Q HYDROGEN Set to Launch World’s First Renewable Hydrogen Energy Power Plant

Listeners and viewers, welcome to another episode of Disrupt Ed. I'm your host, Ron Stofanski, and we have an exciting episode to share with you in the world of disruption. What am I talking about? A five g wired workforce augmented technology interconnected, globally interdependent, AI accelerated, pandemic interrupted, and climate change needed world. And so today, we're gonna be talking about sustainability. We're gonna be talking about new sources of energy. None more exciting than the world of hydrogen, using hydrogen to fuel the world and reduce our carbon footprint. And today, I'm really privileged to have on the show Whit Irvin from QHYDROGEN, the CEO. Whit, thank you so much for making time available. It's really great to get you on the show. Thanks for having me, Ron. Absolutely. So let's get right into this. You know, you started out in a different industry before you pivoted to hydrogen. So maybe for our listeners and viewers, you can share a little bit about your background because as we find when people are going into new industries, they have a very eclectic background that brings them into, you know, new technologies or new opportunities. So let's start there. Sure. So I'll I'll go way back quickly. So I I was an entrepreneur from the age of six. I started my first eBay company, back then selling antiques and all these other things. And then, when I went to college, I ended up going to Babson, so an entrepreneurial business school that kinda had that background for folks like me. And, originally was going to go into the world of investment banking, but, got a chance to join an executive fast track program for the defense company Raytheon instead. And so I did that. Raytheon had their program that did some continuing ed work also at Harvard Business while you were moving every eight months to a different part of the company. And, then ended that program, coming out as a program manager, in the aerospace and defense world for Aethon. I was there for a bit, and then moved into what is actually my family company. So what we're talking about today is the hydrogen technology aspect of an overall body of technology that's been under development now for over twenty eight years. And this is the piece that we are commercializing first. And from my end, I've been with the company now. It'll be fourteen years in October, so quite a long time. Wow. Fantastic. And you're working with your father who's sort of the brainiac behind this, if you will. Correct? And he is he is champion and and done the research on a lot of the technology that, that's proprietary, but that you're gonna be utilizing in, this venture. Is that correct? Correct. Yep. Yep. Great. So maybe you can tell us now, QHYDROGEN has some pretty big plans to open a plant that is complete an energy power plant that's completely fueled by hydrogen. Why don't you tell us a little bit about that? That's a pretty big undertaking. It is a big undertaking no matter how you look at the world of hydrogen. I mean, we're now moving into an era where, it's becoming a the word hydrogen is becoming a household name again, but for so long was not. The Inflation Reduction Act, of course, has helped with that. But, what we are doing, this again is a piece of an overall body of tech that's been under development for a long time. The hydrogen piece was actually discovered all the way back in two thousand eight based on this technology and was not, focused until fourteen. So in fourteen, everything pivoted to focus on, opening what will be the world's first renewable hydrogen power plant. It's also economically viable without a subsidy, and that's the key. Right now will not be subsidized by any local municipalities or anyone. It's completely independent. Correct. And, I mean, the IRA exists, so we will take advantage of it, assuming that everything stays in place just like everyone else who's working in the clean hydrogen space, but it's not something that, is required for our financial viability. So that's a big, lift. I mean, that's a big step forward is, sometimes with all these new energy technologies, it's not so much, you know, harnessing them as as making them commercially viable and making the output, economically feasible. Right? That that's correct. A lot of there's a lot of cool tech that a lot of people are developing in so many different areas. And the difference between what we're doing and a lot of others is we've been able to pull together the firepower between us and the folks that have been involved over these years, because twenty eight years is a heck of a long time. Over this period of time to take it from something that started at bench top scale and is now massively, commercially ready and viable. So to give you an idea of output, the facility that we're opening, which is one of our units, is capable of producing a hundred thousand kilograms of this hydrogen based fuel a day. And, another key, and we'll be unveiling this later this year, but we've made some major strides in the area of also, transportation distribution and storage that will help as well. So when you think about hydrogen power, where are the practical applications that we're gonna see first and foremost as your plant goes online? So the major missing piece on the practicality end is really just, what are you doing to produce it and how much does it cost? Is it something that is truly renewable or is it something that is hydrocarbon based? The use that we have come up with, the way that we're using it as a power plant, we're actually putting it into modified first Caterpillar thirty five sixteen previously natural gas reciprocating engines to produce electricity. It's a highly inefficient way to use this fuel or to use really any fuel, but it's kind of the the, the proof is in the pudding, so to speak. We wanted to use a platform that is highly recognizable globally, has lots of different uses across industries. And our announcement will basically be we're financially viable selling electricity at rates more similar to what you'd see in the southern and western US up in New England because, I mean, they're not see they haven't seen rates like that in decades. We're doing that to attract industry to an area that lost their main financial hub in the form of a, a paper mill. So the paper mill went out of business. It had been previously operating from the late eighteen hundreds, to the mid two thousands. And so when you lose a main employer like that, it has devastating effects on the local economy. So our idea is we're gonna provide electricity directly to users on the site, hopefully attract, industrial users that can create a decent employment base for the area, and then create a model that's something that could be done over and over again. This is really exciting. I can't you know, when we think about energy, we think about, you know, with I think a lot of people are highly concerned about the fact that when you look at all the statistics and all the reports coming out of World Economic Forum and other entities and enterprises. The future doesn't look good for energy. We're not making sufficient progress in bringing carb you know, bringing our carbon footprint down. This is gonna be a major leap forward, is it not, in terms of doing just that? It it will be. And because of how we're doing it and some of the forms that we've forms that this hydrogen can take and how we can integrate into previously existing industries, it's something that will be friendly for, a lot of current industries, even oil and gas the way it is today, and then help to transition toward full use in the case of our facility. Once it's up and running and all the engines are warmed up, we're using a hundred percent of it. But there are ways that we have, discovered some interesting pieces in the blending world that will have massive impact on things like global shipping. So being able to use the same power plants on these ships without some of the same issues that you see associated with hydrogen currently while massively reducing the carbon footprint. Potential repowering of things like coal power plants and other things that are either shutting down because their emissions are too high or their renewable energy credits are no longer in place, so they're not financially viable. It works in a lot of different ways. So we're starting with this facility in New Hampshire and then moving into, many of these other industrial pieces that I mentioned shortly after. Mhmm. And when's the launch plan for this, hydrogen plant? Well, we're doing everything we can to open before year end this year. We have all of our major infrastructure in place. We've been given the go ahead and on an r and d side to be able to, get some data related to emissions when we're running the facility on the on this fuel from a power plant perspective. And so we're putting all those things together determining best path forward, but the hope is before year end. As we've had other guests on the show talking about sustainability, there are two big areas that you mentioned that I wanna go that I wanna dig in a little bit deeper on. One is, shipping. You know, I don't think people understand just how much the emissions are from global shipping and not only the impact on, the, environment, but the impact on the oceans as well. Yeah. I mean, when you look at, global shipping, I mean, it's it's, you can compare it similarly to aviation. I mean, it's a it's a massive amount of, of carbon output along with other waste streams that are a part of it. The International Maritime Organization in London has rules and guidelines that they've set out globally for, emissions reductions by twenty, thirty, forty, and fifty. We've talked to several, of the families in a lot of big shipping companies and various groups. They all kinda say the same thing. They see ways to get to twenty, thirty, but forty and fifty, they don't know how they're gonna get there without some massive infrastructure shifts. And so we are trying to work with some folks in this space to be able to utilize a lot because these ships basically are like giant diesel or bunker fuel power plants running electric motors on these massive vessels. So people probably don't think about it. They probably think about it like, oh, you've got various engines that run on this fuel. No. It's basically a giant power plant or multiple power plants on the ocean running these things. So we're working through ways to be able to utilize a lot of infrastructure and massively reduce the emissions while not upsetting the current distribution supply chain very much, kind of working with the folks that are in the fueling space, working with the hydrocarbon piece, and, keeping that together because it's gonna take a while to move things, especially in that industry, but having a big impact while doing that at the same time. You know, that's really, really important. And you mentioned the other thing that you mentioned that intrigues me is, being able to transition out of coal. Coal is clearly, the most, disruptive in terms of the environment, And, it's it's really, really problematic. You know? We were looking at the math recently with one of my other guests in terms of, California's decision to, create, all electrical vehicles by twenty thirty. And one of the scientists that I work with, figured out that if they were to actually be able to do that, which is highly questionable at this point. But if in fact they did that, they'd actually be increasing emissions on the planet overall because eighty percent of the current battery manufacturing output is coming from Chinese plants that are coal driven. So I think as we look at sustainability and as we look at what you're doing, it has a ripple effect across the, you know, across the globe because all these businesses, all these supply chains are are globally interconnected as we say. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, another piece to add to that on the electrification of vehicles, we just look at our grid here in the United States and in Europe, and it's a problem elsewhere too. There are all of these goals related to vehicle electrification, AI, data centers, etcetera. There's a massive gap though between, what is projected to be the available power output and the the demand for all of these things to be able to work. And that's mostly because power plants are not being built fast enough, transmission and distribution isn't being increased or rebuilt fast enough, And a lot of it has to do with regulatory frameworks that have massive backlogs, in order to get some of these facilities up. And I understand why this exists, but, I think reality is gonna be setting in fairly soon. And you kind of see it already with some of the announcements that are coming during this, current current presidential run where certain goals on electrification of vehicles and other things are being dropped because the the path to get there really in the same manner right now, from what's publicly there may be some things coming including some things that we are doing and others that may help it. But based on when you look at the current landscape, it would be extremely unlikely to make it there. Right. No. It's it's it's really fascinating. We had a guest on, Kristen Burns from, Engie, and they were talking about the controversial, but now, you know, meritorious decision they made, to create a plan to completely convert their energy businesses into sustainable energy within five years. And the company's board of directors even questioned whether or not that was possible or in their best interest. But lo and behold, they not only did it, but they increased their profitability while doing it. So there is a lot of promise in moving toward new technology, and I think there's also gonna be a lot of money. I mean, when we look at the sustainability economy, we're looking at an influx of ten trillion dollars on the built environment over the next decade. And that's going to ins you know, that to me signals that the financial incentives are aligned with the outcomes we're desiring. That in other words, there will be incentives to build more, clean energy plants and clean energy applications because the government incentives in the in the financial incentives are in place, and it's become it's going to become a really big business. It is. And you look at the early days of, like, solar and wind. The subsidy programs that were created back then were basically the, shot of adrenaline to to give them a real leg up to keep moving forward. And now you see solar and wind being large part portfolio parts of the energy production portfolios for some of the biggest power companies in the world on the the, productive capacity side. So we're seeing a lot of that now with alternatives. There's a lot more understanding of how the environment is. And the the the reality for a lot of it, no matter what side you're on regarding climate change is the the way that we and our energy today is unsustainable. And there are other things that come out of issues like, pumping a bunch of dirty, emissions into the air that people don't think about. Because you talk about CO two. Yeah. Fine. That's a big one. But CO2 is something where with sequestration and other things, you can figure out a way to you use it and reduce it. But, particulate matter inhalation is an even bigger deal in a lot of ways for human health. Like PM two point five, you look at certain areas of the world like China, there are even times where Salt Lake City has some of the worst air in the world. And that is and it's related to lots of different emissions factors. But in a lot of ways, that is a a massive problem that has to be dealt with along with the, the the just general carbon reduction piece. Right. And without being political, just to be clear, I think that, you know, I'm on the side of science here. I don't think there's a lot of science that disputes the fact that, the climate is you know, the, temperature is rising and that we have to mobilize. And the other thing you're you know, you cite with, Salt Lake City is really, important because what it shows is that unless we all kinda hold hands on this internationally, we're gonna be subject to particulate matter. We're gonna be subject to global warming, from our neighbors, you know, from big producers like China, like Russia, like the like the United States. And so we really do have to take, a more aggressive and global approach. So it's really exciting and encouraging to hear, what you guys are doing at QHYDROGEN. We've been talking with Whitaker Irvin junior from QHYDROGEN, the CEO of a company dedicated to bringing out hydrogen and carbon neutral energy production. Thank you, Irvin, for being a okay. Thank you, Whitaker, for being here. And, any last thoughts as you think about this world of energy that you're, getting ready to launch into? Well, all I can say is, for us, it's been a long road to get here. But I look at what's happening globally with innovations all around the world, and it's there are a lot of people working on, a lot of different technologies to help solve these issues. And I'm excited about the the future of energy, really, in the world. There are a lot of things going on globally that are very tumultuous on all sides, but, I feel like, there there are some silver linings that may may help calm the tide a little bit and, bring people back toward the center. That's what I'm hopeful for. Yes. No. I'm I'm equally hopeful because, you know, as we talk to many of the thought leaders and experts like you about sustainability, about global climate change, about, climate warming, you know, what we're hearing time and time again is from the doers, not only the thought leaders, but the thought doers like yourself building a plant, building alternatives. What we're hearing time and time again is that their optimism that they do believe the forces are aligning and moving in the right direction, sufficient sufficient to bring us back from the brink that we often hear about in the press about the fact that there's a certain point where we're gonna unleash a a series of climate events that could be irreversible. So it is encouraging. It's really great to hear, your story, Whit, and to share with our audience. I'd like to invite you back after the after the new year to hear about the plant coming online. In the meantime, thank you so much for joining us. This has been another episode of Disrupted with Whit Urban, CEO of QHYDROGEN, and your host, one and only Ron Stefanski. Listen. Get engaged with us. Get disrupted. What does that mean? Engage our podcast. Share it. Like it. Comment on it. Let us know how you feel, and join us for another episode soon to follow on Disrupt Ed. Thanks so much.