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Hello, welcome and thanks for listening to Carbon Climates, an energy podcast dedicated

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to discussing all things energy, carbon and sustainability. We also like to point out

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what's getting hot, aside from our planet. I'm your host Enya and today I'm joined with a familiar

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face, my Carbon Climate and co-host Ralph, who has been on the podcast before discussing his job as

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a Net Zero engineer and his company, Catagen. Shout out to Catagen. So before we get onto today's

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topic, Ralph, how's your week been and what have you been up to since you've last been on the podcast?

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Yeah, it's good to be back Enya. It's a really enjoyable first conversation,

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glad to get into a second one, hopefully with as many puns as the last time too.

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Since we last talked, my role at Catagen has changed slightly. So I was a Net Zero applications

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engineer, working across kind of all of our R&D. This year I'm more focused on one sector that our

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technologies can be used in and that sector is cement. So I'm now our cement lead for Climate Tech,

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which is our brand for our technologies. This week has been a bit mental for people who work with

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funding bodies. March, April is crunch time for applications. So we've been working on a few

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non-delutive grants, but also kind of applications for business model projects and subsidy support

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for a few things that we're developing in our project pipeline. And that's really to

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carry on from our R&D and pilot technology demonstrations. So it's to give you end to end

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solutions for our technology, operating in real projects in the real world, which is really

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exciting. And this week has been mostly focused around setting up action plans and kind of

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action logs for a lot of that stuff. And we've also just finished a piece of work for the

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Department for the Economy here on sustainable aviation fuel. And we're going to be presenting

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the findings of that six month project to them this week. So I've just been prepping the

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slideshow and making sure the written reports are all prepped and stuff for that. So it's been

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a bit of a fun week. Yeah. So you haven't been busy at all now like that.

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That's a pretty normal week for Catagen. We were 34 people the last time we talked. We're 67 now.

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So yeah, the trajectory of growth that we're on is really, really exciting. But it does mean that

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like we've run out of desks for people currently. So we're expanding into new semi-permanent

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sustainable office space and stuff. So yeah, I think a lot of people are quite surprised by how

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fast we move, but innovation by its nature is very rapid. So it's a great kind of rollercoaster to be

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on. But yeah, definitely moving at pace. Wow. Okay. Well, I hope next time I speak,

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like it's also like doubled in growth as well. You're like, we're at 200. Like it's gone out of

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control. So yeah. No, brilliant. Thanks, Ralph. Thanks for updating us. And listeners, you've

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probably guessed since Ralph's back on the podcast, today's topic is going to revisit hydrogen and all

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its wonders. Okay. Before we begin, Ralph, have you got any good hydrogen jokes or are they too basic?

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Well, hydrogen is actually acidic, not basic. But that's the first one. I need to leave now.

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No, we tend to steer clear of puns like blow up and the bomb and stuff in work

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because of hydrogen's past. But most of our puns now are based around things like our cement projects

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being set in stone, our aviation projects being pilots and getting off the ground,

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or our maritime projects sailing away off into the sunset. So it's more application specific

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rather than hydrogen specific. I was actually going to use a different intro as well. I was

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going to be like, okay, we're here today to talk more in depth about hydrogen and make light of

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the fact it's not actually really a heavy subject. Yeah, it's good. It's not a very dense subject.

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Just keep on. I actually am not going to lie. Google is my ultimate source of all the puns I find.

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I think I am our ultimate source of puns in hydrogen, much to our head of commercialization,

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Chagrin. She's not a big fan of puns and I make them constantly.

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I actually, okay, I'm related to energy and hopefully everyone likes this as well

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and you guys can use this as many times as you want. But why did the farmer call the horse

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Mayo? I don't know. Because mayonnaise.

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Okay, that one was terrible. Hey, hey, you can keep it, tell your friends.

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Hey's probably involved too. Did the thing.

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Okay, that's okay. Enough fun. Enough fun. Right. Right. Well, thank you to Wikipedia,

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the most credible reference and source ever for letting me know that there are colors I talked

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about last time to describe the different hydrogen types and sources. There's actually more.

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Yeah. So I talked about three or four main types, but there's actually 12 colors in total.

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So we talked about green last time and green hydrogen is the most energy,

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at the energy friendly form of hydrogen. Yeah. So hydrogen is a rainbow was a really

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catchy title for kind of conferences and marketing events kind of over the last 18 months. Because

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like we're visual creatures, a lot of us, and we'd like to be able to categorize things with color.

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I'm a big fan of color coding. Love a red amber green system. But generally we talk about gray,

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hydrogen, blue hydrogen and green hydrogen. And respectively gray is hydrogen that's

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sourced from natural gas through a process called steam methane reforming, which is a chemical

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reaction that breaks the carbon and the hydrogen and methane apart. But obviously that produces

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a lot of carbon dioxide, so not as sustainable as it can be. Blue hydrogen, on the other hand,

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is a production of hydrogen from carbon containing materials like natural gas.

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But you capture the CO2 using carbon capture technology. So that can be aiming scrubbing or

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passive capture technologies that use different absorbance. And that's something that the UK

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government's investing heavily in as part of the hydrogen strategy for the UK to complement the

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carbon capture capacity that's being developed in parts of England and Scotland. And then green

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hydrogen, as you said, is probably the holy grail of hydrogen for energy because it doesn't have

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any carbon associated with it. So you're taking water, which is H2O, so two hydrogen atoms and

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one oxygen atom, and you're using energy to pull them apart, make a hydrogen gas and make oxygen.

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And that's really where a lot of hydrogen technology is aiming to get to. So it's the

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one that we hear a lot about, but it's really hard. Waters are really slow, so we're not

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talking about water. Waters are really stable molecule. That's why kettles take so much

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electricity to heat it up. That's why we use it to store energy or in the form of heat and why we

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use it for a lot of things, because it doesn't really like to react with a lot of stuff.

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Okay. That's very informative, Ralph. Thank you very much. I thought of the pun while you were

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talking. So you could say blue hydrogen, they use carbon capture technology. So you could say

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UK is capturing their moment or? Yeah. Okay. It wasn't my strongest pun. I'll take it back.

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I'll work on it. I'll get it back to you. Some of the other colours that are really interesting at

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the minute and are being more focused on, there's an increasing movement to differentiate the

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renewable energy sources. So green hydrogen is any renewable electricity and that can be wind or solar

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PV. Even things like hydro, though some people query how environmentally friendly hydroelectric

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power is because of its impact for damming and use of land and things like that. But increasingly

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we're seeing things like yellow hydrogen, which is production from solar thermal or solar PV being

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split off into a separate category from wind, for instance. I like the sound of yellow because

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I just gave a lecture on PV. So yeah, I'm all about PV. But really interestingly, in this space at the

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minute, there's a lot of exploration using the knowledge that the oil and gas sector has to

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find naturally occurring pockets of hydrogen gas and hydrogen containing geology in the ground.

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And that's white hydrogen. So that's naturally occurring hydrogen. It was thought for a long

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time that because it's so light, the hydrogen basically accelerates at the speed of gravity

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out of our atmosphere. So we don't find it in the air we breathe, really. But there's actually

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more hydrogen being found than we thought there would have been in the ground. So it's being

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looked at as an interesting way to increase the uptake of hydrogen in places where there is

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geological stores of hydrogen. And that complements some of the activities looking at storing hydrogen

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in geological features such as salt caverns, which if anybody is from kind of the Green

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Island area, yeah, near Larn, there is a couple of plans at the minute to look at using the salt

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caverns there for storage of gases. A little bit contentious and a spicy issue. A lot of people

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don't want to be living on top of large volumes of hydrogen, understandably. So we need to,

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there needs to be a little bit of policy and social involvement there. But it's fitting that

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hydrogen has lots of different colours, because it's going to take lots of different solutions

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to solve and unpick carbon from our energy system. So having lots of different ways to

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generate it and use it is an important part of resilience in any energy system. So it's great

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that they're being looked at and investigated. One of the other ones of interest for the UK

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and Europe is pink hydrogen, particularly in France, which is generated from nuclear energy.

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And that can be quite complimentary with nuclear power because it uses the heat that's rejected

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from that system to generate hydrogen. And because you're already heating water anyway,

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that water is already at a temperature that makes it more energy favourable to turn it

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into hydrogen through a process called thermochemical splitting, which is where you use heat to

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break apart hydrogen and oxygen bonds rather than electricity, which is what electrolysis is.

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Okay, so it's kind of doing two processes with one.

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Yeah, yeah. And I think as we've seen over the last three to four years, that technology has

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developed at a pace that is creating the complex interconnections that we see in things like

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combined heat and power and cogeneration and tri-generation systems that we already have for

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established fossil fuel based energy systems. And we're starting to see those same complex

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synergistic energy setups and new technology that's emerging. I think that's where it needs

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to get to to be competitive. If you think about oil and gas as a sector, there aren't companies

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that just make one oil and gas product. They make a whole range of them. And that economy of scale

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is really important for any kind of commercial offering. And there's been a movement and a

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maturity of thought that if we're going to replace these products, we can't have one technology that

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makes pharmaceutical oil based products and we can't have one technology that makes fuels and

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we can't have another technology that makes resins and glues. There has to be a technology

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that benefits from doing very similar stuff to make different products all at the same time.

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And that's something that we've been developing for a while.

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Oh, okay. Very good. Can you tell me a bit more about Katagen? So all the use... because funny

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story. You were there, so it's not really funny. But that sounded like a burn. It really didn't mean

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to. Okay. What I mean is you work for Katagen. I myself have been to Katagen before on an energy

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institute site tour. Shout out to Energy Institute. And yeah, like we're able to see all around the

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plants. You're able to show us how your technology works. And then you also give a very interesting

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talk about transport of hydrogen as well. And just like what you guys are focusing on.

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Yeah. So the facility in Belfast is where we do our R&D work. Currently there is five of our

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Climatech pieces of technology in there. There's also our green emissions testing machines as well,

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which is how we test catalysts for industrial uses and things like the automotive sector,

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which is a whole different topic. So we'll cover that maybe in another episode someday.

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But we went around the facility, I think this time last year, roughly. And we really like to

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engage with people like the EIC and other bodies like that because it's Energy Institute. Sorry,

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you're not the council. It's really important to us to show people what we can do. Because the way

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that we think about energy systems is more aligned to somebody like yourself, who's looking at a full

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system assessment. A lot of technology developers are looking at single technological solutions to

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a very specific problem, or they're not worried about application or problems at all in some cases.

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And we've identified that to unpick and unravel an existing incumbent energy system, you have to

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consider all of those different variables and create a system that's able to deal with that.

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And that's why we've developed two technologies that generate hydrogen. One of them is a

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thermochemical water splitting process. That's kind of what we talked about with green hydrogen.

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And the other uses organic waste streams. And so that's sustainable sources of waste that are

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overlooked and underutilized to free hydrogen from those and generate biogenic CO2. So those

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are really, really interesting technologies. And there's lots of uses for them and lots of benefits

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to using them. But generating hydrogen is only part of the problem for energy systems. And you

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have to be able to compress it and store it. So we've developed our own compression technology

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as well, which allows you to compress and dispense hydrogen more efficiently than current

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technologies. And there's lots of interest in that tech at the minute. And there'll probably be a

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wee bit more information about it by the time this goes live. And hydrogen is great for

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lots of applications. So we're looking at things like heavy industry, where you have really high

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temperatures and really large energy consumption. So cement sector, steel, glass, those really

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important building materials that we are going to need in a net zero world and have to be made in a

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decarbonized fashion. But things like mobility have hydrogen uses. We don't have many hydrogen

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vehicles in Europe as of yet. Japan is probably the leading place in the world for that. They

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do a lot of hydrogen work for hydrogen fuel cell cars. So some people may have seen the Toyota

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Miura, which is a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. And if you're ever in London, in the city of London,

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the city of London police have their full fleet is hydrogen powered. So keep an eye out for that if

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you happen to be in and around there. But really, if you're thinking Northern Ireland, the right bus

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is probably the people think of for hydrogen buses. So TransLink have 12 hydrogen buses currently

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on the market. And they're designed to reduce emissions, but also to reduce pollutant emissions.

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So you're not just looking at CO2.

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I think I've seen on LinkedIn, you guys went down to visit right bus recently, didn't you?

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So we have a project at the minute called High Density, HY Density. So another pun there for you.

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We're working with right bus and quarrying and mining technologies company called Terex,

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who have a base in the west of Northern Ireland, near Duncannon, to develop a dual fuel system that

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runs on hydrogen with E diesel as a backup. And E diesel, for those of you that are not familiar

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with that term is a type of E fuel or electro fuel or synthetic fuel, depending on your flavor of

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the month, which is a liquid hydrocarbon. So hydrogen carbon chains, same as you get from

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oil and gas. But it's produced by combining hydrogen gases, preferably from something like

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a green hydrogen generator and CO2 captured from what's called the fast carbon cycle,

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which is available carbon in the atmosphere in the soil in plants on the earth surface,

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rather than geologically stored in the form of oil and gas and coal. And combining that with

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that hydrogen and that carbon to make those hydrocarbons using renewable electricity to

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stitch them together. And that means that you can create diesels and petrols and kerosene molecules

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that are not originating from a fossil carbon source. So they don't contribute CO2 emissions.

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So they don't, they don't unlock carbon from the ground and put it into the atmosphere.

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They use carbon that's already in the atmosphere, ultimately, as the source of that carbon. And

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that's really critical in differentiating between those two types of fuel. Because there are things

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like air travel that are very difficult to electrify. Because the energy density you get from

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something like a lithium ion battery currently is not sufficient to allow you to transport

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people through the air. And the kind of energy density journey that people go on is they go,

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can we electrify it because we are lucky to have lots of renewable electricity in this part of the

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world. And so that's usually the best and most efficient use of energy. Because if we generate

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electricity at source, we want to use it as electricity. And if that's not suitable,

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hydrogen is probably the next best thing to look at. It's a very simple molecule. You can make it

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from breaking apart other things. So generally destroying things takes less energy than creating

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them. So you can look at hydrogen for things that are needed a little bit more oomph. So like buses

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or trains, you can supply them with compressed hydrogen. And that allows you to get a higher

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level of energy density. So you're not having to give up as much volume on say a bus for battery

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banks because you've got a smaller tank of hydrogen that stores that energy. And then if that's not

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suitable, which it isn't for things like very large aircraft that are flying maybe across the

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Atlantic or between the Middle East and Southeast Asia or Australia, you're really topping out what

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you can do with hydrogen at that point. Currently, Airbus and Boeing and others are developing

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technologies that are lighter aircraft that have more space to store hydrogen and things like that.

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But currently, if you buy an Airbus commercial airliner right now, and you want to fuel that

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for the next 30 or 40 years, because that's how long the lifetime of that asset is, you need a

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solution that's compatible with a 2050 net zero world and e-fields are the only way you can do

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that. So they are really important part of that kind of final unlocking of fully decarbonized

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energy. And I don't think anybody wants a world where we're not able to fly to see loved ones and

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experience different cultures and things like that. So we have to find a way to do that that's

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economical, but also doesn't result in us not being able to fly because it is an important part of

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kind of the global ecosystem. Okay, brilliant. Very informative. Very informative. But the thing

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I was going to say about Rightbus, when I seen the photo of Katajam and then Rightbus, the Rightbus

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representative was someone I went to secondary school with. Fantastic. He's a lovely lad, Ryan.

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Shout out, Ryan. Ireland and Northern Ireland specifically are a very small place. And I think

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as a region, we undersell our capabilities. We have a lot of very well-educated and very driven

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young people and engineers and scientists and artists. I think we have our resilience and

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stubbornness here to do things. And that's why you see companies like Rightbus leading the way

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kind of in the world in this space. And we have a very well developed aerospace industry, cyber

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security industry, software industry. So I'm not surprised that you've come across other people

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from your previous life. You're now working at the kind of the cutting edge of technology, because

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you know, we see that all the time. And we're really lucky to have a company that is able to

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benefit from that culture of real innovation and expertise and want to do things differently.

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Because looking at problems from different angles is really important in the engineering world,

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because a lot of the solutions that we've come up with are really elegant solutions to problems

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that other people haven't thought about. And it's one of those things where we kind of sit down and

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brainstormed a couple of these technologies. And when we actually looked at what we've done,

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we went, oh, well, of course you'd do it that way. And then we went, why did nobody think of

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this before? And that's when you know you have a really good innovative idea, because you would

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never, having seen it, the solution to the problem, you would never do it any other way. And that's

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how you know you're on to a winning technology. Well, thanks very much, Ralph, for giving us that

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insight that we wouldn't have known. So yeah, it's like the inside scoop and everything you've given.

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So I've talked before about energy strategies on this podcast. I say that the episode itself

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has been released, but it has been recorded. And then by the time this comes out, it'll have been

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released by weeks. So energy strategies and how they're all over the UK. Northern Ireland has its

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first one. So did you know the UK has its own hydrogen strategy, which I'm sure you didn't,

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the fact that you're in the hydrogen industry, but that was published in 2021?

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Yes. So Quasie Quartine, who was the head of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial

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Strategy, which it was known as at the time, and quite like Prince, it is now known as the

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Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and has had a rebrand. But he released a document

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in 2021, which outlined a very ambitious strategy for the UK in terms of hydrogen.

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Part of that was 10 gigawatts of hydrogen generation capacity. So GW, not MW, which is

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what we hear a lot of for wind. For reference, the four largest offshore wind farms in the world

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are in the UK and they collectively produce two gigawatts of electricity. So this was a really

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important signal to companies like ourselves that the UK was going to be the place to develop

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hydrogen technology in Europe and in the world for the next five years. And that strategy has

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been updated in the last couple of years. Obviously, we've had a couple of personnel

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changes in UK government and that always comes with rewording and amendments and things like

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that. And that strategy has actually been amended and added to and now not just subsidy support is

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being provided through grant funding for technology development like ourselves. And we've been very

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fortunate and very lucky to be supported by the UK government with some of our project development.

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But the strategy has developed to the point now where they are doing competitive allocation

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rounds for hydrogen delivery and for uses. So that's things like Steelworks and power generation

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facilities are now actively pitching projects based on a price of hydrogen that they can generate

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those at using renewable electricity. And that's a really important commercial metric to enable

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an industry to grow. And it results in really positive results, particularly in the renewable

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sector, where this was how the offshore wind sector in the UK first started. So the UK

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government is trying to replicate a lot of the good from the offshore wind and onshore wind policies

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over the last decade and replicate that with hydrogen. It's been very successful in a lot of ways.

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I wonder, does the strategy, because it was a 90 page document, I wonder if it has your

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saying there about the gigawatts of energy it is able to, like, you know, it has potential to unlock.

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But I wonder if there's like a diagram or a visual equivalent being like this is so and so many

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wind turbines or this is so and so many solar panels or this is like so and so many biomass boilers.

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Yeah, so that's a lot of what my job at Caledget is. So I do a lot of work with our

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stakeholders, potential project partners and collaborators, and I have to help them try and

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visualize their own energy consumption a lot of the time. So if we take Heathrow Airport as an example,

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and let's say we decide to go to 100% sustainable E jet fuel, like as I think fuel that we talked

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about earlier, the amount of energy that the systems to generate that fuel would require is

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the amount of offshore wind that the UK will have by 2025, all of the offshore wind capacity

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in the UK to decarbonize one airport. And that's probably pushing it in terms of its capability.

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So we don't really appreciate how much energy stored in things like petrol, home heating, oil,

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home heating, oil, diesel. And there's a reason why we use them for fuels because they're really

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energy dense. And trying to decarbonize that's a really big challenge. And that's why it's really

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important that we deal with a couple of issues with particularly wind and solar, which is

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intermittency of power supply. And obviously, if the sun's not out, your solar panels are not going

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to be generating electricity. And if there's no wind, your wind turbines aren't going to be

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generating electricity. So we need to have technologies that can work with that problem

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to maximize their energy production. I think one of the energy, like one of the energy government,

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like, you know, head department and people, this back in 2017. But then when they were talking

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about renewables and solar panels and wind turbines, they said, they actually said,

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I'm sure the wind doesn't always blow and the sun doesn't always shine. But that was someone in the

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Department of Energy or in the energy department in the government. UK. Now, I will say this,

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having previously worked in the solar panel industry, like, like solar panels are still,

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they're not able to generate the full energy that they can get from the sun shining, but they're

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able to pick up some reflection from the likes of the clouds. And so they still degenerate some,

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but maybe not as much. But the issue with current technology, everything that we use to generate

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chemicals relies on steady state power. So I know I'm going to get X amount of electrons coming in

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my front end that I'll gobble up and turn into chemicals. That's not what happens with modern

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renewable electricity. Unless you've something like a hydro dam, or you've got tidal or wave

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generation devices, but even they have fluctuations in power output. And one of the things that we're

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doing at Catagen is we're making systems that are much more tolerable of that power fluctuation,

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because our technology originally was designed to replicate engine outputs. So it inherently has a

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level of variability that it tolerates. And that means that as wind picks up, we're able to ramp

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our production of hydrogen and E fuels up to fully utilize all that energy. And as it starts to calm

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down, or we get towards kind of evening, if we're using solar power, it can ramp the system right

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back down. And what that means is you get what's called a higher utilization factor of your

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renewable energy. Essentially, you're able to lock up more useful outputs from those systems. And

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that means one, they're more efficient, which is always going to be more sustainable. And to the

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commercial offering that they represent is better, because you're not wasting any of that electricity

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that you generate. So you're getting a better return on investment of your machine. And that's

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a really important aspect for commercial deployment of these technologies, because we have to create a

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business model that pays for itself. You know, and we are a company whose mission is to clean and

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decarbonize the air. And there's lots of other energy companies that are out there to make as

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much money as possible. But we are a commercial company. So at the end of the day, we have to sell

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stuff that makes money. So that we have to be cognizant of that. And that's one of the really

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exciting things about our tech is it aligns those two things that quite often divert in modern life,

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where we're creating a more efficient energy system by increasing our utilization factor of

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intermittent wind and solar, which is giving you a better commercial offering. So you're actually

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getting the best of both worlds out of it. That means that, you know, the UK's investment in wind

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is better used, which means that for all of us that pay tax or live in the UK, we're getting a better

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value out of that system. Okay, very well. Ralph, like, you know, honestly, just like, come on,

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spit out what you know. And then we're all we're all the wiser like from it. So what I'd say from

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the hydrogen strategy, the energy security secretary, well, at the time of the order,

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Claire Coutinho, I have butchered her last name, I apologize for someone whose name is continually

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mispronounced. And I'm so sorry, I can't believe I did that. And I will find out that correct

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spelling and I will make I'll make a reference to it in the bio. And but she said hydrogen presents

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a massive economic opportunity for the UK, unlocking over 12,000 jobs and up to 11 billion

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off investment by 2030. Now, she said this in 2021. So it is definitely updated since that

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it's probably more honestly, the the rate of interest in aggressive decarbonization has

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increased, if anything, since this document came out. And hydrogen is a really important part of

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energy security for the UK and Northern Ireland specifically, because we're really fortunate to

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have lots of renewable energy potential. And so as a region, both the UK and Northern Ireland in

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particular import a lot of our energy. So two thirds of our energy demand in Northern Ireland

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is liquid fuel based. And we don't have any natural oil and gas in large amounts. So we import that

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from places like Rotterdam in the Netherlands, and some of that oil comes from as far away as

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the Middle East. And some of it comes from the USA. And if we can develop indigenous technologies

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like we're doing that can capture that electricity and turn it into hydrogen, which can then be used

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to as an alternative to things like high heat applications where you've got coal or or natural

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gas like cement manufacture, which is a really important export for the island of Ireland,

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which a lot of people don't know. Or we can turn that hydrogen with carbon from the air into

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diesel and kerosene, which are the main hydrocarbons you use for things like home heating oil and

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driving vehicles. We can become much more energy independent. And that means that we're essentially

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turning our natural resources into sustainable and useful products for our local use. And that

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insulates us from things like price fluctuations in the global oil and gas markets and supply issues,

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which can be a real problem for particularly carbon dioxide into Northern Ireland. There are lots of

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industries like the food industry, the agricultural industry and the packaging industry that use

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carbon dioxide as a chemical. So if you ever open any packed meat, if you have eaten any vertically

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farmed food, which is becoming more and more common, if you've ever drank a beer, if you've ever

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drank a bottle of well known soft drink that's bottled in the spring from a very large

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beverage manufacturer, all that CO2 has been imported into Northern Ireland and it's ultimately

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come from natural gas. So there are lots of things that we can do with that energy and technology

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like ours and climate tech allows you to turn it into the energy vectors that can't be electrified.

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And that's a really important part of energy network resilience. And that's why hydrogen is

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a really important part of the energy security strategy for the UK as a whole. Wow. Okay. Yeah,

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I think that's a good sentence to wrap up the knowledge base part of the podcast. Like,

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okay, guys, like, you know, better just digest that. Because, yeah, that was a lot even like,

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what is it? I like I had a script, of course, but like the mind have just learned like, no, I'm still

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practicing. I find this a lot whenever we whenever we start talking about what we're doing climate

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tech. And it covers so many different aspects of modern life. And that's indicative of the fact

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that we have such a complex and diverse energy system that exists. The problem with that system

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is it's currently underpinned by fossil carbon that's damaging the planet. And that energy system,

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in large part, can maintain and exist the way it is, it's just that the carbon that's in that system

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needs to be sourced more sustainably. And that's what we're really interested in keen to do is

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create an equally diverse, equally resilient and more sustainable energy system. And that's not

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dependent on oil and gas products. And I think that's a, it's going to be a much more successful

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way to look at energy than we need to make lots of hydrogen, because it's good. Which is where

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whenever this strategy document first came out, a lot of thinking was the conversation in the spaces

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moved on and has become much more mature. And I think it's leading to better results. And I'm

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biased because we're developing the technology, but it's going to be better for consumers long term.

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And that's what you want. Okay, yeah. Okay. Well, thank you very much. You've been really great to

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have on. But you're not done just yet. Because what is it time for people? It is time for the

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hydrogen. Also known as the question round. So I've got some questions I'm going to ask you about

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hydrogen. Yeah. Some of them are hard. Some of them we're probably going to know. And then the

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last one I'm going to ask you. It is quite tricky. I've got to fill you might get it right away.

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Okay, so could you tell me the date of which hydrogen production was first recorded?

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I can't tell you the date. It was in the 19th century and it was called Inflammable Gas.

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And it was developed by an English chemist who was called Charles.

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No, that's as far as I'm going to get. So yes, you'd be correct in like, what is it? They're

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the ones who said about it being a gas. However, in 1783, 1783, wow. 1783, Antoine Lavioser and

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Pierre Laplace. Laplace. Yeah, my engineering background, I should have got that. But they

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measure, they've measured the heat of combustion of hydrogen using an ice calorimeter, calorimeter.

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Mm hmm. Because everyone, ice calorimeter, there we go. I just did it. Ice calorimeter,

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because everyone has one of those. Yeah. Yeah. So the gas battery is what I was thinking of,

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which was the first use of the first generation of hydrogen using an electrochemical cell. And

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that was in 1848. See, I was going back to the first one. So actually the first, like apparently

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the first recorded observation was in 1520. Oh yeah, there's lots of contention around who

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discovered gases. Yeah. Chemists are very territorial. Flip, I didn't realize it was such a,

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nope, I'm trying to think of a pun or a pandemic and they are- Such a volatile subject.

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So dammit, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna move on. Okay, I've got this question for you. And

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listeners stick with me. I'm gonna explain that if you watch it, you probably get it.

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Can you tell me the cat's owner who solved the equation for hydrogen for him?

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No. To think cats in science immediately by Schrodinger, but he's a physicist.

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Okay. Well, like, what is it? No, no cats in science, but like, what did you say? What was

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the name you just said? Schrodinger. It's pretty interesting to say that because yeah, the Schrodinger

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equation is exactly what I'm talking about, but it's a mathematical formula that describes

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the quantum state of a system and how it changes over time. And it's used to calculate possible

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energy levels and it works on the wave functions of an atom. And apparently, so apparently dancer,

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like, you know, just continually changes because the waves moves at the, the waves move, but for

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hydrogen, it's perfect. Yes. Because there's, like, there's a proton and electron, like, you

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know, and you can tell exactly where they are. Yeah. So in hydrogen, there's only one valence

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state, which is the term that Schrodinger was describing. And that means that it's a really

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useful gas for things like calibrating and measuring other things, which is what we,

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it was traditionally used for a lot in science. I did realise it was Schrodinger who developed

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that though. That's a good one for me. That's a, that's a new one. I told you I wouldn't know the

387
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one. So apparently, yeah, because apparently he developed this equation and then it, like,

388
00:40:36,720 --> 00:40:42,000
you know, there's no correct answer apart from hydrogen. Like hydrogen is the only correct,

389
00:40:42,000 --> 00:40:45,680
like, you know, it's the high, called the hydrogen problem or something. Oh, I'd have to bring that

390
00:40:45,680 --> 00:40:51,360
back to, to Caligene. Oh, don't. It's the perfect solution. They will absolutely wreck you. And like,

391
00:40:51,360 --> 00:40:58,160
ah, you got it from her. Okay, sure. But yeah, okay. So you know what? I'm pretty proud I

392
00:40:58,160 --> 00:41:02,560
explained that in this podcast. Not explained that, but was able to converse with you about it in this

393
00:41:02,560 --> 00:41:10,240
podcast because it's quantum mechanics and yeah, I don't mess with that. Yeah, I don't mess with

394
00:41:10,240 --> 00:41:16,480
that either. My brother's a computer scientist and he does a lot of qubit processing and things like

395
00:41:16,480 --> 00:41:22,480
that. And that's well beyond the realms of my brain. Is this the brother I met at your party?

396
00:41:23,120 --> 00:41:29,680
Yes. Yes. How's he doing? He's doing well. Yeah. Excellent. He's currently looking for a job in

397
00:41:29,680 --> 00:41:38,560
AI. So he helps develop language scripts for AI. And that's his kind of day job. And so he does,

398
00:41:38,560 --> 00:41:45,200
he teaches machine learning essentially how to translate to base languages, either human

399
00:41:45,200 --> 00:41:51,120
languages or coding languages. So anytime you talk to like Google Assistant or your Amazon Alexa,

400
00:41:51,840 --> 00:41:57,120
he helps develop those scripts that if you say speak in French, allow it to figure out what you've

401
00:41:57,120 --> 00:42:02,640
said, translate it into both English and then it's base coding language, and then do that in reverse

402
00:42:02,640 --> 00:42:07,680
to talk to you in your native language. I'm always amazed at people who can do that, the

403
00:42:07,680 --> 00:42:15,840
likes of scripts, because I almost had an argument with Excel today trying to create one of those,

404
00:42:15,840 --> 00:42:23,120
the Visual Basic VBA scripts. I pretty much wanted to, I had like 300 rows and I wanted to

405
00:42:23,120 --> 00:42:29,760
create a script that I'm able to put all these rows into a single PDF. Each row had its own page

406
00:42:29,760 --> 00:42:38,240
and I just, you know, I couldn't do it, Captain. I couldn't do it. Okay. So any move on to something

407
00:42:38,240 --> 00:42:43,600
else, that's enough about me. Okay. Brilliant. Okay. Well, that's the end of question round.

408
00:42:43,600 --> 00:42:47,680
I did have more, but like, I feel like two is enough. Let's go for another one. Let's see.

409
00:42:48,560 --> 00:42:54,480
Okay. I'm bluffing. I didn't have like, you know, any more. I'll ask you a question. Okay.

410
00:42:54,480 --> 00:43:06,560
Okay. So hydrogen as a gas is probably one of the simplest molecules you can make.

411
00:43:07,440 --> 00:43:12,880
Where is the most hydrogen found in the universe? Oh, it's on a planet, isn't it?

412
00:43:14,640 --> 00:43:19,760
Hold on. Is it not everywhere? Yes. So hydrogen is actually the most abundant

413
00:43:19,760 --> 00:43:26,320
state of matter in the universe. Because it's so light, we don't find it on planets,

414
00:43:26,720 --> 00:43:30,960
because the gravitational pull of them pulls it away. But actually hydrogen is the most abundant

415
00:43:30,960 --> 00:43:36,800
substance in the known universe, which is really interesting because it's very volatile. It blows

416
00:43:36,800 --> 00:43:42,160
up very easily, but it shows how it kind of, it underpins everything in modern life. So we

417
00:43:42,160 --> 00:43:49,920
often think about carbon being the basis for organic life, which is a fair assumption, but

418
00:43:49,920 --> 00:43:55,760
actually hydrogen is nearly ubiquitous in everything we do, which is the cruel irony of

419
00:43:55,760 --> 00:44:02,160
why it's so difficult to generate sustainably. So we're all hydrogen? In some ways we're all

420
00:44:02,160 --> 00:44:10,320
hydrogen. Yeah. That's pretty cool. I didn't know that. So thank you. I'm going to take that bit of

421
00:44:10,320 --> 00:44:15,600
information and tell someone else about it tomorrow. I'll just be sitting there and say,

422
00:44:15,600 --> 00:44:19,440
hey, do you know we're all hydrogen? And they'll be like, get back to work, Ben. I'm like, yep,

423
00:44:19,440 --> 00:44:24,720
no, that's fair. That's fair. Okay. Well, brilliant. Okay. That is the official end of the question

424
00:44:24,720 --> 00:44:30,880
round now. Okay. But yeah, thanks for answering my questions. Okay. Well, Ralph, you've been

425
00:44:30,880 --> 00:44:36,560
brilliant to have on. Before I let you go, I just want one final question I'm going to ask you.

426
00:44:36,560 --> 00:44:42,000
Do you have any advice for future graduates looking to get into the energy hydrogen industry?

427
00:44:42,000 --> 00:44:47,840
And yes, I did ask you this last time on your first podcast, but that was eight months ago.

428
00:44:47,840 --> 00:44:55,600
I want to know if your advice has changed. We're still hiring. So if you have experience or you

429
00:44:55,600 --> 00:45:00,560
want to come and work for a really cool company that's making really cool tech, please get in

430
00:45:00,560 --> 00:45:09,120
contact with us. It's Ralph at Caledon. Very easy to remember. The advice I would have is

431
00:45:10,480 --> 00:45:16,560
this space is becoming so big and so heavily invested in. There's lots of opportunities,

432
00:45:16,560 --> 00:45:23,360
but the important thing is to find out in this space what interests you. There's lots of things

433
00:45:23,360 --> 00:45:32,320
you can do. Some people will say be a renewables engineer and put up big wind turbines, develop

434
00:45:32,320 --> 00:45:39,760
projects. Some people want to make really cool electrolyzers or fuel cell stacks. This is going,

435
00:45:39,760 --> 00:45:45,520
this area is going to permeate through all aspects of modern life because everything that we do from

436
00:45:45,520 --> 00:45:50,320
clothing and fashion to food to transport is going to be decarbonized over the next 30 years.

437
00:45:50,320 --> 00:45:56,560
So even if you are passionate about fashion design, there is a space for you and your skill

438
00:45:56,560 --> 00:46:02,960
set in hydrogen and renewables in general. Really what's more important is awareness and

439
00:46:02,960 --> 00:46:08,240
understanding of how you fit into that solution because we need lots and lots of different

440
00:46:08,240 --> 00:46:14,160
skill sets to solve this problem and they're not all engineers. A lot of the work I do is with

441
00:46:14,160 --> 00:46:18,640
people who have software backgrounds, marketing backgrounds, accountancy backgrounds, because

442
00:46:18,640 --> 00:46:27,040
we have to completely change the entire societal perspective on energy and that requires everybody

443
00:46:27,040 --> 00:46:30,880
from the people who know how to make the generation equipment to people who know how to market

444
00:46:31,680 --> 00:46:37,840
energy and policy. So it's really more about being a motivated and actively enthusiastic

445
00:46:37,840 --> 00:46:42,800
participant than any specific skill set and listening to things like this podcast are a good

446
00:46:42,800 --> 00:46:48,320
way to start that. You said that last time as well, I remember that. Like gateway to

447
00:46:48,320 --> 00:46:53,840
gateway. Thanks for saying that. Like that's good. And speaking of marketing, I know the

448
00:46:53,840 --> 00:46:58,640
date this is filmed, it's coming up to like International Women's Day. Yeah. And I've already

449
00:46:58,640 --> 00:47:03,920
got the tagline. I'm going to put out. I actually, you know what, I'll say this and I probably won't

450
00:47:03,920 --> 00:47:09,680
put it out because it is a bit cheesy. Okay. But I'm like putting the energy and energy.

451
00:47:09,680 --> 00:47:15,120
Yeah. Energy and energy. Like it's, it's, it's one of those. We're really fortunate at the

452
00:47:15,120 --> 00:47:21,840
Kavagen to have an unusually high proportion of female employees. And that's right through up to

453
00:47:21,840 --> 00:47:28,320
C level in the company. We think it's one of our real key strengths because the more people you

454
00:47:28,320 --> 00:47:33,680
bring from diverse backgrounds, different experiences and different perspectives, the faster you get to

455
00:47:33,680 --> 00:47:40,720
the best answer. And I'm really fortunate to work with and, and for some really, really cool people

456
00:47:40,720 --> 00:47:46,880
who happen to be women. And I think that's a really important opportunity and it's important to

457
00:47:48,640 --> 00:47:55,200
publicize it and make it visual and make it observable. There's a lot of our best engineers

458
00:47:55,200 --> 00:48:03,360
and some of our other aspects, marketing, accountancy, and logistics are female engineers

459
00:48:03,360 --> 00:48:09,120
or female scientists. And it's really important that they have space to talk about that and be

460
00:48:09,120 --> 00:48:15,600
visible for women who might consider roles in that area. And it's something I'm very passionate

461
00:48:15,600 --> 00:48:20,240
about. And I actually work with a women's sports team. So it's something I've always tried to do

462
00:48:21,120 --> 00:48:26,400
in my personal life. And it's a really important thing for everybody to be involved in.

463
00:48:26,400 --> 00:48:28,560
Yes. You work for Harlequins, don't you?

464
00:48:28,560 --> 00:48:32,320
Yeah. So I'm the head coach for the women's rugby team at Harlequins here in Belfast. And

465
00:48:32,320 --> 00:48:40,000
it's a great responsibility and a great honor to work with such a great big family of female

466
00:48:40,000 --> 00:48:48,480
sports people. But it's really hammered home to me. The seeing is believing and having to talk your

467
00:48:48,480 --> 00:48:56,320
talk because I've seen lots of companies that do hire lots of female employees, but there's a

468
00:48:56,320 --> 00:49:00,720
glass ceiling and I'm sure there's many more educated people to talk about it than me.

469
00:49:00,720 --> 00:49:08,240
But at Catagen, we're really fortunate to have a really diverse and well-mixed balance. And it's

470
00:49:08,240 --> 00:49:12,000
something that we're working really hard on to keep going in the right direction because

471
00:49:12,000 --> 00:49:18,960
unfortunately the engineering space as a whole is very bad at equal representation, particularly

472
00:49:18,960 --> 00:49:24,240
for female engineers. And it's something that we all benefit from having more of.

473
00:49:25,120 --> 00:49:29,040
So it's great to be part of that and to help contribute positively to that. But

474
00:49:29,040 --> 00:49:32,080
it's always great to have International Women's Day on Mother's Day as well.

475
00:49:32,080 --> 00:49:36,080
This is a double the excuse to spoil your mum.

476
00:49:36,960 --> 00:49:43,680
Yeah, I've actually already got a present. So my mum is, I'm not going to say her age,

477
00:49:43,680 --> 00:49:51,760
I'll keep her dignity, but she has just taken to the time where she is in her life that she

478
00:49:51,760 --> 00:49:57,680
only drinks champagne. Like only drinks champagne. So I've got her some champagne.

479
00:49:57,680 --> 00:50:04,160
I've got her some champagne slits for Mother's Day. Hopefully they won't end up smashed,

480
00:50:04,160 --> 00:50:06,320
but we'll see. That's about how much fun you have.

481
00:50:07,360 --> 00:50:09,520
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

482
00:50:09,520 --> 00:50:15,200
No, it is. It's a good place to work. And I think what I really enjoy about International Women's

483
00:50:15,200 --> 00:50:21,680
Day and as a supporter of it for a long time, even though my past roles is it's a great opportunity

484
00:50:21,680 --> 00:50:27,760
to just talk about how great everybody is. And I think that's generally what happens is it's a very

485
00:50:27,760 --> 00:50:32,240
safe space for people to talk about what they love to do. It's never a negative event,

486
00:50:32,240 --> 00:50:36,320
which is always good. Yeah. No, that's brilliant.

487
00:50:37,280 --> 00:50:44,240
Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast again. You have been very informative and yeah,

488
00:50:44,240 --> 00:50:47,680
we all look forward to hearing you. You'll be back all in the future, I'm sure.

489
00:50:47,680 --> 00:50:48,960
Oh, I hope so. Yeah. Yeah.

490
00:50:48,960 --> 00:50:51,040
Hopefully I'll know more of the hydrogen questions next time.

491
00:50:51,040 --> 00:50:58,080
Oh, yeah. No, next time they'll be harder. Okay. So up your game. But no, looking forward to

492
00:50:58,080 --> 00:51:04,800
hearing in the future what else hydrogen has been up to. And I'm sure also in the next eight months

493
00:51:05,440 --> 00:51:10,640
there will be further developments with hydrogen. Yeah, hopefully. Our mission is to take clean and

494
00:51:10,640 --> 00:51:15,920
decarbonize the air and that's an infinite goal. So we're definitely on a trajectory.

495
00:51:15,920 --> 00:51:22,880
Yeah. Brilliant. Thank you. Great. Thanks for listening to Carbon Climates. If you follow us

496
00:51:22,880 --> 00:51:29,200
on Instagram at carbon underscore climates, you can keep up with all our latest news and our

497
00:51:29,200 --> 00:51:46,480
newest posts. But yeah, thanks for listening. Bye.