Hydrogen has long been hyped as a gas of the long bustle. It’s abundant and its damage product is water. On the other hand it’s most effective no longer too long previously that the provision of cheap renewable vitality has allowed hydrogen to be produced competitively without the utilize of fossil fuels.
Azeem Azhar speaks with Raffi Garabedian, co-founder and CEO of Electrical Hydrogen, to explore the market different and roadmap to huge adoption of “inexperienced hydrogen.”
Apart from they discuss:
- What the hydrogen alternate can be taught from scaling renewables indulge in photo voltaic and wind.
- Why hydrogen will be handiest in helping to decarbonize heavy industries.
- The aptitude of the utilize of hydrogen to retailer and transport monumental amounts of renewable vitality between continents.
@azeem
@exponentialview
@garabedian
Additional resources:
- Project Capital and Deep Decarbonisation with Shayle Kann (Exponential Stumble on Podcast 2022)
- Would perhaps Europe replace Russian gas with inexperienced hydrogen? Let’s glimpse at the numbers (Recharge 2022)
- The Future of Hydrogen (Global Vitality Company 2020)
AZEEM AZHAR: Hiya, there. I’m Azeem Azhar, and here’s the Exponential Stumble on podcast. Now, it became once the first and it’s the most abundant crucial to the existence of stars, planets, and existence itself. Yet, hydrogen is no longer featured widely in our human vitality systems, regardless of many makes an try over the a protracted time. However today with the demands to decarbonize our vitality system, as significant as they are, and with novel technologies riding down costs, it may well perhaps probably perhaps perhaps perhaps simply be hydrogen’s moment. Can hydrogen – let’s face it so worthwhile in our universe to this point – bring collectively its ability into our homes, industries and the economy at huge? Raffi Garabedian is the founder and CEO of electrical hydrogen who teach themselves the duty of rising fee aggressive hydrogen at scale. Now we construct utilize just a few technical terms. I want to spell them out. First is a BTU, which is a British thermal unit, the Imperial measure of thermal vitality that is generally broken-down in the US. Natural gas is generally broken-down as a comparability for hydrogen. Its vitality is measured in millions of Btus. Within the extinguish, hydrogen is created by passing an electrical contemporary thru water, splitting hydrogen, the H, from the oxygen, the O. This process is understood as electrolysis and indulge in loads of corporations, Electrical Hydrogen uses a modern technology known as PEM electrolysis for its increased efficiency and skill to higher address a fluctuate of working prerequisites. Successfully, that’s enough gassing for me. Let’s hump on with the stutter. Raffi, welcome to Exponential Stumble on.
RAFFI GARABEDIAN: Thanks, Azeem. I on no account even handed hydrogen as a worthwhile ingredient, nonetheless that’s intellectual.
AZEEM AZHAR: Successfully, it’s bought the very most enthralling market fragment. Has it no longer? By abundance. So I’m uncommon today, folks are with out a doubt getting eager about hydrogen. Final 365 days, the UK authorities announced a hydrogen approach asserting here’s going to unleash billions of kilos by 2030 and thousands of jobs. And you open to peek hydrogens showing up in analyst experiences and in the form of discussions about what the vitality mix looks to be like indulge in in the shut to future. Why now?
RAFFI GARABEDIAN: Other folks had been talking about hydrogen as an vitality vector, if I’m able to utilize that phrase, for a protracted time. It’s been on the roadmap. It’s been on folks’s minds. It’s undergone just a few hype cycles. Need to you give it some belief that ability, good? The build there became once correct a form of excitement spherical hydrogen, and then perhaps no longer. Successfully from my level of peep, it’s all about economics with out a doubt. Now, economics underpinned with a reason to interchange, which is climate in the extinguish. It’s mitigation of climate results of burning prolific amounts of fossil gas.
AZEEM AZHAR: And the traditional chemistry there for our listeners is correct, we burn hydrogen H2. And the output, the damage product is correct H2O, it’s water. It’s no longer a CO2 or a ramification of a methane that goes to live up being a greenhouse gas.
RAFFI GARABEDIAN: That’s exactly good. Within the most easy variety, whenever you oxidize hydrogen, you net water and that’s a renewable cycle. Need to that you simply may well variety hydrogen from water, H2O, by breaking it into O2 and H2. Now that bond breaking takes a form of vitality, nonetheless that vitality is carried in chemical variety to one other build of residing, the jam the build combustion occurs, the utilize of O2 from the air to burn the hydrogen again, returning water into the ambiance and releasing that vitality, or no longer lower than most of that vitality, wait on into our vitality system. So, I’m with out a doubt centered on fossil free hydrogen. Yet every other ability to factor in that is renewable hydrogen. So, I correct described the ability hydrogen would be produced from water by adding vitality in to crack the water bonds to interrupt it aside into O2 and H2. That vitality, if it comes from renewable resources indulge in wind and photo voltaic and hydroelectricity, then the hydrogen that results would be known as renewable hydrogen. That ability of production is dapper. It’s cyclic, it’s sustainable most effective if the energy interesting into is renewable, nonetheless it with out a doubt has heretofore been very dear. And there are with out a doubt two aspects to the fee of production of hydrogen by these ability. The formulation is understood as electrolysis. The input electricity and the fee of the capital equipment, the kit, or the plant, whenever you happen to will, that produces a hydrogen that does the conversion.
AZEEM AZHAR: And what we’ve considered over contemporary years has been a dramatic decline in the fee of renewable electricity from photo voltaic photovoltaic and from wind mills onshore and offshore. Then that shift has took build of residing with out a doubt comparatively no longer too long previously, 2016, 2017, 2018. So, that speaks to the first segment of the discipline. And then I dispute the 2nd segment may well perhaps perhaps perhaps be the build you step in.
RAFFI GARABEDIAN: Yeah, that’s exactly good Azeem. So, renewable electricity is now the most affordable electric useful resource in the sphere in loads of, many locations. And that opens now the different of manufacturing renewable hydrogen, fossil free hydrogen by electrolysis at a designate level that is aggressive with fossil produced hydrogen. That’s a game changer, good? Because in infrastructure industries, in commodities, designate parity is what’s with out a doubt required to incentivize a huge switch at a world scale.
AZEEM AZHAR: And folks generally utilize colours for hydrogen. Green, blue, and gray – inexperienced being the form of hydrogen that you simply are producing, which is form of live to live renewable vitality; gray hydrogen being the utilize of fossil fuels to variety the hydrogen; and then blue hydrogen be a ramification of a ramification of a political compromise. The root that you simply’d utilize fossil fuels to variety the hydrogen. And you’re going to preserve shut the carbon dioxide that’s emitted. However if we’re pondering the vitality transition from a ramification of inexperienced level of view, a renewable level of view, a decarbonization level of view, top-of-the-line thing that in actuality issues is inexperienced hydrogen.
RAFFI GARABEDIAN: Within the hydrogen geeky circles, I argue that the colour codes are with out a doubt obfuscating the info underneath, and there’s a form of nuance. However at a high stage, when it comes to facilitating an general vitality transition to renewables, inexperienced hydrogen’s top-of-the-line thing that issues.
AZEEM AZHAR: I deem it’s useful for us to absorb how we envisage this hydrogen with out a doubt being broken-down. I’m no longer significantly hot on hydrogen to energy light passenger autos. I don’t deem it’s the good utilize case for it. I’m a ways more interested by form of carbonized alternate which are with out a doubt exhausting to prevail in by other systems indulge in ammonia production or steel or fueling the with out a doubt, with out a doubt monumental, monumental things for which we in the purpose out time want to make utilize of with out a doubt dirty, heavy diesel substrates for. However how must we with out a doubt dispute in regards to the build the hydrogen goes to be broken-down?
RAFFI GARABEDIAN: Even handed one of many complexities of hydrogen as a decarbonization pathway is that it’s a generic gas that would be broken-down in a fluctuate of capabilities. So, I fully agree with you that vehicular electrification, significantly light responsibility autos, there’s so mighty momentum spherical battery powered electric autos that that looks to be the a hit reply. Now, the build does hydrogen fit? So, there are definite utilize conditions the build hydrogen is a chemical feed inventory that’s extraordinarily exhausting to replace. So, that’s ammonia production. Ammonia is mounted nitrogen source for plenty of fertilizer that’s broken-down on this planet.
AZEEM AZHAR: Synthetic ammonia today is produced by a quintessential industrial age process, good? It’s a managed explosion at several hundred atmospheres stress, several hundred levels Celsius/Fahrenheit, dangle your measure over, a catalyst Haber-Bosch process. It’s an tidy-
RAFFI GARABEDIAN: It’s hell hearth and damnation in a steel tube. It’s known as the Haber-Bosch process. It’s accomplished at massive industrial scale. And the ability ammonia is produced today is by taking methane, cracking it into C, which with out a doubt turns into CO2 and is emitted into the ambiance, releasing the hydrogen. The hydrogen goes into the Haber-Bosch reactor and is catalytically converted with nitrogen from the air into ammonia. That’s the inclined process. The hydrogen can arrive from electrolytic hydrogen, can arrive from inexperienced sources without the CO2 emission. And that’s a transition that’s being talked about in loads of substances of the sphere and is being pursued at pilot scale by the sphere’s largest industrial ammonia producers. However the other half of the utilize for hydrogen today is basically in hydrocracking, refining of petrochemicals.
AZEEM AZHAR: However there seemed to be just a few other locations that you simply may well perhaps perhaps perhaps dispute in regards to the utilize of this. I point out, my young folks had been doing high faculty chemistry and there’s a reactivity ladder, and hydrogen is at a extraordinarily precious build of residing. So, you may well perhaps perhaps perhaps dispute in regards to the utilize of hydrogen in form of purifying ores. So, you may well perhaps perhaps perhaps put it to use potentially in steel making, if it became once cheap enough.
RAFFI GARABEDIAN: What you correct talked about is with out a doubt the important thing. Cheap enough in the context of a world that is valuing an increasing selection of decarbonization. It’s going to be extraordinarily exhausting for renewable hydrogen to be as cheap as coal in the steel production process. On the other hand it will be potentially fairly rapidly as cheap as gray hydrogen. So yeah, hydrogen would be broken-down in a group of capabilities as a chemical feed inventory for the conversion to other materials.
AZEEM AZHAR: So, what’s attention-grabbing about here’s the important thing uses that we’ve arrive up with are no longer truly vitality to this point. There are hydrocracking, hydrogenation, ammonia, production, steel manufacturer, nonetheless no longer the article that whenever you happen to suppose hydrogen, folks deem that you simply may well burn this thing and also that you simply may well combust it and also that you simply may well fabricate heat and also that you simply may well power things forward. It’s a extraordinarily legit, vibrant dialogue in the UK in the purpose out time, after we factor in 22 million homes the utilize of methane CH4 boilers and oven hobs pondering, how construct we, without district heating, without electric heating, choose that infrastructure and net it to burn one thing that is much less spoiled than CH4? So, does hydrogen have an even a medium-term characteristic in any of those capabilities?
RAFFI GARABEDIAN: Shining framing of it, Azeem. So, we’ve been talking, as you talked about in regards to the chemical utilize conditions for hydrogen, which are sure and stutter. The gas is more vital in those utilize conditions than it’s miles to burn for BTUs as a heat source. However having talked about that, the discipline that it attacks when burned as a heat source is with out a doubt a extraordinarily monumental discipline. I spent over a decade in the photo voltaic alternate, constructing technology for terribly, very huge-scale photo voltaic energy vegetation. And naturally the placement with both photo voltaic and wind is that the useful resource is on hand when it’s on hand, no longer after we resolve it. So this soundbite or mantra that folks choose to long onto, electrify every little thing, it makes sense to us intuitively, nonetheless with out a doubt electrifying every little thing most effective helps when it comes to carbon emissions, if we are able to impress every little thing with renewable vitality.
AZEEM AZHAR: However even whenever you happen to did, even whenever you happen to had been in a build of residing to generate that thru a aggregate of photo voltaic vitality and wind and battery storage and high voltage direct cables, we’re potentially constructing one the entire vogue down to Morocco, which may well perhaps perhaps perhaps form of pipe renewable energy up to us with minimal heat loss and vitality loss as it travels. Despite the indisputable fact that we did all of that, my radiators are heated by water from a gas boiler that combusts methane. So, we then must plow thru that entire ability of rearchitecting 23 million homes. That’s correct the UK. I deem it’s sure that electrify every little thing doesn’t point out that’s top-of-the-line live level of vitality that we live up with.
RAFFI GARABEDIAN: Completely. We utilize vitality in gaseous and liquid variety at a miles increased rate than we utilize electric vitality today as a species on this plant. And it’s nice to deem we are able to snap our fingers and change into all of that in 5 years to all electric. Successfully, we don’t have the batteries at a designate level that makes any sense to shift the energy from when it’s produced to when it’s wished. And we don’t have the infrastructure in build of residing. We’re no longer going to stop burning things correct since the mantra “electrify every little thing” sounds enthralling. We’re going to encourage on burning things. And the query is no longer how construct we stop doing this? How construct we construct it in a dapper, sustainable manner? Hydrogen provides that different.
AZEEM AZHAR: So, what we’re suggesting is that you simply’ve gotten a ramification of beginning input of dapper electricity from geothermal and nuclear fission and perhaps fusion and photo voltaic and wind etc is a mixture over the following thirty or forty years. And some conditions we are able to retailer that in a battery. In other conditions, we hearth it thru an electrolyzer and we variety some hydrogen. In other conditions, we would then choose that hydrogen and turn it correct into an synthetic gas.
RAFFI GARABEDIAN: All of those utilize conditions you’re describing, Azeem, are exact and stutter utilize conditions for renewable hydrogen that I mediate we are able to peek in the following decade.
AZEEM AZHAR: Let’s net to perhaps some fundamentals earlier than we bustle too a ways before ourselves spherical how must we factor in and realize hydrogen? I deem that listeners will have in mind of what does a gallon of gas construct? What is a kilowatt hour?
RAFFI GARABEDIAN: Let me overview hydrogen to pure gas. MMBtu is the traditional measure of pure gas heat rate. We predict about an MMBtu here in the US, perhaps that’s price spherical $4. The equal designate for hydrogen is one thing spherical 70, 65 cents per kilogram. That’s in regards to the conversion off the extinguish of my head.
AZEEM AZHAR: So, you’d hiss the hydrogen is more cost effective than pure gas? I didn’t fairly realize that.
RAFFI GARABEDIAN: No, no, no. That’s the price at which hydrogen would turn out to be-
AZEEM AZHAR: Oh, I peek.
RAFFI GARABEDIAN: Parity from a thermal foundation. So here’s the enthralling thing about vitality, both hydrogen pure gas and electricity’s fee is locationally dependent. And truly that’s for sure one of many towering strengths of fuels versus electric technology. Fuels would be kept and moved. So, we now have a sturdy economy in loads of substances of the sphere exporting pure gas and other petrochemicals or fossil fuels to substances of the sphere the build there’s population density, the necessity for vitality and no indigenous useful resource. That’s very, very exhausting to construct with wires. You talked about undersea cables to net entry to Moroccan sunshine as an vitality source for Enormous Britain. That is a significantly dear proposition to undertake. And the capital fee of constructing those kinds of infrastructure is in the extinguish born by the buyers of that vitality. How construct we construct it today? We liquefy pure gas, and we ship all of it during the sphere. Or we choose oil and ship all of it during the sphere. Locational arbitrage of the gas useful resource is an extraordinarily refined discipline to solve rather then offering an different gas that would be transported and moved spherical. So, for sure one of many with out a doubt massive transformational utilize conditions for renewable hydrogen is with out a doubt the intercontinental transport of vitality. What it boils the entire vogue down to is accessing photo voltaic and wind and hydro, the build they are abundant and transferring that vitality in a kept variety chemically to locations the build it’s wished.
AZEEM AZHAR: And construct you factor in that that storage variety is liquid hydrogen, which is, I’m going to make utilize of Celsius, -252? That’s fairly chilly. It’s mighty much less warm than electrifying pure gas. Or would you hiss that you simply ship this as a ramification of liquified ammonia or construct you fabricate a ramification of synthetic methane that can very properly be a ramification of dapper carbon cycled methane that you simply may well perhaps perhaps perhaps then utilize the modern infrastructure?
RAFFI GARABEDIAN: So, liquefying hydrogen is amazingly vitality intensive, and much of that vitality is lost in the ability of liquefying it and then re-evaporating it correct into a useful gaseous variety that would be burned or broken-down. Here’s notion since the techno-economics are with out a doubt no longer fully sure. And there’s exact debate in the engineering and scientific neighborhood as to which pathway in the extinguish goes to net the most sense. And frankly, we are going to experiment with more than one pathways to compete them against one one other to peek what with out a doubt is the lowest fee handiest form of storage and transport. So, liquefaction is problematic. Storing liquid hydrogen at those extraordinarily low temperatures will almost definitely be refined, essentially since it’s exhausting to encourage chilly. And when it warms up it evaporates and that evaporation is lost hydrogen or in other terms lost vitality. So, inefficiency in the system. Now ammonia is an entire plenty of thing. Ammonia is with out a doubt very easy and economic to variety, and it’s fairly easy to liquefy, retailer and transport. Within the farm belt in the US, there are monumental, monumental storage amenities, monumental tanks. They glimpse indulge in water tanks from the open air which are stuffed with anhydrous ammonia that’s cryogenic. So, we know systems to construct this. Having talked about all of that, anhydrous ammonia is toxic. So, every has its professionals and its cons. And relying on the appliance, the utilize case, we would peek one or the other dangle. There are also rising technologies. So, there are these objects known as liquid natural hydrogen carriers, which are molecules that would be hydrogenated and dehydrogenated with fairly low vitality input or fairly little vitality loss in the process. So, factor in those as recoverable fuels. It’s a liquid that correct adjustments teach and either absorbs or releases hydrogen. That’s a extraordinarily, very promising methodology that I’m in the extinguish fairly optimistic about.
AZEEM AZHAR: There are some procure teach approaches as properly which are rising. There’s a British firm, H2GO Vitality, let’s hiss, playing spherical with procure teach approaches as properly with identical process, good?
RAFFI GARABEDIAN: That’s exactly good. And again, I deem there’s going to be a sturdy competition between technologies, which is in a build of residing to in the final result in cheap approaches for storage and transport of hydrogen. It looks long distance, high quantity transport of hydrogen is amazingly cheap. There are a form of modern hydrogen pipelines today, which in general join an industrial facility indulge in a gray hydrogen production plant, it’s known as a steam methane reformer, to an ammonia plant, a Haber-Bosch plant, or a petrochemical refinery. And there are a form of locations on this planet the build these amenities form of coexist and are linked by an entire bunch of miles of hydrogen pipeline. That pipeline, for all intents and applications, looks to be like and capabilities correct indulge in a pure gas pipeline and has a identical fee construction. So, very, very more cost effective to transfer gas that ability.
AZEEM AZHAR: Once it’s constructed finally. And the entire underlying property owners have signed off on their land, transit thru their land and-
RAFFI GARABEDIAN: Titillating level, Azeem. It looks constructing pipelines is much less problematic, even from a NIMBY level of view and an environmental level of view than constructing electric transmission cables. So I’m a recovering electrical engineer. It became once very exhausting for me to with out a doubt admit this to myself. However after we did the examine, I became once fairly delighted that pipelines dangle in the transport of bulk vitality over long distances. And in stutter that they dangle by a protracted shot.
AZEEM AZHAR: So, let’s discuss your methodology as properly, which must be pushed by costs. So I deem a bunch that’s generally thrown spherical for hydrogen to turn out to be fee aggressive with form of other likely choices is $1 to $2 per kilogram of hydrogen. Is that roughly the build we should always be aiming for?
RAFFI GARABEDIAN: When I started in photo voltaic in 2008, there became once a pipe dream to net to $1 a watt constructed plant fee. Now in factual useful resource areas had been presumably the entire vogue down to 60 cents a watt and the vitality that results from those amenities costs below $20 a megawatt, below 2 cents a kilowatt in the US. So amazing transformation that all results from industrial scale studying. Now let’s discuss what we’re comparing hydrogen costs to. If we mediate that there is a narrate to solve vis a vis anthropogenic climate replace, that’s pushed by CO2 emissions from combusting fossil fuels, then we presumably mediate in the momentum we’re seeing politically spherical decarbonization. Which implies either a designate on carbon emissions or mandates for the preserve shut and sequestration of carbon.
RAFFI GARABEDIAN: If we overlay that on high of the price of pure gas, the equal fee that hydrogen has to construct to be thermally equal in fee to pure gas, relying on the build you on are on this planet, it falls someplace in the fluctuate you quoted. $1 a kilo to $2 a kilo. So if we net the entire vogue down to that $1 to $2 a kilo, we dispute on the techno-economics that there’ll be a huge inflection level in the adoption of renewable hydrogen as another option to the fossil useful resource.
AZEEM AZHAR: And naturally, the following query is, the build are we today? And the build are you from that number?
RAFFI GARABEDIAN:
It depends on the price of electricity, nonetheless electrolyzers today, that’s the gear that makes the conversion, electrolyzers today are extraordinarily dear. I’ll quote a bunch correct to put a bunch accessible. They fee on the hiss of a $1000 a kilowatt to net. So, that’s the entire hardware and the labor and set up and commissioning of a plant to invent the conversion. Now the very most enthralling vegetation on this planet are on the hiss of 10 to 20 megawatts in scale. And an extraordinary electrolyzer is on the hiss of one megawatt in scale or much less, an entire bunch of kilowatts even.
RAFFI GARABEDIAN: So, this takes me wait on to the early days of wind and photo voltaic. Wind mills had been extraordinarily runt. They weren’t very atmosphere pleasant, identical with photo voltaic panels. Like a flash forward to the build we’re today. Wind mills are multi megawatt in scale. Solar panels are extraordinarily atmosphere pleasant and very cheap and fairly huge, bodily. That’s the transition we’re looking ahead to in electrolysis as properly. And at Electrical Hydrogen, we mediate deeply in the notion that fee drives adoption in infrastructure and vitality. So, if that’s your mentality, you factor in riding costs because development is with out a doubt the indispensable ingredient to decarbonization. Now we want to grow to significant scale.
AZEEM AZHAR: Instruct will almost definitely be the motive force of declining costs. Because what development helps you to construct is to generate studying construct. I utilize the instance of lockdown bread baking. Once we went into lockdown, folks bought into bread baking. The major loaf of sourdough we made took ages, tasted horrible, and there became once mess during the kitchen. By the level we bought to the fourth or the eighth loaf, we had been with out a doubt dab fingers and big, huge atmosphere pleasant. And after we glimpse at a bunch of technologies which have gone from dear and uncommon to cheap and ubiquitous photovoltaic cells, semiconductors, silicon chips, they’ve had huge studying results. Now I’m form of uncommon about what the studying results glimpse indulge in in Electrical Hydrogen.
RAFFI GARABEDIAN: Azeem, let’s utilize your baking metaphor. I indulge in it plenty. I’m also a COVID baker. Need to you overview two bakers, two residence bakers, the one who bothers to be taught plenty on the online, perhaps buys a e-book or two and watches a bunch of YouTube movies and then will get started baking. Let’s overview that baker to one other one who correct begins attempting it. Are they going to have the identical studying rate? Presumably no longer. Presumably the baker who takes their time to deem it thru and begins with a more sturdy baking technology goes to construct significantly higher. Now, from the standpoint of an industrial R&D operation, we don’t factor in studying charges at all. We predict about discrete tasks which have techno-economic profit. And so what are we doing? We are reimagining reconstructing electrolysis with an peep against riding two parameters. One is scale. We mediate that electrolysis has to occur at a mighty increased scale of throughput than it’s miles in the purpose out time being accomplished at. And two, fee. Now fee implies two things. It implies utilizing successfully that very, very cheap renewable useful resource, which is inherently intermittent and low ability ingredient. So, it’s most effective stutter a little bit of of the time at some level of the day, and it has a tendency to arrive and hump fairly speedily, either on legend of clouds or on legend of wind. And the 2nd ingredient of fee, finally, is the capital fee of the equipment, which has to construct with its scale and its throughput. So, those are the factors we’re centered on.
AZEEM AZHAR: You talked about wanting to power scale as what you point out, throughput, and to power costs down, and I’m uncommon about what you point out by scale. So, I form of factor in, and I perhaps I’ve bought this irascible, there are vats of water and there is just a few form of membrane that will get contemporary handed thru it – and that’s the build the electrolysis happens. And you’ve bought a little bit of tube that will get to high the gas off, and then you separate it by form of density at the live. So, whenever you hiss scale, construct you point out greater and bigger sheets of the build this electrolysis happens? So, greater and bigger tanks? What is it whenever you hiss scale?
RAFFI GARABEDIAN: So, whenever you happen to factor in a panel electrolyzer, the monumental ones are in regards to the scale of a runt fridge. That’s the electrochemical unit itself. It’s a bunch of membranes stacked up on high of every other. A lot of dear materials hump into this. Now that you simply may well choose the methodology of correct attempting to net that greater bodily. The fee goes up with the quantity of materials and manufacturing inputs which are required, and that’s the ability you construct increased throughput. So, that’s no longer necessarily an infinite fee low cost methodology. You’d strive to net the materials themselves more cost effective, nonetheless at some level you net the entire vogue down to form of commodity fabric costs, which are very exhausting to power. And truly, in my estimation, we’re a duration rising here of a protracted time of accelerating commodity costs, no longer declining commodity costs. Need to you choose that identical bodily unit, nonetheless you put more energy into it and variety more hydrogen out of it this ability that, that can very properly be a mighty lower, effective fee thing. Despite the indisputable fact that the article itself has the identical designate. You’re getting a ways more productiveness out of it. That what I point out by throughput. So that’s the very most enthralling ability in our peep to power low cost in fee, nonetheless it with out a doubt also drives elevate in scale. Which ability that identical fridge measurement unit may well perhaps perhaps perhaps variety, let’s correct throw out a bunch, it may well perhaps probably perhaps perhaps perhaps variety 5 or 10 events more hydrogen than the equal today.
AZEEM AZHAR: Magnificent.
RAFFI GARABEDIAN: Why is that crucial?
AZEEM AZHAR: Yes. Why is that crucial? The object that strikes me today in regards to the form of hydrogen market is that it’s so runt. It feels to me indulge in things would be very bespoke, whereas most things that net to scale – there’s some modularization, there’s some standardization. I point out, can the hydrogen alternate net to form of a product mentality when it comes to the production of the gas?
RAFFI GARABEDIAN: Successfully, to begin with, you’re fully good. The alternate has been a runt niche alternate with an infinite vision. Now, all of a surprising, on legend of the political will to handle climate replace and the necessity for an vitality transition, the different has exploded orders of magnitude in scale. And so the technology and the corporations that variety it want to adapt if they want to be relevant in that modern teach of capabilities.
AZEEM AZHAR: The hydrogen market today is no longer with out a doubt monumental market. It’s lower than $150 billion a 365 days, relying on who you watched. It’s going to pray to grow ten events, thirty events over the following twenty or thirty years, and I’m uncommon in regards to the ability you enter that market. What policy makers generally discuss, they correct deem that we’ve bought to power down the fee. If we power down the fee, then magically produce it and in stutter that they’ll arrive. And I ponder, is it enough to correct net the price down practically? You are having to supply this. You’d simply have got to supply a firm or construct it be crucial to also stimulate query? Are there dangers in having a market that is correct supply pushed whenever you happen to are making a likelihood that query will correct of stutter up on Thursday morning to determine on all this gas off your fingers?
RAFFI GARABEDIAN: A Cardinal rule in manufacturing companies is to no longer produce it and hope that they’ll arrive. That’s a course to anxiety. It’s fully extreme to stimulate query. Now fee has a crucial characteristic to play in stimulating query. However what we’re attempting to search out and hoping for is a leveling of the playing field. Vitality writ huge, and significantly fossil vitality, it’s an alternate that’s pushed largely by national and world policy and politics, and thru very, very complicated circuitous net of flows of capital and also laws. The fossil alternate benefits significantly when it comes to its deployability and its fee construction. We want to stage that playing field first and significant. And we may well perhaps perhaps perhaps like to internalize the fee of carbon emissions from fossil fuels. That in and of itself will stimulate huge query.
AZEEM AZHAR: I also wonder about many engineering innovations that emerge. They generally have a course correct into a market that would be at the high live. So, the very, very stressful user. Clayton Christensen who wrote the Innovator’s Discover 22 situation, for sure one of his examples finally, is in electric art furnaces for making steel, which may well perhaps perhaps perhaps no longer compete with the high live of steel, the most worthwhile steel, which became once surgical steel. However as the technology bought higher and more cost effective, in the extinguish this started from a bridgehead of a fairly undesirable market and proper became a monumental market. Is there some dynamic within the renewable hydrogen market that can glimpse indulge in that? That you just may well bring collectively a bridgehead market the build that you simply may well with out a doubt compete on regardless of foundation is no longer fully functioning, indulge in the first mini mills, nonetheless that as the technology improves, matures, costs arrive down, scale goes up, you’ll be in a build of residing to determine on more of those utilize conditions. Or does that form of disruption model no longer work here?
RAFFI GARABEDIAN: I point out, it’s a generalized model that’s worked in a form of locations and perhaps works here. However the devil’s in the facts. So, there’s a favorite US firm, Dawdle Vitality, that is powering Ford trucks with hydrogen. Titillating alternate. It may well perhaps perhaps perhaps perhaps perhaps simply be that market that helps the alternate hump from zero to one. It may well perhaps perhaps perhaps perhaps perhaps simply even be a tiresome live. It may well perhaps perhaps perhaps perhaps perhaps simply even be a distraction. When I hiss the devils in the facts, what I point out is whether or no longer the product that’s being developed, there has a roadmap to then scale into the markets that we’ve been talking about, the utilize conditions which are mighty, mighty increased. On the other hand it’s a extraordinarily refined pathway since the product requirements, the product market fit is fundamentally very, very plenty of. So we’re attacking the discipline head on. And in build of residing of hunting for a bridgehead market, we’re attempting to search out customers who’ve an inner and an intrinsic motivation to decarbonize very refined utilize conditions.
AZEEM AZHAR: Would it appear to me indulge in the pure locations to open would be those other folks that in actuality utilize hydrogen in huge quantities from dirty sources? So in fertilizers and chemical substances.
RAFFI GARABEDIAN: It’s such a attention-grabbing topic. And it’s so evident to head there at once. You talked about the hydrogen market. It’s no longer with out a doubt a market. There’s with out a doubt no commodity desk for hydrogen. It’s no longer a freely traded commodity. It’s in general a bilateral or unilateral steal affiliation. Breaking into that alternate has definite structural challenges, both factual and alternate challenges that can simply net it… it looks indulge in an evident build of residing to open. It may well perhaps perhaps perhaps perhaps perhaps with out a doubt be a extraordinarily exhausting build of residing to open. We’re exploring those opportunities, nonetheless I would hiss the reply good now, isn’t evident. It’s also crucial to teach that the pressures to decarbonize those industries, either the intrinsic or extrinsic pressures are no longer as extreme as they are in other utilize conditions and capabilities.
AZEEM AZHAR: I’m uncommon about what you deem the contribution over the following a protracted time of hydrogen may well perhaps perhaps perhaps simply be to the decarbonization stir. Is it that we’re at the stage the build we correct don’t know what works so we may well perhaps perhaps perhaps like a portfolio of tools and we would simply be in a build of residing to net there without hydrogen? Or is it that it’s going to with out a doubt be fully indispensable and segment of the mix? And if it’s the latter, how mighty segment of the mix?
RAFFI GARABEDIAN: We’ve been the utilize of a form of vitality for the outdated couple of hundred years as a species in the sphere. Now we have not any longer, in those an entire bunch of years, found a ability to consolidate and harmonize our vitality input to a single source. Now we have many, many different sources of vitality and sources of chemical precursors that we utilize in plenty of locations and capabilities because they work higher. So, to deem that correct because we want to suppose “electrify every little thing” it will happen, I deem is a little bit of bit naive. There are things that would be electrified successfully with renewable vitality. There are things that may well perhaps perhaps’t be. And the things that may well perhaps perhaps’t be are a monumental, in my estimation, 50% or more of the vitality system as an entire. That’s the build hydrogen I deem can play and perhaps must play. So, to put a scale on that different globally, we’re talking about tens of terrawatts of equal producing ability or the conversion to chemical variety, whether it’s hydrogen or among the indispensable downstream downhill kinds of renewable fuels that can simply be more transportable and storable.
AZEEM AZHAR: And I deem we should always correct scope what, what tens of terrawatts ability. What does that time out relative to US vitality electricity utilize?
RAFFI GARABEDIAN: So, if we factor in photo voltaic as an alternate, the world production ability of photo voltaic modules, which is the extreme piece of the photo voltaic fee chain, without which that you simply may well’t produce a photograph voltaic plant, is correct over 200 gigawatts a 365 days. The power globally to net wind mills is one thing south of that. Renewable vitality writ huge would be deployed globally, one thing south of 400 gigawatts a 365 days.
RAFFI GARABEDIAN: Now an infinite fragment of that deployment will hump at once to the electric grid, direct electrification. So, most effective a runt fragment of it will in the extinguish be bypassed or utilized in electrolysis for the production of hydrogen. So, to dispute in regards to the scale of the discipline accurately, we now want to also discuss in regards to the scale of the vitality useful resource going into it. And we now want to discuss expanding the scale of that vitality useful resource. When I factor in photo voltaic, the constraint to adoption is the infrastructure indispensable to combine that photo voltaic onto the grid and to transfer it to the build it’s wished when it’s wished. Batteries are huge dear. They’re going to live huge dear from a grid level of view for the foreseeable future. And wires are with out a doubt exhausting to supply and dear to supply. So, truly, here’s why my partners and I purchased into the hydrogen alternate in the first build of residing. We came at it from the angle of how construct we lift the constraints on deploying more photo voltaic and more wind so as that we are able to transfer thru the decarbonization stir sooner than we’re today. And truly hydrogen provides potentially that pathway by lifting the constraint of grid integration from the renewable alternate.
AZEEM AZHAR: Once we factor in our listeners, they’re presumably listening to this pondering, will they ever contact hydrogen? Will we ever must know, care, realize about hydrogen, or will all of this factual work with out a doubt happen correct in the wait on of the scenes, nearly a transparent and seamless ability for us?
RAFFI GARABEDIAN: Even handed one of many challenges in constructing a alternate indulge in ours at Electrical Hydrogen is that capturing the imagination of lay folks, other folks that aren’t in the renewable alternate in the vitality alternate is amazingly exhausting because we don’t contact these objects. Most folk don’t know the build their electricity comes from, and don’t with out a doubt care to know. Equally, most folks don’t know or care to know the build the nitrogen is mounted to variety the food that we utilize. These form of tasks are deep within the industrial basement of society. It’s our job to strive to raise these discussions and net them more accessible and net them more enthralling if we are able to, to folks.
AZEEM AZHAR: I deem it’s with out a doubt crucial. Plenty has been taken as a right, no longer correct in industrial systems and vitality systems, nonetheless in loads of, many different systems, over the last forty, fifty, sixty, seventy years. The advent of mass manufacturing and consumerism meant that we didn’t want to absorb how our meats bought on the table and the way the sunshine bulb turns on and what are the decisions which are taken. And truly, I deem curiously, it’s fairly disenfranchising for folks, if that is so. And I would hope this podcast will choose the time to absorb what with out a doubt goes into making that sandwich. So, Raffi Garabedian, thanks so mighty for giving me your time today.
RAFFI GARABEDIAN: Azeem, thanks for the different and for the with out a doubt considerate questions. This became once huge stress-free.
AZEEM AZHAR: I am hoping you truly liked that dialog. Investigate cross-check our podcast feeds for other discussions with folks indulge in Troels Schonfeldt. Founding father of a nuclear fission firm, Seaborg and Cut Hawker, the founder of First Mild Fusion, a fusion firm. This day’s episode became once produced by Fred Casella and Marija Gavrilov and researched by Chantel Smith. Our sound editor is Bojan Sabioncello. Exponential Stumble on is a production E to the Pi i Plus One, Shrimp.
