. Welcome to another FUTR podcast.
Today we have with us, Chris Larsen, Senior Director of Clean Energy at Dynapower a company that is connecting Power to Purpose through clean energy storage and conversion systems to make our clean energy future a reality.
So lets talk with Chris about how they are doing this.
Dynapower
Click Here to Subscribe:
FUTR.tv focuses on startups, innovation, culture and the business of emerging tech with weekly podcasts featuring Chris Brandt and Sandesh Patel talking with Industry leaders and deep thinkers.
Occasionally we share links to products we use. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases on Amazon.
One of the most challenging aspects in the energy sector isn't necessarily producing the energy as much as it is in storing it and transmitting it. The ability to get the power where it needs to be and storing it there can be the limiting factor on how clean our energy sources can be. So today we're talking with a company that is working on that challenge. Hey everybody, this is Chris Brandt here. Welcome to another FUTR podcast today. We have with us Chris Larson, senior director of clean energy at DynaPower, a company that is connecting power to purpose through clean energy storage and conversion systems to make our clean energy future a reality. So let's talk with Chris about how they are doing this. Welcome, Chris. Chris. Thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me. Too many Chrises. We're going to have a concentration of Chrises on this. There you go. There you go. I don't interview too many Chrises. It's, it's funny. Um, but yeah, I'm super, super excited to have you on. I think, uh, you guys are doing some really interesting things. Um, so before we get into all that, can you just outline, you know, like why you guys are in this business and what, what you're doing there? And, um, You know, why, why clean energy solutions are kind of important to us
Chris Larson:now, you know, for us, it's foundational, right? So, so it's, it's in our tagline for the company, right? Dynapower quick power and clean planet. So it is core to what we do. And I would say that, that the. It's, it's been an evolution for us, honestly, you know, we weren't always what we would describe as a clean energy company, you know, we've been around since 1963. It's a really interesting story.
Chris Brandt:Clean energy wasn't a thing then, right?
Chris Larson:It wasn't a big thing. And, of course, you know, the first solar modules, I think, famously were invented by Bell Labs in the 1950s, but it really wasn't until the 1990s that, that, The industry started to pick up steam and, you know, we were, so we were around in the 1960s, doing all kinds of really interesting industrial work. And that's a, that's a whole fun, interesting, uh, evolutionary story. But for us right now, it really is the, the rallying cry with, within the company and, and sort of our, our mission and purpose is to, to, uh, help enable green, clean. Uh, energy technologies and when I say enable, I, I should be clear that, you know, as, as you mentioned in the intro, what we're really all about is, is the storage side of the equation, right? So we're not ourselves a solar energy company, but the reason I joined down at power 9 years ago was because. I consider myself a solar guy, all right, so if you, if you, you know, if you, if you look at my DNA, I, I, I identify as a solar guy, all right, so I came to DynaPower because I realized that, hey, this solar industry is, is doing what it's supposed to do, it's growing. Rapidly, and we'll get to a point where the limiting reagent is the ability to store that that solar energy, right? If you have so if you have, you know, upwards of 40 percent of your power on the grid coming from intermittent resources that being wind and solar, which is a reality right now in countries like like Denmark, where approximately 51 percent of their power is coming from solar. So how do you deal with that? Because that that can You know, create havoc on the grid. And so that's where energy storage comes into, comes into play. And sort of that's been where, where we've made our, our contribution to the, to the clean energy industry. And, you know, I think it's, it's, it's, it's a little broader than that because for folks who are actually familiar with, with DynaPower and our legacy and the work that we still continue to do today, they'll say, well, wait, wait a minute. You have a whole nother division, the, the power systems division, which is doing really interesting work. in industries as varied from, uh, defense to mining to industrial metal finishing to steel. And the common denominator there is that it's not solar, it's not wind, it's not hydrogen, and yet it's part of the cleaning up the, the electrification of those industries is also one of the pathways, one of the important pathways to, uh, you know, this, this, this, you know, Carbon net neutral, uh, world that we, we envision, I mean, shoot one, one stat that I was recently reminded of Chris, which is stunning is that, uh, I think it's maybe 8 percent of global CO2 emissions come from the steel industry. Yeah. So, uh, we need to be installing as much solar and wind as we can and hydrogen. Yes. Amen to that. But we need to be going inside of these, these industries. that are major contributors just to CO2 production and other pollutants. And, you know, what, what can be done to help clean up, so to speak, some of these, these industries? And, oh, by the way, an important footnote on mining. People say, well, mining, boy, isn't that dirty. But guess what? You don't have any mines, you don't have any copper. And if you don't have any copper, you don't have any solar. So there's, there's a whole food chain here. And I think that. You know, we are very proud to be part of what we, you know, what is universally recognized as clean energy, right? You know, energy storage for solar, for hydrogen, for wind, but then also we're, we're heavily involved in these other industries that, uh, that, that have a pathway to, to, to, uh, becoming a bit cleaner.
Chris Brandt:I've talked to a bunch of companies recently, and ESG is at the top of the mind for the C suite and the board level. You know, there's always these conversations about, you know, how are we being, you know, responsible in the way that we're producing things, we're consuming things, you know. And I know that, you know, one of the reasons why fossil fuels have stuck around for so long. I mean, it is kind of archaic in a way, if you think about it, where, you know, exploding things in a chamber to get, you know, the motion out of it. Yeah. You know, but, um, but the thing that's nice about fossil fuels is they're easily transportable. Yeah. And, you know, they produce a lot of energy for what you transport, right? And that's kind of where it's like, it's, it's really in the storage. And transmission of things where, you know, like the, the, the desire to produce clean energy often comes undone.
Chris Larson:You nailed it, Chris, because you're, you're right. The, the, the, you know, natural gas, uh, petroleum, you know, coal, these are, that, that, that's, that's the, the energy source and the storage all, all basically rolled up in one. So you, you're right in terms of, uh, functionality. You know, what, what we're, you know, the petroleum that we're using natural gas is, is, um, yeah, it's, it's, it has some very favorable characteristics when we think about sort of the infrastructure side of things. So, so you're right, uh, uh, when we look at renewables and again. Let's set aside for the moment, biogas or I'm sorry, biomass, where, where inherently there is storage involved there. That's a fuel that can be, you know, thrown in bins and stored, right? But if we really think about the primaries, so to speak, which, which are solar wind and hydro, um. Yeah, storage and transmission become the limiting reagents, so it's, uh, yeah, and you know, I've referenced, uh, you know, the case in Europe where they are well ahead of us in terms of penetration rates, and yeah, they're wrestling with this right now, you know, how to have a stable grid, right, the transmission element, how to time it, you know, have the power when you need it, and so that's why we're seeing this energy storage, and I'm talking about Batteries in this case, so battery energy storage and now hydrogen energy storage, uh, really getting a lot of attention, a lot of investment, right? So, so actual investment and also attention from, from governments, right? We're seeing programs that are, are in, this is not brand new, this has been happening for a number of years now, but, but. Programs, the U. S. government, the E. U. and other countries are taking concrete steps to accelerate the, the storage market. Now, there are all kinds of challenges, but it's, it's, um, there are a lot of really smart people, a lot of smart companies that are, that are working on this. I'll tell you a lot, Chris, it's fun. You know, we, where we sit in, in this space, we're in the power electronics people, right? So we do all the conversion, right? If, if, if anything needs to go from AC to DC or DC to AC or DC to DC or frequency converters. That's what we do. And so in a sense, we're sort of agnostic to the storage chemistry. And that's important because it doesn't mean that we don't care. It actually means that we get to interact with and and learn about all these new technologies that are that are coming into the markets. I almost feel like, you know, we, you know, we have our own, you know, technology advancements that we're working on, you know, how do we make our gear more, more reliable, more efficient, all these things that we're working on. But we also get to touch and interact with these, the storage company, you know, hydrogen companies, uh, lithium ion battery companies, non lithium ion batteries, and we get to see a lot of cool stuff. And that's, that's one of the fun parts of, of, of, of, uh, of our job. But back to your point about, you know, sort of the corporate, um, you know, focus on, on this, this, this sort of world of clean energy. It's not just a nice to have anymore. I mean, the, the, uh, Wall Street values this and that's a, you know, another big just megatrend that, that Wall Street values companies that are leaning into this space. You know, the classic example that I like to refer to is NextEra Energy, right? This is a, what used to be. Just another stodgy old utility. Right? You know, Florida Power and Light, you know, next tier is the holding company. And we've done a number of projects with them. And I really respect the way they jumped in, you know, years ago. I don't know when they really got in heavy. But they got heavily invested in wind power. And I believe that they still might be. Uh, number one or number two in terms of, uh, owned wind power assets, but what you see when you look at their PE ratio, you know, as a company, they, they are light years ahead of all the other utilities. And it's because Wall Street values the work that they're doing in clean energy and sees that that is the future. And so this company, which has a great head start again, I'm talking about next era, um, is being rewarded by, by Wall Street. And I think that's. Uh, a really cool trend to, to see going on right now.
Chris Brandt:The cost of renewables has come down so dramatically, and the trend it's taking, you can see sort of that inversion of where it was cheaper to use the fossil fuels, and now, now these other technologies are becoming much more cost effective.
Chris Larson:When those curves crossed, and again, I don't know exactly when that was, Chris, but it was. I'm going to say order of magnitude five, six years ago. I mean, you, you, you may know, I don't know when that actually happened, but when it was, it was the, the, the hybrid solar plus energy storage that the price of, of which again, that's important. You know, you can't just look at the solar, you've got to look at the solar plus the storage. So that the asset becomes dispatchable and quote unquote, you know, useful and valuable to the grid. That's really the only way you can compare solar to, to natural gas, right? It has to have storage. And so when, when the cost of, of solar plus storage became less than, you know, on a kilowatt hour basis, the less than natural gas, that was a big deal. And it's funny because now. I mean, just fast forward a few years later, we thought we kind of shrug our shoulders that, that we take for granted that renewables are actually less expensive than, um, the natural gas. And it's, it's, it, we, we need to pinch ourselves and say, wait a minute, did we just say that? And, and it's, uh, so it's, it's really exciting to see, see the forces sort of converge, but holy smokes, we still have a long way to go. We have a long way to, to, to go right now. And, and, you know, we, we celebrate these, these. Um, gigawatts of, of, of, uh, uh, renewable solar wind energy storage that are getting installed and it's fantastic. But boy, if you look at a pie chart, you know, you know this, you know, if we looked at the pie chart of its renewables is still a, a small non trivial, but small part of the overall, you know, equation in, in, in the U S. And so we have a long way to go. And that gets to your point about transmission, right? You, you, you, you, you can't just stick this in the middle of nowhere. Well, you can with a whole lot of caveats, I mean, we could talk some about this, this project in Utah, which is, well, it's not in the middle of nowhere, but, but yeah, it's
Chris Brandt:definitely want to get into the, to the Utah project, because that is a really interesting one that we were talking about before, but before we get there, I just want to sort of point out like there, I think when we look, most people look at it. Yeah. the energy sector. They think in terms of automobiles, right? You know, it's like gas in the car. It's very relatable to everybody. Yeah. But the thing that's, and then we look at some of the technologies that have come along with that, you know, we've got, you know, now electric vehicles and it's challenging because it takes, you know, half an hour to charge your vehicle up or whatever. And you got to have access to a supercharger, you know, hydrogen, you got like compressed hydrogen, which is, you know, got its challenges. You know, like producing and putting the hydrogen in cars, challenging, there's all that stuff, right? But if you look at hydrogen in a different context, and like, in like a real, when you're looking at hydrogen at scale, when there's, you know, you're generating power for a city or something like that, the challenges are very different, right? The storage, uh, potential. changes in how, how you can approach things like hydrogen. And I think that leads us into the Utah project. Because talk about that, because that's a really interesting one.
Chris Larson:Yeah. So the Utah project, it's called the ACES project, A C E S, the Advanced Clean Energy Storage Project. And I think it's a it's a cool story because this is a project that present tense it is this is a site exists and it's a coal plant it's a coal fired power plant and there is a direct transmission line it's a it's an hvdc line which is fancy talk for high high voltage direct current so it's it's a uh more efficient way of transmitting power but there's a line that goes directly from this coal plant and Basically Northwestern Utah straight to Southern California to to Los Angeles specifically. So most of the power from this facility is going to the Los Angeles Department of Water Management, the LEVP, the utility down there. So the concept now, Chris, is, all right, this site. There happens to be a massive salt cavern, or actually two, two massive salt caverns under this, this site, and they are right now looking at doing a couple of things. One, uh, replacing the, the coal fired plant that's currently there with gas turbines. So, uh, oh, by the way, they're gonna be upgrading the HVDC transmission line, but that, that's sort of a side discussion, but they're gonna be changing out from coal to natural gas. But the interesting part of the story is that at the same site, they are going to be producing hydrogen using electrolysis and using, using solar, solar electricity. So it's green, green hydrogen producing hydrogen, storing it in these salt caverns that are right there. You know, and these salt canners are, are massive and so they're able to store the, the hydrogen there and they'll be burning the hydrogen initially as a blend in these turbines. So the turbines will be running 70 percent natural gas, 30 percent hydrogen. Eventually that will change to 100 percent hydrogen. So these turbines are designed to take 100 percent hydrogen. These are being provided by Mitsubishi is, is, is the, um, uh, I was about to say the kingpin of the project, but anyhow, they're, they're the, the major contractor for the hydrogen part of this as well as the turbines. So. What's fascinating, I think that the part of the story that, that sort of blew my mind when I first came to understand this, this project was the storage is so enormous. These salt caverns are so enormous that they can store, I believe it's over 300 gigawatt hours. of electricity, which, you know, that's, that's enough power to run, you know, the state of California for, for a couple of days. Like it's, it's, it's a massive amount of energy. And, you know, when you translate that into batteries, I think the count that I had seen was 80, 000, 40 foot containers of batteries. So for the battery storage folks. again, just mind numbing. It's just a crazy number. So, so what's, what's cool about this is that now
Chris Brandt:the mine is the battery at that point, right? I mean, that, that is the battery.
Chris Larson:It is. So yeah, that's, so it's a storage project. We think, okay, it's, we're creating, you know, green, green, uh, uh, hydrogen, but it's storage project, but it's storage on a new scale where, where it's. seasonal storage. You know, we talk about, hey, long duration storage. Hey, that's, that's 10 hours of storage. So we can take this, this energy from the daytime, store it, and then we'll, we'll have it available for the peaks in the evening and the early morning. Okay, that's great. Now we're talking about a whole new sort of dimension to storage, seasonal storage, where we can take power that's produced in one time of the year, and then, then basically generate electricity and export it when it's needed at another time of the year. So, uh, happy. Really a, a fascinating concept. Yeah. And, and what I love about it's that they got the financing. This thing is going forward, this thing is under construction. And, you know, we, we know this because we're, we're providing the, the, the rectifier for the project and we've already shipped half the rectifier to, to the site. So, uh, this is actually happening.
Chris Brandt:And, and for people, people who don't understand electronics. Rectifiers do what? You know, we're talking about AC and DC current here, so rectifiers
Chris Larson:do what? Okay. Yeah. So basically they are taking the AC power from the grid. So when I say rectifier, there's actually a transformer there too. So the grid, the grid, uh, power there is, I believe it's, it's, uh, 34 kilovolts AC. So we're taking that. Dropping it down to low voltage AC and then converting that AC to DC, and the DC is then fed into the electrolyzer, so somebody else makes the electrolyzer, and we're feeding it high current DC to split the water molecule, that, that H2O, so the, the, the, there's a certain, you know, the molecular energy, uh, is, is tied up in that, that molecule, so it has, takes energy to split that, and so the, the high current DC is needed for that process.
Chris Brandt:You're taking a salt mine and just stuffing it with hydrogen. And I think one of the things that's historically been a challenge with hydrogen, if I'm not wrong, is that hydrogen is such a small molecule, it leaks out of things really easily. Do you do much of that? Or is it just the scale at which you're operating? That leakage just doesn't matter in the big scheme of things.
Chris Larson:I was about to, I'm, I'm going to give you a smart ass response and that's somebody else's problem. We, we, we do, we do the rectifiers, but no, it's, it's, it's a good question. You know, the, the way it, in my limited understanding, you know, I, I, I've got a mechanical engineering background. So I, uh, geology, I, I, I, I, I, I'm not. Really up to speed on this. My understanding though, Chris, is that they're able to control that by, by the pressure under which the hydrogen is stored. So, uh, but, but, you know, obviously leak detection is a big deal. And yeah, so they've, they've got a smart crew that that's working on that. That's, you know, you know. Drilling the wells down and making sure everything is is tight, but you're right though that that issue You know what you're talking about is is a major deal for the industry because there's all this talk about well Hey, can't we just you run hydrogen through the gas pipelines? You know, we've already got the gas pipelines and, and the answer is, well, kind of like most gas pipelines are at the U. S. or globally today. You can, uh, safely or easily inject about 10 percent hydrogen before you get into, to leakage issues. But, but there's a whole effort going on right now. How do we address the pipelines so that they are, um, robust? Because as you point out that, that hydrogen molecule is, is, is, it's tiny, it's tiny as they get.
Chris Brandt:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're funneling this into turbines for this project, right? I've seen some hydrogen projects here and there and, and, and there's, there's a really interesting, a lot of, a lot of really interesting things happening around hydrogen. And, you know, like, you know, when we originally started talking about hydrogen, I think it was in the context of fuel cells. That's sort of where then we had that big discussion. Yeah. But there's a lot of opportunities just to straight up burn hydrogen, you know, and it's a clean burn because it just produces water. Um, but, uh, that said, burning it in a turbine to generate electric electricity in a standard turbine, um, isn't necessarily as efficient, right, as using a fuel cell. Um, so, I mean. With the kinds of, you know, storage capacities and power capacity that you have, and you're saying you could, you know, continue to power the California grid for three days. I gotta imagine the future of this, where we have more efficient conversion technologies, even down the road, that amount of storage may, you know, last more. You know, less significantly longer if we have more efficient, you know, power conversion. Yeah.
Chris Larson:Yeah. No, that's, that's, that's a great point. And again, that's, that's one of the other cool things about, you know, our position in the market is that we are seeing some of these technologies being, being developed. I'll give one example. There's a new turbine that's being developed. Uh, it's a, it's a linear generator, so it's not a spinning turbine, but imagine you've got a tube and you've got a device that that's, uh, uh, basically toggling back and forth. Like a piston? Yeah, almost like a piston. Right, right. And so, they're, they're, you know, that's just one example of some of the work that's being done. And in that particular case, I referenced that example because that turbine is designed to be a multi fuel device. So that is also designed, again, for the hydrogen future where it can burn. a hundred percent, and it can do this today, a hundred percent hydrogen. So yeah, you're right. I mean, there, there are, there are limits to, to the efficiency of combustion. You know, there's the, um, that pesky, uh, Frenchman, uh, uh, Carnot, there's this thermodynamic principle that, you know, there's a Carnot efficiency that you cannot exceed. Um, so there are limits to the efficiency of, of any combustion process, but yeah, we, we are seeing some folks do some, some interesting work too. To really, um, yeah, get, get more out of, get, get more out of the, the, the fuel using solar or wind electrons, you know, going from electrons to produce, to, to, to produce, go through the electrolysis process and then go through a mechanical question. Yeah, you're losing. Uh, a lot of energy along the way. And again, the only reason it makes sense in that case is because you have this massive storage repository. So what you, the, the, the gain is that you have this, this repository of energy, but there are so many other really interesting uses for hydrogen that are today. Like this is not a new thing. You know, hydrogen is used in the process to produce steel. It's one example. It's used in the refining process. Right. It's kind of funny to think, Chris, about this idea that, hey, let's make some green hydrogen so we can use green hydrogen in, in, in the petroleum refinery, refining process. But oh, by the way, that is going to be happening. You know, some of the offtake for green hydrogen will be refining and it will be steel making. It will be cement processes and it will be. Uh, making ammonia, obviously
Chris Brandt:those are energy intensive because they require a tremendous amount of heat to produce like cement. Cement's a similar vein, right? A lot of these construction, but steel production is really very heat intensive. Is it, is it more, is it, is like the hydrogen something that you can use to burn to create the heat? Or is it something that you? Produce electricity from and do it more. It's induction in these processes.
Chris Larson:It's it's used in different ways But but think of it. No think of it as as as a chemical agent in these processes It's not not necessarily a fuel source in some cases it is but it's more for the chemical properties and in helping These materials go through a chemical metamorphosis. And so the hydrogen is used in that sense. So it's not even a traditional fuel source in, in the way that we think of, okay, fuel cells are burning it in a turbine. It's, it's being used for other, uh, other purposes within these, these different processes.
Chris Brandt:It seemed like hydrogen was sort of first out of the gate with these, like the big hype around like clean energy. And then we kind of got in to more like, you know, just straight up electric, you know, battery storage and, and that sort of thing, because hydrogen had some in that regard. And it seems like now we're coming back. to the hydrogen, but it's at a, at a different scale, you know, and I think that's where I kind of make that distinction between like what we see in cars, which have a distinctly different kind of energy need versus large industry or, you know, electric grid, you know, supply, right. And, and, and it's interesting how the different types of fuels are, are lining up around their most. Yeah. And, and, and I think we're seeing this resurgence of hydrogen in a lot of really interesting areas. Yeah. You know, both from like, as a fuel source to turn a turbine or as a, you know, a source of electrons through, um, you know, like a fuel cell. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, hydrogen's making its big comeback right now,
Chris Larson:it is. And, and, and we're seeing, yeah, we, we are, and again, I, I would, you know, I would argue Thank you. Yes and no to, to, to the idea of it making a comeback because it's what we call, you know, gray hydrogen, which is, you know, gray hydrogen is, is the, the, um, steam reformation of, of, um, uh, natural gas to produce, to basically split the, the CH4 and, and, and, uh, produce hydrogen that way. So that is the common practice today. It's used quite a bit today. So I think that the, the comeback, so to speak, is really around this idea of, of. Producing it in a clean way and, and, you know, the challenge is, yeah, the electrolysis it, the bottom line is it's, it's more expensive, right? You know, it's, it's, it's, it's about double the cost, you know, just some rough hand waving roughly double the cost or more today to make green what we call green hydrogen versus the existing infrastructure, the existing production of, of gray or in the case of brown hydrogen brown is, is produced. from from coal. So I would say, you know, there's a healthy industry where there's hydrogen offtakers, you know, people are buying it today. And so the transition is more about, well, how are we making this stuff? And do we have our renewal? And this is the key, right? You mentioned renewables need to get more Less expensive and they are and that's a big part of what's happened is why we're having this conversation about hydrogen is that the cost the price of of solar and wind has has come down, you know, steadily and substantially over the past, you know, three, three decades. And so that's sort of making this possible. But we're seeing multinational agreements, you know, the country of Korea. I'm not talking about like a couple of companies agree, but the country of Korea is signing treaties with with with Australia and Oman for supply. So this is the scale has gotten really big because, you know, the Koreans realize, Hey, we don't have enough land to have enough renewables to make enough green hydrogen for all the, you know, and they do make a lot of steel in Korea. So they need a lot of hydrogen. If they want to be green steel, they're going to have to import. So yeah, the scale has gotten. Really interesting. We're, we're, we're hearing about these, these projects that are many tens of gigawatts and, uh, just, um, big, big numbers. And, and as a result though, inevitably, right, the price will come down to a point where, I mean, this, this, this has happened in all, not all industries, but we see it over and over, right? We've seen the price of electric vehicles come down as the, the, the, the, the numbers go up, we've seen solar, you know, the price of solar has come down dramatically. And so we do expect a similar trend with.
Chris Brandt:I like the idea of having that, that storage. And, you know, like the vehicle for storage and I, you know, and I was talking to another company that's doing some things around sort of natural gas extraction and stuff like that. And we talked about one of the things that, you know, could be in the future for them is sort of. sequestering CO2 back into the, into those things. But maybe the answer is, you know, putting hydrogen in those as a storage, you know, facility like the salt mines. But I mean, the thing is that, you know, uh, natural gas production, obviously it stays in there and it's sealed up, um, you know, over millions of years. And that's, you know, methane largely, which is, you know, uh, bigger molecule, but you know, it's, it's holding that deep underground a mile or two underground and it's fairly easy to sort of extract that, right? Yeah. It's a low density gas that you could get out fairly easy. Um, it seems like there's a lot of opportunities around the, the, the globe to sort of store Things like this for maybe a more distributed grid down the road, which I would imagine would be great for you guys.
Chris Larson:Sure. Well, yeah, absolutely. I think that sort of gets to an issue, which I think is interesting about hydrogen, which is that, yeah, anyone can produce it if, you know, I keep saying hydrogen. I mean to be saying green hydrogen, but, you know, whereas with, with, you know, we're seeing this in the battery space, you know, we have. precious metals that are concentrated in certain countries. And, you know, the classic example, not a good way, but the classic example is a lot of cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the DRC. And there are a lot of questions about the Practices, right? The, the labor practices and some places like that. And so, uh,
Chris Brandt:Very significant questions, I will add.
Chris Larson:Yes. These are big things that, you know, as a society, we have to sort of wrestle with. But when we, so it's one of the refreshing elements, I think, of hydrogen as a fuel. And again, look at natural gas. There are certain countries that are, that are very wealthy in natural gas. The US happens to be one of them. Hydrogen can be produced anywhere where you have, uh, uh, the ability to, to. Produce renewable energy, you know, green hydrogen. So in that sense, it is a more distributed asset. I, I, although I gave the example of Korea where they're going to need so much green hydrogen, they couldn't even produce it themselves. But, uh, that's 1 of the things that I find very encouraging, though, is that that, um, you know, wherever you can put up solar or wind, which is most of the world, uh, you have an opportunity to to produce and then sell. And export hydrogen. So we've
Chris Brandt:talked about electrolysis and basically electrolysis works. You have, you know, a positive and a negative and an anode kind of situation, right? And you electrify that and the oxygen boils off over. one of them, I forget which, whether it's anode or cathode, but then the hydrogen, twice as much hydrogen, right, H2O, uh, is produced, uh, on the other end. But those tend to be, I know that, you know, sometimes it's like, what, like zinc and platinum and copper, you know, are the, the metals that are all kind of involved in that, which are also precious metals, but I don't think they, It's not like a, you know, a battery in or necessarily where those degrade as much, perhaps, right? But maybe they do. I don't know. I don't know what the longevity of those things are and how much of them you need to.
Chris Larson:Yeah. And the volume is a little bit less because it's, it's a throughput process, but, but you're absolutely right. Yeah. Even the, the, the, the electrolyzers, the fuel cells do have precious materials and you know, when. in talking, you know, the, the, that's what differentiates the, the different electrolyzer manufacturers is, is the secret sauce is, is, is in the material composition of those. Right.
Chris Brandt:Cause there's actually stuff you can add into the water as well to heighten that reaction. Right.
Chris Larson:You know, one, one thing that, that you just reminded me of, Chris, is that, you know, again, talking about, you know, we, Again, our role in this is feeding DC power into the, the electrolyzer, somebody else makes the, the electrolyzer, you know, one of the things that, as we talk about, how do we, we drive down the cost, you know, when we, when we, the, the production of green hydrogen is, is, uh, at the end of the day, between 16, 80 percent of the cost that is, is in the energy that's feeding it. So the OPEX, not, not so much the, the CAPEX. CapEx is important, but, but the operating expenses, the cost of the renewables is, is, is the biggest driver, biggest single driver is. So there's some interesting things being done. And we, we've been thinking about, for example, this question, um, seems very obvious, but it's, it's not as easy as it sounds is, hey, solar. Solar energy is, it's DC, right? You know, the solar modules that you see on, on roofs and, you know, in fields, it's producing DC. And so they're using inverters to convert that to AC and then the transformer to boost it up to medium voltage. And then away it goes on the grid. And then in this case, we would be taking through a transformer, taking that at medium voltage AC, converting it down to low voltage AC, and then converting it over to DC. Okay, a lot of steps. And you can just imagine all the losses that are involved in that. So, so we're working on a concept and we're actually doing a pilot project right now, which is kind of, kind of cool, where, okay, let's just skip the whole AC business and all medium voltage. Can we just take Solar, DC electricity, run it through a DC DC converter, just to convert the voltages to what's needed by the electrolyzer, and then feed it directly into the electrolyzer, basically instead of having effectively four steps, five depending on how you count it, to basically having one step. Through through a single converter. So that's that's one example of some of the innovation that that's going on. And again, part of the fun stuff that we get to be involved in
Chris Brandt:the old, you know, battle that took place between Tesla and Edison, between DC and AC current, you know, and AC. which was Tesla's idea, eventually won out on that one because it, you know, helps run more, you know, like motors and things like that because you need AC, AC current for that. But, you know, if you look at sort of like what a lot of our modern energy consumption is, it's a lot of DC current. I mean, everything in a computer is DC, you know, so we're, we're. You know, maybe, maybe it's a time to, you know, start doing, uh, although I would imagine long haul transmission of DC would be, would be kind of a challenge, right?
Chris Larson:It is, and, and yet, you know, we do have this thing called, uh, HVDC, high, high voltage DC, you know, you know, you know, in the case of, and there, there are a lot of these, these lines all over the world. I mean. Listen, it's, it's, there are far fewer high voltage DC lines than there are high voltage AC lines, but it does make sense in, in a lot of cases, and including this, this example from, from Utah. But people may be aware of this now, but I mean, the, you know, Texas is connected to the rest of the U. S. electrically through, through DC. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, so, so it's, um, there are ways to use DC, and, and so DC is, I'm not going to say it's going through a renaissance, but what I just described to you, you know, this idea of solar to electrolysis through DC, I, I call it a shortcut. Right. We're just going to do a shortcut. And, you know, we, we, we're pretty excited about that concept. You know, we were originally involved, this whole DC, uh, direct concept we got involved with, uh, about six years ago on the solar to battery storage side. It's the same idea. Hey, wait a minute. If charge up my batteries with, with solar, why am I taking my DC solar, DC solar, converting it and putting it back, inverting it, medium voltage, run it over here, come back down and then, okay, then we get to our batteries. And then, so, so we, we, we, we pioneered this, this, you know, that's not the idea, but, but actually doing a commercial, you know, utility scale, uh, converter to actually do this. And that, that's also an interesting story about how that, that came to be. You know, when that happened, it sort of unlocked this whole idea of DC coupled solar plus storage, which is more efficient. And, um, so we were pretty proud of that. And so the, you know, we, we had sort of that, that obvious light bulb moment with hydrogen. Hey, why don't we do the same thing with hydrogen? So little, you know, there's some, some important differences, but, uh, it's, it's, it's. Part of, I think, the fun of, of, of our job, I say ours, you know, as, as, as a company, we, we get to be involved with some of these, um, you know, industry shifting, uh, technologies.
Chris Brandt:And I will throw one more use case in there too. Data centers like big multi megawatt data centers really are optimized with DC. Um, it's much, it's much, much more efficient to run DC in your data center than it is AC. Um, but wow, this, I mean, this all sounds amazing. I, I love the, uh, the idea of this hydrogen future, this clean hydrogen future, which is, is super cool. Um, and, and I love the fact that you guys have, you know, some innovative new products that you're bringing to market to, uh, to deliver on that. So that, that's, that's very cool. So if, if, if folks want to find you, where do they go?
Chris Larson:Uh, well, I guess dynapower. com. Uh, it's, it's pretty, pretty easy. And yeah, that's, that's how folks would find us. And, and it's also worth mentioning, you know, we're talking about, Hey, we're, we're part of this industry that's growing and of course we're growing. And so I, I always encourage folks that, that are thinking about getting into the space or in the space and, uh, looking for, for other opportunities where we're always hiring and, and, and looking to bring new talent on board.
Chris Brandt:So, uh, I, I have to put it in a plug, clean energy warrior, go, go, go find Dynapower and Chris and he'll look you up.
Chris Larson:Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Brandt:Yeah. Well, I, I love, I love the idea. Um, thanks so much for being on, really appreciate it. And this is a fun conversation for sure. Chris, appreciate it. Thanks for watching. I'd love to hear from you in the comments. And if you could give us a like, think about subscribing and I will see you in the next one.