Tech breakthroughs that could steer the industry toward net zero

While the electrification revolution is well underway, getting to a world of zero emissions will be tough without the help of new technologies. Breakthroughs such as scalable solid-state batteries and clean hydrogen could someday propel the industry — and the world — toward a greener future.

In this episode, we hear from Faurecia Hydrogen Solutions Engineering Director Charles Shappell about the emerging hydrogen business. Factorial Energy CEO Siyu Huang talks about her company's novel solid-state battery technology. And mechanical engineer Rosie Barnes evaluates those and other technologies for their carbon reducing potential. 

Transcript

Driving to Zero: The auto industry’s roadmap to carbon neutrality

Episode  Seven – The technology that could get us there

OPENING THEME

Jake narration: On the last episode of Driving to Zero… we talked about the government’s role in decarbonizing the auto industry and spurring investment in clean energy. Well… since that episode… there was news on that front…

PLAY Biden 1 [:18] “I'm here to announce one of the largest advanced manufacturing investments in the history of this nation. $7 billion in federal investments is going to attract $40 billion in private investment in clean hydrogen and power.”

Jake narration:In Philadelphia… President Biden and U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm unveiled seven projects selected to split seven billion dollars in funding to create regional "clean" hydrogen production hubs across the U.S.

Biden talked extensively about the role the projects will play in getting the United States to net zero by 2050.

PLAY Biden Clean Hydrogen [:03] “Clean hydrogen is going to help us meet this goal.”

Jake narration:He said the technology is important because – while renewables such as wind and solar are cheaper… easier… and will play perhaps the biggest role – they can’t replace fossil fuels in every application… including for producing products that the auto industry depends on heavily.

PLAY Biden Clean Hydrogen [:22] “When it comes to manufacturing things like steel, aluminum and other materials, factories need [to] process materials at over 1000 °F. To get that done, you need to burn fuel to get that done. You can't get it done with wind and solar products. You cannot generate that much energy. That's where hydrogen comes in.”

Jake narration: But how big a role will hydrogen end up playing? As we’ll hear later in the episode… not everyone is a fan.

PLAY Rosie Pop Cut [:04] “I still think that anything that can be directly electrified shouldn't be done with hydrogen.”

Of course… clean hydrogen just one of many technologies that will play a role in the energy transition. On this episode of Driving to Zero… we’re exploring and evaluating some of the tech breakthroughs that could propel the auto industry and the world toward a greener future. I’m Jake Neher… with Automotive News.

PLAY Forvia 1 [:05]

JN: “What are we looking at here?”

CS: “So we've got a couple different hydrogen storage solutions that you're looking at.”

Jake narration: Charles Shappell is the engineering director for Faurecia Hydrogen Solutions… which is part of global auto supplier FORVIA. We’re at the company’s Clean Mobility Division in suburban Detroit looking at a couple of cylindrical tanks. The closer you look… the more clear it becomes… these aren’t just your every day run-of-the-mill tanks.

PLAY Shappell Tanks [:33] “There's a tremendous amount of technology that goes into our hydrogen storage system. So, if we start just with the tank technology, which is what you're looking at here, this is what's called a type four hydrogen storage tank. So, it has a plastic liner and then we wrap that plastic liner with a composite with carbon fiber. And so, this is what allows us to get to such extreme pressures that you see in today's modern hydrogen storage systems. So, this system operates at 700 bar, which is just over 10,000 PSI.”

PLAY Shappell Why Carbon Fiber [:47]
JN: “If you were going to try to do this with, I don't know, a steel tank or other materials -- maybe a more conventional tank that you'd see in a car or another system -- why would that not work for something like hydrogen?

CS: “So, it's really all about weight and the weight of the system is critical. So, if you were to try to store hydrogen at 700 bar in a steel tank, what you would end up with is a tank that was extremely heavy and only stored a small amount of hydrogen because the thickness of the steel container would be so thick, right? We're talking even just to store a couple of kilograms of hydrogen, you would be talking like six or eight inches thick steel in order to contain that kind of pressure. And that's why we use the carbon fiber. It’s really to get the mass down and enable these types of systems to go on to vehicles.”

Jake narration:These tanks are just over seven-feet long and 27 inches diameter. They’d be used in class-eight over-the-road trucks – we’re talking the biggest of big rigs. And they’d fit right in the space where the diesel tanks would otherwise be. This is the exact kind of application you hear a lot about for hydrogen in the auto industry these days. But Faurecia is also working on smaller tank systems for light vehicles as well.

PLAY Shappell 3 Light vehicle hydrogen [:38] “The system that you see here is the system that we make for Stellantis. And one of the interesting things -- and I always tell people this, you know, it's not that hydrogen is coming -- hydrogen is now, right? It's happening right now. So these systems are in production in Europe. You can buy one of these in a small light commercial vehicle application. And in this case, it's a really interesting design because what we did here was to design this system to fit in the same space as the battery does. So, Stellantis has two variants of that same vehicle. One that is a fuel cell vehicle, another one that is a pure BEV.”

Jake narration:Charles says that decision between a battery or a fuel cell comes down to how you’re using the vehicle.

PLAY Shappell 4 Towing [:38] “Imagine if you are a utility company and you've got a lot of these class 5, 6 type trucks out there. These trucks also are oftentimes towing like a huge spool of wire or a trailer with some kind of excavator on it. And as soon as you hook up a trailer to one of those battery electric class fives, for example, you lose about 50% of your range. And so, this is where we're seeing the OEMs and fleet operators having strong interest in hydrogen because what we can do with a hydrogen system is allow that vehicle to have a very, very similar range to what you get with a diesel vehicle.”

Jake narration:Of course… here’s where money really comes into play. The economics of hydrogen are fairly complex… so we’ll have to stick to some generalities here. But safe to say… beyond the cost of the vehicle and the infrastructure – which is a whole other issue – the cost of the fuel itself is a major consideration with hydrogen.

PLAY Shappell 5 Cost [:11] “In heavy transport, for example, hydrogen starts to make a lot of sense even at current diesel prices -- assuming that that diesel doesn't go up again -- at around $5 per kilogram.”

Jake narration:Although it depends heavily on where you are in the world and what kind of production source you have… most hydrogen today is already below five dollars a kilogram. Well cool – problem solved for heavy transport, right? Well… here’s where things get a little more complicated. Although hydrogen is a zero-emissions fuel… MAKING hydrogen in the first place requires some other kind of energy. And most hydrogen today is made using natural gas or other fossil fuels. That’s typically cheaper than what’s called GREEN hydrogen… which is made using renewable sources. Green hydrogen usually costs anywhere from three dollars to seven dollars per kilogram. But Charles says the economics changed significantly with the Inflation Reduction Act last year.

PLAY Shappell 6 IRA [:14] “For a lot of people that was a tipping point, right? Because now they can see a pathway if they were on the user end. For example, now they see that there's a lot of investment happening in green hydrogen production and transport.”

Jake narration: He says the production tax credit for hydrogen in the Inflation Reduction Act can reduce the cost of hydrogen production by up to three dollars per kilogram… depending on the carbon intensity score of the hydrogen you’re making.

PLAY Shappell 6.5 IRA credit [:25] “If you talk to anybody who's in the hydrogen business, they see that as the most important piece, because what that's doing is enabling a lot of companies to get into the hydrogen generation business, right? Because they see a picture where they can make a profit. And to me that's the most important because nothing happens without the ability to have enough green hydrogen in the market to enable this.”

Jake narration:Plus, remember President Biden’s announcement at the beginning of the episode? The one about the hydrogen hub funding through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act?

PLAY Shappell 7 Hydrogen hubs [:28] “There's another $8 billion there for that activity.And that activity is focused on these groups where they need to demonstrate that they've got hydrogen generation, the ability to transport that and an end user, right?And so it's providing a good template to be able to show people how you can make hydrogen, how you can transport it, and then what are the right end uses for that hydrogen in order to really maximize the amount of decarbonization that you can get?”

Jake narration:So what does that all mean for FORVIA’s business?

PLAY Shappell 8 Forvia’s business [:49] “For us, what we've seen is a lot of the automotive OEMs who are kind of on the fence about hydrogen launching hydrogen projects. And that's what drives our business.And we've seen the number of RFQs significantly increase in the last year because, you know, certainly two years ago, if we look back where we were at, kind of as this small start-up, there was some interest out there but it was in these niche areas.Most of the players were smaller folks that were new to the industry. Not your entrenched, big automotive OEMs. That's changed completely in the last 18 months.Pretty much every OEM that makes medium and heavy duty trucks has a hydrogen program at this point.”

Jake narration:It just so happened that the day I spoke with Charles, FORVIA was officially opening its first high-volume plant in Allenjoie, France – which he says will be able to make 100-thousand or more hydrogen tanks per year. It’s a major development in terms of capacity and resource allocation for the supplier… and it says a lot about where it sees hydrogen going in the near future.

PLAY Shappell 9 investment to date [:14] “We're targeting strong growth. And we've invested almost $400 million in our hydrogen activity to date. In the coming years, we'll see that investment pay off with growth of our business.”

SEG Jake + Jamie Q&A

n  Jamie, I remember talking about hydrogen maybe ten of 15 years ago… and it was often received almost as a joke. Like you were asking people about decarbonizing with flux capacitors or something. But now… as Charles Shappell said… the investments are really starting to ramp up.

n  I think one of the biggest remaining question marks is the infrastructure. I mean, boy, we talk about EV charging infrastructure like it’s Mad Max out there… hydrogen fueling seems ages behind that.

n  And then there the biggest thing, which we’ll hear more about later… how green is hydrogen really? Without a much more robust green hydrogen supply… the benefits of hydrogen to the climate are really contentious.

n  So, Jamie, there’s another technology that we talk about a lot here in the newsroom that could really be a game-changer. Talk a bit about solid state batteries and the hopes for that technology.

n  This is another technology – like hydrogen – that has always been talked about as if it’s just beyond the horizon, but never really coming into view. Do you think it is now coming into view, as the hydrogen industry is?

o   [Maybe talk a bit about Toyota’s announcement last week here?] 

SEGWell, I recently got a chance to talk with two folks who are looking to play a role in that transition to solid state batteries… and who says they’re coming sooner than some people might think.

PLAY Huang 1 want to change the world [:04] “We want this technology to change the world. That's the fundamental vision for this company.”

Jake narration:Siyu Huang is the founder and CEO of Factorial Energy… which is developing what it calls breakthrough solid-state batteries that offer longer driving range for EVs with an emphasis on safety. Huang says the company’s ambitions for solid-state trace back to major recalls of traditional lithium ion batteries… including the Chevrolet Bolt EV.  

PLAY Huang 2 Recalls [:16]“We have been incubating this technology since like 2015-ish time in our company. And around like 2018 when we saw that those bunch of recalls happen, that was a hard moment when we decided we need a full speed ahead to launch this technology.”

PLAY Livingstone 1 Story [:08] “The day that Factorial announced the 40 amp hour battery, I was at my desk and I saw it and I'm like, oh, this is the thing that takes out lithium ion batteries.”

Jake narration:JJ Livingstone was working for Samsung SDI at the time… one of the top three battery makers in the world. He’s now the head of sales for Factorial.

PLAY Livingstone 2 Joining Factorial and solid state [:40] “Coincidentally, the executive chairman of the company was a former boss of mine and he called me a few days later after that and I joined the company shortly after that. But the solid-state delivers on several of the things that I think the industry needs, which is safety, number one. I think the weight savings, number two. And then, finally, the power discharge is actually another one as well which delivers performance. So, if we can go ahead and change or improve those metrics for the average person buying the car, they won't see a change at all in the performance of how they drive, which I think is really important for them. You can't change how they drive. You have to make it seem similar or better than what they had before. And I think we're able to deliver better, which is really cool.”

Jake narration:Factorial’s technology is actually quasi-solid-state… meaning it uses solid electrolyte components… but also includes some liquid as well. Siyu says that helps with scalability… because manufacturing can be done with the same equipment that’s used to make lithium ion batteries.

PLAY Huang 3 Quasi Solid [:20] “One of the greatest advantages for this technology is this is highly compatible with the lithium manufacturing process. I would say it's very much intended when we initially designed this technology because we realized that with all the changes in the in the material with the cell design, and if you completely change the equipment, that's a huge barrier to entry.”

Jake narration:She says the company doesn’t view quasi-solid state technology as a stepping stone, either.

PLAY Huang 4 Stepping stone [:20] “We do see this will play a role far into the future, because first of all, you don't need to change the manufacturing process, and there [is] a lot of existing value coming out of that manufacturing process in terms of the speed and cost, etcetera. And the significance in terms of the energy density is substantial compared to lithium ion.”

Jake narration:Factorial has entered joint development agreements with Mercedes-Benz… Stellantis… and Hyundai Motor Company. This year, it unveiled a 100 amp-hour battery cell at CES at the Stellantis exhibition space. Siyu says there’s much more to come from Factorial and the emerging solid-state industry as a whole.

PLAY Huang 5 Ambition is huge [:18] “I do see the ambition for this business is huge, like, it can potentially change the landscape of this entire industry. And, I would say, the battery industry has been awaiting disruption for 20 years. We think we are on track to deliver even higher energy density in the future and be able to provide a viable product to our consumers.”

SEGSo how close are we to a tech breakthrough that could really blow the lid off of the industry’s decarbonization efforts? And what are the most likely technologies to make that happen? When we come back… we’ll hear from Rosie Barnes… a mechanical engineer who has spent lots of time evaluating these technologies for their climate-saving and economic potential. That’s next… on Driving to Zero.

MIDROLL BREAK

Jake narration:There’s a long list of technologies and strategies that we could evaluate for their likelihood to make the auto industry and the world more green. But we only have so much time. If only there were someone out there who did this kind of thing full time and was fantastic at talking about it.

Rosie Barnes is a mechanical engineer… who has been working in the renewable energy space for about two decades. She got her PhD in mechanical engineering from the University of New South Wales Canberra and now runs a small consulting company which develops green technologies and helps investors understand them better. She also has a fantastic YouTube channel called Engineering with Rosie… which is loaded with amazing content about the climate-saving potential of all kinds of technologies. It’s accessible… fun… really in-depth… and also takes into account the economics and practicalities of these technologies… beyond just their ability to cut carbon alone. Rosie Barnes… thank you so much for joining me on Driving to Zero all the way from Sydney, Australia.

PLAY Rosie Barnes interview [22:23]

RB: Yeah, no worries. Thanks for asking me.

JN: And by the way, we should know you've got your toddler in the room with you, you know, hashtag working parents, I feel the I feel that myself. But I want to talk a little bit about the technologies that we're exploring in this episode, and maybe some of your own personal favorites, or some of the ones that you're personally skeptical about. Let's start with solid state batteries. In the auto space, we hear about solid state batteries as sort of the holy grail of battery technology and something that could essentially revolutionize the way that we use energy. So what is your take on this technology? And how big a role do you think could it play in sort of the bigger picture of, you know, saving the planet? I guess you could say?

RB: Yeah, well, I would think solid state is definitely something that's exciting, is for sure it's coming in the next few years. I know, there have been some good announcements recently. And you know, prototypes are being deployed and products are being planned for release in the next few years that feature and I think actually, I was reading up on this recently, and I, I read that Toyota actually had a little car in the Olympics that was, you know, maybe had a solid state battery in it. That particular car, I don't think is going to revolutionize anything related to transport. But I mean, the advantages are better energy density, so you have lighter battery, smaller batteries, faster charging, all of that is really good. I personally don't think it's going to revolutionize cars. I think that the revolution in cars is already underway, you know, it's just electric vehicles in in general. And, you know, these are all kind of incremental changes that are kind of nice to have, I think anyone that's driven an Eevee, for more than, you know, like a couple of hours realizes that bigger batteries isn't actually the answer to any of the main problems with EVs. From my perspective, the cars are already really, really great. The problem in Australia and probably elsewhere is the chargers, you know that they're a pain when you know, downloading all those apps and getting payment to work. That's my most frequent annoyance with a vase. And then in Australia, we have the problem of a really, you know, low population density. So the charging stations can be quite far apart. So I found when I did a, a couple of road trips in an Eevee, you don't have range anxiety, you have charger anxiety, because you know, you show up to a charger and you're like, is this? Is this going to work? And if it doesn't, then I'm pretty screwed, because the next one is, you know, 250 kilometers away. So I'll be here overnight. Yeah, you know, plugged into a wall outlet. That's my backup plan. Right? Right. Yeah. So I mean, I say, like, who doesn't want a car that can charge in 10 minutes or any of those other advantages, but I don't think it's going to be a revolution, more of an evolution, but where it could be revolutionary would be, you know, applied to air transport, I think is much more likely that that's where you're going to see, you know, if you can double the range of an electric airplane, then you're really starting to say, you know, some useful routes that can be covered by battery aeroplanes. So I think that's probably more, the more the scope for revolution there.

JN: And we're going to talk a little bit about hydrogen in a second, which kind of there's some crossover here in the industry applications, I think, but what about long haul trucking? Do you think that solid state batteries could also play a big role in the sort of harder to decarbonize applications for for road travel?

RB: Maybe, with trucking, I think I have looked into this a bit and spoken with some experts. And I think the the best expert to talk to one that is David Saban from Cambridge, I think when you look into the details, there isn't that much that a, you know, an electric truck can't already do, you know, when you look at the way that they're actually used, and you know, the way that they actually staffed and when they have to have brakes and all that sort of thing, that it isn't so often that you need to get in a truck and drive, you know, 810 12 hours without stopping. So I think that the vast majority of trucking needs can be met by electric trucks pretty easily. So then, you know, there's a little bit leftover after that, and what's that going to be? Is it going to be solid state batteries? Is it going to be hydrogen? Yeah. Or is it going to be biofuels as or E fuels as you know, there's a few options and I think it's just gonna come down to how it plays out in terms of the you know, the cost of those technologies and the logistics as well. Logistics is really important for you know, anyone that's running commercial operation. I guess the bottom line is, is how much it costs but then you know, you have to be able to operate your business in a profitable way as well. And I think because it's just that like quite a small little chunk that's leftover that can't be served by existing technologies or, you know, technologies that are coming out in the next few years. I think that it's too early to say how exactly all those trade offs are going to work out as the technologies develop. Yeah, I wouldn't. I wouldn't call that one yet. But I would say maybe to any of those technologies that are listed. Sure.

JN: Okay. Now you have some interesting skepticism when it comes to hydrogen technology. You know, I was just watching one of your videos where you talk about, and I believe this was a couple of years ago. So I'm interested to see if anything has changed in the last couple of years. But just the challenges that exist for hydrogen, talk about sort of where you are right now on how big a deal hydrogen will be in the coming transition toward zero emissions fuels.

RB: Yeah, so when I started looking into hydrogen, it was just as someone that didn't know anything about it, all I knew was thermodynamics, you know, every time you change energy from one form to another, there's losses. And so if you want to take electricity and make it into hydrogen, and then turn it back into electricity, you know, you end up losing a good, good chunk of that. And so my question was just why why would you do all those extra costly, inefficient steps when for anything that you can directly electrify? And I still think that I still think that anything that can be directly electrified shouldn't be done with hydrogen. And so that includes passenger cars, it includes the vast vast majority of trucks includes short haul aviation, definitely home heating is, you know, I should have said that one first, because that's by far the most obvious that you would never do with hydrogen, or you can do it with a heat pump and use like, yeah, like a fifth of the energy. On the other hand, you know, we already use a lot of hydrogen at a big source of emissions, I think it's like about 2% of the global emissions come from hydrogen currently. So you know, today, hydrogen is an emissions problem, not an emissions solution, I definitely believe in the huge role that clean hydrogen is going to play for, for getting rid of that 2% of emissions. And I guess, when people focus so much on problems that have alternative solutions, and don't focus on that existing big emissions problem, I'm really skeptical about their motivation for that. And I do think if you trace trace that back, you can usually find out, you know, fossil fuel lobbyists somewhere, so yeah, I would definitely, definitely say that. Yeah, I mean, that's, that's basically it. But I think, you know, hydrogen is taken off as this kind of it's not only fossil fuel lobbyists that believe in hydrogen, there's plenty of regular people and politicians and you know, who have, you know, truly believed that they that we should do something about climate change. And I think that the reason why it's taken hold so much is because it's just such a simple idea, you know, you can say, you know, what are we going to do about this, you know, large list of industries, and you can just give a one sentence response, oh, you know, hydrogen can do that. And it's true that hydrogen can do any of those. But I think this is a good time to like, think like an engineer where you don't go from a solution to a problem, but rather you go from a problem to a solution. And so, you know, like, it's easy to say, okay, hydrogen, we've got hydrogen, where can we put it, but that's the wrong way to think about it. Because in actuality, every little application is thinking, what's the best way to decarbonize this? And so, you know, they're not, they're not like, Oh, can we use hydrogen? That's not their first thought. They're thinking, what's the cheapest, fastest best, best way that we can decarbonize this particular application? And it's pretty rare actually, that, you know, hydrogen is going to win out on any specific problem, even though Yeah, in theory could do a lot of stuff if you didn't care about cost, and you know, didn't care how many wind turbines you have to put in the ground, you know, if you have to put three times as much to run everything off hydrogen instead of directly electrifying it. Yeah, so that's, that's why I don't say it extending far beyond the applications where there's no other alternative.

JN: You know, we hear so often that even the industry seems to have come to a point where basically, you know, anything that you're running on gasoline right now should be electrified. And anything that's running on diesel should be hydrogen iced. I don't know if I just made up a word but should be replaced with hydrogen. Is that an over simplification? is are there better alternatives to diesel as well?

RB: Yeah, I don't I don't think that that's a very useful kind of rule of thumb at all. I don't I don't see things being categorized that way. I mean, maybe to a certain extent, and I don't think I don't think much about diesel so maybe maybe that's why it doesn't make sense to me. But you know, the some of the things that I let me was initially skeptical about hydrogen that I've come on board with more so recently, would include like long like really long duration energy storage when you're trying to store energy from you A year in case you have like a really, really windless winter or something, then hydrogen can be, you know, it's one of the last technologies standing when you try and figure out how you're going to do that. And I guess that that would potentially replace diesel generators. So in that sense, maybe, but for any of the transport applications, I yeah, I just, I just don't say hydrogen winning out. You know,

JN: I think one another interesting aspect of this that I hadn't really thought too much about before embarking on this project was about storage, just storage for the grid, even, you know, we had we talked to someone with the local utility here in southeast Michigan in the US, who was talking about how, you know, one application could be because they're trying to figure out how to transition to a world where you need baseload energy, and you don't want to be using natural gas or coal for that baseload, you could essentially have windmills or wind turbines, I should say, or other generation methods, creating hydrogen that you could store and then use that basically, as a base load whenever you need it. And the winds not blowing or the sun's not shining. What's your reaction to that idea?

RB: Yeah, it's another one of those things. That just sounds very neat. And then a lot of people were planning projects like that. And if you watch how these projects have evolved over time, they're experiencing a few you know, reality checks, once they start actually doing the detailed design. The issue is that, you know, any piece of expensive industrial processing equipment, you're genuinely trying to run it 24/7 to get good, you know, financial results from your project, right? You want to good, good capacity factor. And, yeah, so you've bought a really expensive electrolyzer, you don't only want to use it when you've got intermittent energy source available. And so I mean, it's one thing to have it off grid and powered by, like a really good wind and solar resource together. Because, you know, you can get pretty good capacity factors, like in the 60% ish from that combination, but often are usually when people talk about this are talking about power system balancing, and they think that we're going to use a surplus renewables from the middle of the day, when you know, everyone is everybody's rooftop solar panels are generating and we've got too much electricity, they think that's the time you're gonna use this negative price electricity to make hydrogen. And then you're gonna put it back in the grid in the afternoons. But, you know, like, even in the just most extreme cases, like in Australia and South Australia, I think every day for the last month, you're in spring now, and it's a lot of solar power, but people don't yet need a lot of air conditioning. And so they've had negative electricity prices for eight hours a day. And, you know, that's like record breaking, and it's just one month of the year. You know, you can kind of imagine that you're not going to get a very good financial return on your electrolyzer if you're just running it a few hours a day, and then you know, and then you gotta get a good, good price for it in the evening as well.

JN: I also think we should probably touch on the fact that when we say hydrogen, that can mean a lot of different things from a zero emissions perspective, there's a whole color scheme of hydrogen. Can you explain a little bit about what that color scheme is? And sort of what it means for hydrogens role? In decarbonizing?

RB: Yeah, yeah, actually, I think I did hear people talk about it as much. You know, at one point, there was like 20 Different colors in the hydrogen rainbow, and it was getting a bit ridiculous. But there's a few main ones you need to consider the first one, which people don't usually talk about is gray, or black hydrogen, which is like 98%, or maybe even above 99% of hydrogen made today, which is made from fossil fuels, mostly from cracking natural gas…

JN: Worth repeating 99% of the hydrogen today…

RB: Yeah, exactly. And that's a big, big reason why you don't want to, you know, expand your demand for hydrogen before you expand the supply of clean hydrogen, because, you know, you're just making an emissions problem rather than solving one. Yeah, so that's the first color. And then second, similar to that is blue hydrogen, where you still use methane to make your hydrogen but instead of just letting the carbon dioxide out into the atmosphere, you capture it and store it. And that's something that mostly exists in theory rather than actuality. And then the final one, that is one that most people talk about is green hydrogen, which actually it's a little bit fuzzy the definition of it in theory, it should be hydrogen made from renewable electricity, but in reality, it's often you know, grid connected electricity. So it's whatever whatever the fuel source of the electricity at that time is, that's what you'll get. And yeah, sometimes people try and put a different color on hydrogen may From grid electricity, sometimes people put a different color on hydrogen made with electricity from nuclear power. There's no real consensus on what those colors are those so yeah, I think pretty much everyone just outside altogether as green hydrogen.

JN: Alright, Rosie, you're bursting my bubble, here on and on everything. Give me something to be optimistic about what are you? What are you excited about technologically, when it comes to decarbonizing, especially if there's anything that you think has good applications in the auto industry, obviously, battery technology in EVs, you mentioned already what's got you excited for the future and our efforts here?

RB: Well, I mean, I'm excited for the present with electric vehicles, I mean, they've gotten great way faster than I would have expected five years ago, I would still like them to be a bit cheaper, the last time we bought a car, I really, really wanted an electric car. But in Australia, at least, you know, a year or two ago basically meant a brand new like luxury car. So we didn't go for that. So I'm really excited for the next couple of years when they like, you know, come down a bit more in price. And when they start getting passed on to the secondhand market, that's probably the most exciting thing, not not a very, you know, like shiny new technology to be excited about. But I think that's going to make a big difference. And then I'm actually most excited probably about vehicle to grid technology, you know, using your cars electric battery to help support the electricity grid, I know that their potential has been talked about for quite a few years, and people probably feel like there's a lack of progress, but things are actually starting to happen. And I was recently in Adelaide in South Australia and visited a couple of small businesses, a winery and just a guy in the suburbs who had vehicle to grid technology. And I've been using it for a while making, you know, a little bit of money. And so I see, I think we're really on the cusp of that being something big. And in places like Australia, where we've got really great rooftop solar resources, you know, between your rooftop solar panels and your car battery, you're not going to be buying electricity from the grid very often. And it also has implications for everybody else that's connected to the grid, because you know, if you've got all this distributed energy, then you don't need as many transmission upgrades. Everybody doesn't need to pay for these big spikes in demand in the evening. If a lot of people just supplying that from their own car battery, then it's going to lower the price for everybody. So, you know, I think if that's managed properly, then that has huge potential and probably what I'm most excited about.

JN: So there was a video that you did on another channel called climate, Adam, and you and Adam gave letter grades to a bunch of different technologies, I believe that EVs actually fell around maybe the C range on that. So we're still not talking necessarily about a panacea on a global scale. Maybe talk a little bit about that, and sort of what on a global scale again, gets more of an A or B on in your list, at least?

RB: Yeah, well, I will say we, you know, Adam, and I came up with a joint grade, so I would have put it higher, he would have put it lower. That's primarily because, you know, there's more more to be gained from, you know, like better walking walkability in cities and bikes and stuff like that. So that's the reason. But yeah, I mean, so I've already said one of the technologies that I would put at a much higher letter grade, and that's vehicle to grid, but also any kind of demand response system where you can better match electricity demand to supply. You know, in the past, we based our whole kind of electricity usage models around fossil fuel generation profiles, fossil fuel power plants, and nuclear as well just want to generate just constant 24/7. And so we adapted to, you know, to facilitate that. So we had off peak our prices in the evening, because otherwise, no one would be using electricity, then, but you can't turn those generators off. And so, you know, you encourage people to use it when it's there. We just need to, to change that. So, you know, in some cases, that might be as simple as saying, Okay, now off peak is in the middle of the day, and you know, some places are already doing that. But the thing is that renewables are variable, so it's not predictable a year in advance what you know, what periods are going to have the most oversupply it is definitely predictable days in advance. But I think that you would get a much more efficient system, which will mean less generation needed less transmission need had less cost for everybody, if we could allow people to use electricity when there was electricity available and to not when there wasn't. So I mean, there's a whole suite of technologies that are enabling that and in industry, it's stuff like thermal batteries, you know, so that any kind of manufacturing that needs a lot of heat, doesn't need to, you know, turn it off when electricity prices are high once they electrify it. So you know, you can have a buffer, stuff like that it's in general. I mean, they're more batteries are super old, you know, technology, anyone that's got a hot water tank in their house has has a thermal battery. But yeah, just the the way that they're being used to, you know, get the most out of our electricity grid.

JN: I'll give you the last thoughts here. Anything that you think our audience should know, as they're thinking about the whole scope and picture of where we go from here? And especially for people who have the power to invest money in these technologies? What should they be keeping in mind?

RB: Well, I think with a vase, it's charging. And, you know, if I had one, one wish for evey charging, it would be some sort of standard for the apps that are involved. I mean, it's just crazy. Sometimes you I recently, I had a experience where I spent half an hour and was not able to charge my car at the end of that. So you know, the, we need to eliminate that they can't go mainstream when, you know, people aren't sure if they're going to be able to charge their car when they want to or not. So yes, please, please take care of that. Anybody that, you know, has any responsibility vaguely related to that. And then the other thing I would say is to think about speed, as well as other people get really excited about, you know, shiny new technologies that might be ready in 20 years, which, you know, technically be ready in time for 2050. But it actually matters how quickly we reduce emissions. So, you know, I think people don't focus as much on how to quickly roll out the technologies that we already have. And so I guess I would encourage people to think, more mundane in a lot of a lot of cases, because, you know, the more we reduce emissions now, the more time that we actually have to take care of the really hard stuff. So yeah, that would be the main thing that I would encourage policymakers in particular to, yeah, switch their thinking up a little bit like that. 

JN: Well, if you want to hear so much more about Rosie's thoughts on these technologies and climate and all the things that need to happen in the next few years, you can check out her channel engineering with Rosie so much great stuff there. Rosie Barnes, thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate you taking time out of your morning. I should also mention that you have extra insight into the future because I'm talking to you here in Michigan and it's tomorrow in Sydney where you are so I'm literally talking to you in the future. So, you know, you couldn't ask for a better source. Thanks again.

RB: Yeah, thank you. It's been great.

So now that we’ve covered the technology… the incentives… and the will to move forward… what happens now and into the near future? On the next episode of Driving to Zero… we’ll look at the road ahead.

Credits:

-          Jake: Driving to Zero is a podcast from Automotive News.

-          Original music and sound design by Sam Beaubien.

-          We got additional help from Kellen Walker and Elisha Anderson.

-          I’m Jake Neher.

-          Jake: We’d really love it if you gave us a like, review, and follow the podcast to make sure you catch the next episode of Driving to Zero.