Reviving Hydrogen: A Conversation with Matt Krayton on the Future of Clean Energy

In this discussion, Matt Krayton, Communication Lead at the Mid Atlantic Clean Hydrogen Hub (Mach 2), outlines the resurgence of the hydrogen economy, fueled by a $7 billion bipartisan infrastructure law initiative. Mach 2 aims to establish seven regional clean hydrogen hubs, aiding sectors like heavy industry, transportation, and energy storage in reducing carbon emissions. Matt discusses hydrogen's potential to store and distribute energy efficiently, addressing renewable energy intermittency, and improving environmental and public health. He explains different hydrogen production methods (grey, blue, green, and pink hydrogen) and touches on the need for public education, community involvement, and the development of clean, sustainable energy economies.

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Transcript

Chris Brandt: 0:00

There was a lot of initial hype around the hydrogen economy that was never fully realized. But things are changing and hydrogen is once again in the spotlight. Stay tuned. Today we have with us Matt Creighton. Matt is the communication lead at the Mid Atlantic Clean Hydrogen Hub, or MOHC. two. Mach two is a hydrogen hub created by the bipartisan infrastructure law, the regional clean hydrogen hubs program. And it's awarding up to 7 billion to establish seven clean hydrogen hubs across the country. Their mission is to bring together producers, users, distributors, and stakeholders to build a better hydrogen future. So let's talk with Matt about the state of hydrogen and where it is going. Welcome, Matt. Thanks for having me. I'm very excited about the prospects of hydrogen, personally, um, but, you know, what, what, why is, um, what's going on with hydrogen? Why is hydrogen so important right now?

Matt Krayton: 1:02

Hydrogen is, uh, you know, the way that we're sort of looking at it is, It is one tool in a much bigger toolbox to help decarbonize our economy. Um, so hydrogen, uh, is especially useful in these very hard to abate sectors. So heavy industry, for example, uh, the manufacturing of cement, uh, steel. steel manufacturing, uh, and other industrial process improvements, uh, heavy transportation. So if you, you know, tractor trailers, um, maritime shipping, uh, even aviation at some point, uh, could, could be a use case for, uh, for clean hydrogen. So hydrogen, uh, has, has the ability to essentially store energy in a way that's. uh, efficient and, uh, useful in, in these, uh, for these applications that require a lot of, uh, high, uh, high heat applications or a lot of energy density, um, and, uh, and sort of lightweight energy storage. So, uh, there, there is, uh, a lot of opportunity there, um, to, to help sort of decarbonize, uh, really it's like the, you know, 15 to 20. percent of, of the overall economy, uh, that you really can't stick a battery in right now, at least. So it, uh, it could be very useful in that way.

Chris Brandt: 2:15

Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, one of the initial, you know, promises of hydrogen, we always heard like the, we're going to make these cars and they're just gonna run on water, you know? And, you know, obviously that wasn't, you know, entirely practical, although there are some kind of applications around that now. Um, but, you know, The challenge around energy is sort of in the storage, the transmission of or transportation of and sort of the density of these things, right? So there's, there's dense, there's definitely some challenges around that. But in addition to that, you layer on sort of a clean production of these things, right? And so that. That makes different modes of energy beneficial for different types of things necessarily, right? And, you know, you were mentioning, um, some, you know, like heavy industry kind of use cases and things like that. Can we, can we kind of dig into some of them? Because I, you know, I've had, you know, I did an earlier podcast where we talked about, uh, hydrogen being stored in a, in a salt mine to, you know, provide on demand energy, you know, that was being transmitted to Los Angeles and things like that. Um, there's some really interesting, I think, you know, like grid scale applications that make hydrogen make a ton of sense. Industrial, could you kind of like, can we dig into some of those use cases and, and, and could you explain why they're so, uh, important? adaptable to hydrogen. Thankfully,

Matt Krayton: 3:44

a lot of renewables coming online right now. Not nearly enough, but we have a bunch coming online and the hope is to have a lot in the future. The thing with renewable energy like wind and solar is there is some intermittency with when it's producing energy. Um, and when it's not right, so at nighttime, for example, you're not really going to get a whole lot of, uh, solar energy coming into the grid, uh, the same thing with, with, uh, wind energy. So wind kind of dies down, uh, overnight or, or, you know, some days it's just very still and you're not getting quite as much, uh, in, into the grid. So, um, but then other days, right, you'll have very, very sunny days, uh, or a stretch of very sunny days where you're getting a ton of, uh, solar energy production, uh, very windy days where you're getting a ton of, um, you know, wind production, um, hydroelectric, same, same, uh, principle there. Right. And, uh, all of those electrons, right. All of that electricity that's being produced has nowhere to go. Right. So you have, it meets the demand and then all of the excess just gets dumped, right. You just, you can't use it, um, unless you figure out how to store it. So right now, uh, you know, the, the means of energy storage that we have at our disposal, our batteries, which in some case, like on a residential level, like there, there are, uh, energy storage options where, you know, if you're. producing excess solar, you know, you can, uh, you know, have that, uh, go into a battery system into your house and you have that energy, uh, save for, uh, later overnight, uh, applications. Um, but at, at the grid level, um, you know, batteries of that size, they, they don't really, uh, exist, uh, yet at that scale, uh, for the type of efficiency that you would need and the type of storage that you would need. So hydrogen, uh, what you can do with that, those electrons, then the excess electrons is you can produce clean hydrogen through a process called electrolysis, um, which essentially is, uh, and, and this is not the, the scientists that I could tell you, like I can translate what, what a scientist might say in this case, I can't tell you exactly, I couldn't build you an electrolyzer. I'll put it that way. But. Essentially what it does is it separates the hydrogen molecule from water, right? Uh, so you end up with clean hydrogen, um, and oxygen and, uh, and some excess, uh, water too as, as sort of a byproduct of that. So, but you don't have any emissions as from the production of that hydrogen. Um, you know, with that methodology, right? Then you can take that hydrogen and store it. So hydrogen is easier to store, um, because you can put it in, in tanks or, or other, or salt mines. Um, you know, there's some exploration of that, uh, that that's not something that we're looking to do, uh, you know, obviously in, in this part of the country, but, uh, there, there are ways to store it in tanks and, and in other, other places and other ways where you can use that hydrogen then to smooth. The intermittency in the grid. So instead of kicking on natural gas, uh, peaker plants, for example. So a peaker plant is an electric, uh, electric generation plant that kicks on when there's excess demand in the system to cover that gap. Uh, so

Chris Brandt: 6:38

instead of having those peaker plants. And I don't think a lot of people really understand how the electric grid works. It's not like you just pump as much energy into the grid and it's like turning a tap on a faucet. It doesn't, you can't just keep pumping more energy into the grid. You're going to. You know, destroy your grid. So you have to bring bring plants and power online as you use it to sort of make sure that you have a consistent flow of energy, right? So there's a lot of challenges. And that's why I think you know what you're speaking to is having that that ability to bring it online and offline like that is really beneficial. Absolutely. So yeah, when you, so

Matt Krayton: 7:13

when you smooth it out, you don't have those, those peaks. Um, and then you could avoid the use of natural gas fired plants, which do create emissions. When you combust hydrogen, uh, you get water vapor. Um, and then there are other potentially some other by products of that process, but that's, um, I think manageable through various technologies that we have, like catalytic converters and other types of filters and things like that. But overall, in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, uh, PM 2. 5 particles, um, and other, and other sorts of pollutants, criteria pollutants. Clean hydrogen is, is extraordinarily clean, um, and, and a huge step up from, from combusting natural gas, uh, on that, on that front. So at a grid level, there is that application, uh, that, that, uh, that is very interesting that, that could help solve that energy storage problem that we have as more renewables come online.

Chris Brandt: 7:59

Yeah. And I, I think it's interesting because there, and there are, it's not that, Hydrogen isn't without its challenges too, right? I mean, because it's a, because one of the things about hydrogen is it's an extremely small molecule too. So it's, uh, it will leak out of things if, if you give it a chance. It's not as big a molecule as some other things. So, you know, that kind of containment is, is, is challenging. And then, you know, like pressurizing it in a tank can, can be challenging. And I think that's, One of the reasons it's been kind of slow adoption on the on the automobile side, because some of those challenges have been difficult to solve, whereas on the grids at grid scale, you can really address these much larger scale, and it's a much more efficient process to do those kinds of things. Plus, you need to, we need to find things that can store a lot of energy at a very large scale, right? Yeah, absolutely.

Matt Krayton: 8:48

Absolutely. So, um, the one note on the hydrogen piece too is, is to your point, we are coming, uh, and I say we just the, the whole industry, right? There's going to be a lot of research and development, uh, going into figuring out materials and, um, minimizing the risk of, of hydrogen leaks. Obviously, you don't want to leak any if you can avoid it, um, which is, which is fine now. Although it's not going to. necessarily kill you if it leaks like some other gases, right? It's non toxic. Um, and so it won't cause, uh, any sort of, uh, you know, health issues or, or anything like that, that you would have with, with other types of fuel sources or, or energy storage. Um, you know, again, you don't want it leaking though, cause there are, you know, some, uh, you know, having, having a large amount of hydrogen could, you know, exacerbate some activity of, of, um, of greenhouse gases and things like that. But the good news is that there are a lot of, um, I mean, if you're looking at that sort, so I'll just take a step back because, um, I think it's worth noting as, as we're exploring any new energy source that nothing is perfect, right? We have a suite of imperfect solutions that are going up against, um, a suite of energy products that we have today that are not clean at all, uh, for the most part. I mean, things have gotten better again with catalytic converters and other, but it's not perfect. And it certainly causes, um, is causing sort of greenhouse gas emissions, right? And anytime those peaker plants kick on, or you get in your gas powered car or, you know, run a lawn mower, any, any of those types of things, right. Uh, or, or, uh, container ship comes into port, that's all emitting stuff. So. What we have as an alternative to that is, um, a, uh, imperfect, but very, very good solutions to these problems. Right? So if you look at solar panels, for example, um, across the value chain, right? That's not an emissions free. Uh, or, or, uh, you know, pollution free process to build and, uh, source the materials you would need for a solar panel. Same thing for, uh, wind turbines. So, um, so it's worth There's potential environmental impacts about where you put them too and things like that as well, right? A hundred percent. I think, I think the big picture is like, if we want to have the modern conveniences that we have today, we have to accept some degree of imperfection. Now, the question is how good. Can we get the, you know, how close to good can we get these, these, uh, different solutions that we have or how close to perfect can we get these solutions rather? And, um, I, I think the answer is pretty close. It's going to require a lot of R and D and I would put hydrogen in that bucket. The same thing of, uh, you know, solar, uh, wind. hydrogen imperfect, but much, much better than, than what we have today, especially for these very, very targeted applications, uh, for, for hydrogen. So in terms of like storage, um, you know, there's going to be a ton of R and D and there already is a ton of R and D going into how to store this stuff. I will also note too, that we're producing hydrogen in this country now, uh, and, and globally, actually the difference is the hydrogen that is being produced today. So at minimum, right, we're just placing dirty hydrogen production, which is what, what's being produced today. Uh, so I can get into the, the, uh, color

Chris Brandt: 11:55

codes too. Yeah. Could you, could you talk a little bit about what, what constitutes, because there's a lot of different types of hydrogen, right? They

Matt Krayton: 12:02

are. So this is actually a really interesting question. So, um, uh, I, I come from, uh, you know, communications background, right? So we're, we're, we're trying to help educate the public on, on, uh, you know, these very important issues and. Um, and, and engage communities and, and, you know, do all of the things that you need to do when you're trying to marshal support for, for decarbonization or any other big sort of policy priority. And, um, so as you're communicating, uh, you know, people have to pay attention to a whole bunch of different stuff in their daily lives. Um, so going back to your, uh, uh, comment about people not knowing exactly how the electric grid works or how things, So you flip the switch, the lights come on and, and myself included, right? Like we're, we're all in that boat. Um, unless you're forced to think about like where that stuff is coming from, how, how it's getting to your house, um, or, or apartment or business or wherever you are. So, uh, so I, I think it's, it's kind of an interesting thing to, to think through how, how people perceive. Uh, you know, different, different concepts. Uh, so, uh, the, the way, so when we're talking about different types of hydrogen, we're not actually talking about any differences in the actual molecule, right? Hydrogen is hydrogen. That's, that's it, right? So the, the end product is, is the same across the board. What the differences are, are in the production of that hydrogen. Which is, uh, which is important. So it's a little confusing though. So when you say like different types, I'm not saying when you say, but like when people say, I mean, we've had this, this conversation, interestingly enough, a lot of folks is when, when we're saying, well, there are different types of hydrogen, they think, oh, well, like, what do you mean different? They, they, they're thinking about the end product itself. And so really what we're talking about is production. So I'll, I'll, uh, I can go into, so they basically grade hydrogen in, uh, with, with color scales. or a color, uh, color coded sort of chart, uh, to, to categorize, uh, different types of hydrogen production. So there's gray hydrogen, which is, um, a lot of the hydrogen production that is occurring now, um, across the country and across the globe. Uh, so that is done largely, uh, through a process called steam methane reformation. So Okay. They take methane, which is, you know, natural gas, uh, for, for lack of a better description of it. Right. Um, so they take methane and the hydrogen molecules are separated out of that, uh, using steam methane reformation. Uh, the by product of that though, is there are carbon emissions from, from that process. Um, right. So that's gray. Uh, so that's the, again, ton of dirty hydrogen being produced today. Um, Then you have blue hydrogen. So same process, except you employ carbon capture technology on top of that. So instead of emitting the carbon, you're capturing that carbon and then, uh, either storing it. So storing it in the ground somewhere where that, where that's practical or, um, you know, there's some conversations too around reusing that carbon. So, uh, you can use carbon dioxide. Um, for food and beverage applications, for example, from, from that process. Uh, so again, how much of it you're going to be able to use for, for, you know, the, the, um, sort of bubbles in the, in soda and stuff like that, that remains to be seen. But, um, but that's what blue hydrogen is. Essentially it's gray hydrogen with carbon capture. Right. Then you have, uh, green hydrogen. So green hydrogen is, um, uh, a form of clean hydrogen that uses electrolysis and the inputs to that are, are water and then clean electrons from renewable energy sources. So we're talking, uh, again, wind, solar, hydroelectric, stuff like that. And then the final is pink hydrogen, which is, uh, the same thing as green hydrogen, except you're using nuclear power. As an input. So, so also emissions free, it's just nuclear power. So, um, and then, you know, if you really want to get into it, there, there are different shades of hydrogen that they're starting to get into now. So, um, you know, I was talking to someone last week and they were saying, oh, well, there's turquoise hydrogen. I'm like, why are, why are we doing this? Why, why are we doing this for ourselves? It's, it's, um, it's not pretty particularly productive. Like if I could go find the person who came up with the color coding, uh, chart, I would say, you know, maybe we should rethink this, you know, go a different direction, come up with some other descriptor for it rather than, than color coding. Um, so, uh, yeah, it's,

Chris Brandt: 16:24

it's interesting. I mean, I know that there's, um, there's different, I mean, there's two parts to this, right? One is the way you capture the hydrogen, and the other way is the way you use it, right? And so, equally, in the way that you've got these different sort of colors of hydrogen in the way they, they're greener otherwise, I know that like some hydrogen can be mixed with fossil fuels and burnt in an internal combustion engine. And they can be also just. purely burnt in a type of hydrogen based internal combustion engine. They can be put into fuel cells and, you know, like, so there's different, uh, amounts of efficiency that you get with different kind of models and different levels. And, and in what you were saying before about sort of the, the, the benefits of incremental change, I, I fully believe in, you know, like, we can't always get there right away. So like having something that's a little better than the thing we had can sometimes be very helpful too. Um, can you speak to some of like how, how, It gets used in the types of systems that gets used into to kind of produce the energy. So we'll start with ideally,

Matt Krayton: 17:26

yeah, where we want to end up. So ideally, I think most applications, you probably want to end up with some sort of fuel cell, uh, which, which has zero emissions whatsoever. It's all very self contained, um, and, and is very safe, uh, overall. I mean, we're using fuel cells for different things. I know like Toyota, for example, makes consumer vehicles that are powered by hydrogen. You can get them in California, um, in the U S. Uh, I think in Japan, they probably have, uh, some of those as well. So, um, I think those tend to be like more of like fleet vehicles, would you say? Um, so they're available to consumers actually. So like, I think that the, uh, Toyota, Toyota Mirai, I think is, is the, uh, name they're the, um, make of our model of, of, uh, of hydrogen, you know, consumer hydrogen vehicles, uh, that, uh, that, that, that Toyota makes. So, um, you know, and again, that was sort of a, a, a vestige from an earlier day before battery technology has come a long way. So I will say that like most applications like that for most people in the United States, batteries will be fine. Uh, you know, plug, plug in hybrids or plug in, uh, electric vehicles are going to be totally fine. Most people don't drive, you know, hundreds of miles every day. Um, but you know, when you're talking about long haul trucking, you're talking about driving hundreds of miles a day, uh, potentially. And. Uh, very, uh, heavy batteries and, and payloads, you know, like we talked about a little bit before. So, but I think ideally we get to a place where you're using hydrogen, uh, fuel cells. Uh, there are, uh, you know, again, applications where you could convert engines to, to, to combust hydrogen, where you would, you know, have some sort of, uh, catalytic catalytic converter filter that, um, you know, pulls, pull some of the, uh, the other stuff out of, out of it, like, um, knocks emissions, which are not super high, but it does happen when you, when you combust almost anything. So, um, so, you know, those are the types of, of, uh, sort of areas. And I think the key is targeting it specifically again, to these hard to abate sectors, uh, and not getting too crazy with, with trying to apply it to everything. Right. So what really, what we need are these, again, these targeted solutions to, to things. And I think for most. applications, electrification is going to be just fine, uh, commercial buildings, residential buildings, uh, consumer facing applications, electrification is going to work just fine. But again, for these heavy, heavy industries, you know, those, those are, those are things that, um, and they're big polluters, heavy industry, huge. Yeah. Huge emitters, huge emitters. So if you look at the map of the Mach 2, uh, region, uh, which, which is, uh, really a South Jersey, uh, Philadelphia, Southeast Pennsylvania and Delaware. Um, this region has a history in industrial history, right? Of manufacturing, uh, refining all sorts of different things. And you look at the, you know, there's Big red blob on the map where, where you see like, um, emissions, uh, concentrations in the area. Um, and it's because there is, uh, uh, there, there are industrial, uh, operations in the area. So, uh, now that's a good thing for in one perspective because it's jobs, right? It provides people a living, uh, opport access to opportunity. Um, but unfortunately it also has the side effect of, of. providing pollution. Now, swapping out and displacing all that fossil fuel usage in those heavy industrial, uh, applications like refining, for example, or, uh, uh, again, uh, the manufacture of cement, uh, glass, uh, blow, or, uh, glass manufacturing in some cases, um, steel, um, you know, and even operating like steam pipes within, manufacturing or industrial facility, all of that can be, you can use hydrogen and essentially displace, you know, the fossil fuels that are being used or, or dirty hydrogen in, in some of these cases. So a lot of opportunity.

Chris Brandt: 21:07

Yeah, no, I, and I think, I think you hit the nail on the head. It's like, you know, with some of these bigger kind of like heat dependent kind of operations, like, you know, making cement or steel or things like that, they are very polluting and, and, and like, and that, that sounds like a great use case. you know, for, for hydrogen. And like, does hydrogen have any advantages in sort of the way it burns and the temperature at which it burns or, you know, relative to like fossil fuels? Is there any advantage there?

Matt Krayton: 21:37

There's a little bit more energy density. I'd have to, you know, defer to the engineers and the scientists on, on that one. I don't want to get too far, you know, down, down that, uh, down that end. But I, uh, yes, it, it does burn. Um, it does, uh, put out, uh, a higher temperature, um, in, in certain circumstances and, um, and, and does provide a fair amount of energy density, uh, you know, per, you know, kilogram for, for hydrogen. But, uh, you know, I defer to the engineers on, on exactly, uh, you know, what the specs on it are, but it, it is, it is a candidate for, for replacing a lot of, a lot of those things. you know, things that we use. I mean, a lot of it's natural gas now. I mean, that's, that's what we're talking about, you know, replacing in most of these cases.

Chris Brandt: 22:13

Well, and I know that, um, in some of these fuel cells, even natural gas, because of the way it's made, there's, there's some crossover there between hydrogen and natural gas and some of these fuel cells, isn't there? That I'm not sure of,

Matt Krayton: 22:26

actually. I'm, I'm, uh, sort of down, down the hydrogen path. I'm not sure about natural gas fuel cells. I mean, they may, they may, uh, exist. I'm just not sure what the, uh, what the, what the situation with those, uh,

Chris Brandt: 22:37

those are. And I don't either. I've got

Matt Krayton: 22:39

hydrogen in the brain.

Chris Brandt: 22:40

Yes. Well, and, and, and rightly so. Could you, can you tell, you, you mentioned Um, could you talk about, you know, I, I, I mentioned in the, in the interview about how, you know, it's, it's part of a government program to, to, you know, build these hydrogen hubs and that sort of thing. Um, but, you know, bringing together like the whole hydrogen community or the stakeholders and, and, you know, what could be an emerging hydrogen market. Could you talk about how that all works and how that comes together? Yeah,

Matt Krayton: 23:09

I mean, there are a lot of, uh, a lot of stakeholders, right, um, in, in places. So any, anytime you're, again, trying to advance a large policy priority in order to improve public health, uh, to improve, Uh, you know, uh, climate, uh, change, uh, and mitigate climate change. Um, you know, there, there are, uh, a lot of constituencies that you're going to have to talk, uh, speak to and to, um, solicit input from and bring them on board. So in the Mach 2 region, um, you know, just to start with from the, from the very beginning, we have had, uh, very good relationships with, uh, organized labor, for example.

Chris Brandt: 23:44

Mm hmm.

Matt Krayton: 23:45

Uh, so, uh, we've had labor unions at the table from the very beginning to help craft what this might look like. And in, in this particular region, we're talking about 20, 000 or so, uh, jobs. Many of them are going to be union construction jobs, uh, as a, as a part of this. Uh, so that's, that's an important, important piece of the puzzle. Uh, the second are, uh, educational institutions, uh, that can provide workforce development. So there are jobs that we know, uh, that we're going to need to train people for, and there's some jobs that. We don't even know that we're going to need yet or what the description of those jobs might be in terms of safety or operations or engineering or, um, some of the, the scientific pieces, um, around hydrogen, but we're going to have to find out very quickly, uh, what those might be and then train, train folks. Uh, the third, uh, and, and, and I think perhaps maybe the most important, uh, piece here are, are the communities in these areas. So I will say that this particular region, has been, um, is home to a lot of, uh, what I would call overburdened and underserved communities. So overburdened by pollution. So they have had to really shoulder a lot of the burden of air pollution, have higher incidences of asthma, um, other sorts of, of, uh, issues like that as a result of, uh, emissions from various industrial operations or not even industrial operations as such. necessarily, but the, I mean, we live on the sort of I 95, uh, corridor, which is a major transportation artery, uh, in, in, um, uh, for, for the Eastern, uh, in North, the Eastern Seaboard in the Northeast, uh, in particular. So, um, so, you know, that, that's, That's another group where you both want to reduce the emissions, reduce the burden, but then also provide opportunities that historically have not been available to, to, uh, you know, people who have had to, uh, live, live through some of these things. So making sure that you have, uh, um, you know, a focus on equity and, uh, bringing folks in from these communities to say, Hey, look, we're going to do this. We're trying to re we're trying to build a clean energy ecosystem and economy in this region and we want you to be at the at the center of all of this so so that is another constituency. Um, and then the general public, right? So people have questions about this. Yeah, a lot of questions, right? Like hydrogen is not something that's on the minds of most people Nor really any, uh, clean energy sort of solutions, right? People don't wake up thinking most days about windmills, right? Or, or the wind turbines, or solar, unless you have it on your roof and you know, you're looking at your bill and you see how much money you're saving on, uh, you know, on, on electric. But other than that, you're, you, people don't really think about it. So people have questions about what, what does this mean? How does this factor in? How did, how, How safe is this technology? How is it going to be used? Um, you know, how will it impact my neighborhood? How will it impact, you know, the future, uh, that, that, you know, we want for, for our communities. So all of those things, uh, I, I think factor into, uh, you know, the, the broad based, uh, but also targeted outreach that we have to do in order to, to talk through this. And, and the cool thing is like, if, If you're going to engage with us, you're engaging on the ground floor now, like you have an opportunity to really shape, uh, you know, how, how this moves forward. You have an opportunity to really participate in, in the development of that clean energy ecosystem that that's going to exist in this area. So, I mean, we're seeing some really cool stuff. Like, uh, I had the opportunity to go, um, a couple months ago down to, uh, Delaware, uh, university of Delaware, where they have a, the center for clean hydrogen. Um, so it's a brand new research center and a thorough from there. You have two other. Um, material sciences companies and, uh, and a fuel cell company. And, um, and then, uh, another stone's throw from there, you have a company that's working at that, I think, uh, spun out of, uh, University of Delaware. So it was sort of commercialized technology, uh, that's focused on developing a novel, uh, electrolyzer, uh, design. So materials and membranes for the electrolyzers that, that make it a whole lot less expensive to, uh, build and, uh, and deploy these, these electrolyzers. So it's, it's, so you already, you already see the, the seeds of what could exist in this area. So it's going to be really, really cool to see how, how that develops fully as, as, uh, you know, things get underway in the next couple of phases.

Chris Brandt: 28:05

And I've seen some really interesting. research around, like, uh, different types of materials that for, allow for, uh, denser, uh, hydrogen storage too. So, I mean, there's, there's so many aspects of this that can really, um, can really drive industry, right? Um, so, so if, like, somebody wanted to get in touch with Mach 2, what, what's the best way to, to, to do that? To our, our website, uh, mach. to mock hyphen two dot hyphen two dot com.

Matt Krayton: 28:32

Yes. There's a hyphen in there. Yep. Yep. So, so that's where you find it. Um, and, uh, yeah, there, there are a lot of good resources on there. So, uh, folks can go on there and read, uh, a little bit about our initial what we call technical volume or initial technical application to the Department of Energy. Um, some of that's a little bit out of date at this point, um, because we've, you know, things have gone through changes. It sure is. And, and we've, uh, you know, posted all of those updates on the website as well. So, you know, folks will have, uh, an opportunity, uh, on a, on a rolling basis to see what things have changed or what projects are in scope now, or out of scope, or a fallen out, or, or being pushed to later phases of the project. But, um, yeah, Mach two is, uh, Mach two. Dot com. So mock-two.com is, uh, is where you head, and then, uh, you'll be able to get in touch with us and, um, you know, ask any, any questions that, that you want. So we're, we're more than happy to have a con conversations about hydrogen, uh, any, any day of the week. So, uh, you know, if, if folks are curious, please reach out for sure.

Chris Brandt: 29:34

Well, and I, I, I also wanna like go loop back for a second too. On Mm-Hmm. on something you were just saying. about how energy production has disproportionately impacted certain communities. And I'm, I'm in Chicago, right? And so anybody who's in Chicago has probably at some point driven through Gary, Indiana, which is the old, it's, it's a lot of refineries, old steel production. And, you know, it's, it's a town that's been through a lot of hardship. And when you look at, when you drive through there, you're like, what is that smell? I mean, it's just the refineries put out a horrific smell, and I can't imagine, you know, what a lot of the people around them have to deal with to just, you know, live there. Um, it would be amazing to see, you know, an economy that suffered, like Gary's has, be transformed from this sort of, polluting, environmentally destructive kind of industry, um, to something that's more of a clean energy that's not, you know, destroying the communities that they, they live in, you know, make it, if I say the destroying and God knows what, everybody's going to come back at me, but you know, like, improving the communities in which they live in both with, you know, new technology, clean energy jobs, and, uh, and a cleaner environment. That seems just like such a win win. And I, I, organizations like yours, I think are key to that.

Matt Krayton: 30:56

Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a huge win. And I, and I, the, the way that, uh, you know, I, I like to look at it is it's about finding the best balance that you can. So those industries a purpose now. They had served a much larger purpose at one point and, um, and they provide jobs like, like we said before, jobs and, and, um, and that's meaningful to the people who live in those communities. Um, at the same time, there is that trade off of, uh, you know, the smell, the pollution, the emissions, the, uh, the impact overall to our climate, the increase, increased incidence of, um, of extreme weather. and other sort of weather related disasters as a result of that. So all of that accrues to having, uh, as a society to recalculate how we, how we think about that balance. Um, and, and can we preserve jobs, expand jobs, bring, uh, manufacturing in some of these processes back on shore in the U S. To places like Gary, Indiana or, uh, Delaware County, uh, or, or Philadelphia, or South Jersey or Delaware. Um, so can you bring those things back to the US and provide those opportunities while at the same time cleaning up the air, cleaning up the, uh, environment and mitigating the, uh, impacts of climate change? The answer is, I think, absolutely yes. It's, it's a hundred percent, yes. Uh, so I, I agree. It's a, it's a total win-win, and I think there is a broad realization that there, that balance is needed. We do need to consider those other pieces. It's not just the jobs. It's the air we breathe. It's again, the, the weather it's, it's the whole picture. So I think, uh, that recalculation is happening. Uh, and certainly we've seen at the federal level, uh, over the last four years, much more investment, uh, historic levels of investment in these areas of, of, uh, again, re, uh, you know, sort of repatriating some, some of the manufacturing, uh, in chips, uh, you know, silicon chips and, um, and clean energy and, and all of these different, different pieces, the hydrogen hubs program, uh, you know, chief among them, in my view, um, you know, is, is a real down payment on a, on a future, uh, a much better future. So I totally agree. Win win across, across the board. Um, and, and I do think that there is, is broad based agreement. Uh, and, and, and, you know, I think again, we just have to figure out like which mix of imperfect things will add up to the most benefit for, for everyone. Um, but, but I think we're headed to a place that's much closer to perfect or much closer to very, very good. than we have in, in, in a very long time. Yeah. From, from an energy production perspective. Yeah. And,

Chris Brandt: 33:37

and I think what, you know, what you were saying, uh, you know, but sort of like the, the impact of a lot of the, the, of environmental destruction falls disproportionately on, on poor communities. And that's both local, like in Gary, Indiana. And globally, like, you know, people who are in low lying areas that are, you know, being flooded. I, I suppose I'm lumping, you know, some billionaire properties and on the coast lines in with that, but you know, I'm not feeling too bad for them in all of this. They can figure it out. They're moving up the hill. That's the thing. They're moving up the hill. They are.

Matt Krayton: 34:11

Yeah. I mean, if you look at Miami, right? Like some of the higher, uh, the, the neighborhoods on, on higher ground, which Traditionally have been Um, you know, more, more working class, uh, or now folks are buying up property up there because they see the writing on the wall. The, the waterfront, you know, properties may not be there in 20, 25 years. Yeah, you might have to, you might have to move all the

Chris Brandt: 34:32

way up to Georgia to get away from all the flooding that's going to happen in Florida. That's it, that's it. Uh, based on some of the maps I've seen. Um, yeah. It seems like there's this really, uh, really exciting, you know, future for hydrogen and, and just, just clean energy in general, which I, I'm very excited about because I think the, the prospects of driving an economy on, on, on clean energy technology, um, you know, has a lot to offer us. Um, and, and I know, you know, that's sort of like a sweet spot for kind of some of the things that you do. And I, and I want to speak for a second about, your company, uh, Publitics, which you're, you're a founder of and, and you, you, you're, you function as an advocacy arm for a lot of these kinds of initiatives and groups and things like that, and certainly for Mock2. Um, could you talk a little bit about Publitics?

Matt Krayton: 35:20

Sure. Yeah, we are a full service, uh, public affairs, public relations and strategic, uh, consultancy. And, uh, we've had the opportunity, um, to do a lot of work in the clean energy space on, on, uh, both the corporate side, uh, for initiatives like mock two. And then also on the, on the foundations and advocacy group side. So environmental groups that are working on some of these really, uh, difficult issues and trying to understand, you know, how the public thinks about climate change, how the public thinks about energy, how we can talk about it in a way that's more accessible. Um, and that actually means something to people, right? So that's, that's a big deal again, like going back to this idea of like not having any idea how the grid works. It really is a huge, uh, Issue because you kind of think, okay, it's just going to happen. Like we're going to hit the switch and then the lights are just going to come on. It's it's going to be fine. And, um, you know, there's a lot that goes on behind it. And again, why would people pay attention to that when there are a million other things to pay attention to too? So we do a lot of thinking about those types of issues. How do you make. climate and energy issues more salient for folks. Uh, how do you connect it to things that they care about in their everyday lives, which there are a lot of connections, but we do have to do a lot of, you know, that we do have to connect those dots and do the work to, to, uh, you know, do that outreach. Uh, so we, we do a lot of thinking on, on those issues. So it's been a really interesting, uh, process in, you know, doing a lot of polling survey research, uh, talking to folks. focus groups, uh, interfacing with community groups on, on various projects. Um, you know, doing, doing the communications to see how, how people are really thinking about these things and how salient the issues are, uh, to folks, which there's some surprising stuff in there. Yeah,

Chris Brandt: 36:57

for sure. I, I just think it's, it's, it's, we live in a really interesting time. I think there's so much technology emerging right now that, you know, that, um, is headed in the right direction. Some of it, not so much these days, but, but, but much of it, you know, looking to improve it. Cause I, I mean, I, I, I remember when we all drove around in leaded gas cars and I would sit in traffic and, you know, behind all these cars and I get woozy from the fumes and car sick, um, you know, and, and, and then we, you know, got unleaded and, you know, we learned about the, the problems with leaded fuel and, you know, it just kept, it keeps going and, and, and. You know, we talk about sort of the long arc of history, you can see sort of the, the, the steady improvements that we make in this long arc of history and, and it, um, it makes us not only, you know, more competitive to, to enable a lot of these things because, you know, we're not wasting as many resources, we're, you know, not destroying as much environment that needs to be rebuilt and things like that, but, you know, we're creating, um, a really interesting new future that allows us lots of different modes of energy distribution and transportation, which is really, uh, really exciting. I think it is. Yeah.

Matt Krayton: 38:07

I mean, I think one of the interesting things that we see is like the sort of a high level insight is if we can figure out how to just break that partisan prism. Yeah. That In a certain, um, segments of, of the voting population and also policymaking population, uh, view climate issues or energy issues through, um, if you strip away all of that stuff, what you're left with is, is, um, again, particularly over the last four years, a vision of a much brighter future where we are building things here. in America, we are producing more energy than ever in America. We are cleaning up the air, uh, right here in these communities, right? So like all of those things are good. We are trying to mitigate climate change, which we all experience. I don't care what you believe. If you even believe it exists, it's still hurting you at some point. I mean, if you're a farm, if you're farming and you have to deal with, uh, you know, greater incident incidences of flooding or drought. All of those things are going to impact your yields, heat, extreme heat, absolutely. I mean, we're about to have, you know, a little bit of, uh, I guess what it was, the, uh, heat dome out here in the east coast. Midwest too is getting some too. Midwest. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, this type of stuff is, well, not to mention, like talk about that, like not to mention this, this idea of, of, uh, that sort of like wet bulb. temperature, right? Where the earth essentially becomes uninhabitable and certain parts of the world are already experiencing that type of heat and humidity combination where people are dying from this. So, and it doesn't, it doesn't care. Like that's the thing. It's like the heat does not care if you're a Republican or a Democrat, right? It's still going to cook you. It's going to cook your crops. It's going to flood your basement. It's going to ruin your car. It's going to do, you know, it's going to blow your roof off when the tornadoes come through. So, so that's, that's the interesting thing. Um, so like in our research, we've actually found that, um, people report experiencing a different reality. depending upon their partisan view, viewpoints on certain things. Um, so for example, uh, we did, we did some survey, uh, work where we knew for a fact that, uh, this particular area had experienced extreme weather recently. So these, these really like, uh, intense rainstorms that, um, that we, we had never really gotten. So I'll, I'll, where I'm sitting today in my office in, uh, Caldwell, New Jersey, which is where, uh, where we're based. And, you know, we have a couple of offices in different places, but yeah. We're not near any body of water, like large body of water. Uh, there, uh, the, uh, Passaic River, which is, uh, uh, probably about 10 minutes away. That's, that's always a culprit for flooding. I mean, that's, that's always been a problem, but like where we are today, I'm up on a hill. And over the last five years, we have had two flash floods down the main drag, uh, just up the road from, from our office because of the sheer volume of rain that falls. When I was a kid living here. That never happened. You'd get heavy rains, but nothing like that. So you're watching like the movie theater, for example, knee high water just flowing through the doors of this and we're up on a

Chris Brandt: 41:17

hill Florida last week and it's been, everything's been flooded.

Matt Krayton: 41:21

Absolutely. So, so you do survey research, so you do some, uh, so we did some research in, in, in a place where we were one of those types of storms happened where it just dumped a whole bunch of rain in a very short amount of time, uh, and flooded a whole bunch of basements and, and stuff like that. And. Uh, what we ended up, uh, finding is that depending upon how you identified politically, your experience or purported experience of reality was completely different. So the question was, have you experienced, uh, or has, uh, extreme weather impacted you in the last, uh, month? And you would see on the democratic side, like it was 85 percent plus had, had that experience on the Republican side. It was like 50 50,

Chris Brandt: 42:04

50

Matt Krayton: 42:05

50. So some people did actually admit that they had experienced extreme weather. Um, but that's a huge drop from 85%, right? So there's a big Delta there. So the question is like, how is that possible that you're experiencing objective reality in a different way? Yeah. Um, so once a term becomes polarized, like extreme weather, so it was, it was global warming and then it was climate change. And then, you know, you start talking about the consequences, which is a fair thing to do extreme weather. It's, it's, it's better, but it still does become a little bit polarized. So again, like you look at stuff like that and that really is, is the sort of stuff that we're doing a lot of thinking about. Like how do you make. these issues salient, how do you strip away that partisan prism? Uh, because again, if you strip all of that away, I think we have a huge opportunity in front of us to make a huge difference and really impact the quality of lives of the people, uh, who, who live in this country and in the communities, uh, you know, whether it's in Florida or New Jersey or Chicago or California. Um, you know, uh, you know, I think we have a huge, huge opportunity, so we just have to, have to do that work and figure out how to talk about these issues in a way that makes sense.

Chris Brandt: 43:13

Well, there's a reason why I live by the second largest body of fresh water on the planet. So, you know, I, I, I got a lot of this stuff on my mind. Well, hey, I, I, Matt, I wanted to say thank you so much for coming on. This has been a great knowledge dump and it's an area that I'm super excited about and I think so many people should be paying attention to because it's a really important area and thanks so much for filling us in on this and if people should go to mock 2. com and learn more about Mock2 and what they're doing in their clean hydrogen hub. So, uh, thanks again, Matt. Absolutely. Thank you. Thanks for watching. I'd love to hear from you in the comments. And if you could, give us a like, think about subscribing, share the content, and I will see you in the next one.