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Join Andy Marsland in Exploring Clean Energy where we uncover the ideas, innovations, and projects powering our sustainable future.
You may know us as Exploring Hydrogen, where for 31 episodes we’ve shone a spotlight hydrogen. However, our global challenge of decarbonisation is much bigger than one energy vector.
Now, as we continue as The Exploring Clean Energy Podcast, this 2nd season we’re expanding the conversation to include the other stories that are shaping the energy transition of Australia and the world. We hope you enjoy the diversity of thought, and I welcome you so engage with me to help shape the episodes moving forward – so we can bring you the technical experts and projects that you want to hear about and to answer your important questions. Welcome to our energising journey.
Introduction & Welcome You are listening to Exploring Clean Energy, where we uncover the ideas, innovations, and projects powering our sustainable future. I'm Andy Marsland. Welcome to the show. I'm thrilled to welcome our guests today from Sparc Hydrogen, CEO Alana Barlow, and Professor Greg Mether, uh, who's the lead researcher. So a very warm welcome to the Exploring Clean Energy podcast. Thanks so much for having us, Andy. It's good to be here. Great stuff. And, uh, yeah, welcome. So let's start on the big picture then. Uh, for people hearing about Sparc Hydrogen for the first time, what is the, the problem that you're, you're trying to resolve by the organization? The Problem: Cost & Scarcity of Electrons So Sparc Hydrogen are a green hydrogen technology developer. We are not an electrolysis company. What we do is we use a, a different chemical reaction that is triggered by sunlight to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. That's the, the s- the very quick summary of what our technology is- ... and Greg will definitely take you through a bit more of that later. But ultimately, when it comes to green hydrogen and the transition away from fossil fuels, the main solution that's looked at is electrolysis or green electrolysis. Now, there's a huge amount of electrons or electricity that's required for electrolysis to really build out to support the current demand for hydrogen and future projected demand, but there simply aren't enough electrons. And as a result, electrons are expensive, green hydrogen's expensive, and we're seeing a lot of projects stall. So the problem that we're trying to solve is stepping away from the need for electricity for our reaction to be able to split water into hydrogen and oxygen and start to create decentralized hydrogen systems that are independent of electricity grids. So that's what we're doing in a nutshell. Yeah. And I think we're well on the journey to being able to do that. This technology will be extremely new for, for a lot of people to, to hear of, so yeah, I'm looking forward to getting into the, uh, the technology side of things and, and how it all works before... as we get through the conversation. So you've said repeatedly that cost is the kind of biggest barrier to, to hydrogen, so can you talk to the, I guess you'd call them the efficiencies or the, the lower cost projections then of, uh, of your approach? Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, you know, anyone who's worked on a large-scale hydrogen, uh, green hydrogen development project that, uh, is using electrolysis as its main technology pathway will know that if you're looking for 24/7 green hydrogen supply, the firm green electricity costs can be up to 90% of your LCOH. Wow. That's a huge- Yeah, huge ... huge number. And so therefore, on-market electricity costs or even behind-the-meter electricity costs greatly drive the price of green hydrogen. The, the pricing, uh, for electricity here in the NEM in Australia, sorry, the NEM here, yes, in Australia, for anyone who's listening from overseas. Um, the price has significantly jumped over the last five or six years. And in Australia, we had, uh, almost a gold rush for cheap- Green hydrogen here back in around 2020- Mm-hmm ... because the electricity market price was around, you know, projected to be around $35 a megawatt hour. So that meant that you could have significantly lower price green hydrogen if you're developing your plant here. But obviously, as, um, COVID hit and the war in Ukraine hit, um, we started to see supply chain challenges and as a result increase in, in supply costs for, you know, renewable energy build-out, increase in inflation obviously, and an increase in construction workforce. And all of those has had an impact on the price of electricity here in Australia. So firm green energy is nowhere near $35 a megawatt hour, nowhere near $50 a megawatt hour. It's over 100 mega- $100 a megawatt hour. And when your electricity cost is up to 90% of your LCOH, that has a huge impact on the price of green hydrogen. Stepping away from that as well, the other challenge is the scarcity of electrons. There simply aren't enough in the NEM or in the WEM to be able to support large scale green hydrogen projects. Uh, multiple projects, I should say. So you might get a few hundred megawatts here and there, maybe even up to a gigawatt, you know, on a couple each ends of the NEM here in, in Australia, but you're not going to see, you know, 10, 10 of those megawatts, sorry, gigawatt scale projects being developed simply because there aren't enough electrons to go around. Why Australia is Uniquely Positioned Yes. Yeah, yeah. Mm. And so what, um, with that in mind then, why is Australia uniquely positioned then to take advantage of the, of this technology? So our technology, as I said, uses sunlight- Mm ... to activate, uh, catalysts, catalysts. We call them photocatalysts or, uh, photoelectrical chemicals. When those chemicals... We'll call them broadly, Greg. I know you'll have a particular view on what we how we describe them. Those chemicals, when they, uh, are activated by sunlight, they'll split water into hydrogen and oxygen. So similar to electrolysis in a way, but without the significant amount of electricity that's required to, to do- trigger the reaction inside an elec- an electrolyzer. And it's, our process is a single-step process in terms of energy conversion. We take sunlight and it, it directly converts water into hydrogen and oxygen in a single step, versus electrolysis where you first need to generate your electricity. So there's a conversion of energy there if you're using sunlight. And a, and a loss, obviously. The loss, yeah. Yes, yeah. Yeah. So the loss is associated with two-step conversion- Mm ... is, is less efficient, which mean- also means more money. Ours a single step and actually quite a, quite a simple, um, simple process compared to electrolysis. So much like a chemical reaction that you would glance for photosynthesis almost. Exactly. Oh, yes. Yeah. It's often called artificial photosynthesis. Right. Yeah. Great. So Greg can definitely talk you through, talk you through that analogy. And it's, it's, as a result, more efficient. It's... You need less infrastructure because, you know, we're not needing to develop large scale, um, electricity production. We're not needing to deal with transmission infrastructure or distribution infrastructure, transformers, none of that. Our plant uses mirrors to concentrate light into our reactors, and therefore concentrating the energy that goes into those, those catalysts to be able to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. And so it's very, very simple process, I like to think. Greg won't think it is. Yeah. But, you know, we'd be able to create that reactor. That's where our IP sits for that, um, reaction to take place. Yeah. I just wanted to add a point about efficiency. Please. So it- Mm ... it can be efficient, and that's one of the things that's been holding it back. Technology Overview: Photocatalysis & Efficiency So the research has been slowly increasing the efficiency of this reaction to occur, the, the water-splitting reaction. So it's, it's felt that it's needed to get to a particular, what we call solar-to-hydrogen efficiency, the efficiency that you convert, convert that solar energy into hydrogen and, and ultimately oxygen as well. So that's what's really has changed in the last few years is that there are now materials being developed by people all around the world, clever scientists who are now in- pushing up that solar-to-hydrogen efficiency, and that's... it's now starting to get into the very exciting, um, regime where it does mean that the hydrogen that you can produce is becoming cost competitive, not only with green hydrogen from electrolysis, but also with gray hydrogen from steam methane reforming, which is the current wa- currently the way that we produce- Anyway, yes just about all of our hydrogen in the world now. With that ef- efficiency then, what's, what efficiency are, are you about through the, through the pilot plants, and where does it kinda need to, need to get to? Yeah. Well, so because this is shifting all the time, you know, you, you... we really are just talking about something that's just been increasing and increasing. Theoretically, you can get up to 30%. So you can think about this, the analogy works with electrolysis. If you had, say, a photovoltaic farm filled with silicon-based solar cells, that'd be running at about 20, 22% efficiency. If that, that power then had to go to an electrolyzer, say running at 80% efficiency, then overall your efficiency from converting, uh, sunlight into hydrogen would be of the order of 15, 16%. Mm-hmm. So that's pav, you know- Par for the course, that would be what you'd be aiming for for photocatalysis. But given the fact that, A, you don't need all that other infrastructure, secondly, you don't need to an electrolyzer, you don't need all that power, power electronics, that means you can get away with a lower solar to hydrogen efficiency. So technoeconomic assessments generally suggest that you want about 10%, and that's now the mater-- that's the efficiency of materials coming out now from, from labs and organizations around the world. Ilana, you've worked across government, industry, international hydrogen projects, so you, you've obviously seen the sector from a, a number of different angles over a number of years. Market Evolution & Hydrogen Applications How have you seen- The, the hydrogen and hydrogen derivative sort of market and industry maturing over the last few years So what we're seeing now is rather than hydrogen, which was going to be enormously abundant, uh, at very low cost, not being the silver bullet solution to every energy problem that was out there, we're now seeing it being much more focused on molecules being used where molecules should, should be used, and electrons being used in, in all other cases. So as a result, you know, we were talking in Australia a lot about large export projects, you know, gigawatt scale, hundreds of thousands of tons going out of some of our wonderful regional ports. We're now talking about focusing on domestic decarbonization applications, you know, in, in sectors where essentially electrons can't replace the existing hydrogen molecules that are derived from fossil fuels. Now, I'd say that in Australia, we're not going through an energy transition. I like to describe it as an energy evolution. Whether you're looking at liquids or, or gases or electrons, simply we don't have enough capacity to be able to generate or produce all of the ele-electrons and, and molecules that we need. So our, our energy system is simply evolving, and it's evolving in, in line with what, you know, uh, the world is looking for, and it's looking for a cleaner, um, cleaner way for us to, to generate and use energy. So, you know, what does that mean for, for hydrogen here in Australia and globally as well? There's a focus, as you can see in the EU, around replacing fossil fuel-derived hydrogen in refineries. You know, there's some wonderful, um, fuel EU schemes over there that are promoting the use of, of hydrogen in those refining processes, which is something that electrons simply can't replace. Um, you're also seeing fertilizer companies, you know, looking to, to find other ways to, to produce the, the hydrogen and the ammonia that's needed for fertilizer. I know it's an energy piece, but it's actually incredibly important. Um, so you're starting to see hydrogen applications focus on those because those are real markets and real challenges that need to be solved now. You also-- we were talking a, a lot a few years ago around, uh, fuel switching. So, you know, switching some processes from using gas or using liquid fuels, so, you know, cars, long, um, you know, long, long range haulage, switching away from using liquid fuels and potentially using hydrogen. I think some of those conversations are still alive, depending where the battery, battery solutions take us, particularly on, on long, heavy haulage. So, you know, I think there is a lot to, to happen still in the fuel switching space, particularly in the industrial heat space as well, but they are not problems that are being solved tomorrow. There's a long, long li- Uh, line of, of technology inside of that value chain that needs to be developed to be able to enable some of that fuel switching. Yeah. So we're focusing on the problems, I think, in hydrogen that we can solve today. You see wonderful projects like the, the Orica project up in Newcastle. Just been awarded a... Sorry. They've been awarded it and now have a completed FID on their project there to start supplementing their hydrogen stream with some green hydrogen. I mean, those are wonderful use cases that we're starting to see roll out here in Australia, and it's, you know, very much a focus on domestic decarbonization. Yes. Yeah. So that's what I'm, I'm seeing a lot of. Yeah. Fantastic. Yeah. And Greg, over to you. Let's, uh, let's dig into the technology a little bit more. Before we do, can you explain, um, the, the, the difference between photoelectrochemical way of water splitting and photocatalytic way of water splitting? And s- sorry, just taking a step back before that, uh, maybe you can talk about the recent announcements from Sparc as well. SunHydrogen Partnership Announcement Are we talking about the announcement with SunHydrogen? Yes. So this is what we were mentioning before about efficiency. So SunHydrogen have developed, uh, a photoelectrochemical device, we'll get into the details of that in a moment, that has an efficiency of 10% solid hydrogen. Um, conversion. So that was the number that I mentioned before, that techno-economic assessments seem to suggest is needed to produce hydrogen that's approaching two dollars a kilogram. So that's why we're very excited to, to, um, get into partnership with them. What they have developed so far are modules that operate under one sun, and so what the agreement's about is seeing how their, their system works under concentrated sunlight, which is the way that our system works. Mm-hmm. Mm. Pilot Plant at Roseworthy (SHARP Facility) Yep. Yep. So, so we have a pilot plant out at Roseworthy- ... and we can concentrate sunlight up to thirty suns there. And when you concentrate the energy into the, the PEC or the PC, photoelectrochemical- ... or photocatalyst, when you concentrate the, the energy that goes in, you can actually increase the yield of hydrogen. So that is the benefit of the technology, essentially. So if you're using one sun, you're only going to get a certain amount of hydrogen out. If you can times that by 30, you can times up to 30 the volume of hydrogen that you'll get from the output. Yeah. So what, what does that look like then? Have you got, uh, um, is it mirrors on, on the ground then and that, and that- Yeah kind of reflects up to a central point? That's exactly what it is. So I mean, sunlight is a dilute energy source. Mm-hmm. I mean, when you have a photovoltaic farm, you can see that takes up many, many hectares to, to produce your, your megawatts and your gigawatts of, of electricity. So we need the same thing. We need a vast area to collect the energy. But rather than having our photocatalyst spread out over that area, we concentrate that light into a s- much smaller area, so we need much less photocatalyst to start with, so there's an inherent advantage right there. What it also means is that we can then start to operate our photocatalyst at an increased temperature, and that assists with the reaction. You are splitting water, so it needs energy going into it. So if you can add in thermal energy as well as the energy coming from, from the light itself, that assists with the... with giving you higher efficiencies as well. And that's what we've dis- that's what we've learnt and that's what we've, that's what we're, um, developing. PEC vs Photocatalytic Water Splitting Explained Yes, yeah. And if you can kind of break that down a bit further then, you know, if you were meeting someone at a, a barbecue, yeah, could you ex- Mm ... explain the two, two processes then of the, um, photoelectrochemical way of doing it- Right ... and then the, um, the photocatalytic way? Well, let's start with the way that an electrolyzer works. Okay. So two electrolyzers, you have two electrodes, a cathode and an anode. Mm-hmm. And one of those generates the hydrogen, and the other one o- generates the oxygen. In order to, to do that, you need to apply a voltage between them. So when your electrolyzer is hooked up to an electricity supply, you are supplying that voltage to give you that so-called potential difference that you can drive the splitting of the water and the hydrogen. Yep. But in that case there, if you are being driven from power from, say, a photovoltaic plant, the absorption of the sunlight and the conversion to electricity happens on that separate photovoltaic panel, and then you take that voltage, and you trans- transport it to where your electrolyzer is. In a photoelectrochemical device, imagine that your electrodes now can absorb the light directly. So it could be either the cathode or the anode. Either of those two electrodes could both be absorbing the photons to-- and you generate then your voltage directly across your two electrodes. Now, it could be one of them. So you could have a, what's called a photocathode, or you could have a photoanode, or you could have both. There are all these variations that, uh, people are developing. So that's effectively what a photoelectrochemical device is, where your electrodes are now photoactive. Got you. But you can still miniaturize that and make that into a very, very small device, and that, in essence, is the way that the SunHydrogen system works. Mm-hmm. But you can think about integrating that further, where those two electrodes are now incorporated into one particle. These particles are typically nanometers in size, so they're nanoparticles, and they inherently have inside of them the cathode and the anode. So it's what we call the valence band and the conduction band. And so that particle there absorbs the light, and then you generate those charge carriers, and they go to those different, different parts of that, of that nanoparticle, and then you can directly split your water on the one particle. Wow. So the difference there is that it's wholly integrated now onto the nanoscale. So everything is happening around one single particle. So you could imagine... W- well, we can demonstrate that you can have these particles. You just suspend it in a glass of water, shine light on it, and you see bubbles of hydrogen and oxygen coming off. So it can be brought down to that simplistic level. It's like magic. Yes. We like to say we use photons, not electrons. Yes, we use photons, not electrons. So getting back to explaining very simply, you mentioned photo- photosynthesis before. So photosynthesis is where the plant absorbs the light, and it doesn't... Well, internally, it does generate these charges- That does drive the chemistry to give you ultimately carbohydrates and oxygen. But in this case here, we're splitting the water directly into hydrogen and oxygen. So plants don't do that. They make carbohydrates instead. Yes. So that's why it's sometimes called artificial photosynthesis, 'cause it-that's-- it works similar in a sense to photosynthesis, but it's not producing carbohydrates, it's producing oxygen. Now, that said, there are other chemistries that people are developing where you can produce more complex molecules, but that technology is further delayed, that we won't see that... We, we expect to see that maybe c- happening in the next five to 10 years. But that's certainly happening in, in research at the moment. Yeah. Yeah. And it seems like your, your technology is, is, you know, imminent. The, the pilot plant is, is up and running, and perhaps we can talk, talk about that. Yes. So that, that-- this is, this comes back to what I was saying before about the efficiency. You needed there to have been materials developed that are efficient enough and, and have enough lifetime and durability that you can start to scale this up. Mm. Pilot Plant Operations & Durability Many of these materials, I mean, when they first started developing, developed in labs, they would often only have a lifetime of maybe minutes. Then they'd be devo- you know, they'd make them more reliable, extend up the hou- uh, minutes, hours. And the material that we're using in our pilot plant has been demonstrated to be effective for over two thousand hours. So that's why we felt that it's possible to scale this up, and we don't have to be replacing the photocatalysts all the time. So the photocatalysts that we have currently were installed in about October, and they've been op-operating fine continuously since then. So well over six months operation. Yeah. System Simplicity: Mirrors Instead of PV Panels Yeah. Fantastic. Yeah. And one thing that, that stood out to me, and we touched upon it earlier, is that you're not just kinda replacing the electrolyzers, you're really sort of stripping down the system in terms of its sim-simplicity. So yeah, what, what is it that kind of is, is been taken out of the, of the whole kind of end-to-end process? So if you're thinking about... The closest analogy is thinking about electrolysis being driven by photovoltaics. Mm. So in a sense, you no longer need the photovoltaic farm, but you still need that area to collect the, the sunlight energy where we use the mirrors. Yeah. So effectively, we're replacing those photovoltaic panels with mirrors. Now, I know photovoltaics have come down in price a lot over the last decade, but certainly mirrors must be even cheaper. So straight away, we're replacing something to collect the energy that's much, much cheaper. Then we're focusing that light onto our reactor, or sometimes we call it a receiver, so it receives that focused light. In our system, we're using a concentrating light system called linear Fresnel mirrors, where it's a series of mirrors that are aligned north to south and tracks the sun. So as the sun comes up in the morning, our mirrors face one way, and as the sun proceeds across the sky, our mirrors, uh, track that sun and focus that light onto a fixed receiver or fixed reactor that's sitting above, above our receiver. So in that sense, it looks completely different to a photovoltaic farm. At that point there, we do not need any wiring to carry current. We do not need any power electronics to transform. We do not need to be connected to the grid. We do have some electrical load. For example, there's pumps going on to pump the water into place and to track the mirrors. But that is a very, very minor amount of power that's needed that could easily be generated by just having an accompanying photovoltaic field. And of course, because we're only operating in the sun, it's good enough that, that we're getting our power from a photovoltaic device because that's the only time we need it. We don't need it at, at night. So the system just sits, rests there at night doing nothing. Then as the sun comes up, it jumps into action. The mirrors start tracking, and as soon as that light hits that photocatalyst that's got a layer of water over the top, it starts splitting water and generates your hydrogen and the oxygen. Remote & Decentralized Applications Oh, wow. Yeah. So this could potentially be used in very remote areas that have not got the, um, sort of grid connection perhaps? That, that's exactly one of the things what we think is a low-hanging fruit. To install it in places that are remote from the grid. Yeah. When you were developing, uh, large scale projects here in Australia, you were looking for the holy trinity of, of inputs for your land. You were looking essentially for a good solar or wind resource because you needed your renewables to be close by. You were looking for a good water resource, and then you were looking for a way to get it to market, so close to ports was really what was being looked at. Sometimes you... Many, many times you wouldn't be able to solve all three of those things that you needed to get your product to market. Um, and by removing the reliance on electricity networks, we, we then are really focused on, for this technology, finding good water resources and good pathways to market. So, you know, particularly up in, in remote Western Australia, this is a good synergy for technology, uh, there. Yes. Yeah. So it's, uh, I think, think it's called the, the Sharp facility. So this is- Mm-hmm ... a world first. Yeah. And what's the, what's the kinda next step from here then? So you mentioned it has been operational since October, was it, last? We got first hydrogen in early December. In December. Okay. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, it was all... It-- So we started construction in about March- Yeah ... so that was all done very, very quickly. So we demonstrated that, uh, it's able to construct one of these sites, you know, quite, quite quickly. Yeah. So that wa- that was very pleasing. Yes. Yeah. And what's the next step from, from here then? Well, so we wanna do testing in our plant. So we've got our materials that we're currently testing with. So we... But it's not just about the photocatalysis testing. We know that works. We've done plenty of experiments in the laboratory. It's now about what's happening at that larger scale. We've got, in Kiawa, what's called balancer plant that we need to sort out. We've got mirrors that need to be turned. We've got gas that we need to measure how much it comes off, and we need to deal with that. So we've got a lot of piping done at a much larger scale than we've currently done in the lab. So all of that is being tested. We're looking at the durability of the, of the photocatalyst. And we've also got provision. The way that we've, we've built the system is that we can swap out some photocatalysts and put in some New photocatalysts. So for example, with this, um, agreement that we've got with SunHydrogen, one of the long t- medium term goals is to install their, their photoelectrochemical devices into our s- our system as well. So we can test other types of photocatalysts as well. Yes. Yeah. And you've also got Fortescue as a, a joint venture, uh, partner. Shareholders: Fortescue, Adelaide Uni & Sparc Technologies So yeah, what, what's it, what's it like having an organization like, uh, like Fortescue? What do they bring to the table? Well, Fortescue is very motivated to decarbonize not only their own activities, but have an influence on how other businesses conduct their, um, their operations. And so there's a huge synergy between Fortescue and SparcHydrogen in that we're both in the green technology game. Um, that sort of momentum f- coming from a shareholder is really encouraging, and we, we sort of see the effects of that every, every day in the way that we operate ourselves. But likewise, uh, they've got a wonderful R&D team that are working on a lot of technology solutions for themselves. So it's nice to have that in a shareholder, have that sort of sounding board for some of our ideas. And likewise, um, you know, i- it's good to have that support on the way that we're conducting our technology development too. Beyond that, we've also got Adelaide University as a shareholder and, uh, Sparc Technologies. That's where the technology actually came from, Adelaide University, where, where Greg is, um, a professor at the moment. And, you know, there's a one, a, a huge range of intelligent people there obviously, and innovative minds, and that's the reason why we've been able to, to spin this technology out of the university. And then Sparc Technologies likewise brings, um, their c- technology develop, um, commercialization experience to the table. And so when you look at those three shareholders together or JV partners together, we have a huge amount of momentum, uh, behind us for us to get this technology ready for commercial deployment. And, you know, I don't think we could ask for better shareholders at the moment, to be honest. Yeah. Brilliant. Five-Year Roadmap & Commercial Demonstration And what does the next five years look like then from the, the- For the planning stage. So you've got the pilot and then demo- is it going to a demonstration plant and then for full commer-commercialization? Yeah. So look, um, five years is, is a long time or a short time, depending on how you look at it in the, in the technology development space. As Greg said, um, we've got a lot of things we're still working on at the pilot plant. We wanna get to 12 months worth of operation, op- and operational data at Sharp, because obviously our technology, um, operates, uh, based on sunlight, so we wanna be able to get that data together so we can put together annualized performance profiles and, and, um, you know, really be able to, to describe with confidence how we expect the technology to, uh, perform over, over a year. That's a key piece for us. Likewise, as Greg was mentioning, we have the ability to test different PCs and PECs at our site. So we're on the hunt globally for efficient, uh, materials. SunHydrogen is, is the first in, in what we hope is a, is a few to come through. We believe that there'll be different PCs and PECs that will be suitable for different operating environments as well. So, you know, a location in the Pilbara versus a location in Newcastle, we expect that there'll be differences between those. And PCs and PECs will sometimes operate under different parameters, whether it's temperature or water inputs. You know, some, some materials can take seawater, which is fantastic. So we believe that there'll be different materials that will be needed for different, um, customer applications. So we're on the hunt globally for that. So not just efficiency, but durability of those materials, and likewise looking for wonderful partners like SunHydrogen that are willing to work with us to optimize their material for concentrate- concentrated light applications. So that's going to be an ongoing piece of work for us in the next five years. The plan then also is to, to build out a commercial demonstration plan. We've got a few good leads on that at the moment, people we can't obviously talk about given the, the nature of those discussions. But parties that are likewise looking to still u- to use hydrogen, and the fact that we can present a lower cost hydrogen simply because our technology's a lot simpler and doesn't require a huge amount of infrastructure, we've got a lot of wonderful synergies there too. You know, building out technology is not easy. Um, you know, our technology TRL, we're definitely pre-commercial. Technology TRL level is around the seven mark, and, you know, what faces a lot of companies here in Australia is what they call the valley of death between TRL seven and TRL nine. Yes. So we're gonna be doing our damnedest to avoid that, but we think that the technology really speaks for itself in its simplicity, in its application, and the fact that we don't need to be connected to, to grids, and the fact that it can be deployed in, in remote, um, environments. Target Markets: Fertilizer, Refineries & Industrial Heat You know, we see a lot of synergies there. So another thing we're working on is, is what the best application of the technology is. It, it won't be the right solution for every hydrogen production scenario globally. If you're landlocked, this technology may not be the right solution for you because we're going to need- a considerable amount of land to be able to produce the hydrogen. It's similar to the footprint of a solar field and an electrolysis facility. So, you know, it's not gonna be right for someone who's sitting in an industrial area in Western Sydney, for example, if they need large scale production. So w- working on those, those, those applications will be really important. Obviously, high priority ones I think are industrial heat refineries, po- uh, poten- uh, very much so as well because of the, the global demand there, and, um, the fertilizer production. I think those are the key ones. Yep. Yep. Um, I was gonna ask you about- Yeah ... your customers, but I thank you. Uh- ... your potential customers surveying. I think you've already, already covered that, that. Anything in the mining sector as well or any? Yes, of course. Industrial heat's a piece of that as well because it's part of the supply chain, too. I mean, it depends. I think a lot of the mining sector conversation around energy is focused on, on the vehicles and a lot of those vehicles, you know, you're seeing battery technology starting to, to be deployed. It... The question will be whether or not battery technology can keep up with the demands of those vehicles as to whether or not a different solution will be required there. But just on the customer piece, I'm, I'm very passionate about looking at, um, the fertilizer industry. So obviously with what's happened this year and the Stratovolt was the availability of, of gas globally and the, the price shocks that that's had, it's actually had a flow on impact, I think, as we've seen here in Australia on fertilizer supply. And a majority of Australia's fertilizer is actually imported, not produced locally. And part of the reason for that is because, you know, in order to produce hydrogen for ammonia, you need either a- an SMR or large scale, um, electrolysis facility. So it's centralized production there, I think, for the fertilizer piece. And what I like about our technology is that because we don't need centralized electricity infrastructure to be able to operate at scale, we can decentralize the, the fertilizer production piece. And I know we're here to talk about energy, but I think it's actually really important. It all ties in, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah. You know, we've got 100 million tons of hydrogen being produced globally per annum. That's not a small number. The carbon footprint for that is, uh, similar to the carbon footprint for aviation fuel. And so it's about two and a half percent. Mm-hmm. And similar to the footprint for, um, marine mariculture- Shell. Yep ... right? So it's exactly the same in terms of its carbon footprint. And fertilizer is also another two, 3%. There you go. There you go. And so, you know, with 100 million tons of hydrogen production underway, you wanna talk about customers, we've got 100 million tons we need to work to decarbonize globally first. And though you, you... for each of those... Sorry, for, for each of the applications where hydrogen is used, electrons aren't going to do it. Those are the customers that we're looking to target. Fertilizer's very interested in it. But, you know, at the moment, we're seeing a huge amount of momentum behind sustainable aviation fuel, which is fantastic, and liquid fuels. Again, Strait of Hormuz has had a huge impact on, on where that's going. And so, you know, I, I like that hydrogen maybe can sit behind the scenes on some of those things. It had its moment in the sun a few years ago, and now it's time for us to get busy and, and really focus on decarbonizing and helping to support that 100 million tons of existing demand as the demand continues to grow. Yes. Yeah. And back to you, Greg. W- w- uh, at the moment, what's the biggest technology challenge that you're still to solve at this point from what you've, what you're seeing out of the, uh, out of the pilot plant? Well, it's working wonderfully. I mean, it really is. We... So the... We haven't spoken about the transition for from the Technology Challenges & CSIRO Testing lab. So we were doing experiments on this for, for many, many years, and then we finally were able to form the joint venture, Spark Hydrogen. So we had an, um, injection of funds that enabled us to do our first on-sun testing, and we went out to the CSIRO facility in Newcastle. We've got a Helius that solar field out there, and we built a, a device that was a bit bigger than the one, the one we had in the lab, and we were able to test it under real sun conditions. And the first trip out there, I have to say, it was actually a complete disaster. There was... I'm not, I'm not gonna go into details, but we really had to, not go back to the drawing board, but I think w- there was a problem that we needed to work out how to, how to do it. But then the second visit, it worked exactly as we thought, and there was a third visit and a follow-up, and, uh, that worked again exactly as we thought. And that really gave the investors confidence to inject some more funds to build our own solar field, which is what the Sharp f- Sharp facility is. So that... So once we've demonstrated that on sun now, you know, on the, at, at the small, the demonstration plant at- At CSIRO and now our, our pilot plant at, in Adelaide. This gives us confidence that the technology works. Yes. Yes. It's really is-- for me as a... I'm coming, speaking as a scientist, the science is, is known. You know, of course, we're on the lookout for better materials, but that's gonna happen. It's just like the development of photovoltaics. You know, over three decades, photovoltaic efficiency went from less than ten percent and silicon-based solar cells are now, you know, approaching their, their theoretical limits, and now there are even new materials that are even higher, have higher efficiency. Um, so that happens in the world of chemistry and materials. We know what the theoretical ef-- maximum efficiencies are, are possible and they're able to be achieved. It's- It's part of that, that technology iterative process- Yep ...continually. H- I think there are hundreds of research groups around the world developing different types of photocatalysts and photoelectrochemical devices. So that's why we're on the lookout globally for people that we think have developed, you know, reasonable, reasonably efficient materials that could be used your- Could be applied under concentrated solar light. Yep. Yep. Fantastic. So the, so it's gonna happen. It, it's just a matter of now the, how fast it's gonna happen. Yeah. We spoke before about the cost comparison versus, uh, gray, gray hydrogen. Is there anything further that, that you think needs to happen to, um, before organizations make that transition to, to green hydrogen? Well, if we're talking about cost, there's really two main things that we're looking at. It's the, the efficiency. Cost Reduction Pathways Ob- obviously, if you can get a, go from a 10% to a 20% efficient material, then you're, you're better off. Cost will half. And then the other thing is getting down the cost of the infrastructure. I mean, we have mirror field, you know, there's infrastructure, there's metal out there, there's concrete posts or concrete that needs to be set into the ground. That, that installation, that infrastructure co- costs money. Yeah. So it's about getting those costs down. Yeah. And that's part of the piece that we'll be looking forward to going forward. Yeah. Going forwards. The efficiency of the PC or the PEC is the absolutely critical one. Essentially, you know, you can, you can half the, the price of your hydrogen or double the production if you can get from 10% to 20%, or likewise even up to the theoretical maximum for 30%. You know, we're seeing some really encouraging signs from materials dev- developers globally, you know, that are claiming to be above 20%. Very interested to get some of that material into our lab and, and test its compatibility with concentration. More photons means more, more hydrogen from our point of view. That's the beauty of this technology. It's, it's still got a long way to go. It's only just starting. That's right. We're not, not near the ceiling. Yeah. No. We're not done yet. A long way to grow. Um, I thought it'd be quite fun to have a bit of a rapid-fire section, so in one word or, or, you know, a sentence. Rapid Fire: Misconceptions, Exciting Tech & Challenges And I suspect I know what you're gonna say for this first one. Could you, could you answer these questions? So what's the biggest misconception about hydrogen? For me, it's people... When I mention hydrogen or talk about my project, they say, "Oh, hydrogen vehicles, you're gonna put it in cars." And for me, that's not where the, the urgency... I mean, we've already mentioned that the world uses 100 million tons of hydrogen right now. It's mostly made by fossil fuels, and d- replacing that is certainly a, a, an important part, part of what we need to do. And then there are the other, other hydrogen uses that make sense, which is where hydrogen is used as a, as a molecule, as a feedstock. We've mentioned fertilizer a fair bit, but also perhaps in, um- Uh, steel, iron, uh, cement, uh, those ha- so-called hard to abate sectors Yes ... that's where hydrogen is going to be used. It's not for driving around in, in, in the cities- Yeah ... in cars. And I think for me, my answer on that is that, you know, what's the misconception? It's that hydrogen's not already r- real. There's 100 million tons of production globally that would disagree with you on that, and I think it's very important for people to understand that the fruit and vegetables don't get to their plate without hydrogen playing a role in that supply chain. It's part of the fertilizer supply chain. Unless you're eating organic- Well, we'd all starve, wouldn't we? We'd starve, and it's also the same with liquid fuels. Mm. Hydrogen's required for refining. If you still are driving a, um, fossil fuel car, you're not getting around without hy- without hydrogen playing a role in that. So it's not about a new thing that's coming along and might eventually be here. Hydrogen's been around for a very long time, and we wouldn't eat or move around without it. Uh, it's just that it's, it's much quieter in the role it plays sort of in the, in the supply chain, so. Yeah. Outside of hydrogen then, what's the most exciting clean energy technology? Oh, I think the way that photovoltaics have become so cheap, and now that batteries are now Becoming. And, and that allows then that electricity that's been generated from variable sources such as solar to be extended over a larger part of the day. And in fact, that's something... The analogy there is that I think that's what the hydrogen game needs as well, is we need some type of relatively cheap, flexible storage because we, we will only be producing hydrogen when the sun's up. Mm. So we need the equivalent of batteries for hydrogen. That's some work that I know. Again, researchers have been working on it, but I think they've slowed off, slowed down a bit in that space, and I would like to think that our work can, can prod them to, to start developing that at a bit greater pace. Yep. I love renewable diesel. I, I love the potential of that as a, as a fuel for us to be able to use, because as a drop-in fuel, it solves a lot of the problems immediately. It's not going to replace all of our liquid fuels, but the immediate ability for it to start, you know, reducing our carbon footprint with some of the feedstocks that are currently considered waste here in Australia, I, I love that, that entire, um, life cycle of that as a product. So that's my, that's my little personal one. Fantastic. Uh, what's the biggest challenge facing Australia, uh, in the energy transition? From my perspective, I think it's understanding that energy is not electricity, it's, it's molecules as well. Um, more than 50% of our end energy use is currently molecules, and we need to work out a way to be able to solve that. It's, it's simple, we think, in the cities because we can switch from a fossil fuel car to an EV, but it's not as simple out in the regions. So that's a huge piece of understanding, how do we replace the molecules? Yeah. And if we're talking about decarbonizing by 2050, you know, net zero by 2050, that's what we're all trying to achieve. You know, el- electrification can take us a long way there, probably three-quarters of the way there. But those, again, those hard to abate sectors, that's a challenge and that's where, again, where we think hydrogen can play a big role, especially cheap green hydrogen from photocatalysis. Yes. Yeah. And is there one thing that's keeping you awake at night in, in relation to Sparc Hydrogen or, or the, you know, uh, society more gen- more generally in relation to the energy- I think as, as a CEO, what keeps me awake at night is the TRL valley of death- Yeah making sure we don't fall into that. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Greg? Uh, yeah, I, I, that's my... I know that's, that's your part of the, the job. That's your job, Alana. Yeah. But... And I'll just keep on trying to develop the technological solutions in, from, from a scientific perspective as much as possible. When we're both awake at that, that night thinking about that, I'll just call Closing & Five-Year Vision you. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Um, and in closing, I, I ask this of everyone. So if we sit down together in, uh, in five years' time, what headlines would you like to see about Spark Hydrogen? From my perspective, I'd like to see that, you know, homegrown Australian technology has been deployed globally and is genuinely changing the, the dial on decarbonization solutions. That would be the dream for me. Yes. I'd like to see a, a large photocatalysis plant in operation. Super cool. Love it. But thanks so much, guys. Yeah, r- really, uh, enjoyed the conversation. Yeah, so informative, and I think this will be a new area that a lot of people will, I think, step into now and perhaps do their own research and, and look further into. It sounds really exciting, and look forward to hearing how you guys are getting on in the future. Thanks, Andy. It's been awesome. Yes. Cheers. Been great. Thanks, Andy. Cheers. Thanks for tuning in to today's episode of Exploring Clean Energy. I hope you enjoyed the show. Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes. I'm keen to continue to bring you the best experts and most interesting projects, so if you have an exciting story to share, please feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn or email. I'm Andy Marsland, and hopefully see you next time