Subscribe to our Substack for regular updates, follow us LinkedIn and listen on Spotify.
Welcome back to Down to Zero where we speak to game-changing climate entrepreneurs, innovators and investors about their journey, what they are working on, and where the space is headed.
Our focus today: Hydrogen for long-haul transport
Today, we’re deep diving into climate change mitigation and intersection of the transportation and energy industry (see our climate framework) - more specifically into hydrogen as an alternative low-carbon fuel for trucks.
Listen below if you’re interested in:
Decarbonizing transportation, particularly long-haul transport
Alternative fuels
Green hydrogen
Introducing today’s guest
In this episode, we speak to Ted McKlveen, Co-Founder and CEO of Verne. Verne pioneers high-density hydrogen storage for trucks to accelerate the transition to zero-emission heavy transportation.
Pilots show that green hydrogen can be a safe and scalable alternative to batteries for long-haul transport (which accounts for around 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions). However, challenges remain, for instance, around storage. Ted launched Verne in 2020 while at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business to solve these. Since then, Verne has developed a new cryocompressed hydrogen storage system that requires lower pressure while doubling truck range and increasing payload capacity.
Verne is supported by Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Amazon Climate Pledge Fund, amongst others.
Episode overview
In this episode, we talk about why we need hydrogen fuel cells and the challenges with current solutions. We also touch on the value of optionality in the refueling infrastructure, and how to get hydrogen to be competitive with diesel.
The need for hydrogen fuel cells in trucks
Heavy-duty trucks carry 80,000 pounds and require immense power. There are a lot of challenges when thinking about transitioning all of heavy-duty transportation over to battery electric, mainly based on battery weight, battery cost, and grid limitations in order to actually charge those vehicles. Hydrogen can play an important role in solving these challenges for long-range, high-payload trucks and those with limited power at charging locations.
“About 40% of heavy duty trucks are either long range or payload limited. And that's really the market for hydrogen. There's going to be a lot of battery electric vehicles, but there are also a lot of vehicles that are going to really need a different solution.”
How Verne solves the issues with compressed and liquid hydrogen
Compressed hydrogen (where hydrogen is compressed between 350 and 700 bar) provides longer range, higher payload, and quick refueling compared to battery electric trucks but is still limited compared to diesel trucks. Compressed hydrogen trucks can only travel around about 500 miles, and the tank weight from the high pressure hydrogen tanks is a few thousand pounds.
Liquid hydrogen is higher density than compressed hydrogen gas and allows for trucks to travel up to 1,000 miles with increased payload, but it requires energy-intensive and expensive liquefaction.
Verne stores hydrogen as a compressed gas in a cold state, maximizing density even higher than liquid hydrogen without the need for a liquefier, which keeps costs low and provides long-range and high payload.
How Verne’s product maximizes refueling optionality for trucks
Verne's first focus was on the hydrogen storage tank system to show high performance and long range while avoiding liquid hydrogen supply as this can lower costs. Verne also has a second product in the pipeline that chills gaseous hydrogen to fill their tanks. They can fill their tanks with liquid hydrogen, compressed gas hydrogen, or chilled gaseous hydrogen, making it cost-effective and providing more options for filling up at any station type.
“If you have one of the storage tanks on your truck, you can stop at any station type, independent of how the hydrogen got to that station or the equipment that they have at the station. That’s a really important aspect of what we're doing”
This is critical, since like diesel or battery-electric trucks, hydrogen trucks need a robust refueling structure.
Why reducing hydrogen fuel prices is critical and how to do it
Bringing the cost down of hydrogen as an alternative fuel is going to be crucial to getting hydrogen trucking to scale. Currently, hydrogen is 2-3 times as expensive as diesel.
“A lot of analysis shows that the hydrogen fuel price at the pump has to be around $4-5 a kilogram for it to be cost competitive with diesel. It's about two to three times that today”
But Ted believes that over the next six to seven years, costs may come down to diesel parity. There is a lot of corporate activity and innovation in reducing the cost of hydrogen, as well as the Inflation Reduction Act subsidies for hydrogen production.
Verne is also reducing costs of hydrogen as fuel by avoiding the need for liquidification and increasing the flexibility of onsite equipment and of the supply chain. That helps to minimize processing and delivery cost of hydrogen getting to the refueling station. Also, compared to gas storage, Verne’s hydrogen storage tank has an economic advantage, as it can store hydrogen at twice the density.
Trends in the hydrogen market
There is a lot of activity in hydrogen production. Ted believes that we will see a lot of activity in electrolysis development, in alternative forms of hydrogen production, as well as pyrolysis and blue hydrogen.
Transportation is a good early market. The US government introduced a hydrogen hub concept, which aggregates smaller demand into one area, a smart move to facilitate transportation as an early market for hydrogen. The hub concept provides a more reliable off-take for hydrogen suppliers building their plants. Compared to other potential end-use industrial applications, such as steel production which may be further out, a highly suitable early market for hydrogen might be as a feedstock for producing green ammonia.
Ted’s wishes to advance the climate tech ecosystem
Ted would love to see more true appetite for deep tech solutions in the market, from investors who are ready to invest over longer time horizons.
Although politically contentious, Ted believes that a carbon tax would be the most effective way to push the industry in the right direction toward reducing emissions. It would provide market certainty and eliminate the need for subsidies for specific technologies, allowing for competition on an even playing field.
“I haven't heard as much lately about something that I think is still truly almost a Silver bullet, which would be a carbon tax. Then you're not picking winners.”
Thanks for listening to Down to Zero. We would love to hear your thoughts, so get in touch with us, Florian and Shaneez, follow our LinkedIn page and like us on Spotify.
Share this post