Latest / What's Your Problem? / Building a Plane to Help Save the World

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Building a Plane to Help Save the World · What's Your Problem?

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin, you are in fact a pilot?
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: No? Yes, indeed, indeed, is that in.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Fact a pilot headset that you're wearing.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: It is in fact a pilot hatseet, can you give.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Me a little like you're the pilot and I'm on
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: the plane, Just give me a little bit of that?
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Uh? What am I doing? Yes, ladies and gentlemen, get
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: ready for takeoff? Are about to go to sustainable future?
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: How about that? Very good?
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: I'm Jacob Goldstein and this is What's Your Problem? The
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: show where I talk to people who are trying to
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: make technological progress. My guest today is Val Misikov. He's
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: the founder and CEO of zero Opia. His problem is this,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: how can we have commercial air travel that doesn't make
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: climate change worse? As you'll hear, this is a very hard,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: very high stakes problem. Zero Avia is trying to solve
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: it by using hydrogen fuel cells to power planes. The
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: company has about three hundred employees, and earlier this year
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: they had a successful test flight of a small hydrogen
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: fueled plane they hope will be in commercial use by
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. So how did you like? What was
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: how did you get to starting this company?
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah? So the short version is, you know, my previous
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: company that I co found, it grew and sold, you know,
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: and now is actually a basis off a one of
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: the largest e mobility platforms in Europe.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and to be clear, that company was basically doing charging,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: doing charging for electric vehicles.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Exactly right, right, So since twenty ten or so, I
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: was in sustainable transportation space as an entrepreneur. When I
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: sold that company and as you correctly noted, a pilot
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: myself for the last twenty years or so. So when
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: I sold that company, started thinking about what's next. Sustainable
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: transfer was already in the car, so to speak, and
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: an aviation at to that and then sustainable aviation, so
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: that was relatively natural.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, sustainable aviation is really hard, right, Like I
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: feel like, you know, there's the very big picture, the
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: sort of the energy transition, decarbonization, and like electricity generation,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: we're doing great. We can get electricity without burning fossil fuels.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: We've got some transmission and some storage issues that are hard,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: but basically we can we can get electricity without burning
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: fossil fuels. Cars We're doing really well. Ev is great,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: We've we've got that one. Planes seem really hard.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: Planes seem harder, exactly right, And that's why I started it, right,
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: because somebody's got to do it. Yeah, it's a huge problem.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: It's actually on track to become the largest problem we
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: have in terms of sustainability.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Because we're solving the other ones and we haven't really
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: cracked planes exactly right.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: And this is actually planes or aviation. Commercial aviation is
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: one of the fastest growing transportation modes worldwide. There's either
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: ten or fifteen percent I don't remember the exact naml right,
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: only ten or fifteen percent of people have flown on aircraft, right.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: And obviously, as you know, people get a little bit
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: richer and the standards of living go up. People jump
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: on a plane and they want to go somewhere.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: So you have the sort of rising middle class. Say
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: in a lot of Asia, you have billions of people
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: who've never been on a plane who in the next
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: ten twenty years they or their kids are going to
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: start flying the way we fly in the.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: West, exactly right, exactly right. And while in the West
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: we're sort of you know, some Scandinavian country started as
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: the flight shaming movement right from Sweden and all that
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: we're thinking, oh, well, maybe we should fly less and
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: all that. That is a developed nation centric view. Yeah.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: No, we're not going to shame people into not flying.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: I'm very comfortable with that. We can stipulate that.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: So we have to figure out how to fly planes
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: without generating fossil fuels and other bad emission.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So, and the problem there is a not just carbon, right,
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: which is important. So from carbon accounting perspective, aviation is
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: about three percent today off all human emissions, but the
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: actual impact on climate is at least triple that, right,
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: because of the high altitude emissions off combustion artifacts. Right,
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: So that's the particular emissions, high temperature, water vapor, all
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: that stuff emitted up in the atmosphere.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: All the other stuff besides carbon. Carbon dioxide is particularly
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: bad for climate change if it happens at whatever, thirty
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: thousand feet above.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: The good right. Right. So, as a result, already aviation
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: is anywhere between seven and ten percent of total human
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: climate impact.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Presumably, as you sort of turn to it, you think
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: through the different possibilities. How can we solve this? So
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: how do you sort of think through the different possible solutions?
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and you're very right. So, really in order
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: to fully solve the problem and reduce the impact profile affreviation,
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: you have to get away from combustion.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: And there are a few different options there. Right, once
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: you get to the long term even that is, people
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: are trying different things. So if we're going to stop
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: burning things, we're going to make electric planes, that basically
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: leave us with the choice of batteries or hydrogen fuel cells.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: Is that we or fuel cells off some kinds, right,
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: So there are multiple types of fuel cells. There are
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: you know, fuel cells that work on methanol for example,
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: and things like that.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Before we get to fuel cells, I mean, we've got
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: electric cars. They seem cool, they work with batteries. Why
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: not do that for a plane?
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: Very good question, and we actually did this analysis relatively
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: early on. We say, okay, well, look at let's look
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: at all the transportation modes starting from personal car all
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: the way to commercial aircraft. Right and along the way
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: you have taxis, you have like small trucks that deliver
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: postal services, and they have big trucks, and you have
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: airplanes and they have you know, large commercial planes. You
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: take personal car that's about two to three percent off
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: its total weight of the vehicle is gasoline or diesel fuel. Yeah,
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: and then you move to the other side of the spectrum,
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: which is commercial aircraft, you have up to forty percent
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: off to take off weight is fuel. So that's twenty
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: x difference on the energy intensity, right, And that gives
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: you a perspective off like, hey, how much energy do
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: I need to store on board my vehicle in order
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: to enable commercial operation or viable operation?
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: And just to be clear, the answer to that question
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: for a passenger car is not that much energy, that's right,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: And the answer for a jet is an incredible amount
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: of energy. The jet is like by weight almost half
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: energy storage.
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: Right, gets to that point, okay.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: And just to be clear, batteries even relative to regular fuel, like,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: a key problem with batteries is they are not very
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: energy dense. You need a lot of battery to get
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: a little bit of energy. Big problem for batteries in general.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: Exactly. So when you have you know, for small car,
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: your fuel is two percent off the weight of the car,
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: then you say, well, even if my battery is twenty
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: times heavier or twenty times lower energy density, it's okay.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: You know, I can have a battery that's now forty
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: percent off the car weight, which is what you have
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: in you know, early teslas. Right, But it's still fine, huh, Right.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: You can still make a functional car that's half.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: Battery, Yeah you can. You can make a viable vehicle.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: But when you start with a forty percent nothing you
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: can do.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: You can't make a plane that's two hundred percent battery.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: And it's actually interesting point there because you know, it's
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: like you get into into this problem of what I
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: call a rocket equation, right, which is like in a rocket,
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: for example, in space rocket, most of the fuel is
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: used to carry fuel right through the through the beginning
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: of your ascent right.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: Right, because the rocket is almost entirely fuel, right, And
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: so when it's blasting off, it's expending a tremendous amount
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: of energy to carry the fuel that it's going to
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: need in ten seconds to get it a little bit
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: higher and so on.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: Exactly right, exactly, you got it. So with battery airplane
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: you get into the same kind of circular dependency.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: So, okay, so you land on a fuel cell, let's
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: just do like a really basic like what is a
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: fuel cell?
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: All right? So fuel cell is an electro chemical device
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: that takes fuel and oxygen and converse it into electricity
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: through a catalyst based reaction. Right, So there is no
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: high temperature combustion involved and you have direct electricity production,
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: and that's what makes that thing very efficient.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about end to end, the dream of
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: how it's going to work. Afterwards, we can talk about
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: sort of where you are now and what you still
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: have to figure out. But like when you sort of
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: close your eyes and imagine the world in ten years
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: or whatever, how's it going to work?
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So we are going to have hydrogen production on
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: site at the airports. Okay, it's a green hydrogen production
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: through electrolysis, local renewable power.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: So the airports will have little hydrogen factories. Basically, what's
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: that going to look like?
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's actually quite sizeable hydrogen factory.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: They're not little. They're gonna have hydrogen factories, big hydrogen factory.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: It's great. So what's that gonna look like?
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So we're going to have so let's say right now,
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: every large airport, a medium airport as well, they have
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: what's called fuel farm. Okay, so that's a separate area
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: dedicated to receiving, storing, processing, dispensing fuel. Now we're going
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: to have part of that fuel farm will be dedicated
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: to hydrogen production through electrolysism.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: And that electrolysis, what's happening there? What is that step one?
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: So it's again you know a system right here. You
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: take water in electricity, produce hydrogen and oxygen.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: Okay, okay, you're getting the electricity from a from a
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: solar panel or a turbine, not from burning natural gas.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: So sure you've got your electricity coming from the solar farm.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: You're using that electricity to create hydrogen.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's a hydrogen at the airport, so it's
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: piped over to the airside and then it fills the
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: aircraft with hydrogen electric engines. Then it's used to produce
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: electricity on board and you operate all this aircraft less noise,
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: no emissions. And that's where the messaging has parallels with
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: the automotive, right when Tesla came in and said, well, actually,
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: you know, electric car is a better car because it's
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: so much more efficient, better torque, better acceleration, all those things.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: So similar here, the electric propulsion is much more efficient
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: than any combustion propulsion you can have, even for the
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: largest engines that we have that are running on seven
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: eighty sevens and beyond. They are less efficient than even
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: small fuel cell electric engines that we fly in twenty
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: seat planes.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: So there was a crash of one of your test
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: flights last year, right, tell me briefly what happened there.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So mostly I would say the root cause was
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: a loss of power on the engine, right, so you know, duh, naturally,
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: otherwise we wouldn't have landed in the field.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: But the real cost is bad, right, You don't want
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: to have lots of power in it.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, but you know, you test experimental engine,
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: so you know, and you test it through sort of
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: expansion of the envelope. So in this case, uh, you know,
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: there were some human factors that resulted in wrong points
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: in the pattern for the power to be switched off,
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: wrong altitude to be flown, and now those things kind
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: of compounded together, and then there are some other things.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: But mostly I would say human factors.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: And nobody was hurt, right, that's right, that's right.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: So, and the the entire system, you know, the hydrogen storage,
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: the fuel system, the hyders and fuel cell and all that,
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: we're safe throughout the whole sequence. There was no leakage,
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: there's no anything.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: I know, you know, you kept working on everything after that,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: And I understand you had a test flight earlier this
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: year that was something of a milestone.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: Yes, so that was our third prototype. We've flown smaller
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: planes before with our systems. This is our latest design.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: And how big is it? What was the plane that
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: flew this year?
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: It's a twenty seat aircraft?
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: And is that do you hope to have a twenty
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: seat plane in commercial use in the foreseeable future?
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: So that's type of a plane. That size of a
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: plane ten to twenty seat is our first launch target
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: in two years twenty twenty five.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: And so does two years mean you mostly have it
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: figured out and you just have to get regulatory approval?
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: I mean just I'm sure it's not just, but like,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: do you basically know how to build that plane now?
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Are you confident that it works?
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Pretty much, pretty much. We were finalizing the design
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: of the engine to submit certification in the next six months.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Do you do you have to fly it for thousands
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: of hours or something? I mean, I imagine those regulatory requirements
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: are quite stringent. A whole new kind of propulsion.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: We have to operate the engines for thousands of hours,
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: we don't necessarily have to fly again. And that's part
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: of our approach is that we work with existing aircraft types. Yeah,
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: so our initial business model go to market is retrofitting
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: the existing fleets. So we go to the operators and
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: we say, hey, you got a fleet of hundreds of
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: these aircraft, we can repower them with a better engine.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: Because while aircraft themselves last for thirty forty years in
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: commercial service, especially in the small aircraft space, they go
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: through multiple sets of engines over that light time. Huh.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: So it's like, hey, you're going to need a new
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: engine for this plane anyways, let me sell you one
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: of these fuels, right yeah, And is it right you
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: have some number of orders.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: For correct those is that right? Yeah? Yeah, about fifteen
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: hundred engines on pre order right now, so, oney, five
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: hundred or so, and I think four out of top
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: ten airlines worldwide are customers already with those pre orders,
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: about ten billion dollars worth of you know, pre order revenue,
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: future revenue.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: So what has to happen for you to actually sell
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: those engines, to get those engines to those airlines?
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: Oh, we have to get them certified, and we have
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: to deliver on the performance targets that we have committed
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: to with these airlines, right, which means that we have
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: to develop certain amount of power so that that aircraft
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: can take off in a certain distance and climb at
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: a certain rates and all that. Then we know we
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: can do it.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: You also need to get the infrastructure in place at airports,
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: right Like that seems.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the infrastructure is actually everybody gets hung up on that.
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: But we think that I'm interested, yeah, yeah, no, but
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: everybody everybody is, okay, So, but we think that infrastructure
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: is a really the easier part of the equation here
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: Right in the.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: US, the total number of all commercial airports is just
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: four hundred four hundred locations, and one hundred of those
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: airports account for ninety five percent of the traffic.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Right, The answer is, you don't need that many.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: But we you know, we were not attempting to build
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: all the infrastructure as well. Right. We have partners like
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: shel for example, is a major investor in zero Audia,
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: and they are looking to bring hydrogen infrastructure to these
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: airports as well. But we work with them in the
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: back end. We aggregate that supply into our business model,
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: and when we go to the airlines, we are the
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: one stop contract.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: In a minute. What validis colleagues still have to figure
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: out to get their first hydrogen fuel cell on a
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: commercial plane. That's the end of the ads. Now we're
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: going back to the show. You mentioned that the engines
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: have to meet certain performance specifications. Are you there yet
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: on those?
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah? On the performance, we're we're almost there. We get
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: the we get the actual power, we get the efficiency.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: What we're working on now is mostly around weight reduction
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: for the engine. The engine is going to be about
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: twice as heavy as the turbine engine that it replaces,
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: so you take some trade off on the range of
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: the aircraft, but not nearly as much as you would
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: have to do with batteries.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: So these planes won't be able to fly as far
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: as a jet fuel powered plane. So you're hoping to
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: launch in small planes in a couple of years, and
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: I know you want to eventually get to big planes,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: to the big commercial jets that you fly across the
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: country in, or fly across the Atlantic in, or whatever.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: What is hard about about scaling in that way? What's
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: hard about going from where you almost are now to
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: where you want to be in ten years.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: Two things, two main things from the technology standpoint. One
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: is we need to move from a sort of typical
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: low temperature fuel cells that are used in the cars
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: or types that they're using cars, to higher temperature fuel
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: cells that are optimized for aviation.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: And so why do you need to develop essentially a
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: new kind of fuel cell to fly bigger planes?
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: Right? Because the more bigger planes require disproportionately more power too, right,
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: So they're generally faster. Right, So all those jets they
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: fly much faster, which means the power levels are significantly higher.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: So a plane that's twice as big requires way more
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: than twice.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: As long, more than twice as much power.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: But that's hard, that's hard. You can't just build a
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: bigger fuel cellar.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: But yeah, the reason that's hard with the current type
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: of a few cells, at least currently using automotive is
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: because when you scale power, you also scale the heat
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: production because no, no system is one hundred percent efficient,
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: so you have the heat that you need to remove
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: from the system. And that, yeah, that's right inefficiency. And
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: now for low temperature fuel cells, that heat is thrown
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: off at low temperature and it's difficult to remove it because,
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: for example, a good hot environment example is Phoenix, Arizona,
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: in the middle of a summer, it's fifty degrees celsius
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: on our runway, sometimes even more so. Your fuel cell
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: typical fuel cell in a car operates at about sixty
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: sixty five celsius internal temperature. So you now have sixty
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: five versus fifty. That's not much delta that you can
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: use to cool it, right, because if you're if your
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: ambient temperature is the same as your core temper you
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: cannot cool it right. And so what do you need
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: to do is you need to either you know, have
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: humongous heat exchangers or radiators, right, which is prohibitive because
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: then if they weigh a lot, they introduced drag and
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: all that. Or you can increase the temperature off the
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: fuel cell, right and just even small, relatively small increases
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: of temperature give you very significant benefits. So our inniuce
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: technology is operating instead of sixty five seventies degrees cells
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: is it operates at one eighty to two hundred C.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: But it's if you if you take again an example
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: of Phoenix, right.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: Basically it can be air cooled the hotter, it runs.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: Just cooled. Right.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: That's that's like a fundamental kind of engineering problem that
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: you have to solve is making a hotter fuel cell.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: That's right. So that's one. The second one is for
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: large aircraft, you need to go from gaseous fuel storage
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: to cryogenic liquid storage of hydrog on board because other
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: you cannot store enough. Basically, So those compressed gas cylinders,
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: while they're super simple, super safe, all those tanks, right,
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: they're heavy because they need to contain that huge pressure.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: So you know, best in class right now is only
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: eight percent of your fuel tank system is fuel. Ninety
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: two percent is tank.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Okay, oh wow, so that's the tanks you're putting on
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: the twenty seat plane. It's mostly tank.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: It's mostly tank.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: It's brutal, right, that's brutal.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now what helps is, of course, hydrogen
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: itself is three times better energy density than jet fuel,
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: and then with fuel cell you use it twice as efficient,
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: so you're sort of six times better than jet fuel.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: But I'm still bummed that your tank full of hydrogen
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: is ninety percent tank and ten percent hydrogen, right, That
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: makes me sad, that's right.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: That's right. So in order to move from that, you
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: have to go cry agenic liquid, which is low low
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: pressure storage, so you don't need those you know, hue.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: But it has to be super cold. Is probably has
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: to be super cold.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you have to you have to be super cold.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: But there, you know, people know how to store those things, right.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: AT's the vacuum insulated yours? Right, Yeah, like a thermos. Yeah, yeah,
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: exactly right, a thermos, Yeah, carbon composite thermos. So then
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: most off your tank is actually fuel right by weight,
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: and that's that That changes the dynamics quite a bit,
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: and that that's how you you're going to make airplanes
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: go potentially even further than today's kerosene planes, right if
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: anybody can handle more than twenty hours on the plane.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: So you need much much colder fuel and much hotter
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: fuel cells.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: That's right, Yeah, that's right, which is actually a very
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: very interesting point because you can then use you know,
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: to marry that cold. Yeah, you can cool the hotter
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: fuel cells with colder fuel and get additional efficiency.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Tell me the ways in which shifting from gaseous hydrogen
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: to very cold liquid hydrogen is hard? Sounds hard? Is
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: it hard?
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah? It is? It is hard. The reason it's hard
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: is because there is virtually no history of vehicle use
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: of liquid hydrogen, right for propulsion, Right, So.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: I mean hydrogen is Look, I've gone this whole time
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: without saying Hindenberg, I was trying not to say it,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: but hydrogen is very reactive. It blows up, right, I mean,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: is that a concern when you're talking about this new
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: kind of fuel, or.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: Well, with any fuel, you have this concern, right, Garrison
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: blows up, gasoline blows up, all any anytime you have
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: significant amount of energy stored, you're gonna you know, you're
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: gonna have issues, right, Yeah.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: So does that become a challenge when you're trying to
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: store hydrogen in this way that it hasn't been stored
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: in vehicles before in this shift?
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, yeah, So you have to you have to
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: basically design the the the safety system around it that
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: manages it correctly as possible. Liquid hydrogen is used in
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: the industry a lot, right, So the industry knows is
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: stationary applications, you know, pharmaceuticals, and so people know how
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: to do it.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: Right, it's just that now we need to make it lightweight,
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: We need to certify through the aviation certification standards. Right,
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: So that's that's significant challenge.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: What you're doing is hard. Clearly, if it doesn't work,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: I hope it works obviously for you and for everybody.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: But if it doesn't work, like, what do you think
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: is the most likely reason it wouldn't work?
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: Frankly, I don't. I don't see the reason there. I
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: don't see the reason.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: That's the classic entrepreneur angle. Right, it will work.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: But you know, I'm a I'm a physicist as well.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: Back around and we have you know, a good number
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: of scientists on the team, and.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: Y, I mean there are things like execution risk, right,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: there's there's the like first principles of things that should
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: work don't work in the world because of idiosyncratic reasons.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: Right right, right, right, So there is always that, but
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: from the sort of physics and science perspective, there are
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: no there are no real barriers and and and the
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: thing is, you know, we like society, we have to
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: make it work. It is becoming larger and larger part
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: of the problem. So it will happen, which means that
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: it's a huge opportunity to be taken. And that's uh,
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: that's what we're doing.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: In a minute, the lightning Round, including the metaphysical lessons
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: of a physics PhD and cold plunges. Now let's get
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: back to the show. I just want to do a
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: few sort of lightning round semi random questions to finish.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: You have a PhD in physics from Princeton, and I'm
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: curious what studying physics taught you about the fabric of reality.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: Well, first of all, that the the best approach to
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: things is a really first principle approach to not get
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: clouded and how how things were done, but look at
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: the look at the core. On a more metaphysical sort
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: of side of your question, I think any scientist that
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: is sort of real scientists will tell you that it's
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: pretty clear that we don't know most of what there
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: is to know, right. So sometimes it might be you
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: might have had a temptation to say that, hey, we're
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: we're in this you know, advanced state of society or
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: human knowledge, that we know most of the things know.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: In fact, you know, we don't know most and probably
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: we don't know even one percent of what there is
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: to know. And it helps to be have a little humility.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: Why cold plunges, Yeah, so, uh, let's see. Actually the
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: real the real answer is probably uh, testing the theory
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: that human body is capable of anything pretty much.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: Well, we know it's not capable of anything.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, or rather much more than you expect.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Okay, tell me about your cold plunge game.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: Well, we have a little di y thing. Okay, it's
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: a it's actually a fish dank cooler and it against
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: it gets what are too nice three degrees you know, Celsius.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: It's just barely about freezing, very cold.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: That's right, that's wrong, very long in that water, five
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: to ten minutes.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: That's much longer than I would have expected. What was
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: the worst moment you had in an iron Man triathlon?
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: Mh well, uh, I decided in the in the second
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: half of the run, I, in my infinite wisdom, I
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: had a water mix with some fuel mix. So I
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: I'm like, hey, I'm not going to carry it. I'm
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: gonna be efficient. I'm not going to carry my water
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: with me. I'm going to drink it all right now,
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: right as over a leader of water. And and that
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: caught up to me, you know, through the through the run.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: So that was not pretty.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: That was the best moment in an iron man the bike.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: I love the bikes. I don't. I don't actually have
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: a car. My wife has a car, but sometimes I
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: borrow it so I bike everywhere. So that's my favorite
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: part of the UH of any Triathlonkov.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: Is the founder and CEO of Zero. Today's show was
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: produced by Edith Russelo. It was edited by Sarah Nix
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: and Rob Smith, and engineered by Amanda k Wong. I'm
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: Jacob Goldstein. You can find me on Twitter at Jacob Goldstein,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: or you can email us at problem at Pushkin dot fm.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: We'll be back next week with another episode of What's
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Your Problem