Battery Revolution Clubhouse Recording - Hydrogen VS Batteries

0:00Transcript

0:00Okay, then thanks so much everyone for joining for another battery evolution session. As you can see in the title, if you're on Clubhouse right now, you see it's our 42nd session. So Catherine and I, who met on Clubhouse actually, decided 42 weeks ago, 43 weeks ago, we believe there should be a forum on this platform to talk about batteries, but also all the other technologies which are related, such as charging and infrastructure, mining, recycling, second life, but also hydrogen. Because of course, many sessions also before, the discussion on hydrogen and the place of hydrogen and batteries in the energy transition came up. And we want to make sure today, we're actually going to approach both and have a bit of an overview. And just one quick word, people who are familiar with this session, they know usually Catherine and I, we're doing it together. But today, Catherine is not feeling well, so she's unfortunately not with us today. But yeah, she's very excited about the topic as well.

0:57And she's going to listen to the podcast after. And yeah, with this, maybe just a quick housekeeping for later. As you know, probably, but if you're new to the session, we love interactive participations. We're really betting that we have some interesting questions and contributions from the people in this room. And essentially how this works is later on, people can just raise their hand. We're going to bring you up. And we also really want to encourage always, you know, diverse voices. So especially if you maybe feel less represented right now in the industry or even in this session, please raise your hand. We would love to bring you on. We'd love to hear from you, your contributions and your thoughts and your questions. Yeah. And then later on, yeah, what's going to be essentially there's two ways how you can clap and how you can raise your hand, especially if you become lots of people. We'll see how many we are. Essentially, if you want to clap, you can flick your microphone quickly.

1:49So I will do this in a second. Again, that's for people in Clubhouse. And if you want to speak next, you can do kind of like a slow clap with your microphone like this. And then I know that you want to speak next. Again, maybe it's not needed. It depends on how many people are there. But if there's a larger group of people, that really helps us to moderate a room. And this session will go for one half hours. And from experience, the end tends to be quite busy because people realize in the end they actually want to say something. So that's another invitation to raise your hand early on to make sure your voice and your questions and your thoughts are heard. And yeah, if there's lots of active discussion, we're also happy to keep the room open and pass over the motivation to anybody who wants to keep the room open a bit longer. We've done this before. If there's interest in that, we can decide on this in the end.

2:42What was this? Actually, I'm very excited to have our conversation starter with me today. Who is Marie Francine. And yeah, I mean, I know her for quite some time. And actually, I know her from the battery side. That's something which is quite fun. You will hear in a second, though, why she, I think, is the perfect person to the conversation starter on today's session. Because, yeah, I know her from the battery space because I know her. She did her PhD on batteries and then her postdoc. But now, actually, she works with hydrogen. And we also have her. We're also connected because she sits on the advisory board of battery associates. Yeah, so that's where we know each other. And I know about all her amazing work and all the amazing things she does. But she is kind of working on both fields, or she has been working on both fields, which is, I think, a perfect thing to be in. It's a perfect background for really exploring the hydrogen versus battery question.

3:32So with this, I will give it over to Marie Francine to also introduce herself a bit more detail, maybe to share some of her insights there. And then do a bit of conversation start for today's session. Over to you, Marie. Thank you so much, Simone. I'm very happy to be here. First day on Clubhouse. Yeah, so my name is Marie Francine Lagadec. I'm currently the program coordinator of a large research program in Switzerland, which is about sustainable chemical value chains. And as Simone said, my background is in battery research, but also on how we can use battery designs in the production of green hydrogen. And yeah, so that was basically the research that motivated my postdoc. And that then led me over to my current position. And within that group, we had a lot of discussions on when to use batteries, when to use hydrogen. And I think it's a good discussion we see again and again. And I mean, to basically kick off the discussion, I thought about giving a brief summary of a publication that I wrote during my postdoc, where we basically compared lithium-ion technology with water electrolyzers.

4:57So the technology that is used to produce hydrogen. But as we will see, only a minor fraction of it. And to directly start off with how we think hydrogen may play a role in fields that are usually thought of to be dominated by battery technology. So there we see that it may play a role in powering heavy duty vehicles, for example, but that's actually hydrogen plays a far more important role in defossilizing the industrial sector. And today, about 110 megatons of hydrogen are produced per year. However, we see that only 95% of those tons are produced by a CO2. And only about 4% are electrolysis. To give you a bit of perspective on electrolysis versus lithium-ion technology. Let's say lithium-ion technology is about 30 years old, whereas water electrolysis is more than 100 years old. But the overruling explanation for the low market penetration of water electrolysis is really that we cannot really get down to a price where it's compatible or at least on par with steam reforming.

6:30So we're currently at about $4 per kilogram of produced hydrogen. And we'd need to reach about $1.5 in order to be competitive. And I mean, that's obviously quite a huge gap that has to be bridged. And what we further discuss also in that paper is that there are, in a sense, I mean, definitely from a research perspective, there are quite a lot of similarities between battery technology and also water electrolysis. So when we also look at the structure of, say, the smallest unit of a battery versus a water electrolyser, there is a lot of knowledge actually that has been and is also currently transferred between the communities. Although we also think there could be a lot more interaction between that. And a major difference that we also see, which I think most researchers don't necessarily think about, is that lithium-ion batteries can be used, depending on their size, obviously, say, as a more standalone element. If you have battery packs, then you'd obviously need a battery management system.

7:51But in the case of, say, a water electrolyser, it's not just, say, the core of the water electrolyser that will produce hydrogen. But you need a lot of equipment that surrounds that core or basically the desired element of that system. And from a research perspective, this is oftentimes neglected. Also, when it comes to assessing bottlenecks of scaling up water electrolyser systems. And another similarity that we also discussed a lot is that it's actually very hard to compare some of the research findings, both in the battery field, but also on water electrolysis. Because there are not, I mean, despite the long traditions of that field, there are actually very few standardizing protocols or routines that would allow to really compare the result A versus B. And so going through literature, it's actually sometimes quite a pain to really be able to compare what people have been demonstrating. We can also say that for the maturity of lithium-ion technology, I mean, we see that batteries are now used in cars, for example.

9:28And there is much less of a distribution of electrolyser systems. And Europe is actually leading the fields of the annual electrolyser manufacturing capacity, which is in the gigawatt range. But actually to be somewhat close to the needed levels of deployment, which are in the order of up to one terawatt per year, we're still very far away. And that's obviously also led us to also looking into, for example, materials availability. Is it even possible to scale up some of the systems? And there, I think we're also quite far away from what can actually be achieved. And yeah, I think I just lost my train of thought a bit. Yeah, another. Another. I mean, another comparison we looked at is really what will happen if we scale up, say, the system size versus the production rate of water electrolyzers. And that might actually lower costs significantly just when we look at stack costs, for example. I think that's a very similar trend that we also saw with lithium-ion cells.

11:01But the major, I mean, there will still be a major cost contribution, which again is oftentimes neglected by academia, which is then everything that's related to balance of plants. So the processing of hydrogen, for example, there also has to be a circulation of deionized water. So the power supply plays an important role. And as the systems become more mature and cost overall goes down, the cost contribution of those balance of plant contributions actually can go up to more than two thirds of the overall system cost. And I think I probably rushed through my introduction a bit, but I think for the moment, yeah, I would give back to Simon and hope that there will be some first questions. Fantastic. Thank you so much, Marie-Francine. And also one quick question. I'm not sure if you have pinned the correct link, because that's a new feature, I think, on Clubhouse on this week or last week, that we can actually pin up links into the room. Is this the most appropriate paper on this topic you wrote or is there another one I should rather pin?

12:27That's exactly the paper I was referring to. Perfect. So yeah, for anybody who has an academic subscription, you're welcome to have a look at this paper. Otherwise, you can, I guess, I'm not sure if it's, I guess it's a paywall. But yeah, I think that's a nice, I think a nice paper. And especially, I think the introduction, right? Because sometimes it's quite well, some of these things you just mentioned as well. Yes. Also, I think there is a paywall, but there are also other ways to find the paper. And otherwise, please just contact me. I'm happy to send it. Fantastic. Yeah. So if you're new to Clubhouse, there's actually a message function on here. You have the little airplane on the bottom right, or you can click on Marie Bonzin's profile and send her a message and ask for the paper or otherwise. I'm sure you can also connect via LinkedIn or otherwise. Brilliant. And I think with this, we had one raised hand already from Milo's.

13:19Let me bring you up. And anybody else with any thoughts or questions, please come up on stage. Welcome, Milo's. Good to see you. Nice to see you. Nice to talk to you. How are you? So, Marie, what do you think about the hydrogen place in the personal transportation? I mean, there have been. So, thanks and nice to meet you. I think, I mean, obviously there have been efforts that went into that direction. I would argue that the level of deployment of batteries has been very convincing. And so I would not necessarily see the use of hydrogen for transportation, or at least for personal transportation, as the most sensible use of hydrogen. Yeah. And what do you mean, what do you call more sensible or more sensible use of the hydrogen? So, I would say that for the chemical industry, it makes a lot of sense to use, especially green hydrogen, to decar, I mean, to defossilize the industry. And I think, I mean, because it's used in so many processes, I think the impact there is simply a lot bigger.

14:52I think for specialized cases in transportation, it makes sense to use hydrogen. But I don't really see it as a widely spread application. Yes. Yes. And by the way, I 100% agree with you. So, I just try to check before we will discuss further where you are standing. So, I'm saying, like you, I agree with you that the first hydrogen use, green hydrogen use, should be to replace the gray hydrogen. Because like you properly said, there is 100 megatons of the hydrogen used today. And most of that, or almost all of that, it's dirty hydrogen, which is emitting CO2s. So, I see the largest potential of the green hydrogen in the fertilizers, like you said, chemical industry. And then to the places where, because hydrogen in transportation, because a lot of people are promoting hydrogen in transportation, and they are milking a lot of money from the garments and so on. But hydrogen in the transportation requires, they don't realize that hydrogen is only storage of electricity.

16:11Do you agree with me? Hydrogen is in the, like the power, like the generating power of the energy is only storage of electricity. Yes, I mean, I would agree with that part. I think also in the chemical industry, I think the use is also a lot more versatile. I mean, I think they are distributing it, obviously, it just makes a lot more sense. Yes, I agree with you. I agree with you. But what I wanted to continue, that when you are using it, like in the, let's say, transportation, for the basic, basically for the cars, the people need to realize that hydrogen alone, it cannot work. It needs battery. So, hydrogen, you are just adding, combining hydrogen with the battery. So, you are using battery anyway. Mm-hmm. Do you agree with me, yes? So, hydrogen fuel cells cannot power the vehicle alone. It needs to be hydrogen fuel cells and battery. Yeah, I think, I mean, especially when we talk about, like, really longer distances, and I think in any case, it makes sense to have a, say, hybrid systems, similar to what you just mentioned.

17:39I think another, yeah, problem is probably also distribution of hydrogen. I mean, if you don't have enough, I don't know, say, stations that you could also then drive to, I think that's also going to be another issue that I would see. Yes. I think. I see three major problems with the, for the hydrogen in the transportation, in the cars. And that's one, is that it's, hydrogen is very expensive. The, like you said already before, comparing to the lithium-ion batteries, the hydrogen is highly inefficient, comparing to lithium-ion batteries, and hydrogen needs to build infrastructure. So, what you said right now is infrastructure building. So, complete infrastructure you need to build, and it takes time, this one decade, and trillions of dollars of the investment. Absolutely. I think also, I think we easily also forget, yeah, I mean, how much, how much investment is needed to build that infrastructure. And also, I think we cannot just build uniquely on existing infrastructure in that sense. Yeah. I mean, also just because it's not suitable for the use case of hydrogen.

19:11And then also, I think, yeah, you just mentioned the high cost of hydrogen by itself. And then if, yeah, I mean, if we go for a, say, more modern or unconventional route of hydrogen production, where hydrogen, for example, is not produced at the same pressure as it is currently done with, yeah, I mean, all production sorts coming from, I mean, based on fossil fuels. And again, we also have to add costs simply for compressing hydrogen. And so, I don't think that, I mean, in terms of pricing, this will be competitive. So, I think it kind of is an interwoven problem. Yes, I agree. So, I agree also with you that for some certain niche of the transportation, like where you need to extend the battery, it probably will have the place, like the shipping industry for the ships and for the longer range trucks and for the, maybe for the aviation, like the supplement to the battery, maybe it makes sense. Yes, I fully agree.

20:33I think especially the shipping example that you just mentioned is probably a good use case because they're, I mean, we're not really limited by, say, how much space such a system would take up. But in anything where I think it's like the volume of the system that has to be moved is of importance there, I don't really see that can become competitive. Yeah, so I see like the hydrogen can charge batteries and can extend the range. Yeah, I think that that could work, yeah. Yeah, and major focus of those environmentalists and government focus should be how to use the hydro, green hydrogen in the chemical industry, what you said, including fertilizers, instead of the great hydrogen, at least in this first stage. Absolutely. I think you mentioned before that some research, I mean, there has been a significant amount of funding that went into hydrogen for transportation, which I personally think is not the right place to put such an investment in. But I think there are now several initiatives also that more focus on using hydrogen more in the direction of the chemical industry.

22:07industry. But I also think that, I mean, the chemical industry is not just hydrogen. So it's, I think that's a very complex environment. And it's also more investments in, say, the general transformation. Yeah, and what do you think, related to that, everything what you said right now, what do you think about the hydrogen subsidies from the government and hydrogen promotion or the hydrogen hype coming in many cases from the government and environmental organizations? And I see it in many cases, like the scheme, how to get money from the public and to transfer it to their friends and basically how to steal the money. Yeah, I think I can just reiterate my point that I think it's probably well-intentioned, but not the right use case. And I think we have become a bit stuck on that transportation aspect. And that's also why it probably is easier to get funding for that. But I think it's not the right place to put the investments to. But why are you saying that well-intentioned?

23:31In my opinion, there is not well-intentioned. I would say maybe it's well-intentioned, but not well-informed. And I think it's because we, or I don't know if we can say we as a society have held a belief. But I mean, I don't think there is a justification in terms of, say, outcome of putting that investment in. So I would, I don't know, I cannot really explain it other than that it's not a well-informed decision. Yes, I see it more, more clearly. In many cases, it's not well-intentioned. It's like the scheme, how to transfer money from the public through government to their friends. Yeah, I mean, I cannot, I don't think I can, I can really say a lot on that. We know only know this with the situation in Switzerland. And there, so the project or the program that I currently coordinate, I mean, that's, I think it's a very clear statement on where, for example, support for hydrogen should go into. And it's clearly not the transportation sector.

24:57Yes, I agree with you. Yeah, I want to be, I don't need to be so politically correct, so I can say whatever I want. Thank you. Thank you, Marlis, so much for, I think, a very good start also in this conversation. And I think, as you said, right, I think there's many different interests from different groups, but this is all very complex. And I think it's very important to cut through the chase and really have a well-informed, you know, it's all about doing well-informed decisions. One thing here is, I just pinned this also because I love this new pinning feature, so I can pin some links into the room. Just in case people don't know it, there's this ladder, the hydrogen use ladder. And yeah, from Michael Liebreich, who was the founder, I think, of Bloomberg Neff originally. And yeah, he has been in the space for a while. And I think it's a quite nice overview. I like to share this. So if you click, if you are on the live session right now, you can click on this link on top.

25:56And yeah, you can see essentially where the best use cases are, at least from his opinion. But I think it's not a bad opinion for hydrogen. You can see unavoidable, like the top layer is like fertilizers and food industry, methanol, hydrocracking, and what's it called? E-sufferization. And then on the other hand, uncompetitive, you have metro trains and buses, hydrogen fuel cars, urban delivery, two and three wheelers, and bulk e-fuels and power system balancing. And it's just, I think, yeah, it's kind of, you know, it's the thing it's quite clear about that personal transport doesn't really make too much sense with hydrogen, at least in his opinion. I think it's an opinion which is quite widely, as you also described, Marie, on scene and Milo's, I think, quite widely shared. But actually, I would like to bring also some questions which I received via messages, because there's a few people who cannot speak right now because there might be in a public setting or in other settings, so they cannot speak.

26:54But we got this messaging function, so they wrote some questions in. And for example, Ingo, one of our regulars as well, he asked the question, the actual stated price of $4 per kilogram, what part does electricity cost at what price per kilowatt hour? Do you have any ideas on that, Marie-Francine? Very good question, but I would have to look deeper into the numbers. I, yeah, I don't have an answer to that right now. That's fine. Thanks. Thanks, Marie-Francine. So maybe Ingo, you want to connect with Marie-Francine on LinkedIn so you can ask or follow her here. But Milo, you are muted. Do you have an idea here? Yeah. It's the hydrogen is, comparing to the batteries, one third efficient. So only from the efficiency point of view, it's three times higher cost than batteries. But then you need to add the complete cost of the, including transportation, including storage, including the electrolysis and everything else. So it's much more cost than batteries. So from the efficiency point of view.

28:31I think for the kind of conversation, you know, the question I received, which was, you know, about, I mean, there's still some automakers. And there are people, right, who kind of say essentially that, okay, you know, I mean, hydrogen is not, you know, that great yet. But, I mean, batteries also are really expensive from beginning and things. And same with solar. And, you know, so it's going to get better. But, of course, there are some physical limits, which I think are very important. And you spoke about the efficiency issue. It was three times right now. It's three times less efficient. It's about a third, like about 33% or so, maybe, compared to batteries where you're going from electricity to electricity in the electric car. You have about 90% efficiency. If you go through the hydrogen route, you might have about 33%. But now my question would actually be for you, Marie-Francine, because, I mean, I know the kind of sum of the thermodynamical limits, maybe in the fuel cell, et cetera.

29:33But do you know what are, like, the first principles about, like, the thermodynamical limits in the hydrogen production, like electrolyzes, et cetera? Because I know there's a lot of development there. And I know also you, I'm sure you're quite familiar with them, you know, a couple of them. So I'm just curious, what are, like, the physical limits? How efficient could, like, you know, the hydrogen process be? And how, like, you know, how cost efficient can it be from a, essentially from a physical limit? I would just be curious if you have some ideas or some thoughts on that. So I don't have the numbers for that. But I mean, just thinking about the difficulties, I think one aspect is definitely system or the stability of the stack, which, yeah, I mean, there's, there's also materials that don't really age well. And I think that's also an issue that is not yet solved. Yeah. Let me just see if I can find a better answer to that.

30:37But for the moment, yeah, that's, yeah, that's my reply. Thank you, Marie-Francine. And I think that's a very good point, right? I think people talk a lot about actually degradation and things like that. But of course, they also have degradation for a few hours in the process. And I know actually there were some interesting startups that were working on trying to get, you know, essentially split saltwater and things and get hydrogen from saltwater. Of course, it would be very interesting. But again, yeah, degradation and kind of side effects can be an issue. I think Bassam is just joining us. Hey Bassam, good to see you. Hey, thank you. I have just two points or two questions slash points. First one, what do you, I see that you, as you mentioned, you came from the battery field. My point is that how do you see or why do you see that the hydrogen didn't proceed as fast as batteries? I mean, from, from trying to cut costs, trying to industrialize it better, take the production costs lower, et cetera, et cetera.

31:42Why is there any reason that you see why we are really quite slow in that direction? That's maybe the first question. Thanks a lot for the question. I think for, for batteries, I think there was a very clear use case that, that also motivated the commercialization. And I think, I mean, if you think about the structure of a cell that you would create in a lab, it's ultimately, I mean, obviously there is, there is a lot of engineering that, that goes to into a commercial battery. But like the fundamental structure, I would argue, is not that different compared to what we see in a water electrolyzer system. So what I think a major issue that we, that we see with water electrolyzers is really that the lab systems are profoundly different from systems that you would then test in a, in a pilot study or then at an industrial scale. So I think it's really, so that, yeah, that there is a limited transferability of, of results from the lab scale then to the next ones.

32:58So, yes, I can try to help Marie to answer this question. The hydrogen electrolysis is like a hundred years old technology. So there is only small improvement for, for small room for the improvement of this technology. Battery is very complex technology and the hydrogen electrolysis is very simple technology. It's not complex technology. So you are just taking electricity and splitting the water to hydrogen and oxygen, you know? So from the battery point of view, there is very complex technology. So there is a lot of room for the improvement. And like we know over the last 30 years of the commercialization, it went towards three directions. And those three directions are interconnected. It means that it's much cheaper today than it was 10 years ago or 30 years ago. It's much better battery today because we solved a lot of those complexities. So higher energy density, higher power density, safety and everything else. And we know to produce it in much bigger scale. So we have now giga plants and we have now 250 giga plants and so on and so on.

34:21So that's the difference. Those three directions were the battery went over the development. And the hydrogen couldn't go in those three directions because it's simple old technology and there is nothing more to innovate. Hello, Agrius. Thank you for joining. Is there something you want to share on this topic or do you have another question? Yes, I have a question. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Okay. Yes. Yes. I have a question for both for Milos and for Mare. Because when you mentioned that hydrogen for transportation is completely like a stupid idea. And then I wanted to ask a question. What do you see as the source of the battery or is the source of the energy storage in the transport system without hydrogen? Because currently if you want to electrify or decarbonize all the transport system, the battery capacity or these raw materials for battery capacity in the world are not enough. So, and therefore I think this hydrogen is only taken as an option number two because I think we all understand it's worth in battery, but we cannot put batteries in all the transportation system.

35:54This is one thing. And also the second question or maybe just your opinion which I want to ask is about these high transportation units like airway aviation and shipping. Because for this kind of transport, it's impossible to make such a big battery system. Because let's say in comparison with hydrogen, you mentioned all these bad things like density, which is the system like three times more less efficient. But the good thing is also that you don't need very big storage. We do not feel for the private cars, but let's say for the big trucks, the weight and the size of the hydrogen in comparison with the batteries is eight times smaller. So, that's a few questions. Yes. So, I will answer first. I mean, you made at least two assumptions in my opinion which they are wrong. So, one assumption you said that there is not enough raw material for the batteries. And that's not true. Even for today's technology, we have enough raw material. Which raw material you mean there is not enough raw material?

37:24So, there is lithium for the thousands of the years or maybe millions of the years of the batteries use. There is existing materials. There is plenty of existing materials. The challenge is not the availability of the material. The challenge is how fast we can build a supply value chain of the raw material. So, the challenge is not that we will not have enough battery to produce. The challenge is how we are able to produce them to increase the production of the batteries per year in 10 years. That it will not take us 30 years to produce 20 terawatt hours of the batteries, but it will take us only 10 years to ramp up the production of the batteries. Another assumption which you made is that the batteries for the... You made the assumption that the battery technology, 10 years from now, it will be the same battery technology as it is today. So, battery technology is developing and we are increasing the energy. I told you that last 30 years we increased the battery parameters dramatically.

38:46And I believe next 10 years we still go to the same direction. So, energy density today is not energy density 10 years from now. Yeah. Maybe just to add to that. I think it also depends very much on which chemistries we're looking at for lithium-ion batteries. I think there was just a recent announcement of Tesla also switching, for example, to LFP batteries. And there, for example, I wouldn't really see an issue with availability of raw materials. Yes, I didn't want to go into details because I would talk a lot. So, I just said that there is plenty of raw material available. The challenge is how fast we are able to build the mines, to build the processing plants, and then active material production. That's not the problem, that's the challenge. Thank you, Marius and Marie. Okay, yes, one more question. Yes, sorry. Please, I guess. Yes, and the question number three, which I want to ask also for both Milos and Marie. Do you know where is the source of these raw materials for the batteries?

40:15Is it in Europe or is it in Europe? Because I think one important thing when everybody speaks about hydrogen is that all this production happens within Europe. Because currently we import oil from the South Sea or in other countries. And yes, the question which I wanted to ask for the batteries in the future, when you mentioned that there is no problem with the raw materials, do you see all these raw materials are in Europe or outside? Yes, it's again a complex question because I don't know which raw material. Because there are like five critical materials, critical now, but there are like 20 important materials. So we should go one by one where those materials are, which we don't have enough space right now. But it's very diversified. It means that some material is in raw material. And which material we are talking? Because there are three stages in the material. There is mining, there is mining and recycling, there is intermediary processing, and then there is active material productions.

41:40Means cathode and anode productions and other components of the battery production. So you can even have the material somewhere in Africa. But if you control processing, processing is the most important. China right now controls a lot of those processing of those materials, but that's a geopolitical issue. I don't want to go right now to geopolitical issue because we can talk a lot about that. So I don't know to answer you the question. I also don't really have another point to add to that. But I hope, was that a good reply to your question? Yes, there was an answer. But as Nibosh told, it's not clear. But the good thing is that you mentioned that there is no problem of raw materials and it's possible to somehow build. But I think, yes, I guess. Yeah, I will just add to it. The challenge is how fast we can build those processing plants, mines, and where we are going to build it. So, we have the chance to overcome China.

43:10China right now controls like 100% of natural graphite. But it's only like if they would, if America and Europe would focus on that, they have the chance to build 99% more of the processing. So they are able to leapfrog the China. Thank you for sharing, Milo. Maybe just one thing to add to this one, right, on the regional aspect. Because I guess, you know, I mean, one issue is, as mentioned before, right? I think from, if you look at the supply chains for better materials right now, they're not really, you know, that much in Europe, right? I mean, you have now, there's like, you know, a lot of projects kind of starting, a lot of startups in the space. You have companies such as Northvolt who say they want to get essentially, you know, all European supply. So they're like, you know, also pushing it a lot and there's some other companies as well. And, you know, everyone is interested to create local supply chains because you have seen, especially through COVID, right?

44:06It can get quite challenging to have these globalized supply chains and then, you know, want to secure your supply. But, so I think that's one thing, right? Like, you know, people trying, but I agree. Like right now it's not ideal to look at supply chains. But I think there are two important, for batteries I'm talking about now, there are two or three important aspects to realize as well. One, you know, the idea of batteries is that you can, you know, pretty much fully recycle them. So you kind of have a circle, you know, like a closed loop. Of course, you know, in any foreseeable future, let's say the next decade or more, there's so much more and probably even more than that. You need so much more raw materials to first get into the loop that, you know, of course, the recycling is not really helping. But it's not, you know, replacing the need for more materials. But then, but that's reducing it over time, right?

44:52And that's a nice thing with batteries, which you don't have as hydrogen. With hydrogen, you know, you create something, but it's essentially, I mean, you're splitting water. So you kind of need electricity for that. For hydrogen, right, I think one of the big issues, as Milo's mentioned earlier, you have much less, much lower efficiency, at least at this point. So let's say about 30%. So if you want to do this all based on renewable energies, you actually need three times more renewable energies. And that's not really feasible right now in Europe, right? Because we already have a struggle now to get renewables once. But let's imagine we want to do this three times. You know, I think that doesn't really work. So then you have, of course, all these projects, you know, let's ship. What have I seen? Like ship hydrogen from Australia or ship it from the Middle East or like, you know, African countries, et cetera, and have big boats for hydrogen. So you also get some challenges there, right?

45:36Like how you actually want to manage this. So actually creating local supply of hydrogen is in theory very possible. It just means you need lots of renewable energies. And that's a bit of a challenge, right? In Europe, for example. And one, two other things is actually for your fuel cell, you also need, you know, some, you know, like the raw supply. Is it either platinum or some other catalysts, right? So you also need these materials. So you also have to look into supply chains for that. And one final thing maybe to, to think about this as well is you, I'm just trying to get my thoughts on this one. Yeah, but I lost it. No, one last thing actually is if you look, because right now, you know, 94% right now of the batteries are produced in Asia. But if you look, for example, Europe twice by 2030 to produce about 30% of the world battery production. So they announced about a thousand gigawatt hours, which is a lot.

46:25And we will see, you know, if it's feasible, but you can also, I think, see similar things probably going to be announced in the US as well. So, you know, hopefully there will be more local supply. Let's see for different regions. But yeah, it's still, of course, a big challenge to make it all happen. This is just a few of my sense, Milo's and otherwise Christopher. Yes, you are absolutely right. And there is, I would add one point. The magnitude of the battery production or battery, battery like the major part of the energy disruption technology. So you said that all these European projects, which they are up to 2030, they are like 30% of the projects. So all those companies, which they are estimating the future, they are making wrong projections. So because they are underestimating how fast it will, this energy disruption will go. So basically they are making linear projections and the energy disruption or like any other disruption, technological disruption, it goes in the S-curve.

47:42So they are projecting like the last year we had 200 gigawatt hours of the battery production. Ten years ago we had 20 gigawatt hours of the production. So in ten years we grew ten times the battery production. And they are estimating up to 2030 it should be like two terawatt hours, sorry, two terawatt hours, three terawatt hours. They are fighting between each other how many terawatt hours it will be. And Tesla came in battery day one year ago and they broke all their projections because they said it needs to be at least 20 terawatt hours. And I agree with Tesla, not with them, McKinsey and other projections. So it will go very, very, very fast. And so it means that those battery plants in Europe announced today, there will be much more of them 2030 than they are announced today. Thank you for sharing, Milo. Thank you for sharing, Milo. And I think Christopher joined us. Do you have a question or some thoughts on the topic of this?

49:06Yeah, it's more thoughts, Simon. And it was sort of, I jumped in in response when Agres posed his last question. And I think both yourself and Milo sort of summed it up quite well. I think one of the key points here is obviously, and it was going back to where China controls the supply chains. But obviously the last parts of the conversations have been sort of on the growth of the gigafractories in Europe. And absolutely the supply chains at the moment in Europe are very sort of immature. And there's a lot of reliance on the Asian companies for all the parts. But with the gigafactories, it then creates the demand for the supply chain. It'll reduce sort of transport of costs. So absolutely, as these gigafactories grow, the supply chain has to massively grow. So that was my thoughts on that. But I think it's been a very, very sort of interesting talk on sort of hydrogen versus batteries. You know, the efficiency one, the 33% for hydrogen compared to sort of battery, I think it's a very interesting one.

50:27My personal take is that hydrogen has missed sort of the automotive side of it. So the personal sort of automation. Back in 2013, when I had been in sort of battery manufacturing in about two years at that point, there was a lot of hype come up around about that time with sort of hydrogen and how it was going to do this and how it was going to do that. And, you know, it caused a little bit of a stir, but, you know, moving on sort of eight years and that still hasn't happened. I agree with sort of Marie's take on it. You know, I think that there will be a place for hydrogen, but it'll not be in sort of automotives. It's more sort of industrial, the industrial side of it. So not really a question though. Sorry. Thank you for sharing, Christopher. And I think it's, yeah, it's interesting, you know, to see these kind of developments. And I don't know, maybe Marie-Francine, if you have any thoughts on this, anybody else who, where we are right now, with insight, you know, inside the hydrogen or a battery hype, if it is one, and just kind of see, because, yeah, it's had different stages.

51:35And for me personally, right, I mean, I also started with hydrogen fuel cell. This was my first research before I actually went into batteries. And I looked into all of these things and I saw all of these challenges, also including hydrogen storage and things like that. And I feel like, you know, lots of people have both journeys. There's quite a few people I know who went from hydrogen, you know, and then I went to batteries. But you also have other people like yourself, Marie-Francine, who went to batteries and now they're on hydrogen. And there's a lot of moving over. And I think there's a lot of, yeah, it's interesting to see how these journeys all kind of move around between both. Yeah. Just a side note, I also started on fuel cells and then went to the battery side of things. Yeah, I think, I mean, I can only agree. I think it's quite natural for, at least also for researchers, to switch between fuel cells and say the battery topics.

52:29Because I think there is a lot of knowledge that can be applied in both, say, domains. Yeah. And I mean, going back again to the discussion of what's what really is a use case for hydrogen, I think. I mean, it's at least in the community that I'm right now, I think it's quite clear that, say, personal transportation will not really happen or not at a larger scale. But I think there were also, as you said, waves of how people have agreed with that. Yeah, like you said right now, Mary, I think the first stage for the hydrogen should be, and I think it will be, to replace grey hydrogen with green hydrogen. And then the second stage after we will replace it, there is plenty of the hydrogen use where we cannot use battery, like the industry. Like, I am coming from the steel industry, for more than 30 years I was focused on the steel industry. I see, I don't want to talk details because I will take your time, but there is plenty of hydrogen use, which is much more important.

53:55The hydrogen batteries cannot be used. So hydrogen will be used in those industries which you cannot use batteries. Thank you. Thank you. And I think Andriy, you joined our panel. Do you have a question or a thought you would like to add? Yeah, thank you. Milos already told that, but actually with using hydrogen in heavy industries to decarbonize using coal, gas and other CO2 fuels. But the main problem with that is, besides energy losses and energy inefficiency of hydrogen, is transportation issue. So I have a question, what are your thoughts on that? What's the best way to transport hydrogen from one place to end users? Is it in gases form or should be liquid, ammonia, methanol? Maybe something like that. So what do you think, Ace? Thanks a lot for the question. I am probably not the right person to answer that, but I would just like to make the point that obviously depending on which state we transferred hydrogen will again come at the price.

55:31So I think that's also something to consider. And maybe just a comment on the wording or on terminology. So I think you mentioned decarbonizing a sector. And just as a side note, I mean, within the network, I mean, we had a lot of discussions as to whether that should really be decarbonizing because we still need carbon as, say, an essential part of whatever is produced versus defossilizing. But that's just a side comment. Maybe Miloš has more insights into how hydrogen should be transported? No, I don't have so much insight, but instead of transporting the hydrogen, hydrogen you can produce close to the location where you are going to use it because you can use this. You can place electrolysis very close to the usage of the hydrogen. But it belongs to this one section. What I have in my mind, three problems or three challenges with the hydrogen infrastructure. So transportation is part of the infrastructure. I agree. I agree. I agree. I agree. I agree.

56:50That's right. So I think that's the question. I think that's the question. You mentioned that it's correct to produce hydrogen where we are using, but I think if you mentioned this green hydrogen, which is generated from wind or solar, I think it's efficient to produce the hydrogen right next to these wind stations or solar stations. And then the transportation is necessary anyway. I agree. I agree. But why? Why you would use it? You would do it like that? Why you would produce hydrogen next to the wind or solar if you can store this wind and solar in the batteries? And you have three times more efficient storage of the electricity. And then you don't need to transport the electricity because electrons are flying by the wire. And for now we don't have such capable batteries to storage scaling or like amount of energy. It's like one megawatt, two megawatts. It's not enough for storage. But now, for now, we don't need it because right now we have how much we have production of the electricity.

58:15We have in the world 175 trillion kilowatt hours of the primary sources of the energy. And wind and solar is like 1% of that or maybe 2%. So we don't have enough renewable energy or wind and solar. So whatever the wind and solar is producing today, we don't need to store it, but we can directly supply it to the grid. So if that's the case, Europe has no space for that. It's more efficient to take it from, for example, from Africa. But you will encounter a lot of energy losses over the distance. If you would like to transport energy as electricity on a grid, it's better to transport it with hydrogen. Yeah, but what kind of energy you are taking from Africa? I mean, solar power, yeah. From solar. I will also ask you the question a little bit, a little bit maybe argue. Because you mentioned that for about these batteries, yes? And also if you produce energy from the wind on solar and you give it to the grid.

59:34But actually it's inefficient because how the energy system is working. The energy is produced to fulfill the maximum, to fulfill the needs in the maximum hours. And in the night or also maybe in some early morning hours, the energy is produced, but it's like not used. And hydrogen is very, or batteries anyway, it's necessary to store. Because all the energy you are producing, you cannot give in a grid because there is no consumption at the moment. And what was the second question we just discussed? But if your argument is correct, let's say I will give you that your argument is correct. And I will not take to the account that only one-third of the energy you can store what you are producing in wind or solar in the hydrogen. Yes, only one-third because two-thirds goes to the air, to the waste, because that's inefficient, you know? So, but even if I will give you that everything, so in that case, if we are going to produce hydrogen from electricity next to the solar panels or next to the wind, I am arguing that the first use of this hydrogen is to replace the grey hydrogen which is creating CO2s, which like Marie said in the beginning, it's like 100 megatons of the hydrogen is used, hydrogen which is creating CO2s, basically grey, dirty hydrogen.

1:01:23So, you want to use this hydrogen which you are creating by the electricity, this green hydrogen to replace this grey hydrogen for the production of the chemicals, fertilizers and so on. And then you go to use this hydrogen in the other purposes. But how do you imagine this, you are replacing this dirty hydrogen with the green hydrogen? For instance, there is a solar plaque, you are creating energy here and then convert from electricity to the hydrogen. And then what's your idea, how you plan to use it in mining or chemical industry? What's your plan? I am not saying mining. I am saying that today 95% of the hydrogen is hydrogen produced by creating CO2s. So, I am saying that if you are able to create even 5% of the hydrogen by using the electricity and electrolysis, so gradually you are able to replace more and more of this dirty hydrogen in existing uses. The major one is fertilizer, other chemicals industries and so on. Fantastic.

1:02:51I am just looking at the time. I think I will quickly reset the room and then we are going to go to our next three amazing people we got on stage here to ask their questions and their thoughts. So, just a quick reset, today we have a 40 second session of battery evolution. We do this every Saturday at 3pm CT for one half hours. We discuss all kinds of topics around batteries. And today we are talking about hydrogen versus batteries. We have Marie Francine with us, who is an expert in both. So, she has a background, but I just learned from her actually. She started with hydrogen as well, but then has done her PhD in postdoc on batteries and now is in hydrogen in Switzerland. And you can check out her bio for some background. And yeah, we have quite a few people with us. And also one thing I just did is, because you see also on top of this session, we have this REC science record them as part of the Battery Insiders podcast.

1:03:49And you can find out, you can listen on this, to the podcast anywhere where you can listen to podcasts. So, for example, the Apple podcast here as well, but also on Spotify. And I will put a link in there where you see all of the different options in a second. But my quick ask actually is if anybody here has an iPhone and if they want to click essentially on the Battery Insiders podcast. And if you like what we're doing here, give us a, you know, like a five star review or any review you want. Or even if as a comment I heard, it helps a lot to get us more people listening. I think we now got over 5,000 listens on it. So it's not doing badly for us, but we'd love to share kind of these insights even further. And we've realized lots of people actually listen to this afterwards. So if you want to give us a review, really very much appreciate it.

1:04:32If you have an iPhone, otherwise you can also listen to it on Spotify, Spotify and all of these other platforms. Okay. With this, I'm going to stop the ad block. We're going to go back. So now we have actually four people on stage. So let's go to Mariano next. Welcome Mariano. Thank you, Simon. Thank you, Marie-Francine. Okay. I have one thought or two thoughts about the price reducing that you mentioned from 4 to 1.5. This is 60, more than 60% of reducing the, the hydrogen. What are your thoughts about this solar Perovsky membrane that could direct solar hydrogen generation that increase the efficiency of 20%? That's one I sent to Simon the research. Did you know this? Of course, maybe you know, but did you think that it's feasible to have the industry, this Perovsky direct solar? And the second point is, what are your thoughts from the panel, I say, also from Milo's, no? Of course, I want you, Simon, about the possibility from, which possibility give us the current problem with the gas from Russia and Algeria, and the potential transport from natural gas to hydrogen, to the pipelines change from natural gas to hydrogen.

1:05:59What are your thoughts about that? Thank you. Hello, Mariano. Thanks for the question. So, the first question was about the research, right, that you had shared with Simon. I was not aware of that. So, I cannot really give my opinion, I think, without having had a look. I think, for me, again, it would go back to the question if that's, say, more of a purely academic result, or if that has been proven, say, in a pilot line, or a pilot study, where this can really be scaled up. I think that would mean by main hesitation on that topic. Thank you, Marie-Francine. Thank you, Marie-Francine. I also just sent you the link Mariano had shared via chat, in case you want to have another look at this. But I very much agree with what you said. So, you can prove it in the real world rather than in the lab or something like that. And this feasibility of using the pipelines from the actual natural gas, because we here in Spain, we have Enagas and some huge companies, and direct come from Algeria, Maroc.

1:07:26But nowadays, the problem between Maroc and Algeria gives us no choice to have, let's say, a perfect connection of them. And we know, in general, the increasing price from the gas is increasing also the price of all the energies, because of how we do the cost. We pay the energy and also this increasing of energy gives us the problem also for all the, let's say, the energy environment, also the batteries, because, and all related. I think, what are your thoughts? If is it feasible to, from your point of view, using the pipelines for the hydration? Thank you. I have some thoughts about that. Maybe it's feasible, maybe it's not feasible, but it's this part of the infrastructure, what I was talking about before. It means that the part of the infrastructure, even if it's feasible. So, there are other two problems with the hydrogen. And again, we are coming, we are not saying that the hydrogen will not exist. Hydrogen exists today. It will also exist tomorrow.

1:08:51And usage of the hydrogen, that's what we are talking about. And production of the hydrogen, that's what we are talking about. Right now, 95% of the hydrogen is produced from natural gas and from the other dirty sources. And it will be gradually replaced with electrolysis, but electrolysis is expensive. So, it will go slowly, my prediction not very fast. And the new usages of the hydrogen, how they can be promoted, new usages of the hydrogen, if it can come only from the dirty sources and expensive sources. Thank you for sharing my list as well. Maybe two quick things, as far as I know, that some of the pipelines, you actually need some different coating or something, because, yeah, hydrogen is quite corrosive. So, that's one thing I've seen, you know, you have to make sure that the tubes work well. I've seen, right, in the UK, they're talking about using hydrogen, they want to feed it into the gas, essentially, like the heating, some percentage. So, I think, yeah, lower numbers work okay.

1:10:05But if you go higher, actually, I heard that corrosion can be an issue, but I'm not the biggest expert on that either. But, yeah, it's just something to be aware of with infrastructure. But infrastructure, of course, is always a big one. And there's, of course, also something, right, where existing companies have a big advantage, right? Like, if you look at oil and gas, right? I mean, they are, of course, interested to keep these pipelines filled with some things. So, of course, hydrogen is quite interesting for that as well. So, just looking at time, we can maybe also then go to Nagoto, maybe you can pronounce your name better. Yeah, you've got it right, Simon. It's Godot. So, I'm Godot Gadwa out of Nairobi. I'm a businessman. And, you know, I'm really enjoying the conversation about batteries and hydrogen. Maria, I have a question. You mentioned that the cost of producing green hydrogen per kilo is $4.5 vis-a-vis blue hydrogen, which is about $1.5, $1.8 there.

1:11:12So, how sustainable is it to use geothermal or wind or solar energy to produce green hydrogen? And, you know, do you think it would work to lower that cost significantly? Thank you. Hello. Thanks a lot for the question. So, I think the main use cases I've seen, at least in literature, they are not dealing with geothermal. So, I think that was mainly related to wind and solar. So, I cannot really give information on that. So, the only thing I could find, but that was probably a different use case. There was something that was done in Iceland, where they also looked at hydrogen production from geothermal gas. And, again, I think there it's really a question of the cost. So, technically, it seems to be possible. But I haven't really found an indication of, like, what that would translate to in terms of an actual pricing. So, I don't think I have a better answer for you. No worries. Thanks so much, Mari. Thank you, Gurtur.

1:12:34That was a great question. And then, one thing I just want to add also, because I remembered what I wanted to say earlier to you, Mariano. Because one thing is, of course, there's also other energy storage technologies. And one really big one right now is PalmThydro. I think it's about 97% or so of the largest scale energy storage. And what's interesting is actually, you know, companies such as Ibadrola, who's kind of investing a lot, you know, and, of course, they're looking at a lot of the transition to renewable energies and different energy storage technologies. And right now, what you can see is they're betting quite heavily on pumped hydro plus batteries. They're not really doing so much about hydrogen. And, actually, we got a lecture on this on Monday for the BatteryMBA. So, you can watch it afterwards as well as you have been part of the program before. But that's maybe a quick spoiler. So, I think it's quite interesting also to look at what the utilities actually are doing, because all the big utilities, of course, spend a lot of time on monitoring all of these different technologies and trying to understand, you know, where should they invest?

1:13:30And they don't really care at all which one, you know, it will be because they're just a customer, right? So, they just want to understand which is, like, you know, the most beneficial to them from an interest standpoint, also from an environmental, of course, regulation standpoint and things like that. Yeah, maybe that's just something to be aware of as well. Moussa, thanks so much for joining. Would you like to ask a question or have some thoughts on today's topic? Yeah, yeah. Thank you for this forum. It's been quite interesting to listen to all the experts speak. One thing I was wondering about was, I know quite a while ago, I was doing a bit of research into all sorts of storage technology. And one thing that came up was flow batteries. So, I'm wondering, is there any subject matter expert on the current panel that can speak to that and talk about how well it compares in terms of cost to the other batteries technologies that you've talked about so far?

1:14:46Thank you, Moussa. That's an excellent question. Does anybody have any thoughts on this? Otherwise, I also have some. Okay, otherwise, maybe let me jump into this. There's a great paper. I will look up for you the link. And we just had this because it also comes from a lecture we had with Marek, who's a managing director of Fluence. And he has this amazing paper he shared essentially showing that through the reduction of the cost of lithium-ion batteries, flow batteries essentially losing their ground. Because on the one hand, you have this massive argument, like the scale essentially through lithium-ion battery production, especially through the automotive sector right now, which really reduces the price and get the economy of scale. On the other hand, essentially, you can use batteries for longer range, like in a longer storage. So essentially, the space which flow batteries were supposed to fill, lithium-ion is really jumping into that and other technologies like pump hydro, etc. are around it. So yeah, that's a good paper showing it gets very tough for flow batteries to work because they have a good opportunity if you have really big...

1:15:58So essentially, the reason with flow batteries is you decouple power from capacity. That's the idea. Because with lithium-ion batteries, if you want to increase capacity, you essentially also increase the power, I mean, what you can get out of it. So it's quite linear, you know, like the cost and the increase in capacity. Whereas the idea with flow batteries is you have like massive tanks in theory, right? And you can decouple the two, like you have constant power and you can have much bigger capacity. But yeah, there's definitely challenges and they're under a lot of pressure. And that's also one of these things where utilities, also when I talk to them, they see it in a similar way, they don't really see much space for flow batteries right now. Could change. But I will find a paper for you, Musa, and I will share with you in the chat if you want to have a look at this. I think it's a quite nice submarine overview, how it looks at least at this point in time.

1:16:49Marief? Yes, I completely agree with what you said. I mean, I haven't read the paper, but also looking at how, say, Redux flow batteries, for example, operate. I think it goes in along a similar line of how water electrolyzers operate in the sense that you have a lot of extra equipment that is needed to keep your system running. And obviously, I mean, if you compare that to a system like lithium-ion batteries, where scaling up has made such massive jumps, and then where you still have for flow batteries, this, say this cost that you cannot really get rid of, or that might even increase if you increase the system size. I think it's quite clear that lithium-ion batteries has really kind of removed them or is about to remove them from certain applications in markets. Fantastic. Thanks so much, Marie-Fanzine. And with this, maybe we can go to Rex and Musa. I will tag the link shortly. Rex, welcome. Simon, thank you. Fantastic discussion. It's very granular, to say the least.

1:18:07And I'm living in the space for a while now in aviation. I'm looking at this from the eVTOL advanced air mobility piece. So when we look at that, adding those vehicles, we have both hydrogen, we have all electric, we also have hybrid electric. Several different players. It's like betting on a horse race, but betting on two horses. I see both hydrogen and electric being compatible in this technology and this infrastructure. But some of the challenges for both that we've seen when I worked as an infrastructure head for Uber for a while in Silicon Valley, looking at the all electric, the batteries is a challenge. And we're seeing phenomenal growth. We're seeing new technology every day. But you still have to produce electricity. And we get into looking at what the grid capacity and the grid health is. We then look and say, hey, everybody in a neighborhood buys an all electric car. We're probably not going to be able to support that. The easiest illustration I can give would be if you own an older home and you have a hundred amp service system for electricity.

1:19:27And you buy an electric car and say you spend the extra money and you get the faster charger for Tesla. That may cost you $500. However, now you have to upgrade your system. And that's one cost that most people don't seem to factor in that can cost anywhere to $2,000 to $3,000 to upgrade to a 200 amp system that will be capable of supporting that. Now, if a dozen people in your neighborhood who all have those 100 amp systems all buy electric vehicles, now the grid that supports that doesn't have the capability. Having looked at a lot of locations for suitability in LA, Los Angeles, that was one of the things we looked at. And the numbers that we came up with a couple of years ago was about a million dollars a mile to move electricity. So if you have to move electricity 10 miles to support something, that's 10 million start. And then you have the permitting and the zoning that goes into that.

1:20:34And people don't like power lines. So that's a challenge. Public acceptance is a big issue. Then you have to put a substation in. So in that space, substations take two years to permit, two years to build. Most of the components are 18 to 24 months on back order. That was three years ago. I'm sure it's even worse now. But that's, I think, one of those pieces in the electric piece that we have to pay attention to. I see batteries getting better. I see batteries being useful. But also in the hydrogen side, I see an opportunity if hydrogen does, and I totally understand the gray and the green. There's also the blue and the red hydrogen types. The amount of energy that you need to actually create hydrogen using electricity isn't feasible at the moment. If we see technology move, one thing I see hydrogen based on density of energy would remove the need for as much infrastructure. So supporting an all electric vehicle, I'm going to have to have a charging system at more places.

1:21:42If I use hydrogen, the energy density is better. I see less infrastructure because I'll have a longer range on a vehicle. So that then gets into the whole green discussion. And I always laughed at some of the folks in Silicon Valley that were so proud of being all electric, not realizing that their electricity comes from a cold fire plant in another state. And it's like we are still creating a pretty significant carbon footprint. We just put it all in one location. So getting the renewables takes time. And like I think was already pointed out, the amount of energy that we produce from renewables, not really where we'd like it to be, to be able to, you know, depend on that. And working in LA, it was interesting when it got really hot, they had brownouts on a regular basis. Then we get into electric storage. The other effort that I'm heavily involved in are fire safety. So creating the fire code that speaks to both hydrogen and electricity and storage of electricity and batteries.

1:22:54On the electrical side, I'm really pulling a lot of inspiration from the, of all places, the racing world. Formula One's Formula E is doing some really cool things in the battery technology world for safety, which we haven't seen in the vehicle side yet here in the public. So, no, it's, this is a fantastic discussion. I see both, both horses winning. One horse may win sooner than the other. And then the other one may gain on him later on. We'll see. But, uh, thank you so much for the opportunity. Thank you, Rex. Thank you so much for sharing. I think in the end of the day, right, I think what kind of is the, I think that the narrative between the both as well as, you know, to try and create the biggest, most, you know, the best impact in a way to say, let's really decarbonize, you know, our transport and our energy system. And I think that's really, you know, what, what we should really, I think, aim for.

1:23:57Then we define the, the right technologies and which enable that. But on the other hand, of course, and that's a bit of an issue, right? We have a limited, at least we have somewhat limited resources. And then the question of course always is, you know, is it like, you know, do you want to keep it all open and let everyone invest, you know, and we put money into everything. Or we say actually prioritize things, you know, for different aspects. And of course there's lots of interesting interest groups for either side as well. But yeah, no, thank you so much for, for, for sharing that. And maybe just one quick thing here, because I, I, I pinned the, the link for this paper I just mentioned earlier for Musa. I also send it directly to him, but I also put it here right now in the group. So if you're interested to see a nice overview, essentially comparing all kinds of different energy storage technologies, and especially those for grid applications, I think, and yeah, seeing kind of how things playing out with different pricing predictions, et cetera, and how there's different forecasts, I think it's an excellent overview to put things into perspective.

1:24:53Brilliant. We get another four minutes. So are there any, any questions at this point, any thoughts? Mayano, you're raising your hand. Okay. Thank you. Yes. As, as you mentioned here in the paper, Musa, well, Simon, but it's for the Musa for Redox flow batteries. First of all, I, I was being able to, to start with the, with the flow batteries, Europe, Europe, with its association NGO that they want, they claim to have all supply chain, because nowadays, let's say, Europe don't, don't invest that much in, in, in, in flow, in redox flow batteries. And they, they claim that it's, it's needed to have all supply chain for, for invest and, and go deeper. And from the price, this paper that Simon put here on the chat, it, it aims from 25 to kilowatt hour. It's, it's, it's less than actual, uh, lithium, uh, no, 25. I think it's interesting to reduce flow, uh, uh, redox flow batteries, because it's, it's also like, uh, industrial, and it links between industry and batteries.

1:26:13I, it's, uh, it's, uh, from my point of view, because I, I also have the chemical point of view. It's very interesting to, to link, uh, this readers flow and also to have, uh, with other possibilities of, of, of, of storage, you know, hydropamp and other possibility, but, uh, this is scaling for, for, for having the energy storage, I think is interesting. Thank you. Yeah, I would like to make one point. The promoters of the hydrogen, uh, especially in the transportation, they treat the hydrogen, uh, like the part of the, uh, energy disruption, but, um, environmental disruption. What we are going through is not environmental disruption. It's technological disruption. And key technology, uh, of this, uh, energy disruption is energy storage and the, uh, dominant technology in energy storage is battery. The battery is the, uh, uh, technology, uh, most important technology of this decade. So, and, uh, this technology is developing and the people are deploying the technology because of the, uh, it's much better than it was yesterday.

1:27:33Uh, not because it's much better for the environment. So it's technology driven disruption or technology driven revolution, not environmentally driven revolution. And, uh, Rex, like you pointed out, the, uh, batteries are using much more electricity and this electricity needs to be, infrastructure needs to be built. But if you are using hydrogen, you need three times more electricity because you are wasting two thirds of the electricity. Okay. Okay. Uh, I can pair that, uh, it's debatable because we can use, uh, overproducing during the day, uh, time from renewables and storage is as hydrogen. No, like Greg told you, we need much, uh, much more electricity to produce tomorrow than producing today because we don't have enough electricity to power the, all those, uh, cars and, uh, electrical vehicles and everything else. So we don't, we are not living in the age, uh, where we have the access electricity when we can afford, uh, to, uh, lose another two thirds, uh, putting them to hydrogen. Yes. Yes.

1:29:07But Rex mentions that, uh, in the, that the renewables can't support this growing of, uh, uh, demands from batteries, from, uh, electric cars and from, uh, electricity. Uh, during the day, because the most, uh, uh, uh, most energy is produced from solar and wind basically during the day. And most usage is needed for like evening and morning time. It's, uh, it's, it's great disbalance and hydrogen could, uh, resolve it. Well, Andre, what you are saying, you are saying that the, uh, you are talking about hydrogen like the storage of the electricity. Yes. So why you would store electricity more expensive and less efficient if you can say a storage more efficient and less expensive? Yes. We have no capability of batteries for now to storage it. We have much bigger capabilities of the storage of the electricity through batteries than hydrogen. Okay. I can give an example from my country, from Ukraine. We don't have batteries. We, we just, uh, supply our directly in grid for feed-in tariff.

1:30:32We're using feed-in tariff. We have no batteries. We can store it anywhere. I cannot talk to that because you are taking out of the context, uh, and you move to two different arguments. Yeah, my loss, but it's interesting to see that if you don't have that much capacity in batteries, then you need to, to search other possibility in energy storage. That's the, the, the point of entry. I think that's my opinion that, uh, uh, of course, if you have all the batteries, uh, for in your country or in your place, then use the batteries because it's, it's more efficient. That's, that's, that's the, the, the meaning that my loss and, and we are, uh, all the times, uh, seeing, no, but okay. If you don't have that and nowadays, then you need to use hydro pump, um, other kinds of energy storage, no? But you don't have, Mariano, but you don't have a hydro either. You need to build it. You don't have a hydro.

1:31:40I mean, hydrogen. You don't have a hydrogen storage opportunity. So you need to build it and you need to create the infrastructure. Batteries, you just deploy batteries. And if we already have the, a lot of batteries in the cars, we already have a lot of batteries in the, um, energy storage systems and so on and so on. Yes, and we can do storage a lot, uh, more in, uh, storage, hydrogen storage than in batteries. How you can store more? You cannot store more if it's more expensive and it, if it's one third of the efficiency of the battery. But, Milo, I also wanted to ask one thing you are mentioning. It's, it's two times more expensive. It's also, I think it's very important to understand on what type is more expensive. If you compare with the passenger car, of course, it is two times more expensive. But imagine if you need to build one gigawatt, uh, battery, uh, storage. How, how, how big is it would be?

1:32:46Yes. And you can compare with the hydrogen and I don't see the expenses like too expensive. Um, show me, show me, show me high one hydrogen, uh, um, storage next to the, uh, wind and, uh, solar power generation. There is no one in the world, uh, a high capacity storage of the hydrogen and, uh, uh, the battery storage of the, uh, megawatts and gigawatts hours of the storage, energy storage systems. They are popping up like the mushrooms in the world. Regarding hydrogen, I think a good example is Hamburg because they have, uh, near the port, uh, they have, uh, infrastructure now. So they are developing in, in, in, in the sea. So, and, uh, I think the, uh, the, the, the next idea of them is not to store energy in the coast, but if it's in the shore, then the storage will be, uh, happening very close to this, uh, uh, wind, uh, turbines. So do you want to say that Hamburg is storing the energy from the wind and solar in hydrogen and then back to converting?

1:34:04To electricity? Uh, uh, I, I know that they are storing also the, the one topic also, which we discussed is about these, uh, solar, uh, solar, let's say farms in Australia or, or, or in, in the Africa. I know that, uh, all these big, um, car manufacturer companies have, have invested in the land in Australia because their idea is to, to build the solar, uh, farms here. Uh, to convert to the hydrogen and, and, uh, transport back to the Europe. Because if you just, uh, understand how much, uh, free land is necessary for the solar, uh, solar, uh, farms, then the Europe and especially in Germany don't have so many, uh, free land. So therefore, those are, those are, there are happening. Agree. Those are theoretical projects which never, which will never materialize. So they will never be commercialized because how expensive it would be to, uh, take the, uh, solar energy from Australia and, uh, store it in, uh, hydrogen and move it to Europe and then convert it back to, uh, electricity.

1:35:20I mean, it's, uh, and how much, uh, uh, uh, uh, diesel you need to, uh, transport this hydrogen, uh, from Australia back to, uh, Europe. So, uh, uh, uh, it's not feasible projects. I think, uh, it's, it's one of the, uh, topics with this. If you look on the maritime transport, then the hydrogen of the, uh, the solutions. And, uh, it's, uh, if you mention transporting, then it's, this will be like zero emission transport. But on the end, I think we are close to getting all together, no? There, there would be batteries, uh, redox flow batteries, iron batteries, uh, hydrogen also. It, it depends on, of, of, of the stage, uh, of the, of the country. It depends on how far we, we say all the time of transportation. You mean, uh, agrees about Australia. Of course, there are huge range of, of, of, it's a huge country. They, they need, uh, we, we, we explain, uh, a couple of days ago with, with, uh, with, uh, a lady.

1:36:29Then he, he explained us that it's so huge country in Australia. You need to have somehow, uh, uh, uh, hydrogen or nowadays they have a diesel and petrol, no gas. And, and that's one of the, the key points because batteries, if they go close and close, if, uh, if hopefully a solid-state battery comes and the next years, then, uh, it would, it would be easy, but because you have more power in, in less space, let's say, no? But okay, uh, in the middle would be all alone, uh, would be one, one, on one last thing from my, from my, from, from, from my side is nowadays, the oil and gas industry, it's a huge industry. Let's say there are several Exxon, you know, in Spain Repsol, and there are several. We, I don't underestimate the power of this industry that they want to move to hydrogen because they want to have like a industry view, spine, uh, of the storage energy. I don't underestimate because if there are several comings, lots of, uh, millions of, of, of, of, uh, euros here to Spain and to Germany, and they catch some of these euros and they want to have, uh, let's say, uh, because they, they, they are in oil and gas and they want to, to go for hydrogen more than, uh, goes for batteries.

1:37:57It's, it's, it's, it's true that this not, uh, it's better to go for batteries, of course, because it's, uh, as, uh, milos, uh, 30%, no? From, from, from the, the, the, the potential. Okay. But I, I don't understand, underestimate all the power that they have nowadays. Yes. I mean, uh, obviously look who is promoting hydrogen in transportation, especially the, like you said right now, oil companies are promoting hydrogen. Because, uh, and governments of the various countries are promoting hydrogen because it, it goes to the blind tunnel and they can continue to, uh, produce oil and, uh, the, uh, uh, electrification or, uh, energy disruption is slowed down. So I'm repeat, I'm going to repeat the most important, uh, hydrogen use. So right now we have, uh, roughly not even 5% of the hydrogen is produced by the electricity. So by the electrolysis. So, uh, the first stage of the hydrogen, we should maximize production of the hydrogen, uh, from the 5%, let's say to 10%, then to 15%, then to 20%, and then eventually maybe 200% of the hydrogen, uh, production by using electricity.

1:39:28So basically I'm trying to say that, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, 100, uh, mega, uh, tons of the hydrogen is produced in the world. in the world like Mary told us if this number is good or wrong it doesn't matter so we should aim to the hundred megatons to produce it from the from the green hydrogen means the electrolysis we shouldn't speculate to how to produce 200 megawatt hours megatons of the hydrogen because we don't have right now we don't need to do it we we need to replace the first gray hydrant thank you my listen thank you everyone and that's exactly i love the i love the interactive and the vivid discussion but just looking at the time unfortunately we're really running out of time at least for the and for the for the part right for the podcast because i believe we keep them to one of ours so i kind of going to close it now and then you know we can decide if we want to keep it running a bit longer and if people want to stick around but i think from my side at least i have to also head on for another appointment but um anybody wants to stick around we can leave the room open a bit longer but for now i want to close the room i want to thank everyone especially marie froncine for being our conversation side of the day and really introducing this topic and getting us all started and sharing sharing insights on this as well and we can give her hopefully a nice applause as well and give her a follow maybe on this platform you know she's new as you can see from her party party head or with the party symbol there so she just joined today and yeah if you want to give her all a follow if you enjoyed what she shared it'll be fantastic or maybe also find her on other platforms such as linkedin or twitter which also brings me quickly to the um the link i um yeah which i kind of put onto this room right now that's essentially a quick clip from today's session as well but also all the links in the comments on twitter i put all the links we shared today so if you missed any of these links or you want to look at them again please um click on the link i shared on top here which is the twitter link and then you can find all the links from today's session as well as also the link to the recording so if you want to listen to this again again we're a bit behind um on the posting the podcast so it might take two weeks or so but yeah we will definitely also post today's session later on so if you missed any of it or you want to listen to it again you can do so but you can also listen to listen to all the other um really interesting podcasts and sessions we had before on all kinds of topics from battery safety and recycling and all kinds of different things um and also with actually some of the speakers today they also led some of these discussions and yeah with this i want to also say a big thank you for everyone who joined us on stage like milos agres christopher andri mariano goto and musa and others as well and yeah big thanks to all of you two for being with us today we're gonna have another session again the next saturday i'm not exactly sure who it is but i know there's already scheduled it might be jill or lisat in either case it will be a really interesting discussion again on an interesting battery related topic and yeah with this thank you so much everyone and now the big question is milos or anybody else marie or christopher or anybody mariano do you want to keep today's room open do you want to keep the conversation a bit longer than i make you not for not for not for not for not for not for not for not for not for not for not for not for It was an absolute pleasure meeting you all.

1:43:15I also have another appointment coming up. Yeah, just wanted to say thanks again and have a great evening. Thank you all. Thank you all. Thank you. See you again next week. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.