Text version of DOE Senior Leaders Lightning Round at the opening plenary of the DOE Hydrogen Shot Summit, August 31, 2021.

Kelly Speakes-Backman: Will do, sir. Thank you, Deputy Secretary Turk. And thank you for your leadership across all of DOE of course but especially for organizing this first Hydrogen Shot Summit today. I'm really looking forward to the discussions today and tomorrow about how we can all come together – industry, academia, government, regional coalitions, public interest groups, and communities – to make a difference in achieving a difference in this Hydrogen Shot.

In my office one example of how we're supporting the Hydrogen Shot is through H2@Scale, which envisions clean and affordable hydrogen across multiple sectors: transportation, the grid, buildings, industrial, and agriculture. As part of that we're working across DOE to tackle key technical challenges so that hydrogen can play a role in our transition to a clean and equitable energy future. Listening to the speakers today led off by Secretary Granholm and held by you has really been quite encouraging and I think we follow that leadership level of collaboration by bringing this panel today from across DOE. I'm very excited to introduce this panel, the various DOE offices that are working on hydrogen as well as the Office of Economic Impact and Diversity, to dig deeper into this intersection between the hydrogen work that lies ahead of us and energy justice, which is so important.

And so, if the other panelists will join me? Awesome. They've all become great friends over the – over just these first eight months. We're going to go around the room with brief introductions from my DOE colleagues joining us and we're going to begin to tackle the very practical question of how are we going to achieve this Hydrogen Shot. And we'll start with you, Ms. Baker, then we'll go to Dr. Wilcox, Dr. Huff, and Dr. Binkley. Dr. – Ms. Baker, will you start out by introducing yourself?

Shalanda Baker: Sure. Good morning, everyone. It's so great to be a part of this and I'm honored to follow such a distinguished slate of speakers. I'm Shalanda Baker and I'm the Deputy Director for Energy Justice. I'm in the Office of Economic Impact and Diversity. I'm also the secretarial advisor in equity.

Kelly Speakes-Backman: I muted myself so that I could not be background noise. But let's start off with the first question for Ms. Baker. How can we make sure to incorporate diversity, equity, and inclusion components in our efforts toward meeting the Hydrogen Shot goal?

Shalanda Baker: Sure. So, I will try to model the lightning fast responses here. So, diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, often refers to the internal aspects of an operation. So, we're talking about the people and we're talking about ensuring that we have a diverse range of people participating in the process because that yields more equitable results. And the more diversity, the more voices you have in the room, the more different types voices you have in the room, the better the result that – there are studies showing that that is the case.

I think we also have to add justice to the mix. And so, when I think about DEI I think about the internal but I also think about justice, which is ensuring that our processes themselves are equitable. And this will be a key part of bringing this Earthshot into reality. I think because we are opening new markets, we're creating a new foundation for this technology, we need to ensure that we have supplier diversity. And so, again, that goes back to diverse voices in the room, diverse players within the marketplace. And we have a real opportunity to expand and make sure that this technology includes the diverse cross-section of this country. And I'll end it there and look forward to the next round.

Kelly Speakes-Backman: Okay. Let's move on to Dr. Wilcox. We're doing lightning round here. This is going to be fun. Dr. Wilcox, will you introduce yourself? And then I'll ask you the same question.

Jennifer Wilcox: Sure. Great to be here. And I'm currently the Acting Assistant Secretary for the Office of Fossil Energy and  Carbon Management.

Kelly Speakes-Backman: Awesome. So, the question is: How can we make sure that we're incorporating diversity, equity, and inclusion components and justice components in our efforts towards meeting the Hydrogen Shot goal? How do you see it from your perspective, from the Fossil Energy and Carbon Management Office?

Jennifer Wilcox: Yeah. So, I think one of the things that we've been thinking about a lot is public engagement. And what we're really good at is talking to industry and getting that perspective, but what we haven't been good at in the past is actually engaging with the frontline communities. And so, this is a space that we want to improve at and we want to do more of.

When we think about the demonstration scale of what we need to do with hydrogen today and we ask where we're getting hydrogen from today it's from natural gas. And so, we need to also look at what are the environmental impacts associated with the extraction of natural gas, understanding those environmental impacts and the community concerns, and looking at how our approaches and how our investments can actually lead to benefits. And so, just that first step of engaging and bringing those folks to the table for the first time and being part of the solutions is something that we're really excited to do.

Kelly Speakes-Backman: It's a lot of fun bringing people in at the very beginning of the work that we're doing, all the way from the research side through the demonstrations and deployments. Okay. We're going to flip over to Dr. Huff from Nuclear Energy. Dr. Huff, can you introduce yourself and then share how we can make sure that we're incorporating diversity, equity, and inclusion – and I will add also justice – in our efforts to meet the Hydrogen Shot goal?

Kathryn Huff: Thank you. I'm Katy Huff. I am a nuclear engineer and a professor, but today and for the last few months I've been the Acting Assistant Secretary for the Office of Nuclear Energy. I think Ms. Baker and Dr. Wilcox both very eloquently touched on a few pieces that are at the forefront of our minds in the Office of Nuclear Energy. And another one I'll just sort of note is the importance of targeting the development and deployment of these technologies in physical places where they will provide the greatest impact to communities that potentially have not previously benefited from those efforts. When we think about those demonstrations, as Dr. Wilcox noted, we need to think about the place-based questions not just around environmental impact but community economic impacts and other kinds of benefits that those things can either provide or even take away.

Kelly Speakes-Backman: Awesome. And now, Dr. Binkley, please introduce yourself and speak to the same question, how we can make sure we're incorporating diversity, equity, and inclusion and justice.

Stephen Binkley: Okay. Thank you, Kelly. And also thank you for the opportunity to be present today at this very, very important event. We at the Office of Science are really very excited about this.

I'm presently the Acting Director of the Office of Science. I have responsibility for – essentially for programs in the Office of Science as well as oversight of ten of the national labs. Diversity, equity, and inclusion is really important in our programs. We are using outreach to the community for funding opportunities. We've developed program policy factors that are used in award decisions. And we're also beginning to expand the use of webinars for community outreach to ensure that we have input on DEI issues and additional outreach to communicate opportunities. And I'll stop there.

Kelly Speakes-Backman: Awesome. Thank you, Dr. Binkley. So, we're here today to talk about how we can practically get to this 1-1-1, one dollar per one kilogram of clean hydrogen in one decade. So, I would love to hear from each one of you on your sort of top two or three priorities to achieve those goals, those sort of practical priorities. So, we'll start off again with Ms. Baker. From your office perspective what are the top priorities to make Hydrogen Shot a reality?

Shalanda Baker: Thank you so much again, Kelly. This is incredibly exciting. I think we're breaking ground and I think everyone who's in the room today can acknowledge that. I want to kind of tie together a lot of the comments that were made in the last lightning round and introduce a theoretical frame to kind of tie those pieces together. So, in my prior life before joining DOE I was also a professor of law, public policy, and urban affairs and I was a scholar of energy justice. There is a literature that is robust and growing in that field and there are some key tenets that we refer to when we think about justice and equity.

The first is procedural justice – so, let's make sure everyone has a seat at the table. And Dr. Wilcox, Dr. Huff mentioned this. I want to also add that you need new players in the marketplace as we are developing this new market. So, we have to keep our eyes on that. So, also engaging communities but ensuring that we have diversity within this new market.

The second key tenet is distributive justice. And this, again, underscores something that Dr. Wilcox said about the impacts. We need to make sure that we're actually creating wealth in communities and making them – leaving them better off as a result of this technology. We know that in the aggregate the planet will be better off as a result of the deployment of this technology but we also need to make sure that the places where this technology is housed are left better off.

The third tenet relates to restorative justice, and that is about the healing – I'm sorry, I'll go back one more. Recognition justice, which is really about recognizing the ways in which we meet communities, meeting then where they are with respect to engaging around the development opportunity that this technology provides.

And then, the last is recognition justice. So, I'm giving you four. I'm sorry, restorative justice, which is the fourth. And that is really about the healing potential of this technology. We can leave – again, we can leave communities better off as a result of this deployment. And I'm excited to see this happening during my time at DOE.

Kelly Speakes-Backman: That's pretty awesome. Dr. Wilcox, you're up.

Jennifer Wilcox: Absolutely. So, I love going after Shalanda because I can learn, and now I can kind of incorporate some of that learning into my response. The restorative justice piece to me resonates. One of the pieces that we're looking at is when you look at how we produce hydrogen today, again, we produce it from natural gas. And so, in doing that we also have an opportunity. Where we actually are producing hydrogen today, mostly it's going to refining or it's going to ammonia, which is a feedstock for fertilizer. We want it to do much more. We want to use it for transportation. We want to use it for energy. And we also recognize that where refineries are located there's a lot of air pollution.

And so, the restorative justice piece that I see is that when we look at how hydrogen is produced in those regions and we do implement a concept called carbon capture at the point source there are co-benefits where we could actually reduce other hazardous air pollutants, not just carbon. And so, our office is looking at trying to strategize approaches where we can actually look at other approaches or pieces that are co-benefits, not – it's not just about the carbon. There's other pollution that we can also mitigate that's absolutely a public concern.

The piece, though, that I would also add is, again, natural gas today is not leak-tight. And so, one of the things that we need to focus on is being able to understand what are the methane leakage rates associated with the supply chain of natural gas and drawing our boxes quite big, not just around where you're producing the hydrogen but where you are getting the supply chain, and investing in approaches that quantify the leakage that also can come up with a solution set of how to fix those leaks if we're to use that as a feedstock.

The other pieces, though, that we are also excited in investing in, a lot of the net zero climate goals include biomass gasification. And so, biomass and waste biomass, sustainable biomass can be a feedstock for hydrogen production. And when you couple it to carbon capture and reliable storage you can actually produce a negative carbon emission stream of hydrogen, which is pretty interesting, which can be used as a feedstock.

The third piece that we're interested in too is how do we move it around? If we're producing hydrogen how do we get it from point A to point B? And then, also, if you're using it for electricity production you need a lot of hydrogen. And so, how is that storage going to look? And so, some of the work that we're doing in our office is focused on geologic storage, which is a really large scale, and looking at the various regions where we could actually store hydrogen safely and reliably underground on a large scale that could actually couple to power.

And then, finally, if we are to use it for power we need to be able to advance turbine technology so that we can do 100 percent firing with hydrogen. And so, that's something that we're also investing in and excited about.

Kelly Speakes-Backman: Cool. Dr. Huff, what are your two or three priorities?

Kathryn Huff: I'll keep it short. The most energy- and cost-efficient methods of hydrogen production leverage not just electricity but also heat. These are high temperature electrolysis and advanced thermochemical methods. Thankfully, nuclear energy is here and is a clean, carbon-free source of both heat and electricity. It produces over 50 percent of our clean electricity in the United States and some advanced reactor technologies reach incredibly high temperatures that are able to support those really advanced, possibly transformational thermochemical cycles.

So, accordingly, research sponsored by the Office of Nuclear Energy is really focused on developing the industrial-scale production of hydrogen using the heat and electricity from nuclear energy systems. And in collaboration with the other offices represented here, including EERE of course, the three key priorities from my office in the context of this Earthshot are demonstrating hydrogen production using existing reactors with both standard and high temperature electrolysis, which we're doing in collaboration with EERE at three existing nuclear reactor sites today. Two, deploying advanced high temperature nuclear reactors which can support these similarly high temperature electrolysis and thermochemical methods, one of which Bill Gates, who we saw just a few moments ago, has an advanced reactor concept called Natrium, for example. That is one of the demonstration projects that we're supporting within my office of advanced nuclear technology that will enable those kinds of things. Another is the X-energy Xe-100.

And finally, my third key priority in this context is that we in the Office of Nuclear Energy are really invested in supporting research into the integration of nuclear renewable hydrogen energy systems that are going to underpin a kind of clean, secure, and abundant energy future. And we do that in a couple of facilities, but one that I would sort of highlight, if you're ever in Idaho Falls the Detail Facility explores some of these capabilities around really integrating thermal generation of heat and electricity in combination including things like storage of hydrogen. So, hopefully that's brief enough that we can catch up on time a little.

Kelly Speakes-Backman: Thanks. I look forward to seeing that up in Idaho. Dr. Binkley?

Stephen Binkley: Oh, thank you, Kelly. I'll mention two key priorities within the Office of Science. One is to enhance the science base for clean energy technologies across the board, including hydrogen, building upon the priority research opportunities that were developed in our recent BES-led roundtable as well as the Hydrogen Shot goals.

And then, we also have an ongoing priority to provide world-leading user facilities for research, including clean energy research activities related to hydrogen. So, I'll just mention those two at this moment.

Kelly Speakes-Backman: Awesome. Thank you. One thing that's really clear is the increased collaboration that we have been doing and that we need to continue to do really with respect to the Hydrogen Shot and indeed across all of the work that we do. It's going to be so important in order to meet our goals. Clean hydrogen in particular is a key element to helping us achieve those goals set by Secretary Granholm and President Biden so that we can tackle the climate crisis and I think everyone's on the same page there. So, I'm really looking forward to what we can accomplish together through collaboration across all of our offices to move the needle on hydrogen.

I'm going to turn it over to – back over to Deputy Secretary Turk. But before I do I do want to highlight the four parallel technical sessions that start at 1:30 PM Eastern today, including the deployment and financing session where you'll hear from some of our other colleagues – Jigar Shah from the Loan Programs Office, Vanessa Chan from the Office of Technology Transitions, Mahala Jones of the Tribal Energy Office, and Tony Reames from our own Office of Economic Impact and Diversity. So, thank you all very much and thank you, Deputy Secretary Turk, for this opportunity to speak today.

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