Guest Bio
Cliff Stokes is a business development manager at Danfoss, focusing on electrification solutions.
Episode Summary
Host Vic Marinich, global marketing director for air conditioning at Danfoss, is joined by Cliff Stokes, director of business development at Danfoss, focusing on electrification solutions, to discuss the potential of hydrogen as a carbon-neutral power source.
Main Points
- Recent advances around the electrolyzer (a device which uses electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases) have removed some of the traditional skepticism about hydrogen-related electrification. (2:14)
- When we start to look at the ways we create hydrogen, most of those ways are dependent on the grid. Everything that supports a grid, including fossil fuels, is a major source of hydrogen. As we grow and expand, we start to use electrolyzers. It’s possible to get hydrogen from dirt, burning coal and natural gas, or from wind or solar. (4:07)
- There’s lots of current applications for hydrogen, including railways, transportation and the marine industry. The world’s first methanol to hydrogen tugboat that was recently developed. (4:53)
- Electrolyzers split the atoms, sending hydrogen into a gas form. Consider that we have salt caverns across the globe that store gases or water. By pumping more and more hydrogen into those caverns, you can pressurize it and enable its use for storing energy sources. (6:45)
- We need to be able to convert hydrogen to electricity. Connecting to an electrolyzer allows us to convert the energy to a usable voltage. They can be built to create energy to match peak demand periods. (11:00)
- Fuel cells are another popular way use of hydrogen. It’s basically a combustible device that can run a vehicle by generating electricity to run an electric motor. (11:15)
- It is challenging to store and transport hydrogen because it is more volatile than natural gas, so the current pipeline infrastructure is not suitable. In addition to building hydrogen pipeline networks across the U.S., we can also create hydrogen hubs in industrial areas to support local needs. Ammonia, which is made from green hydrogen, could be used to transport hydrogen energy across the world. (13:50)
Links
Read more from the International Energy Agency about the current state of hydrogen adoption: https://www.iea.org/fuels-and-technologies/hydrogen
Learn more about Danfoss hydrogen power solutions
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For more information and additional episodes of the EnVisioneering Exchange podcast, visit https://www.danfoss.com/en-us/about-danfoss/insights-for-tomorrow/envisioneering-exchange/