Below is the text version for the Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office's special webinar to celebrate Earth Day, "A Visit with the Energy Observer Living Laboratory Vessel Powered by Clean Hydrogen," held on April 19, 2024.
>>Kyle Hlavacek: Hello and welcome to the first of our H2IQ Hour webinars celebrating Earth Day. Today, you will get an onboard look at the Energy Observer, a living laboratory vessel powered by clean hydrogen. My name is Kyle Hlavacek, with the Department of Energy's Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office, supporting stakeholder engagement and other outreach activities. Please be aware this webinar is being recorded and will be published online in our H2IQ Hour webinar archives. If you experience technical issues today, please check your audio settings under the audio tab. If you continue to experience issues, please send me a direct message.
There will be a Q&A session at the end of the presentation, and attendees have the opportunity to submit questions in the Q&A question box. You can access the Q&A feature by clicking on the Panel Options or More Options button, depending on your operating system. This is the button with three dots at the bottom-right corner of your window. To ensure that your questions are answered, please utilize the Q&A feature, and do not add your questions to the chat. If you have trouble using the Q&A feature, please view the link in the chat for help with this issue.
I will now hand it over to Sunita Satyapal, director of the Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office, for an introduction of today's presentation. Sunita, all yours.
>>Sunita Satyapal: Great. Thank you, Kyle. So, welcome, everyone. On behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy's Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office, welcome to this really unique webinar to celebrate upcoming Earth Day, and also to celebrate a first-of-its-kind really incredible zero-emissions sailing voyage around the world in seven years, using only renewable energy, taking seawater, producing hydrogen, and using it in a fuel cell. The Energy Observer project started in 2013, and it's also a story of global collaboration, where the team used technologies from around the world, including some that we funded many years ago, like the electrolyzer from Proton Energy, now Nel.
And you will hear from them live right now where they are on the boat, a living laboratory in New York, after stopping in D.C. Some of you saw them last month, and they're on their way back to France, where they started. And our very own Joe Stanford from our office, who's actually a long-time mariner himself, is on the boat right now this minute, and will moderate the webinar.
And so, now it's my honor to introduce the founder, the chairman, the captain of the Energy Observer, Victorien Erussard. You can read all about his amazing background on Wikipedia. He's been a captain, a merchant officer in the French navy, he's won many prestigious races and awards. And he had the original vision, and I remember this from a long time ago, using this concept, using hydrogen and fuel cells. So, on behalf of the DOE Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Office, I'd like to congratulate him and the whole team for the vision, the expertise, and the courage and determination, really, to make this incredible voyage around the world. So, he'll say a few words and then you'll hear from the rest of the team.
So, thank you, again, Victorien and the whole team, and I'll turn it over to you.
>>Victorien Erussard: Thank you. Hi, everyone, ladies and gentlemen, hello. [Crosstalk] do you understand me?
>>Kyle Hlavacek: Yeah, go ahead and share your slides, please.
>>Victorien Erussard: I prefer to be serious and accurate. Sorry, but I have prepared my notes. You know, Sunita, my [inaudible] English. Thank you for the invitation to participate in this webinar. It's a pleasure to be here with you who are connected, in order to present to you the world's first hydrogen powered vessel entirely reliant on renewable energy. I am accompanied by Beatrice Cordiano [inaudible], as well as Luc Bourserie, system engineer.
>>Luc Bourserie: Hi.
>>Victorien Erussard: They will present to you the functioning of our ship, as well as the feedback here, and our seven-year global vision. So [inaudible] let's go back to my professional career and my passion as a merchant marine officer. I have both experienced it and witnessed it, the immense pollution of shipping and the alarming degradation of our marine ecosystem. For five years I sailed about merchant ships which mostly use heavy fuel oil as fuel that not only emits CO2 emission, but also a lot of sulfur oxide and nitrogen oxide. These particulates contributing directly to the ocean degradation, with impacts on the acidification of the ocean, eutrophication, and effect on the marine food chain.
As a runner, I participated in [audio cuts out] race [audio cuts out] crew and many international competitions in light sailing. The competition requires figure performance and high [inaudible] in terms of technology and innovation. I wanted to apply these values to the energy transition service rather than sport trophy hunting. The trigger for me was during the transatlantic [inaudible] where I found myself in the middle of the Atlantic without energy, following a breakdown of alternator and malfunctioning solar panels, without navigation instrument, without [inaudible], without autopilot, and was totally helpless, no energy. [Inaudible] around me there was only that energy, sun, wind, and speed for hydroelectricity. That renewable at our disposal, but that I was unable to exploit intelligently, for lack of anticipation, and prisoner of our futile habits.
Let's return, please, to an overview of what the maritime sector represents. It accounts for three percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. The International Maritime Organization aims to reduce CO2 emission from maritime transport by 50 percent, by 2050, compared to 28 levels, with the ultimate goal of achieving net-zero emission as soon as possible within this century, a mountain. How to deal with a variety of [inaudible] shipping, 100,000 commercial vessels, 1.3 million commercial seafarers, and 25 million passengers a year. And that ships transport 90 percent of the world's goods, which equates to nearly ten billion tons a year.
And our ship here, which in terms of size represents the leisure sector, had little effect on the commercial shipping sector, but it's staffed and it has served to demonstrate the reliability of the hydrogen system with which we have been sailing around the world for seven years now, having made more [audio cuts out] three trips around the earth, navigating 65,000 nautical miles. It's an important milestone, and since our passage through more than 50 countries, we have seen many shipbuilding projects starting [inaudible]. All this nautical experience have led me to develop our demonstrative vessel, Energy Observer, because this is where the idea of designing a clean and intelligent ship capable of optimizing the energy mix that nature for us comes from.
A ship offering the same comfort as a motorboat, but with the freedom of sailing thanks to an innovative energy system capable of producing and storing renewable energies in hydrogen. This ship is a real floating laboratory where we test different types of technologies and provide feedback to our technological and industrial partners. Energy Observer is more than just a boat; it's a model of tomorrow's energy world, a floating decarbonized, decentralized, and digitalized smart grid. This virtual circle of energy being a replicable model on a very large scale on land, and that's what mattered to us more than anything, be an ambassador for renewable energies and hydrogen technologies.
I will quickly introduce you to the technological building blocks that make up this laboratory ship. First, we installed two ocean wings, sailing propulsion wings. They are fully automated, rotate 360 degrees, and are 1.7 times more efficient than traditional sails. We have 202 square meters of photovoltaic panels, and we tested different technology, bifacial solar panels, conformable ones, antiskid, for working on them. Hydroelectric power is also generated to our electric motors, which are reversible.
We added two types of storage, 100 kilowatt of batteries for our daily short-term storage, with the drawback of weight and bulk. [Inaudible] we included a full hydrogen chain from production to consumption, and a storage capacity of two megawatts of hydrogen, or 62 kilo.
Now, I let Luc immediately explain each technology component of the ship to you.
>>Luc Bourserie: Thank you, Victorien. Yeah, I'll go a bit more into details about the hydrogen chain, but all the technical choices for designing the ship and using it. So first, why did we choose the hydrogen as an energy vector? Victorien said it, there is weight to consider. So, the hydrogen has a good mass-based energy density, which is important for mobility, not just for the energy consumption, but also for the fine particles if we talk about vehicles that will ride on the road.
To give you some order of magnitude, on the boat, 1 kilowatt-hour electrical energy represents 12.5 kilograms of lithium-ion batteries, but only 1.7 kilograms of the H2 hydrogen. When I say H2 hydrogen, it will be from the electrolyzer to the compressor, the storage, and the fuel cell. Also, it was quite useful for us because we could produce it onboard ourselves from the water from the sea and the electricity from the sun. And also, of course, there will be less social and environmental impact using hydrogen than batteries, because we all know the impact [inaudible] of building them, so the materials, and for the recycling.
So, some of the key challenges before launching the boat, before having it ready, was to think about designing a boat, so, with low mass, integrating safety for the electrical systems, but also for the hydrogen system. It has to be a stable system, limit the losses, design an easy way to use and understand, because it will not be only engineers onboard. So, all that had to be integrated together in the design process, which was not an easy thing.
For determining the right size for the different hydrogen equipment, it was on one side some scenarios, some simulations to estimate the production of the boat and to enhance this production of the photovoltaic panels at the top, to not be in the position of having sun and having too much energy at stop and lacking energy at sea. So, it will be to complement the energy, the energy storage, to be able to use this excess at sea. And also, for the right size of the equipment, there is the theory, but there is also the practical technologies that is available.
Sometimes you will know that you would like to have a system with a given power, but you cannot find the real equipment available on the shelf. So, it's a lot of different challenges to overcome. So, one of the challenges actually was using seawater for electrolysis. We are using a PEM electrolyzer, so we cannot put seawater into it, saltwater. We need to desalinate it and purify it. The good thing is that the desalination process was already necessary for the life onboard to have fresh water, so it's not an overweight for the system, the hydrogen system itself.
And also, we use three steps of reverse-osmosis, and this process is quite low-maintenance, because you have pump to give the pressure, but after, it's quite a passive concept. And just to say practically for us, river water was worse than seawater, because usually it's more dirty. Like, here in the estuary it's more challenging than using seawater offshore. So, the important consideration when selecting, after designing, selecting the different hydrogen systems, I will go into the different part of the system.
For example, for the electrolyzer, we use Nel electrolyzer, which was Proton Onsite before and …
>>Victorien Erussard: American technology. [Laughter]
>>Luc Bourserie: American technology. And it's 25 kilowatt [inaudible] per hour, and 30 bar output. It has been chosen for its reliability. The designer of the boat, the engineers, came from the CEA laboratory in France, and they already tested this technology from this supplier, and confirmed that it was very good efficiency and a good durability. So, reliability was one point for that equipment. Also, the availability, at this time, seven years ago, and accessibility in terms of interface, because the electrolyzer that you see now in the picture, which is in the boat, is usually in a closet.
So, the team from Energy Observer and the laboratory needed to be able to reengineer the electrolyzer, and not every company would allow that. Also, after electrolyzing, we have to compress the hydrogen from 30 bar to 350 bar. We do it in two steps. First, from 30 bar to 150 bar, and then from 150 bar to 350 bar. What we can see, here, is there is also an integration challenge using a former racing catamaran. So, this is why we couldn't use a big compressor all in one stage here, we had to fit into the existing hull of the boat, so this was pretty much of a challenge, too.
After compressing it, we have to store it, so we have some tanks. Also, it was a matter of availability and reliability, tested, again, by the CEA. We have 8 tanks, 320 liters per tank. In total, we can store up to 62 kilogram of hydrogen at 350 bar when they are full. And one important thing is that the team of Energy Observer developed a specific integration structure for the safety, the stability, and the low weight to be able to be authorized to use them. And it has been patented by Energy Observer.
And last piece of the hydrogen system is the fuel cell. We began with a fuel cell that was built by the CEA, and it was the engineer that would begin with the boat, so it was also a matter of maintainability of these more sensible components. So, it made sense to use the fuel cell that was developed by the engineer that would be on the boat. So, after that, the boat was launched. The lessons that were learned from the engineering process was that anything had to be really tested in the lab before they did all this in Grenoble, in the CEA, before assembling it into the boat.
And the feedback that they gave me, because I was not there at the beginning, that the pressure and the compression was a very big challenge in this design. And then, so the boat began its voyage in good conditions, like here, but also in more extreme conditions, very cold or very rough. So, how did the hydrogen system perform in these conditions for seven years around the world, in very high temperature, very low temperature, and roughness?
What we could see, after seven years, is that, generally, the hydrogen system worked quite well. The electrolyzer, we tested it, we made a characterization. A few months ago, the [inaudible] was really low. The fuel cell, I'll show you a bit later, but now we are using a Toyota fuel cell and it's the same thing, there is very low maintenance except from the preventive maintenance. And, yeah, we have very good results about that, about these technologies. What we can say is, being in confines on secured confines with a very big forced flow of air, these are the part of the boat that are the more clean. And so, it helped to keep these systems in good shape, actually.
Because what we can see, otherwise, is, first, some of the challenges that we've seen, because not everything went according to the plan. It's a laboratory. One of the main challenge of the hydrogen system was the compressor membrane. It's a metallic membrane, different metals, and they broke down a lot at the beginning. So, there have been a lot of work between the teams of Energy Observer and the supplier of the compressors, to improve, find the right metal to use.
Another challenge has been the degradation of some of the valve of the input, the input valve of the tanks. They are outside, for safety, like that if we have leakage, the hydrogen, it's just leaving and there is no concentration of hydrogen. But being outside with the salt and everything, it aged and there was some corrosion and we had to make some maintenance. We could say that we should have put grease or things like that, but, actually, putting grease will affect the o-rings, so, that supplier told us.
So, we try to find the best way to clean it with clear water, but, yeah, being outside in very rough weather, that didn't help. Another feedback that we get, it's from an onboard prototype system fuel cell that was installed at the beginning of the project. We changed for Toyota fuel cell. It allowed us to have industrial fuel cell that we could give feedback on this rough environment, and we worked closely with Toyota to exchange about the data and how it works.
So, what we've learned with operating this system, hydrogen system, for seven years, is maintenance should be considered at every time before and after the design. Being in this former racing catamaran, the maintenance of equipment integrated in such a small space has been a bit difficult. Also, what we learned is, be nice with the compressors. We developed a method to be less rough with the membranes at the startup of the compressors.
Also, I said about the zones that are cleaning the boat, and also, the thermal management was very important at the beginning of the trip, there, to really adapt these thermal loops and the pressure loops, pressure drops. So, it has been some of the challenges that the teams of Energy Observer learned about, and these challenges and these lessons led to developing through a sister company, Energy Observer Development, using the skills learned on the boat, an integrated and certified marine fuel cell, the REXH2, that you can see on the picture. That is used in some boats already, such as in America's Cup, but also with Fountaine Pajot on a catamaran.
>>Victorien Erussard: [Crosstalk] for the America's Cup, we have two high-speed [inaudible], it's amazing.
>>Luc Bourserie: It's amazing, they are going really [crosstalk].
>>Victorien Erussard: And we have American Magic, it's the New York Yacht Club—good collaboration.
>>Luc Bourserie: And I will give back the mic to Victorien, so he can tell you a bit about what were the challenges that were not all technical about [crosstalk].
>>Victorien Erussard: Yes, thank you, Luc. I want to speak with you quickly on the challenges related to financing, insurances, and regulation.
Regarding the funding of our first laboratory ship, the Energy Observer, our economic model primarily relied on sponsorship, with support from about ten major financial partners making the investment feasible. Today, for the acquisition of electric ships for professional use and that operate on hydrogen, obtaining public subsidies is often necessary. The industrial production of hydrogen technology components, such as fuel cells, is not yet sufficiently scaled, due to a low number of clients. Thus, maintaining high costs and creating a vicious cycle of waiting and inactivity.
For wealthy individuals or prosperous companies, taking the step despite this cost is crucial to stimulate demand and reduce price. For instance, a small 20-meter pleasure craft equipped with a full electro-hydrogen system costs about €600,000, an amount acceptable compared to the total cost of several million for such a ship. However, for large commercial ship like our 160-meter cargo ship project powered by electro-hydrogen, I will speak of this project after, the cost is 2.5 times higher than that of a traditional diesel ship. Which is predictable given the total power of the onboard fuel cells and the storage ambitions, with 40 tons of LH2 equivalent to about 150 tons of diesel.
However, with replication and for group orders, the extra cost would only be 30 percent by 2030, it's our prevision. It is also vital to consider the challenges of operational cost, including the price of hydrogen. For this to work, shipowners are targeting a price of at least €7.00 per kilogram of hydrogen, ideally €4.00, to compete with fossil fuels, [inaudible] euros per kilo for liquid hydrogen, including bunkering operations. I'm not talking about output from electrolyzers. Reducing cost at all levels of the supply chain is, therefore, imperative. Since renewable hydrogen is generated from electricity, it is essential that it be produced at a competitive cost.
In France, industrialists are alerting the state to the need to set up power purchase agreement at minimum price of €40.00 per megawatt, to secure long-term supply of renewable electricity at a reasonable cost. This topic is currently under discussion in Paris, and during the revision of the national hydrogen strategy. Regarding insurance, our positive experience during our work tour with our prototype, without any incidents, should help reassure insurers. Ships under construction must receive approval from classification societies to obtain a navigation permit and the necessary insurance.
Recently, I spoke with [inaudible], a major maritime broker who takes this matter seriously by collaborating with the classification societies to offer both smart and affordable insurance premiums. Regarding the regulatory framework, it can be complex and opaque for those using these technologies for the first time. To obtain approval to navigate in Paris during the summer of 2024, for example, we were asked for numerous things and had to comply with requirements such as reducing the pressure of the hydrogen tanks from 350 bar to 100 bar, in order to pass under the bridge.
We observed that, during our odyssey, a disparity in [inaudible] at the global level. Those regulatory challenges clearly underline the necessity to adopt a clear framework to facilitate the adoption of these new technologies. Nevertheless, there is a real political will to build the current regulation in the production and use of hydrogen, notably, with Repower EU, European Union planner. The 2024 European election will play a key role in implementing this nascent regulatory framework. International organizations such as the International Energy Agency and the International Maritime Organization are also involved.
Major powers like the United States and China are also advancing on these issues, promoting the emergence of the global hydrogen market. When this market emerges, the safety and the regulatory barriers will be lifted, enhancing the legitimacy and trust in these technologies, and facilitating the establishment of less restrictive standards for navigation. Perhaps you can just speak about the Energy Observer too before to leave the micro, Beatrice. [Laughs]
Our global economy relies on maritime transport. It's a real challenge and that's why we have been committed to continuing our efforts at our one scale. This is why we have been working for the past two years on the development of the world's lowest carbon cargo ship, developed by our subsidiary EO Concept, Energy Observer Concept. Our mission is to push the boundaries of technological exploration to decarbonize commercial vessels. Here is a 3D image representing the interior of the ship.
This feeder type container ship is 160 meters long and 24.5 meters wide. It has a displacement of 12,000 tonnes with the capacity for 1,100 containers. It operates on liquid hydrogen with a loading capacity of 40 tons, which is roughly the equivalent in terms of energy to 150 tons of diesel. Additionally, it features electric propulsion, no internal combustion engines, making it quieter and production of—production of zero emissions in terms of particulate matter.
Just a few words for inside the ship. We can observe how a fuel cell room, it's not a big [audio cuts out] for us. This fuel cell room, which incorporates 100 fuel cell from the automotive sector, are supplied by our partner Toyota, and [inaudible] development. They are marinized and assembled into a 400-kilowatt… It's not a dream. It's a reality. We can sail with this. We have not a big technical problem for [audio cuts out] we have made.
Beatrice?
>>Beatrice Cordiano: Thank you very much. So, I was asked to talk about the human experience of being part of the crew on a laboratory vessel. So, I decided to share with you the story of the odyssey, and also some insights about what it means to sail on a zero-emission vessel.
So, just to say a few words about the odyssey. It has been already quite some time that we are going around the world, it's seven years already that we are developing and testing the onboard technologies, to be able to give feedback to our industrial and technological partners. So, since then, we have visited 45 countries, sailed more than 64,000 nautical miles. New York is the 88th stopover. And you have to know that Energy Observer has also a pedagogical goal, because we think it is important to raise awareness about energy topics and about the ecological and energy transition.
So, for these, we have a pedagogical exhibition village that we have deployed 17 times around the world. So, everything started in 2017. The boat had its port of origin in St. Malo in Brittany, in the northwest part of France, and we sailed straightaway to Paris. So, you see the boat was quite different. We had vertical axis turbines, instead of the ocean wings, we had way less solar panel surface. But this is part of the research, to understand that sometimes you need to change some technologies, or you need to optimize them.
So, we started to test our boat in, as Luc was saying earlier, in easy conditions. So, we decided to start with the Mediterranean Sea, because it's a closed and calm sea with very good [inaudible] conditions. After that, we decided to change the vertical axis turbines into the ocean wings and to increase the surface of solar panels, aiming to go up north, because we wanted to test this boat and these technologies in rougher conditions. So, we went up to Russia and very close to the North Pole.
There, it was really challenging, because we had very short days, so we weren't really able to produce a lot of solar power, and we relied a lot on our hydrogen system, both for electricity production, but especially for heat production. This was quite important over there. We understood that, well, the boat worked well, and so we decided to start, officially, the world tour. So, one of the major challenges, in 2020, was that COVID hit. And so, all the borders closed, and that was the time when we started the transatlantic crossing.
So, that was our longest navigation ever, it was more than 40 days, and for us it was quite important, because it proved the reliability of such a system during very long periods. Meaning that the system is a very good solution for clean and decentralized power production. So, we ended up in Guyana, then Galapagos, crossing the Panama Canal. That's not the first time that we are in the States. So, we went to San Francisco and also Los Angeles.
In 2022, we spent most of the year in Southeast Asia, where we observed the effect of very high temperatures and very humid climates on the solar cells. Finishing the year with a major stopover in Singapore, which is a major shipping port, which tries to decarbonize its activities. 2023 was the year of Africa, so South Africa, and then we did another transatlantic crossing, which was a little less challenging than the first one. We ended up in Brazil, and then finally the U.S. again, so Washington first, and finally New York City.
So, as you can see, it has been a very long odyssey for our laboratory boat. So, you had some insights from Luc and Victorien for what concerns the technical part, the technologies, but what about the crew? So, I was asked to share the most difficult and best aspects of sailing on the Energy Observer, but I actually think they go hand-in-hand. So, I decided to highlight just some of them, but maybe there will be questions afterwards.
So, as you can imagine, operating a hydrogen boat in a research vessel, it might be quite different with respect to operating traditional sailing boat, traditional diesel boats. So, the first thing that I want to share is that this means, for the crew—which is composed by only five people with very different backgrounds, so we do not have all a technical and scientific background—it means being able to face technical challenges. So, of course, on diesel boat, the crew has to pay attention to fuel system contamination by water, by microbial growth, which can cause corrosion, clog filters, and eventually lead to engine problems. It's important to check oil levels, exhaust gas. So, it's not the same for us.
For us, the crew needs to monitor a whole new set of parameters, like pressure and temperature of hydrogen in the tanks, humidity at the outlet of the electrolyzer. The techniques ensure optimal performance of the fuel cell, the batteries, and the whole renewable energy technologies. And everything is electric. So, we also need to be able to check parameters about voltage and current. So fortunately, on our boat, we have a real-time monitoring system, which alerts us with alarms or a warning.
But, of course, since we are not all technical people, the crew needs, in order to troubleshoot or to understand what's going on, to be familiar with renewable technologies, hydrogen technologies, battery, etc. And so be trying to understand this completely in new system. Another challenge is, well, the boat's power consumption demands constantly change, because of the activities onboard, because of the change in power required by the propellers or the onboard system, the life onboard.
And, of course, renewables like solar and wind, they're great to—well, for clean energy generation, but they're not constant. They're intermittent, and so, this makes power output a little bit unpredictable. So, what we need to do as crew members is also to constantly try to adapt the navigation strategy, depending on the real-time information that we have, and try, in this way to manage the power onboard. So, every crew member is asked, during watch, to manage this dynamic load across different sources, and try to distribute this efficiently.
So, for instance, I make the example of batteries. So, batteries play a vital role in the energy system for the daily storage, and we all try to increase their efficiency, to increase their lifespan. And so, we try to deal with the charge and discharge cycle, and adapt, consequently, the strategy of navigation. And then, I wanted to share something which is maybe more, let's say, human. So, another aspect people do not necessarily think about with boats is the noise they produce.
So, shipping is the dominant source of continuous low-frequency noise in the ocean, with a commercial vessel reaching up to 190 decibels, which is louder than a jet when it takes off. And, of course, this disrupts all the marine ecosystem, the marine biodiversity, having impact on the capability of marine mammals to communicate, to reproduce, to feed, and avoid predators, as well. So, something which is peculiar of our boat is that, when you have an electric system and a fuel cell, everything is well—more silent, so it allows for quiet operation.
And in the end, we managed to see and to enjoy a lot more of the marine biodiversity. And another thing that actually—I think it's related, but I forgot to put it in this light, is that this experience, it also teaches us to slow down. So, not only as a human experience, but also in terms of energy. So, we learned to use energy efficiently, but sometimes we also have to learn to use less energy and to be dependent on the natural, the climate conditions, the weather conditions we sail into. And this is something that we like to share, especially in a world which is more and more demanding in terms of energy.
So, in the end, adapting as a crew member to new technologies, it might be challenging, because we might need to learn a new maintenance routine or specific energy management procedures. But at the same time—it is a challenge, but it is also an opportunity and a motivation, too. So, I think this is something that we all have in common as crew members. So, we all know that technical challenges are part of research, and we think that facing them is also a way to foster the energy transition and be a part of a more sustainable future.
So, thank you. [Laughter]
>>Joe Stanford: Well, so, now it's time to turn to the Q&A, but before we go to that, I wanted to take a moment just to thank all of you so much for hosting this onboard. I think it's been an incredible opportunity. I think everyone who comes on this vessel is just blown away by the incredible amount of technology packed into such a small space. I mean, ships are already very complex to start with, but then, now you're integrating all these renewable energy systems, also, in this tiny space, and it's really remarkable.
So, I wanted to start with a question, and start with the hardest question. And when I toured the vessel, I was happy to see that I heard that the electrolyzer didn't cause any problems, it functioned well. Which we're very glad to hear, because as many of you on the webinar know, DOE funded the funded the—funded Proton Energy, the underlying technology, going back 20 years. And, you know, Proton was a long-term partner of us, and that technology was acquired by Nel. So, I'm glad to hear that that worked very well. We're all very thrilled.
But the question is, what would you say would be the most, if you had to pick one technical challenge, what was the most, the biggest challenge you had, or maybe the most surprising challenge?
>>Luc Bourserie: The biggest challenge was, as I said, the compressors. The compressors, from the membrane to—this is the only very precise mechanical piece in movement in these boats. So, these were the pieces that suffered the most, and without the compression, we cannot electrolyze. So, it's a central piece in our chain, and, yeah, this has been the biggest challenge.
>>Joe Stanford: And do you think that was mostly due to the salt air conditions or the changes in temperature or the rough weather?
>>Luc Bourserie: Not the salt air. It's in a confined zone, clean. I would say maybe the rough weather. We decided not to electrolyze when we were navigating, because the excess of energy, when we have it, when navigating and when we use the motors, it's not enough to start up the electrolyzer. But most importantly, we didn't want to use these very precise mechanical pieces when the boat was moving roughly. We use it at anchorage, in the marina. This is when we have excess of energy.
>>Victorien Erussard: But two words about this, because the hydrogen production onboard was for the scientific experiments, was for this odyssey and all across the world, because you can't find a maritime infrastructure where you can refill your boat. And my advice is to produce hydrogen on land [laughs], and a very important thing is to produce hydrogen with economic cost, to use this type of technology, it's a priority, it's a first priority.
>>Joe Stanford: We got a good question from the audience. Do you see the possibility of using both your experience and the data you collected for island communities? Then they comment that this is kind of like a little island, so do you see any sort of applicability there?
>>Beatrice Cordiano: So, yeah, I think that the idea of this boat was to convey the message that we can produce power in a sustainable way, in an efficient way, for decentralized application. So, an island can be an example of isolated areas that can powered by renewables, and in which we can add storage methods to compensate for the intermittency of renewable energy sources. And of course, what we think is that, so we proved that it worked on our boat, but that it can also work at the on-land and at a much larger scale—it can be an island, but it can be also a city, a whole region, or maybe a whole nation.
>>Joe Stanford: And eventually the whole world. [Laughter]
>>Beatrice Cordiano: Yeah, eventually.
>>Joe Stanford: Another question, what technology did you use to detect leaks? So, for hydrogen safety, was there any concern about where it might leak into, and, you know, create a [crosstalk] risk?
>>Luc Bourserie: Yeah, so we have sensors in these confined rooms, to check the level, the concentration of the hydrogen. I don't have the particular technology that is used for it, but, so we have a measurement that will check the level, and as soon as we reach, if we reach 40 percent of the limit of flammability, we stop everything. But it actually never happened because of this flow of air. If you have a leak, it will take the hydrogen off these rooms very quickly, not having a concentration. And as I said, everything we could put outside, we put it outside, so that if there is a leak, it goes away.
>>Victorien Erussard: The weight of hydrogen is 70 times more light than air.
>>Joe Stanford: So, it dissipates very quickly, if there was any. And for those who can't be onboard, the great thing about a catamaran is you've got two hulls on the outside. So, you've got the electrolyzer in the starboard, the hull on the right-hand side, and the fuel cell on the port side and the left-hand side of the ship. And it's all kind of, then there's the central living area, which is completely segregated. So, I imagine there's probably not even any hydrogen piping going through here.
>>Luc Bourserie: No, yeah.
>>Joe Stanford: So that's sort of an interesting example for how to use hydrogen and keep it separate from living spaces and potential risks from human interaction.
>>Luc Bourserie: And if I can continue on that, we often hear during the visit, "But hydrogen is dangerous, right?" And, yes, it's dangerous as fuel was dangerous, like all the gases are dangerous, like batteries are dangerous. But we put in place some rules in the design and in the using of them to mitigate these dangers, and I think this is the beginning of more rules and more legislation to manage this dangerousness.
>>Victorien Erussard: I have slept seven years at two meter of hydrogen tanks, and I am here. [Laughter]
>>Joe Stanford: And you slept soundly. [Laughter] So, a question about, I think you touched on this a little bit about learning the different skills. But I wonder if, you know, after seven years, and I guess when some of you have merchant marine backgrounds, so you learned the traditional merchant marine way of doing things. And you had to transition those skills to operating a ship with a completely different technology. After seven years, do you have a sense of how difficult it might be to transition the existing merchant marine workforce to these kinds of technologies?
>>Luc Bourserie: It's for you. [Laughter] This is also the idea of this boat to provide an example and to provide learnings about how it works. One big part of this boat is the energy management system that should be easy to use, even by people that are not used to work with this. And this is also the point with ocean wings, our sails that are automated, to be put on cargo ships for even people who don't know how to sail, they can use it. So, yes, it's a difficult transition. But this is the idea, here, to offer a means to learn and to provide solutions that are easier to use for this transition.
>>Victorien Erussard: And if I understand your question, for the maritime sector to decarbonize this sector, many, many different solutions are proposed with ammonia, methanol; and we have analyzed, we have seen industry, we have met many, many, many actors in the maritime sector. And I am afraid because all the ship owners have not the same vision, with the methanol, with the ammonia, with the LNG, and I am sure that liquid hydrogen is a good solution, and we want to accelerate this development of type of technology. And so, the demonstration is very, very important.
>>Joe Stanford: Yeah, I mean, that's how we learn, and we share what we learn, right.
>>Beatrice Cordiano: If we can add on and go back to the importance of the crew training. So, as Luc was saying, this boat was a way to start communicating these technologies onboard vessels. But in the end, I mean, on land, as well, but we are in a constant energy transition. It was the case for LNG, as well, it took, like, 40 years, and people adapt to these new technologies onboard. So, part of it is gonna be, let's say, trained by regulations to follow, in terms of security onboard. Then the other part is gonna, let's say, arrive thanks to the testing of this new technology. It's gonna take time, but in the end, as many people will test the system, well, as many feedbacks, technical feedbacks, we will have. So, it's gonna happen quite some years, as well, with hydrogen, probably.
>>Joe Stanford: And I think to sort of maybe to wrap up what's so unique about this is you pack so many technologies into such a small space in such an unusual environment, that you really—I think you've probably squeezed more learning out of these technologies than anyone's ever done before. I wonder if before—we have about a minute, I wonder, would it be possible to take a look, just to stand around the cabin so people can see? Maybe the audience could appreciate how small, this actually feels like a big racing sailboat, and less like a ship. And maybe take a look at the control panel, if possible?
>>Luc Bourserie: Yes, yes. [Crosstalk] So, here is the square where we work, like today. We can see Dominique, and a very well-equipped kitchen, actually, to show that using renewable energy to live, it doesn't mean living with a candle only. But we use this when we have enough energy, we use the oven and everything. When we have less energy, we'll be careful and do other things.
And cabin. So, we have six cabins, two single cabins and four double cabins.
>>Victorien Erussard: The hydrogen tanks, it had two meter. [Laughter]
>>Luc Bourserie: So, we are quite confident with that. And this is energy management system where we can monitor and control every technical aspect of the boat. We can see all the solar panels that are on the boat, follow the solar production, photovoltaic production, hydrogen generation that you can do, the use of wind for the level of batteries and hydrogen. And so, for example, now we're reaching 100 percent of batteries. We'll soon be able to turn on the electrolyzer. And, yeah, so.
>>Victorien Erussard: So, you can perhaps just show …
>>Luc Bourserie: Yeah, if we have time.
>>Joe Stanford: Well, I think I should wrap up. I need to say a few things before we sign off. But if there's something quick you could show.
>>Victorien Erussard: Just one minute.
>>Luc Bourserie: So, yeah, in one minute. What we do to process this hydrogen, we take the water from the sea, we remove the salt through reverse-osmosis, we have pure water, send it into the electrolyzer. We separate hydrogen and oxygen thanks to the electricity that we produce with the photovoltaic system. The oxygen, we release it, because it will be too complicated on the boat, but the hydrogen, we keep it. We dry it, actually, to not have too much humidity in the tanks. And then we will compress it to store in the—in the tanks. And when we need it at sea, we send it to the fuel cell, the reverse operation, the oxygen from the air, the hydrogen, and we recreate the water. And in the process, we have electricity that will charge the batteries.
>>Victorien Erussard: Thank you, Luc. And the bridge is very important, uh? [Laughter]
>>Joe Stanford: Okay, and then maybe we get all in one picture again.
>>Victorien Erussard: Yes, this is the view, the best view. We can pilot the boat here.
>>Joe Stanford: All right, so now I should say—why don't we all get together and I'll say a final thing. Which is, thank you to everybody for joining us for this incredibly unique way of celebrating Earth Day. We will also have another Earth Day webinar next Friday at the same time, when the folks from H2EDGE initiative will highlight efforts to prepare the emerging hydrogen industry workforce through a combination of professional development and university courses.
And of course, I have to mention a big reminder, all of you who haven't registered yet, register now for the country's premier hydrogen event, the Department of Energy Hydrogen Program Annual Merit Review Meeting. It's just a few weeks away in May, in Arlington, Virginia, and registration is a breeze. Just go to annualmeritreview.energy.gov.
Thank you. [Crosstalk]
>>Sunita Satyapal: Thank you. Congratulations.
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