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Our podcast features special guests and leaders discussing the many projects, partnerships, and innovations driving hydrogen adoption — starting in the Edmonton Metro Region, and expanding outward to Alberta, Canada, and the World.
Edmonton Region Hydrogen HUB is a collaborative initiative dedicated to advancing a thriving hydrogen economy in the Edmonton Region and beyond. Bringing together municipalities, industry, and associations, the HUB focuses on building a robust hydrogen value chain through collaboration, system integration, and policy advocacy. Leveraging the region’s world-class hydrogen production facilities and strategic infrastructure, the HUB drives innovation, promotes decarbonization, and stimulates economic growth, positioning the Edmonton region as a global leader in sustainable hydrogen development.
Welcome to the Hydrogen 2.0 podcast where Alberta's energy story evolves. Join us as we explore what's changed, what's working, and what's next from Edmonton to beyond. Here's your host, Kessia Kopecki.
Kessia:Welcome back to our latest episode of Hydrogen two point o. This is a special episode because we're actually on location at the twenty twenty six Canadian Hydrogen Convention in April. So it's very exciting. We normally do these episodes filmed virtually talking heads. It's great to be sitting around a table in person and talking about this with with, my two guests today.
Kessia:I have Alejandro and Eric. So we're just gonna get right into it. I'll grab some information about you. I know a lot of people probably already know who you are in the hydrogen space, but for anybody listening that doesn't, Eric, I'll start with you. Who are you?
Kessia:What are you working on?
Eric:Awesome to be here. So I'm Eric Lefebvre. I'm the CEO of, H You Can Fly, and, basically, we are a national, r and d initiative to advance, innovation in in hydrogen for aviation, obviously, and commercialization as well. So both civil and defense. So we aim to bring everybody together, to really solve this, the challenging issues of hydrogen, but it's unleashes huge potential that that there is in hydrogen.
Eric:Right? So this is what excites us to be here today with the community, not just aviation, but all the modes of transportation, the the supply chain. Truly exciting to be here at this event today and be here too.
Kessia:Thanks for being here. Alejandro, I'd love to hear, and everybody listening would love to hear who you are and what are you working on.
Alejandro:Yeah, first of all, thank you so much for inviting me to the postcard and thank you Eric for inviting me to join you. So my name is Alejandro Block, I'm an environment officer at the International Civil Aviation Organization. We are a United Nations specialized agency in aviation and my role is predominantly to track our progress towards our net zero goal by 2050. So checking how we are doing in terms of fuels, technologies, CO two, passengers, etcetera. So very excited to be here in this community today.
Kessia:Excited to have you. Next question is how do you two know each other? Eric, you actually introduced me to Alejandro, so you two must go back to some degree.
Eric:So do we the long version, the short version, the the real one, the anyways, no. We've we've known each other for for a bit through through our colleague, but we've known each other at least for over a year now at least. And we met at IKEA runs a tremendous initiative on clean aviation. So I think the first time we we met, I believe.
Alejandro:Yeah. I think so.
Eric:And yeah. And then we hit it off. We had similar passion for for aerospace and and hydrogen and basically clean energy overall and and how we could accelerate all that. So it started from there. Then Alejandro, of course, in his role has tremendous, you know, expertise and and knowledge.
Eric:And and so we're seeking that from everybody because we need to do this as as a group. You know? It can't just be one individual or one company. So drawing a lot of folks. And so yeah.
Eric:And just had a few drinks as well, and it was like it was awesome. It was like, you know, shooting things back and forth on ideas that we could help to accelerate all this and make this a reality. Yeah. It was like
Alejandro:Yeah. So nothing else to add, really. It was a lovely day and no, yeah, really learning a lot every time I sit with Eric. So it's really a privilege to be here and to be his acquaintance, must say.
Kessia:So when we look at H2 Can Fly, you two are fairly collaborative and kind of driving that mission forward.
Alejandro:Yeah, for sure. I mean there's, I was talking to Eric just earlier and I see a lot of elements from H2 CAN FLY which are really good examples of how to do things properly. Of course Eric will talk more about it but all in terms of the collaboration that they're doing, talking to the whole ecosystem, the aircraft, the airport, the surrounding hydrogen like we're doing here. If I step back a little bit from the global perspective, we see these good practices in other places as well. So in Australia there's a Hydrogen Flight Alliance, in Europe there is a Alliance for Zero Emission Aviation.
Alejandro:And we do see that these collaborative approaches are very successful. And actually the ASEA, the Alliance for Zero Emission Aviation, just published a report on Monday, very timely. And H2 CAN FLY is quoted quite a few times. So really good examples.
Eric:Alejandro. No. He's making this happen for us. Another big big plus right there. Yeah.
Kessia:Yeah. People want to know what you're saying. Yeah.
Eric:For sure. For sure. No. And it's great that international context is is huge, of course. But, you know, initially, we're really focused on domestic, you know, output.
Eric:So, you know, H2canfly, we have 45 plus partners. So it's not a membership type of thing. We are partners that people have invested into H2canfly. So we do r and d. We own aircraft.
Eric:We own assets. We're doing projects from Edmonton is gonna be a massive hub. We'll we'll talk about that a bit. This afternoon, we have a panel as well. We'll be talking about that a little bit, and we'll be announcing some stuff in the near future also with, the, Edmonton region hydrogen hub as well, and others.
Eric:But, we'll also have stuff in in in in Montreal, Quebec, in in Ontario, in Halifax, in BC as well. So it's really you know, what we're trying to do is is the cool stuff. It's it's it's R and D, but what what are you doing all that at the end of the day? Like, people wanna see, like, okay. Who cares?
Eric:You know, like, how am I gonna get to work? How am gonna get to vacation? How am I gonna heat my home? How am I gonna do all these things, with this, abundance of energy, which is what hydrogen is. Right?
Eric:It's water, basically. And, and from there, you you fuel everything. So we really wanna show people what you can do and make it make it, exciting and and and socially, acceptable easily because it will have environmental impact, which I think is important. But, know, we were talking about that earlier. We're just, like, over a few few beers yesterday and talking about, like, at the end of the day, it's gotta make economic sense.
Eric:You know? You're not gonna tell someone, like, it's good for the environment, but it's gonna deplete your pocket. Like, jeez. Who who cares about it? What the you know what I mean?
Eric:You're okay. You know, at the end of the day, so, you know, and we were talking about that too. And we've lost that a little bit in in this country a lot of times is, you know, economic sense. Right? To show and then show progress as you go along.
Eric:Don't don't sell, you know, a, and then say we're get zed, like, very quickly. No. No. That's not true. It's gonna take time.
Eric:Right? So we're gonna go through some carbon, you know, solution. So but we're gonna decarbonize, but it's gonna take some time, but people are gonna see the benefit. We were talking the example you were talking about, like trains in automotive, example, right? I mean, that was great when we had that chat, talking about that.
Kessia:Tell me about that Well,
Alejandro:were just reflecting on what needs to happen to make things happen in the economics of things, right? So I was asking, do you remember when there was a global mandate for trains to become electric? And well, no, well it didn't happen, right? There was no mandate, there was no legislation to make trains go from coal to diesel to electric. It happened because it made sense, because it was cheaper.
Alejandro:So the operators started doing it and this is what we need for aviation. We need solutions that in the long term will make economic sense and we have projected a lot of future costs of different fuels and hydrogen is one of the ones that have the largest promise, right? And this is all, it's public information, it's in our reports of the ICAO, it's called the long term aspirational goal report and there's a section there dedicated to future fuels and this is why hydrogen is so important. As Erik said, it's not something that's going to happen overnight, will be gradual and we see the progress today. We see airports starting with deploying passenger vehicles or buses or snow sweepers and then they will move to smaller craft operations.
Alejandro:So it will take time, but it's definitely something with large potential.
Kessia:So why is hydrogen seen as a solution in aviation?
Eric:Well, a lot of good That's a great question by the way because, know, well, first of all, we are looking for ways to decarbonize. Like, know, obviously, today, I think, you know, we we talk about some of these stats. Like, I think less than 20% of the population has flown, and I think only, 11% we were talking about, like, has has flown multiple times. Right? So it's still relatively small in in that in that sense, but but, you know, that's gonna increase over time.
Eric:You know? But but the nice thing with hydrogen is is, it's, it's power density, you know, offset. So you can go a lot further. You can you can you know, they say that the weight is the enemy of the aircraft. Right?
Eric:Like, it's it's not good. So the lighter you can be, the better it is, and and it's gonna take time. But we have so much hydrogen output here in Canada. So we're we're almost a factor of the leaders. And I think Edmonton is really, you know, centered as being a major hub.
Eric:But we need to start today because I think it makes a lot of sense to to leverage, jeez, water. It's everywhere. Everybody can you don't need oil anymore. You water, anybody can have it these days. Right?
Eric:So and we were talk about that too.
Alejandro:So maybe I'll I'll take a step back and just share the global strategy that we have put together for for international aviation. And it's based on three pillars. One is we need to reduce energy we use. Wasting energy is never a good idea. So we need to reduce energy and we do that by introducing new aircraft which are more efficient, which burn less fuel.
Alejandro:We fly those aircraft more efficiently as well. So try to fly more point to point as opposed to taking the routes. The second thing is we need to change the So we need to move away from fossil fuel because the carbon dioxide comes from the fuel. The carbon is in the fuel. So if we remove the carbon, we're good.
Alejandro:And the third thing is we need to recapture the carbon that we'll still emit. So we have offsets, we have a scheme from now until 2035, but this is not a long term thing. Now one of the things that Erik and I were talking before is the particularity of hydrogen is that you don't have any carbon in the fuel itself, right? So once you put that carbon in the aircraft, you burn it or you use it to produce electricity, the outcome of that is water vapor. So there's no carbon in the operation of the aircraft itself.
Alejandro:This is very unique to all of the other solutions. We have solutions, we call them sustainable aviation fuels. They're basically biofuels or fuels made from other feedstocks. The particularity of them is that they are near carbon neutral, so whatever carbon was in the atmosphere, we absorb it and then through a process of refinement we make a fuel, but then we put the carbon back in. So we are sort of carbon circular and there's a little bit of carbon that gets emitted in the waste so we don't fully reduce the emissions to zero.
Alejandro:But hydrogen is different because hydrogen doesn't have any carbon in it so it's true zero emissions. So if you go with a CO2 analyzer and you put yourself behind the aircraft, you will read zero. And this is what makes hydrogen from an environmental perspective so interesting besides all the things that Eric already mentioned on the density of the fuel, the power and all the opportunities that we will And have for
Eric:downstream we talked about earlier too is economically downstream, it's it's gonna be effective as well, cost effective. Right? Yeah. And that's that's really important. Yes.
Eric:Because jet fuel today is or just fuel for cars today is is is is cheaper than what's out there today. Even relatively to batteries, cars are more expensive, charging it and everything else. So there are some challenges there. So I think with hydrogen, we're removing a lot of those issues. So it's I think that it's a great time to do it.
Eric:It's gonna take time when nobody's gonna oversell to say we're gonna be a hydrogen economy in in a year from now. But already today, I think what we were talking about today this morning, the output is what you're saying in terms of hydrogen use in aerospace.
Alejandro:Well, projections, well, right now the hydrogen use is experimental basically, right? But the projection to 2050 is that we will use about 20,000,000 tons of hydrogen. And just to put into context, if the global economy moves in the way that it's aligned with the Paris Agreement, there will be about 500,000,000 tons of hydrogen, low carbon hydrogen available in 2050. So we would only need 4% of that hydrogen. So it is possible.
Alejandro:Do you know
Kessia:how much, and maybe you can't answer this question, but do you know how much ratio wise that would displace existing fuel solutions?
Alejandro:Yeah, so the roadmap that we have established in our long term aspirational goal foresees that about 2% of the energy use in international aviation would be hydrogen in 2050. This is about 5% if you include both domestic and international. Now this doesn't sound like a lot, but twenty fifteen aviation terms is tomorrow, right? We are closer to 2,050 than we were to 2000. Just to put into perspective, an aircraft takes ten, fifteen years to be developed.
Alejandro:So actually 5% is quite a lot. The issue, it's not an issue, thing is that the world doesn't stop in 2050. So what we see post 2015 to the 2070, 2100 is quite a sharp increase of that potential, right?
Kessia:So 2050 might kind of be that tipping point where everything's proven and implemented and deployed and then you can start scaling it?
Alejandro:Yeah. That's what I think the the reason why we focused on 2050 is because a lot of the global climate targets, and by the way, yeah, never mind. I was going to say something while I I stopped. A lot of these climate targets were focused on 2050. Right?
Alejandro:Reaching net zero for the planet in 2050. So we are following suit. But it's very important to remind ourselves that 2050 is not the end of the road. And the world continues after that and what happens after that.
Eric:Yeah, a lot of times too, target is a target and if it makes economic sense, could come earlier too, right? So it all depends on the amount of money that's being poured into it and the adoption. Adoption comes with ease of use and having the ecosystem around it. So I think that's a key thing, but yeah, we need to have targets obviously, but yeah, there's way beyond 2050. There's no doubt.
Alejandro:And maybe just to put into perspective, because some of the people listening might think 2%, 5%, that's nothing. That's 10,000 aircraft. Thousand aircraft flying and operating 2,050. The Europeans just published their report and they said 5,000,000 flights powered by hydrogen in 2050. That's a big number.
Alejandro:So these are aircraft that have to be built, all the materials, the supply chains need to be understood, the infrastructure of the airports, we're talking hundreds of airports have to be equipped for hydrogen and we have less than twenty four years to do it. So it is quite an ambitious target.
Kessia:Looking down the road, obviously, we can't predict the future. Right? But when we look at other sectors or maybe connected sectors, is there any way that these other sectors that are outside of hydrogen directly can benefit from what's happening in aviation and the innovations that are that we're gonna be seeing?
Eric:No. Absolutely. That's a great question, and that's exactly what it needs to be. So while we're focused on aviation, I think we're seeing a lot of, a lot of touch points with other sectors as well. Right?
Eric:It could be you know, we can talk about other modes of transportation. We talk about manufacturing. We talk about housing. We can talk about a number of things. And so it needs to have a a wider, benefit concept across the board.
Eric:But all this is being achieved. I think one of the points that's really important that we've always talked about a lot is is is through a collaborative environment. That's one of the main points of h two can fly was from finnets inception about a year and a half ago was we need to have more of a national strategy to do things together. You know? Won't name them, but there's a few companies that went on their own.
Eric:They got lots of money. That money ran out, and they're basically on their way out or they're gone. Right? So we need that that sustainable aspect to to financing and funding and and research to to show progress. And so today, you know, in in a panel that we're going to talk about this too is we want to show that there's challenges, but there's also some some successes.
Eric:You know, we need to drive, you know, to work on that as well. And I think and then I'm seeing a lot of interest from from shipping, from railway, from from from the truck industry, and also even from the the housing industry in terms of how do we all work together because at at the root of it, we all have the same problem. And so I think we can work together. Whatever they'll tell you though, I mean, aerospace is the most difficult to decarbonize. So they'll say, if you guys lead it and you can do it, we can apply it everywhere at the end of the day.
Eric:And I think this is what we're trying to do, right?
Alejandro:There's a beautiful story, I may use that word on this, because today aviation, it's a huge driver for economic growth, for cultural growth. We are here today with you thanks to aviation because there's no way I could've driven my car or rode my bicycle to come to Edmonton from Montreal. But four hours I was here, it is wonderful. But aviation is also, especially around the airports, is a source of emissions, it's a source of noise, and particularly in places that are very sensitive to this, this is a problem, right? So it is a problem for growth in some regions.
Alejandro:Now, the aspect looping on what Eric said of hydrogen for aviation, decarbonized aviation brings a very different story where aviation actually becomes an enabler for renewable energy. Certainly you have an airport with hundreds of tons of low carbon hydrogen stored there that enable the use of buses driving on hydrogen, cars, taxis, you can supply hydrogen to the homes surrounding the neighborhood. So suddenly the airport from being a source of emissions and noise and nuance for some people becomes a solution for green energy. This is quite powerful. It's quite an interesting proposition.
Alejandro:This is why a lot of these big projects are here in Edmonton, we see it, loop on this idea of the hydrogen valleys or the hydrogen hubs. A lot of them are around the airport because this is going to be one of the big users of airport and definitely with benefits. And H2 CAM flight, you're doing a lot of this thinking as well on
Eric:Yeah, it's pulling everything together. I think here in Edmonton, it was great to see. I think there's a neighborhood that's hydrogen fueled or something like that. So it's it's amazing to see all that. And the other one too I didn't mention, I need to bring this up because it's really important is defense.
Eric:So, you know, we talk about all the different sectors, but defense also will be looking at this and and not because they, you know, obviously, it's gonna decarbonize. That's really important, But they're look they're looking at efficiencies essentially. So if they can remove, you know, the logistics of oil and diesel and other things and start looking into hydrogen, then suddenly it's cheaper. It's more cost effective. It's easier.
Eric:So the whole operational aspect is better. Now whether or not they use it in theater of war or something like that, that's something else. But that's gonna help de risk because the regulatory impacts on the on defense is very different than say, you know, that Alejandro knows so well, like, to fly an aircraft today. It's like, it's gotta be certified. There's gotta be, like, a million checks to go through it.
Eric:It it's very complex. But on the defense side, huge applications, whether it's gas, whether it's liquid hydrogen, and even solid state. Right? Which is probably where we're all gonna be heading in the near future, which is really cool in terms of what we can do.
Alejandro:Yeah. Mean, we we we spoke a lot of the things we're telling you, we always say, we spoke about this because obviously we speak a lot. We we get together. We just go on. It's it's idea flow.
Alejandro:But I was just telling Eric that I I live in The UK for a while, and I love to go to the aviation museums. I'm a bit of a aviation nerd and I love to see all the different concepts that were there and a lot of the things that we see being researched today like open fans and even hydrogen and swept wings backwards and forwards and all of these concepts, they were built and they were flown maybe once, twice, and then now they're in a museum. And they were flown sadly in a time of the cold war, right, where there was no end to investment on defense and all of that. It was a priority. So it's really interesting what Eric says because there is, I think, an opportunity here where we see a lot of investment today going into the fence to say, can we piggyback on these investments and on these technologies to de risk and to mature some of the critical technologies that will be required to fly passengers on a hydrogen aircraft as well.
Eric:Yeah. No. Definitely. Yeah.
Kessia:Okay. Moving on. Switching gears. What?
Eric:Alright. We're switching gears. Okay. So away from defense.
Alejandro:We've got No. No.
Kessia:It's good. I actually, I like the this, question I'm I'm posing about, you know, like cross sector opportunities and benefits, and then we lean lean into defense. But then just before that, we were talking about cross regional collaboration, and it seems like that collaborative spirit and that collaborative need and demand goes beyond jurisdictions. It's also, you know, up and down into all of these different opportunities for technology and industry and government as well. So when we're looking at that as well and kinda scaling this and when we're especially looking into the future, what kinds of, I guess, looking at your goals, right, what kinds of policy or regulatory barriers or obstacles are at the forefront that we're maybe working on getting over right now that you can see or predict?
Alejandro:Yeah, well I think Eric has touched on some of it, but a flying aircraft sits on hundreds of thousands of standards, right? Everything is standardized. From the moment the aircraft lands, taxis, have the passengers deboard, the refueling, onboarding of the passengers, kit, everything. Everything is standardized. The way you talk to the control tower.
Alejandro:So one of the of the big barriers will be, and and you were mentioning before, I don't want to steal your thunder, but it's going to be on the certification and standardization of all of these things that just don't exist today. Some of these standards might take ten years to be agreed, right? And they have to happen, and this is why ICAO, the International Civil Aviation Organization is involved in this because aircraft fly from one country to the next. All of these things need to happen in a coordinated way. Everyone has to do it exactly the same way all over the world, and it is a challenge.
Alejandro:But I know you have thoughts about this as well.
Eric:No, it's well said and it's it's so it's a really great question by the way, Tajib, because it's it's there's a lot of things to unpack here. But but suffice it to say is that what we're trying to do is having build blocks across the country. So it it's all the regions are are participating. Right? For example.
Eric:And to advance that that that innovation, we will also show flights and show active transportation happening. And also it has to have a a business viable output too. So you're doing something else for the sake of tapping you in the back and saying we did it. You want to have some type of commercial application moving forward. And the other thing with that is is having the a keen eye on on working closely with the folks that deal with standards, codes, certification because you know, the governments today, Transport Canada, I think it's it they're they're heavily tasked with resources as well.
Eric:So it's it's it's they need to learn as they go along so that that collaborative environment is super important at the end of the day and and and to ensure that we have the right level of funding to make this happen too. So it's government funding. It's private funding, and it's everybody gets involved. So that that collaborative environment is incredibly important. I've heard a lot of talk about that today at the show and yesterday as well in terms of we gotta do it together.
Eric:Right? And we need to share not just also in Canada. Obviously, we wanna share within the regions, but internationally, we wanna know what our friends in in in Europe are doing and in The Middle East and, of course, in The US, bit less, but still there's lots of activities going on. But I think at the end of the day, what I what we're seeing here is the the potential for Canada become to come out of this as a real leader in in this new energy space of of hydrogen, which is really cool for productivity, the purchasing power of the average Canadian, and, you know, some really cool stuff coming out of it right at the end of the day. So it's, not just flying in into something, but other applications that we've talked about.
Eric:Right? That that would be really cool that that and that's what we need to sell to to the general public is is hydrogen can really unleash a lot of things that will renew things and also drive the cost down significantly. And that's the main message at the end of the day, I think.
Kessia:Really appreciate both of you when I'm asking, you know, like, what are some challenges or obstacles? And, yes, we're talking about the challenges or obstacles, but you're also very thoughtful and decisive about what are the solutions to overcome those and what are the implications to overcoming them, which is really great. So I appreciate you getting into into the weeds on that one. It's great. Yeah.
Kessia:So I have, I just have one more question. Well, at least on my piece of paper here is when we're looking into the next twelve months, what can we expect from h two can fly? What can we expect from what you're working on?
Eric:Hergo. Yeah. Well, thank you, I appreciate it. Bye. You'll be here later.
Eric:So, yeah, for h two can fly, I think for us, it really needs to show progress as we go along, like, in the near term. So I think we'll be seeing some some interesting outputs here in terms of of of Edmonton, certainly working with Edmonton National Airport and and showing how there may be aspects of how we infrastructure works. So how do we work with with regulations, safety standards, training? We also didn't talk about this is a huge thing is is academic outreach. Right?
Eric:So working with universities to ensure that, you know, the youngsters coming the the the younglings coming from behind are are well are well trained to to take this on and and to lead it forward because I think we need to drive that too moving forward. We we have an, you know, potential issue that we need to make sure that we have those resources behind us. But it's really connecting and then showing that Canada's making some measurable steps. So we wanna show some aircrafts flying. So not just a big aircraft with four engines, for example, that we're working on, but also a helicopter, also a drone, an EV toll.
Eric:We talk about advanced air mobility, which is super cool because we want to be able to fly somewhere because driving is is okay, but but, you know, traffic congestion is only gonna get worse, think, regardless if it's battery hydrogen or not. So, you know, having short distances capability would be really cool. So it's really to show things that people can can really understand. Right? We were talking about that with our coffee too.
Eric:It's like, what is it that people can sort of relate to, you know, and and understand and say, yeah. I like this. Because if we don't do that, I think we're gonna lose the momentum, and and, and I think with that comes also the required funding to support all this, which is not small. But but I think, we're setting that up quite nicely.
Kessia:That's a lot to look forward to in twelve months.
Eric:It is, but it needs to be there because we'll talk about it today again. There are significant challenges. We're not going to shy away from them, but we also show that there is also some highs. Right? There's lows, but the highs, and we're going to solve them.
Eric:You know, there's a technology in hydrogen called fuel cells that we use. It's it's it's it's a, you know, it's it's an electrified it's like a battery if you want, but you run through through hydrogen. In the next three, four years with r and d, your efficiencies would be like 50%. You know? It's crazy.
Eric:You know? So things will just get better and better very quickly.
Kessia:Alejandro, what are you looking forward to in the next year?
Alejandro:Well, well, I I look forward to many things, but I'll tell you Wait a minute. Hydrogen. I really want
Eric:the Yeah.
Alejandro:Keep it
Eric:to hydrogen, will you?
Kessia:Like And and whatever vacation.
Alejandro:How long how long do how long do we have? No. Seriously, like, well the organization that I work for moves at a slightly lower pace than H2 Can Fly and many others, right? So we depend on our member states and we work through consensus and agreements. But in the next twelve months, I can point out to a couple of things.
Alejandro:We have a program for training capacity building and feasibility studies mainly for sustainable aviation fuels, the biofuels that I mentioned before. Now this through a resolution at our assembly, this has been extended to the whole basket of measures for NETSCO, right, including hydrogen. So now it's going to be called the ACT LTACH. It's an acronym, Long Term Aspirational Goal for Aviation and active assistance capacity building and training. So we will be doing a lot more focused on hydrogen, so webinars, maybe feasibility studies, it's still to be seen.
Alejandro:We also run our yearly event that you mentioned Eric, the Climate Week, so we'll have one now in July, we'll have one the next year. This is a forum where we, like here, but it's aviation focused, we bring together experts to talk about the latest and greatest on aviation, including hydrogen. And there's also a technical piece of work happening partly of what I mentioned before focused on the aerodromes. So the aerodromes they are standardized, there are rules, there's annex 14 of our convention where if you want to build a new airport you would go open that and they would say, okay this is the length of a runway, this is the width of a runway, this is the turning radius, blah blah There's nothing on hydrogen there. So there's been work ongoing behind the scenes on identifying those gaps and what has to be modified so that hydrogen can be part of those annexes and this is a working group that has just launched in IKEA.
Alejandro:So, yeah, a few things will unfortunately not going to deliver a new fuel cell, but we're trying to move things so that when those fuel cells are mature and flying, then we are ready to go so that those aircraft can enter service in a safe and timely manner.
Eric:Yeah.
Kessia:It sounds like your organization will be, especially over the next twelve months, a really good resource for people to keep up to date on what's happening and kind of connecting to these developments.
Alejandro:That's definitely what we're aiming for. So I thought you also Yeah.
Eric:And the thing is really quickly too, mean, it's really important to say that technically we can fly with hydrogen. It's it's not an issue. It's it's happening already. Like, we can do it. The question is can we do it efficiently, and can we do it with the regulations?
Eric:And so that's what we're working on. So I just want people to understand that from a technology standpoint, we can do it today.
Kessia:The technology is there.
Eric:It's it's there. We can do it. We can probably cross the ocean. The Airbus has been working on some stuff as well. Many others.
Eric:We have a partner that's going to talk this afternoon on a fireside chat too and talk about what they're doing with the helicopter. It's happening. So we can do it. It's just how do we bring it down in terms of cost and and make it scalable and and and the certification so that everybody's happy and to to sit on a plane that, you know, that has hydrogen on it and and and remove some of the negative thoughts from the past. Because hydrogen's been around forever, by the way.
Eric:Right? There's nothing like we just discovered, hey. There's hydrogen, like, two years ago. It's it's since the nineteen twenties, we've been dabbling around with with hydrogen all the way through. Right?
Eric:So yeah.
Kessia:Perfect. Well, thank you both so much for joining me today.
Alejandro:Thank you. I'm happy we got do
Kessia:this in person, and I'm happy we got to learn more about what the aviation industry is looking at with hydrogen. I think that's really exciting, and, it's definitely an emerging and growing conversation. So I'm excited to continue these conversations with you as things develop. So, Alejandro, Eric, thank you so much.
Alejandro:Awesome. Thank you. Thank you.
Kessia:That's it for today's episode of Hydrogen two point o. If you are looking to learn more about the Edmonton region's hydrogen economy, learn more about the Edmonton region hydrogen hub, or get in touch with us, you can visit hydrogen.ca, or send us an email at hello@hydrogen.ca. Also, feel free to follow us on LinkedIn, the Edmonton Region Hydrogen Hub, to stay up to date on all the news and all the activities happening in our hydrogen economy.