You’re listening to KABC 790 This is Matt Matern, your host of Unite and Heal America. I’ve got guest Brian Goldstein on. Brian is the director of Energy Independence. Now, he also was the CFO of a hydrogen transportation technology company.

He is in charge of the Faraday exchange conference and the executive director there, which is hosting a conference June 19 to the 22nd. This year, and he’s worked with distribution networks have hydrogen in California and Colorado, and worked on a California hydrogen Business Council with a lot of organizations throughout the state Sempra, PG and E. SoCal Gas Plug Power Ballard all these organizations are big players in the energy world.

So Brian, I guess I have a lot of questions for you, as somebody who is an owner of a hydrogen car for the last four years, I’ve lived this life of being in, in the hydrogen economy and, and know both its strengths and weaknesses.

So one of the strong points is that I believe it is a great technology. And as I read more and more about the limitations of mining, all these metals that it takes to produce the batteries for electric cars, I believe that hydrogen looks like a better and better solution all the time, because of not needing to mined so many precious and rare metals in order to to, to roll out cars. So without further ado, Brian, welcome to the show.

Thanks a lot, Matt. It’s a pleasure to be here.

So tell us a little bit about your work and the upcoming Verity exchange conference.

Right. So 30 exchanges a great district here in Los Angeles, run by a friend and partner of ours, named David Abel. It’s, it’s typically had a very local focus, but we all love to kind of call it the Davos of the West, right? Because David is able to get the most high level speakers and participants in the conference, it’s it’s just shocking every year, how many leaders you know, from the mayor of Los Angeles is every year the head of carb is usually there, you know, local Congress, people, senators, state policymakers, city policymakers.

So it really is an amazing convening of the policy community, the business community, including finance and a lot of folks from the energy sector. And it’s really a rare opportunity for us to all get together, you know, right here in our own backyard and in LA. Which, you know, may sound like a local event, but when you really look at the dynamics of, you know, the state of California, and then specifically LA County, we have such a massive population center, which is probably best exemplified by the port, which you might be able to, you know, here’s some port noises going around, or sorry, going on around me right now.

The Port of Los Angeles, or I call it the port complex, because we have the Twin Ports border, Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach. This is a responsible responsible for about 40% of all goods imported into the United States come right here through this port complex. So that gives you an idea of the scale of kind of commerce and some of the environmental and energy challenges we have here in Los Angeles. So here, the exchange is really a good opportunity to get a lot of very high level stakeholders together on an annual basis, and really kind of discuss solutions to these problems.

So I’m really looking forward to helping run the hydrogen track this year or the exchange, hydrogen will have a very strong focus at the conference. And we’ll cap things off by taking a boat tour of the harbor right here at my office on Wednesday afternoon.

Well, California has been a leader in hydrogen technology, going back to the Schwarzenegger administration, where Terry tanaman, the head of Cal EPA, who was on the program last year and great guy, and I know you must know him and are affiliated with him, had had started the rollout of creating hydrogen stations here in LA here in California, I should say.

What is being done currently from the current administration of Governor Newsom to to further that rollout so that we can we can have a stronger hydrogen economy going forward?

All right. Sure. Well, there’s a lot to unpack there. So I know Terry, very well, in fact, he’s sitting about 50 feet away from me right now. Terry started Energy Independence now about 20 years ago. We originally were part of it by Government now, which is a nonprofit he was running at the time. But the purpose for creating Energy Independence now was to really develop the hydrogen vision for the state of California.

So Terry, as you know, was the architect of the California Hydrogen Highway initiative. And when he went on to become the Cal EPA secretary under Governor Schwarzenegger, he brought on Energy Independence now to help develop the California Hydrogen Highway blueprint with the California Air Resource Board. So we went on to develop investment plans that helped direct spending for the state to build out hydrogen stations, we co authored legislation, such as SB 1505, which required 33.3% renewable content in hydrogen fuel sold for transportation.

But the really cool thing about that, or at least the thing that I find that the coolest about that is we authored that legislation, along with Union of Concerned Scientists back in 2006. So that was nine years before consumer could walk into a car dealership and drive a fuel cell electric vehicle off the lot. So we’ve really been, you know, looking very far down the road to make sure that we can create the most successful ecosystem possible for fuel cell electric vehicles so that we can ensure that the fuel is as renewable as possible, where we’re, you know, dead set on on 100% renewable pathway. And we’re really kind of creating a glide path, so to speak, for the market to get there.

So we’re really excited about the opportunities in this space. And look, man, at the end of the day, there are only two types of electric vehicles out there are battery electric vehicles and fuel cell electric vehicles. And we know that it’s law in California that will go to 100% said over the next 12 years or so. And ultimately, we’re going to need both technologies in order to get there.

And the biggest reason I could probably talk to you about this all day, but the biggest reason we’ll need both of those technologies is because, excuse me, it’s because over 50% of Californians live in multifamily housing, everyone here doesn’t have access to a plug.

They don’t necessarily have a garage or a dedicated parking spot that they know they can bring a battery electric vehicle back to every night. So ultimately, we need to be able to provide multiple solutions that would fit you know, different aspects of, of our population in different parts of the state here. So hydrogen offers this communal refueling ability where people can go to, you know, basically a gas station and refuel in a communal way, like they might be accustomed to with gas and diesel vehicles.

But if you could ask or respond to the the concern that we just don’t have enough of these metals, such as lithium and cobalt, in order to power or to, to work within a battery, can you address that point? As a limit to loosely electric cars?

You know, I will, it’s a huge concern. And right off the bat, I’ll say, Look, I’m a fan of battery electric vehicles as well, we absolutely need both technologies. I mean, we’re in a climate emergency, here we have some of the worst air quality in the country, if not the world, we need every available solution to address those issues.

Now, that being said, you know, I commonly feel like people are more concerned about where the $3 cup of coffee they’re drinking on a daily basis is coming from, whether it’s their fair source beans, and they are concerned with $20,000 worth of batteries that they’re driving around every day in a battery electric vehicle.

So ultimately, there’s not enough lithium and cobalt on the planet to do what we need to do, you know, from an overall energies perspective, much less transportation. And where I think this is best exemplified is in the case of energy storage, right? In California, we’ve passed SB 100, we know that we’ll go to 100% renewable electricity in the state of California, other countries are following along and ideally, the rest of the US will follow along shortly.

But in order to do that, we’ll have to over produce intermittent renewables like solar and wind and be able to store those and to do that will require massive amounts of storage. So I’ve seen some studies that kind of Brian, how

I hate to cut you off there, but you’re listening to KABC 790. This is Matt Matern, your host of Unite and Heal America, Brian Goldstein’s with us of Energy Independence now and right after the break, Brian can tell us more about the limitations of batteries and how we can overcome that through the use of hydrogen to store store energy off the grid. So we’ll be right back.

As you may know, your host Matt Matern of Unite and Heal America is also the founder of Matern Law Group, their team of experienced employment consumer and environmental attorneys are dedicated to leveling the playing field by giving everyone access to the highest quality legal representation contact 844 MLG for you, that’s 844 MLG for you or eight four 465449688446544968.

You’re listening to Unite and Heal America and KABC 790. This is Matt Matern, your host, and we’ve got Brian Goldstein with us from Energy Independence now and Brian was telling us a little bit about the concerns of storing all the power that we’re getting off the grid. And, and for those of us following the news, one of the things that has transpired in April, California actually produced 100% of its energy, electrical energy from renewable sources for maybe it was a day or an hour, but we’re kind of gaining some momentum.

Now the question is where to store that energy once it comes in? And then Brian, maybe you can address that and kind of finish your answer that you were in the middle of when I had to go to break.

No problem at all. So yeah, I think that it’s ultimately hard to isolate transportation and mobility and some of the dynamics kind of surrounding the electrification of mobility without taking a look at the overall energy system, and what the requirements will be for us to get to 100% renewable energy, right, because at the end of the day, if we’re talking about battery electric vehicles, those are only as clean as the electricity that you’re using to charge them.

And ultimately, that’s the same issue with hydrogen as well, which is why we’re really focused on on requiring 100%, renewable hydrogen, and mobility. And as I mentioned, our 2006 standard was 33.3%. I believe we’re over 50% renewable right now. And to put that into perspective, we have about 33, or 34%, renewable electricity and the California grid. Ultimately, we know we’re on the path to 100% renewable electricity because the state legislature passed SB 100.

And that’s been signed into law. So we will have a deadline and over the next, you know, 20 years or so, to meet a 100% renewable electricity requirement here in California. So if you take the sources of renewable electricity, like like wind and solar, they’re intermittent sources. And let’s just zoom in on solar here for a second, you know, the sun shining, we get about eight hours or so of really solid solar energy production on nice days here in California.

So in order to move over and kind of carrying this example, forward to 100% solar energy for the entire state of California, we would need to produce at least three times the amount of energy that we need at any given moment, so that we can store that energy and return it back to the grid when the sun isn’t shining. So in order to do that, you can imagine the requirements for just a place the size of LA County, right, in order to keep the lights on to keep industry moving to keep electric vehicles moving. When the sun’s not shining here, we will need to store tremendous amounts of energy.

So ultimately, there’s not enough lithium and cobalt on the planet to go 100% renewable worldwide, and to be able to store that electricity and batteries and return it to the grid when necessary. I’ve seen research out of the University of California, Irvine, suggesting that that would require about 70 times the known amount of lithium on the planet and about 1000 times the known amount of cobalt. And I may be butchering those stats, but they kind of put into perspective, what the requirements for those raw materials would be just to go 100% renewable on the grid. And when you carry that forward, imagine we have 40 million vehicles in the state of California.

So in order to be able to provide the materials for those, and in order to plug in these vehicles, if they were all battery electric, it’s going to require additional electricity from the grid, substantially more than we’re producing right now. And obviously, it would require more of those raw materials. So ultimately, we really need to look at all available technologies to meet these goals. Because, you know, we can’t just put all our eggs in one basket when it comes to that. So I can talk about this all day. I’ll pause there and see if you have any other questions on that matter?

Well, you know, I guess there there are tons of questions there. I guess I would say that that’s one of the beauties of hydrogen is that it is a good energy storage kind of facility and that you basically you use the electricity, electricity created from the solar energy, and you then create the clean hydrogen, and then the clean hydrogen is the storage instead of a battery in order to say move the vehicle or power, the neighborhood or things of that nature.

So that’s one piece and then I kind of wanted to pivot a bit to this earth shot, which the Biden administration had announced as one of its environmental goals is to create a kilo of hydrogen For $1 per kilo, so how close are we to getting that done, what’s being done, what else should be done, both nationally state of California and locally.

We’re not, we’re not that far away from from that goal, I think the DoD goal is to accomplish that $1 per kilo by 2030. You know, that’s obviously not that far away. And realistically, the price of gasoline is increasing so quickly that, you know, we would be at parity with gasoline prices at around $8 per kilo of hydrogen, you know, hydrogen carries, you know, roughly the energy density of two gallons of gasoline, consider the efficiency of fuel cell electric vehicles, and so forth. So, you know, even an $8 kilogram of hydrogen would kind of equate to about a $4 gallon of gasoline.

So to really shoot for you know, and again, it’s a, it’s an earth shot here, to shoot for $1 A kilo would really put us somewhere around 50 cent 50 cents per gallon gasoline. So it’s a, an aggressive goal, but it’s really attainable, what I’d say is the most important factor in achieving that is just scaling the production of the technology that we need to produce clean, renewable hydrogen.

So in the case of using electricity to a renewable electricity to electrolyze. Water, we need electrolyzers, right. And this isn’t new technology, that technology has been around for well over 100 years, it’s commonly in use for industrial purposes, for aerospace for submarines, the technology has been around for quite a while. But we really need to see mass production of that technology in order to bring down the price of it.

You know, sort of to give you an example of that, and this is going to date me here a little bit. But I remember when I was a kid, my dad telling me about having to use slide rules instead of calculators when he was a student, and how when the first calculators came out that they were like, 1000s of dollars, or something like that, and he marveled at the fact that, you know, again, back in the 80s, calculator watches were, you know, kind of a big deal.

And he marveled at the fact that they had to spend, you know, for the universities, that consumers couldn’t really afford to own these calculators 1000s of dollars for this technology that kids were walking around with on their wrists, you know, really like 20 or 30 years later. And it’s really kind of the scale and the evolution of hydrogen production technology, that will bring the price of it down to the point where we’ll be able to commonly place electrolyzers in a distributed fashion and really produce hydrogen on demand wherever we need it.

So what is what’s being done by the federal government, the state government to to energize this, for lack of a better word, and, and then also kind of weaving that another issue in there that you might be able to comment on? Is the work that’s been been done in the city of Lancaster by Mayor Rex Parris, to have them the kind of a, a netzero community and he has been a big proponent of hydrogen? And should other cities and the state be following that model?

Absolutely. So to start from the top, you know, from from the high level and zoom in, the federal government has taken a very aggressive stance on hydrogen. What they’ve realized is that, you know, hydrogen really is the connective tissue of our energy system, it’s not necessarily an energy source or carrier, that that should only apply to one specific sector, ultimately, it’s going to be the most efficient means for us to harness renewable energy to store it for short or long duration and to move it to wherever we need that energy whenever we need it.

So I look at this as as inevitable, right? It’s not a question of, you know, if this will happen, it’s a question of when it will happen. And so I think, you know, the federal government has finally adopted this approach that that the hydrogen ecosystem, the new energy economy is inevitable. And so what they’ve done is they’ve put their money where their mouth is, specifically in the infrastructure act, it allocated about $9.5 billion toward hydrogen development, 8 billion of that will go to build out hydrogen hubs across the country.

So they’ll dispersed hubs and in different parts of the US to really help kind of build up this ecosystem and to reach the economies of scale that that we talked about earlier. And perhaps most importantly, what this does, and carrying this down to the example that Mayor Paris is setting for the rest of us. It’s sending signals to the investment community, that not only is this now being accepted among the scientific community and the policy communities, but it is in fact inevitable. This is a necessary part of our energy transition.

And once the investment community can see that we’ll start to see private capital flock towards towards these projects and we’ll start to see more of the projects. They’ll become cheaper and we’ll see Do an abundance of renewable hydrogen and fuel cells and all of the technology that will enable the hydrogen economy?

Well, that’s something that we should pivot to in the next segment is, what are the private sector? What what is the private sector doing on this front? I know there are a lot of private sector companies out there like plug power and Ballard and many others that are that are working in the hydrogen field.

And what’s the likelihood that that major players like PG and E and SoCal Gas and Sempra and these other traditional energy companies are going to join join them and push the hydrogen economy out further as we go because it certainly all the current utilities like pg&e and SoCal Gas, have the the infrastructure to move hydrogen through their pipelines and, and my understanding is that they could do that and and insert hydrogen into our current gas supplies to to make it a bit cleaner going forward.

So we’ll be back in just a few seconds to talk to Brian Goldstein, head of Energy Independence, now, you’re listening to KABC 790. This is Matt Matern, your host of Unite and Heal America and we’ll be back in just one minute.

As you may know, your host Matt Matern of Unite and Heal America is also the founder of Matern Law Group, their team of experienced employment, consumer and environmental attorneys are dedicated to leveling the playing field by giving everyone access to the highest quality legal representation, contact 844 MLG. For you, that’s 844 MLG for you, or 84465449688446544968.

You’re listening to KABC 790. This is Matt Matern, your host of Unite and Heal America. I’ve got Brian Goldstein on the program, head of Energy Independence now. And Brian, we were just talking about the hydrogen economy and how it has been blossoming, blossoming over the last number of years, a lot of private companies have entered the fray.

And there are a lot of big players in the utility industry, they’re still there. So what what do you see as the future of of how private industry is going to bring hydrogen to the masses? And how, and what is the role of the utilities in doing that as well?

Well, you know, I see, as far as the private sector approach goes, I’m seeing a lot of similarities to what we’ve seen in the solar space over the last 20 years, you know, once the economics are there for the technology, once the political will is there, the consumer will and frankly, the the need right now, which couldn’t be any more clear from both a climate standpoint and an air quality standpoint, we’re starting to see the private sector jump in, and we’re starting to see some really cool incentives coming from the policy sector for, you know, technology that may be a little further out there.

And we’re really starting to see the economics change on the technology that’s been around for over 100 years, making it cheaper, more efficient mobile, so that we can do this on a distributed basis. So you know, we’re seeing some some really cool developments in the private sector.

Everything from the vehicles that you’re driving around on a on a day to day basis, you know, I’m not sure which model your fuel cell electric vehicle you’re driving, but you know, I’d be willing to guess that it’s probably a third generation vehicle from a company that’s been developing these for at least 30 years now.

Yeah, it’s a Toyota Morotai.

Excellent. So you know, I know Toyota is firmly committed to this technology. And I think really kind of the interesting thing about Toyota is approach is they take a very long term approach, this isn’t a company that is really concerned about quarterly earnings, and what’s going to be the impact of, you know, selling more hybrid vehicles this quarter versus battery electric vehicles or fuel cell electric vehicles.

They’re looking, you know, well down the road, and really trying to imagine what it will take to transition, you know, their entire fleet of vehicles over to zero emissions. And they’ve realized that that hydrogen is the best bet to do that. And so, you know, the the investments that Toyota is putting into this sector alone is really enabling this space. In fact, you know, over recent years since the rollout of the the Toyota, Mariah and the Honda Clarity in 2015.

We’ve seen about 14,000 light duty fuel cell electric vehicles come into the California marketplace, which is pretty remarkable considering that they’re really just reliant on on the station’s X Becoming up and running and reliable for consumers to to be able to go and refuel their vehicles. We’re up to about 55 stations right now. And we’re on our on our way to 200, which is the commitment of the state, at least for now to build the first 200 stations enable the marketplace. So we’re seeing some some really interesting mechanisms to incentivize this development.

One groundbreaking mechanism is that the state of California, the California Air Resource Board adopted something that we call an HRA credit, which is a hydrogen refueling infrastructure credit that essentially provides a financial incentive to station builders to come in and build the hydrogen station of the future, that might have a little more capacity than these, you know, 14,000 cars driving around the California roads, right now, we’ll need because we’re really planning ahead for when we’ll have millions of these vehicles on the road.

So, you know, the policy community and the regulatory community have recognized the need to help these companies overcome the need to plan for, for revenue and the future and need to plan for, you know, essentially where the ball will be in a few years rather than where it is right now. So mechanisms like the HR I credit system have really opened up the space, and we’re starting to see private capital rush into developing stations here.

And it’s best exemplified, you know, there, there are a handful of companies here first element fuel is a homegrown kind of startup right here in California that has a lot of hydrogen stations here, a big percentage of those that are open and are under development, Air Products is, is a long term player in this space that has been building stations for quite a while here, we’ve got shell who’s moved into the space aggressively, which is a great signal by an oil company.

And we’ve got you Itani, which is a mature industrial gas company from Japan, that has just really made it an entry into the space in the United States only in recent years. So it’s really these mechanisms that we’re seeing from both the state and federal government that are enabling this private investment to help drive the ecosystem forward.

Well, do you see it changing? Where pipelines will be used instead of kind of refueling trucks? Or is there is there a change in the technology or the way that hydrogen will be delivered to the stations?

Well, both we’re gonna have to see an all of the above approach. And you know, kind of like what I was explaining with energy storage, with technology for transportation, there’s really no one type of technology or technology platform that’s really going to be our silver bullet to kind of solving all of our energy challenges right now, energy and environmental challenges. But as far as hydrogen production distribution goes, we’re seeing the utilities lean heavily into that space.

A SoCal Gas has made an amazing commitment to a really evolving the future of their business model toward toward hydrogen distribution. Realistically, we can we can inject hydrogen into our existing gas lines up to maybe 20, or 30%. Right now, and displace fossil fuels that are otherwise, you know, going to feed everything from the heaviest industries to you know, your gas stove or water heater at home. So you can really do that without having to change out, you know, the end technology right now.

And then ultimately, I think we’ll we’ll see, I know, we’ll see pipelines with 100%. Hydrogen, in fact, we already have some in California, we have a lot more in the Gulf Coast around Texas and Louisiana. But you know, whether it’s moving hydrogen gas across long distances, or really supplying the electricity, in the case of the electric utilities, to electrolyze, water using renewable energy to produce hydrogen, the utilities will play a massive role in this space. And finally, you know, I wanted to mention the role of liquid hydrogen moving forward is liquid hydrogen has roughly about 10 times the energy density of gaseous hydrogen.

So you know, if your Toyota Mirai gets about 400 miles range, you could imagine, you know that the math doesn’t carry forward, quite as straightforward. But can you imagine getting almost 4000 miles of range out of that car. And again, you know, that’s not quite where we’ll be with with liquid hydrogen. But that’s really it kind of helps expand the imagination about what’s possible.

You know, of course, that’s not really necessary for light duty transportation, but when you consider heavy duty trucking, that that will really enable coast to coast travel for heavy duty trucks, it will really help us move large amounts of hydrogen around from, you know, maybe a production site out of the desert where we have high solar density to a very dense urban population center, where we might have a lot of in use applications like like the port complex here in LA.

And just to put that into perspective, and I promise I’ll stop talking here at some point that yes, the next question, we have 20,000 heavy duty trucks at the port complex between Long Beach and the Port of LA. So imagine what it would take to line up even half of those maybe 10,000 trucks to try to charge them at the same time, it’s just simply not possible.

We don’t have the electric infrastructure, we can’t get enough electricity here, we don’t have enough physical things to line those trucks up to charge them at the same time. So we really need to be able to move this energy around and to be able to safely refuel, in this case heavy duty trucks so that they can get on their way and keep goods moving in and out of the port complex.

Well, that’s my understanding is that hydrogen is probably a better fuel for for even larger vehicles like trucks and heavy machinery. And what what efforts do you see the port and just build our transportation carriers and energy companies, as well as manufacturers of vehicles doing on that front to roll out hydrogen technology to these trucks and heavy vehicles?

Well, the court is taking a very aggressive stance to cleaning up to mobile source emissions and emissions from the maritime sector for onroad applications, goods movement and material handling. They said some very aggressive guidelines for the operators and shipping terminals to really clean up their technology. And so that supports really leaning heavily into this space.

They’re trying to create incentive structures to help bridge the gap, the cost gap, for people to be able to jump from gasoline and diesel technology to zero emission technology. We’re really starting to see some of the shipping companies and really the maritime sector lean into this as well, as you may have heard, I think roughly 2% of global emissions come from global shipping. They’re just basically these large container ships that we see at the port complex down here.

So they’re major sources of both greenhouse gas emissions and particulate matter that creates air pollution here. So you know, we’re really seeing the shipping companies start to understand and embrace this as well. And I think, you know, naturally, we’re starting to see the technology providers start to provide some solutions that that will ultimately be scalable enough to address problems that are not doing well.

Do you know of any, which of the major vehicle manufacturers are actually going to roll out? A hydrogen powered truck, for example.

Oh, wow. Yeah, we’ve already seen them. Toyota has rolled them out and in partnership with Kenworth, common, I think we’ll see exciting technology coming from from Volvo. There are new companies like Amazon and Nikola that are starting to develop the technology. Frankly, there are just too many to name right now.

I can’t say that I’ve spoken with one representative from an equipment manufacturer that is not taking a heavy look at hydrogen right now. Because, again, going back to the the inevitability of this space, I think we’re really now commonly accepting that across industry, government, and certainly within the nonprofit community as well. And I think we’re starting to see technology providers follow suit.

Well, I think, Brian, that what you’ve the word you’ve used inevitability, I think applies to hydrogen, and we’ll talk about this some more after the break. You’ve been listening to KABC 790 This is Matt Matern, your host of Unite and Heal America and we’ve got Brian Goldstein and we’ll be right back.

As you may know, your host Matt Matern of Unite and Heal America is also the founder of Matern Law Group, their team of experienced employment, consumer and environmental attorneys are dedicated to leveling the playing field by giving everyone access to the highest quality legal representation contact 844 MLG for you, that’s 844 MLG for you, or 84465449688446544968.

You’re listening to KABC 790. Unite and Heal America. This is Matt Matern, your host and I’ve got Brian Goldstein of Energy Independence now and Brian just kind of pivoting in our last segment to a couple different things. One, that that the hydrogen economy could be beneficial not only for the environment, but also a good business decision. Kind of related to a number of things that you’ve talked about already, but just that a kilo of hydrogen, if we can continue to bring the cost of production down would be cheaper than gas and also cleaner than then fossil fuel gasoline.

And, and kind of an example, this is what Mayor Rex Paris has done in Lancaster over the I think been the mayor there for about 14 years, good policy decisions and actually saving the consumers money. And I think that’s something that is near and dear to everybody’s heart that if we can make this more efficient than our current Fossil fuel economy, then that’s a win for everybody, right?

Absolutely no, Mr. Paris has taken a really aggressive stance and making Lancaster you know, kind of the center of hydrogen activity. And that’s certainly his goal. And he’s really taking very tangible steps to get there. And I think that’s going to have a huge economic impact. And with the work that we do it and Energy Independence now, we traditionally between industry and government to try to help facilitate the development of this ecosystem.

And I strongly believe that the role of government is to try to really kind of fill the gaps that an industry can’t right now, that might not be economically feasible to get us to the point where the free market can take over some of these technologies. And I think that’s best exemplified by some of the work that Amir Paris is doing right now. And I think what’s also remarkable about what he’s doing in Lancaster, he’s really looking at a diverse array of feedstocks to produce hydrogen, right?

We’re not just talking about using solar or wind to electrolyze water and create, you know, renewable hydrogen through electrolysis, he’s putting in the first of its kind pyrolysis facility with a really interesting young company SGH to they’re using, or they’re planning to use, essentially, GreenWaste, what do you buy biomass, and I know they have a plethora of different feedstocks that they can use. But I think, you know, in my mind, this is the coolest example of these guys can take pine beetle kill, which is a major issue in our national forest on the trees that we have to clear out that are already dead or dying, and are really kind of feeding the forest fires, that becomes such a dramatic issue here in the state.

And they can use that to produce fuel without producing carbon emissions in doing so. And you can carry that example forward, you know, from everything to paper waste, plastic waste, green municipal waste, you know, if you mow your lawn and throw that waste into the, you know, the green bin, you can ultimately use that to produce hydrogen and do it with a very low if not negative carbon intensity. And there, Paris is really kind of spreading some of the, you know, the love around so to speak, from the policy community really saying, hey, let’s, let’s look at all of these different methods, let’s create an ecosystem where we can encourage young companies all the way up to some of the most mature companies in the world, to come in and help build out this ecosystem.

And let’s do it and become a model for the rest of the world. So I really applaud the work that he’s doing out there, the enthusiasm that he has for it, and frankly, the fact that he’s just just really leaning, you know, head on into this space, really, really just not necessarily listening to all the haters out there. And, you know, this kind of comes back to the conversation that we were having about lithium and cobalt and this perception of, you know, hydrogen or fuel cells versus versus batteries. I think it’s a very, you know, kind of American perspective, we’re all just, essentially, we’re really inclined to pick a winner, it’s just really kind of an American competitive thing that we’ve got.

And a lot of people really want to look at fuel cells versus batteries is this kind of VHS versus Betamax war? Again, no, I’m kind of dating myself by by saying some of these things half the audience probably doesn’t know what VHS and Betamax are. But ultimately, we’ve got two tools in the zero emission toolbox, at least in terms of mobility and transportation, we’ve got batteries, we’ve got fuel cells, so to really, you know, think that we can lean all in on one of those technologies.

And that’s going to be the one solution that will solve all of our problems, is short sighted and I think ultimately, would lead to our demise. And it’s really my perspective. And I can say, you know, for the most part, across the environmental community, and we’re starting to see this across the policy community as well, that we really need to utilize every single tool at our disposal to approach the issues that we’re facing with climate change, and with the air pollution that’s causing really dramatic health impacts that here in California, and obviously all over the world.

So it’s with, you know, leadership from the Department of Energy from President Biden from their parents, all the way to Governor Schwarzenegger, 1618 years ago, this isn’t a partisan issue. This isn’t a red state or blue state issue. Clean air should be a fundamental human rights.

And I think, you know, as you’ve pointed out, there’s also a massive economic opportunity in shifting how we looked at energy, how we produce energy, and perhaps as importantly, how we’ve distributed and moved energy around the state that country in the world, you know, from a model that’s, that’s 120 years old.

So there will be a tremendous amount of economic opportunity there. I’m very thankful that the federal administration is really firmly focused on making sure that they can spread that opportunity around focusing on underserved communities and communities that really need that that kind of catalysts to spur some economic development there.

And I think really hydrogen speaks to that effort, so well, because it really, you know, at least in the mobility and transportation space, it offers this communal refueling ability where if you live in a massive apartment complex or you know, simply in a space where you don’t have a parking space or a garage, you can still go to a centralized facility, whether it’s a gas station or hydrogen dispenser at a big box, retail store, and you can refill in five minutes and be on your way.

So, you know, realistically speaking, you know, I know I’ve mentioned that everyone doesn’t necessarily have access to a plug, but people are busy, and they don’t necessarily have time to stop and park their car for an hour with, you know, kids in the car, or groceries in the car, you know, on their way from job one to job to from job to job three, in order to wait for their car to charge for, you know, whether it’s 40 minutes to an hour, or whether they have to wait in line just to get to the charger.

I think that’s an unrealistic expectation, most of our population has to assume that they have that amount of time they have that amount of flexibility, or that they have, you know, simply access to a plug where they park. So ultimately, I think hydrogen will really be a great economic equalizer in the energy space. And I know for a fact that it will be the technology that really offers equal access to zero emission transportation, and I couldn’t be more excited about that.

Well, those are a lot of good points there. Brian, I would say that one of the concerns that I have is that that hydrogen gets as much attention from policymakers, the government, and ultimately industry to make up for kind of, it’s not being seen as front and center to the solutions that are at hand for the climate crisis.

I feel like that the battery technology of electric cars has kind of been the poster child for for recent kind of investment development, and it’s gotten more of the attention, I just would like to see more of an equal playing field. And just from a long sighted perspective, I believe that hydrogen is a very good solution. So we should be investing more in it now. Rather than just kind of the short term, I think the electric vehicles are rolling out more quickly.

And so there’s a sense that, hey, that’s the direction we should head and just kind of forget the hydrogen technology, put it, you know, treat it as an afterthought. And I feel like it should be getting as much love and attention as as the electric battery vehicle. So it’s not that one, and let them kind of compete to see which which technology ends up being the most environmentally friendly.

So I couldn’t agree with you more, I think, you know, we hear these kind of catchphrases in the policy and regulatory community, that it’s not necessarily their job as Americans to choose a winner to pick a winner.

But at the end of the day, you know, in my opinion, as an observer, it seems a little more politically palatable to to support a technology that is more abundant right now to support state charging stations that might be a little faster to build right now, that hydrogen station, because, you know, the political cycles just don’t necessarily incentivize long term behavior and a long term outlook from, from our elected officials.

So, you know, it’s really folks like Mayor Paris that are taking that long term outlook and, you know, kind of casting politics aside and saying, Hey, this is the solution that we really need. In fact, we can’t achieve our climate goals without these solutions. And, you know, one way or another, I’m gonna step forward to support this.

So I’d love to see more of that leadership in Sacramento. You know, look, California is really kind of the birthplace of the light duty hydrogen market. The work that, you know, our founder, and my partner and mentor Terry tamminen did to create the California Hydrogen Highway initiative, which was groundbreaking. You know, I think that some of the enthusiasm for hydrogen has kind of dwindled over the years in Sacramento.

And I think there’s enough noise up there right now we’re more and more people are paying attention. But we don’t have a lot of time to waste. And I mean, we’ve got fires every year, we’ve got massive, you know, catastrophic climate, climate events. We’ve got, you know, just poor air quality from from transportation.

This is an emergency, we really need to respond quickly and rise to the occasion. So I think this is a huge opportunity, the market, I think it’s a huge opportunity for the policy community to step forward and to make these changes and to really set the example for the rest of the world. Well, Brian,

I appreciate the great work that you’re doing out there in the world, promoting hydrogen and a clean energy world through your Energy Independence now, group and the work you’re doing with the Faraday exchange conference. So keep keep on truckin doing that great work.

Uh, you know, for all of us out there, I think that one of the things I’d like to underline is the limitations that we have with the lithium and the cobalt and creating batteries and we should as policymakers as voters as citizens, be asking the tough questions of how what’s the future look like?

How can we build this out to scale and how we can do it most efficiently and, and in the most environmentally friendly way? You’ve been listening to KABC 790 This is Matt Matern, your host of Unite and Heal America, and we look forward to having you back next week.

As you may know, your host Matt Matern of Unite and Heal America is also the founder of Matern Law Group, their team of experienced employment consumer and environmental attorneys are dedicated to leveling the playing field by giving everyone access to the highest quality legal representation contact 844 MLG for you, that’s 844 MLG for you or 84465449688446544968.