You may have heard of various color adjectives used to describe hydrogen production based on the amount of CO2 produced as a byproduct. Green hydrogen comes from renewable energy sources, powering an electrolyzer to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.

Blue hydrogen is produced from typical sources like natural gas, but the CO2 produced as a byproduct is captured and stored away. This decarbonization process is one of the reasons why companies like oil refineries and chemical plants choose blue hydrogen as a fuel source and feedstock.

In this podcast, Scot Bauder describes the important role that valves, actuators, and regulators play in optimizing and scaling these production operations in applications like steam methane reformers (SMR) and autothermal reformers (ATR).

Give the podcast a listen and visit the Blue Hydrogen Valve, Regulator & Actuator Solutions section on Emerson.com. Here, you’ll find advanced blue hydrogen production valve solutions that are not just safer and smarter but also more reliable, ensuring your operations are always in good hands.

Jim: Hi, this is Jim Cahill with another “Emerson Automation Experts Podcast.” You likely have heard about hydrogen’s role as an energy carrier in global efforts in an energy transition to non-carbon sources. Today, I’m joined by Scot Bauder, sales director for Flow Control solutions for the sustainable industries, to discuss hydrogen energy, specifically the production of blue hydrogen, with a focus on end users like chemical plants and oil refineries. We’ll be discussing the crucial role valves, regulators, and actuators play in blue hydrogen production for safe and efficient operations. I’ll start by letting Scot explain what blue hydrogen is all about. Welcome, Scot.

Scot: Thanks, Jim. Just as you’ve promised our listeners, I’ll talk a little bit about what exactly blue hydrogen is, but I’ll also talk about the different colors of hydrogen. Hydrogen comes in many different colors, and really, the colors are dependent on the carbon intensity of the different hydrogen types. The two most common are probably green and blue hydrogen. Green hydrogen coming from energy sources that are non-polluting, like wind, solar, hydroelectric, things of that nature. And then the blue hydrogen is where typically natural gas is used, and the CO2 emissions are removed through the process of making the hydrogen. This is important to large industrial customers, where they have a large demand for hydrogen, and the blue hydrogen processes tend to support that a little better.

Jim: Okay. Got it. So, why are companies in the downstream hydrocarbon industries like oil refineries and chemical plants using blue hydrogen as a feedstock for their operations?

Scot: That’s a good question. So, these industries, the petrochemical industry and the refining industries, have been using hydrogen to finish and make products for decades now. As the world has moved to reduction of its carbon footprint from different processes, many of these large companies have adopted ESG and sustainability goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from their processes themselves. Again, you know, making a large quantity of hydrogen, blue hydrogen is a great method of doing that. It’ll meet their demands for their products, but at the same time, being able to reduce or remove that CO2 emission that comes with it.

There’s also many countries that have decarbonization goals that have been legislated or been imposed by stockholders or shareholders of the company. With that, there’s either carbon taxes from the government or a lot of governments also incentivize customers to help remove their CO2 emissions from their processes. We, in North America, and around the world, there’s a lot of areas that have natural gas. It’s relatively inexpensive, and it makes a great feedstock for blue hydrogen. And right now, it is cheaper than green hydrogen.

Many companies are investing in blue hydrogen, like Linde, they have a Nederland project in the Gulf Coast here in the United States, and then Exxon is also working on a project for their Texas Baytown site to add a blue hydrogen unit for that facility also.

Jim: Yeah. I see and hear a lot about carbon capture projects going on in different spots. So that really is a lot of activity there. Well, blue hydrogen is produced via steam methane reforming, or SMR, and autothermal reform, called ATR. What are the critical aspects of blue hydrogen production using the SMR and ATR processes?

Scot: Both processes have benefits. The steam methane-reforming root process has been around for a very long time. It’s commonly used today at the petrochem and refining sites to make gray hydrogen by adding the CO2 removal, then they can make blue hydrogen and, again, reduce those greenhouse gas emissions from those processes. Newer in this area is the autothermal reforming technology. The real big benefit it brings is efficiency. It only has one CO2 source in the process, and it, again, increases the efficiency and reduces the complexity of capturing the CO2, where steam methane reforming has a CO2 component in the reaction when they’re making hydrogen itself and then also a CO2 removal component from the combustion process.

Jim: That’s interesting. I was familiar with SMR, but I hadn’t heard about ATR. So, I’ve learned something here today, and hopefully so have some of our listeners. I know safety is a paramount concern for the industry. What are some safety concerns related to blue hydrogen, and how do valves play a role in helping to ensure safe operations?

Scot: Yeah. There are several areas in the blue hydrogen process that safety comes into play. One is the mitigation of leaks. We know anytime we’re in a process environment that valves and pipe flanges and those things can have leaks. You know, when we’re working with fuel gases, with that being natural gas in this case, and then a product of hydrogen coming out of that, it’s always important to have the right products that you can isolate the process when you’re shutting it down, and then if there is a need to shut down the unit in an emergency, you know, isolation products like KTM ball valves can play a critical role in that safe operation.

Pressure relief valves [PRVs] are always important to protect the system from overpressure during the process operation. Anderson Greenwood has some nice pilot-operated PRV valves that have a monitoring component to them, being able to provide data of if there is an emission or a relief action that’s taken, you may be able to measure how long that was, and then also help learn through that process. Those valves also have an inherent ability to reseat themselves after an event, which is important. Hopefully, if there is any event, it’s short, and those valves can help reduce those emissions to the environment.

And then the last thing that spans across many of the valves that are used in processed plants, Emerson isolation valves and control valves, we have an extensive line of packing systems that fit with the extensive line of valves that have been tested ISO 15848, which has become the global standard for packing testing, and then also, you know, just having tight non-emitting packing systems. And we also have third-party certifications and testing that’s been done to the ISO standard that are available with our products.

Jim: Well, that sounds like a number of things to address those safety concerns. And I know from the monitoring of the pressure relief valves, I was recently at an environmental health and safety conference, and that was a large topic just from a regulatory standpoint to really track what the emissions were, how long, the amount. So that’s really important technology, I think it’s growing in importance. So, what are the challenges related with SMR blue hydrogen units? And how can valves help address these challenges?

Scot: Yeah. So, with an SMR, probably the biggest efficiency or challenge is the fuel gas to steam ratio and, you know, efficiency of energy use and also the emissions that come from that. It’s important to have control valves that have been sized correctly. Those are the components that help control that process and the output of that process. Fisher has a wide range of easy-e globe valves that fit well within that process and can be sized with the correct trim & actuation to meet those needs. Teamed with a DVC6200 positioner that gives accurate control, again, will help promote safe operation of the unit. And then at the end, you know, it also improves the yield across the unit, increases the chemical and catalyst lifespan, and again, just brings that efficiency across the entire process unit.

Jim: Yeah. So, it sounds like energy savings, better product yields, some ways that the technology can help there. That’s great. And I guess similarly, what are the challenges with ATR in blue hydrogen units, and how can valves address those?

Scot: Right. That’s a good question. So, with the ATR units, the temperatures are much higher. The way that that process is designed with the reactor unit, the temperatures are much higher than the SMR. With that, that brings challenges in the right materials and the valve products that can help control and then isolate those units when they’re in operation.

A good valve we’ve seen there is the triple offset valve from Vanessa. It’s capable of high-temp applications and will seal tight, you know, based on the inherent triple offset design and the way that seal works in that product. On the flip side, the ATR, again, like I said earlier, has a single CO2 emissions. So, you know, having the right products and being able to control just continues to add to the efficiency that we see with the ATR technology itself.

In fact, both Linde and Exxon of their blue hydrogen units that have been built or they’re in the process of working on, are both going to use the ATR process. So, I think we’ll see more of this in the future. You know, these are large process units running, you know, large quantities of hydrogen. So, the efficiency definitely will have a payback in the long term.

Jim: Yeah. That makes sense, that the more efficient process should be able to win out over time. And I know that hydrogen is a tiny little molecule, and so given that, how does that impact the valve material selection?

Scot: Yeah. Hydrogen brings some challenges with it, just at the molecular level. You know, one of the biggest challenges from a metallic standpoint is the potential of embrittlement of those materials. Emerson has invested in quite a bit of hydrogen testing in the last couple years. We’ve done metallic testing, you know, where we’ve saturated test samples in an outdoor lab and then tested those samples after they’ve been saturated at a pressure and a certain duration of time, you know, bring them back, do mechanical testing on them, looking for embrittlement.

We have not found if the right materials are used, typically, 316 stainless steel or carbon steel is in the right condition. We’re not seeing any mechanical impacts from hydrogen embrittlement or really absorption of that hydrogen that would lead to the embrittlement. With that, you know, we’ve also been supplying hydrogen valves in the refining industry for probably 50 years now, and we’re not seeing failures or other issues with those products that have been used, you know, in the refining and petrochemical applications, again, for decades.

If we look at soft parts, packing, and gaskets, again, those materials, we’re not seeing absorption issues with the hydrogen. So, again, a lot of standard materials that we’ve used for many years fit well within these applications in the hydrogen space.

Jim: I’ve always heard that concern that hydrogen embrittles metals, but it’s good to hear through the course of that testing that you’re just not seeing it, that you’re not seeing failures from doing that. So that’s great news. I guess blue hydrogen is a cleaner gas because the production process of blue hydrogen molecules captures carbon dioxide or CO2. I guess, where are some of the common challenges associated with the CO2 capture process, and how can valves help solve them?

Scot: Yeah. So, again, the process that we’re seeing the companies use is chemical amine process, which has been used by the industry for a long time to remove CO2 and other gases from different flue streams. This technology is proven, it’s understood, and with that, we have experience. We know there are some inherent applications with the chemical amine process that brings noise and cavitation. An example would be a lean amine feed control valve. We see those valves cavitate based on the typical process conditions. Fisher has Cavitrol trim that will address that cavitation and remove that opportunity, and really protect the valve in the system from any cavitation damage.

And then another application that’s common in the amine process is a rich amine letdown valve. And common to this is outgassing, you know, depending on the process conditions. In those applications, we tend to use a noise attenuation trim. In the case of Fisher control valves, that would be a Whisper III trim set. And again, that will reduce the outgassing and then the noise that would be associated with that.

Jim: Okay. That sounds great. After CO2 is captured, what is the next challenge in the process?

Scot: Yeah. So, we’ve kind of walked through the process of how we make the blue hydrogen, and the goal is to capture that CO2. Now there has to be a path to store that or use it in a different way. Right now, we’re seeing a lot of projects that are around the carbon capture and then also into the storage. And when we get into the storage piece of it, compression will become an element in those processes. And anytime we have compression, we’ve got a compressor, and anti-surge is always a concern on those compressors.

We have technology with [anti-surge] control valves, as well as our optimized digital valve using a Fisher DVC6200, that can protect that compressor and ensure that there’s not a process upset if something does not go to plan. And then from there, once it’s compressed, you know, typically it will be put in a pipeline and it will be moved to another location for storage, whether that’s sequestration or, again, to be used in a different type of product.

When we get into the pipeline side of things, you know, those tend to be more remote. We do have some nice actuators from Bettis. We have some electric actuators that work well for modulating and on-off. And Bettis has also developed a new product in the last couple years, it’s called ECAT. It’s a pipeline actuator that has zero emissions. So, a lot of times, the pipeline actuation uses the pipeline gas as the motive force for the actuator. This ECAT actuator can use CO2 or natural gas and not emit any of that to the atmosphere. So, another nice piece, you know, removing CO2 as a greenhouse gas emission, this fits well with that scheme of not putting that back into the atmosphere.

Jim: Yeah. That’s an important technology as everyone’s trying to drive their methane emissions to negligible amounts. To wrap up, Scot, can you summarize some of the key challenges related to blue hydrogen production and the role that valves, regulators, and actuators play in ensuring reliable and safe operations?

Scot: Yes, Jim. Many of the challenges that we talked about in blue hydrogen production center around high temperatures, potential embrittlement of metallics, cavitation, noise, and high-pressure drops. Correct valve selection has a direct impact on a plant’s reliability and profitability. Remote applications are best served with electric actuation that focuses on zero emissions. We also talked about extensive lab testing that Emerson has completed in the hydrogen space to ensure that the materials that are selected resist or prevent embrittlement from happening in the hydrogen applications, and always important to select equipment that promotes safe and efficient plant operations.

Jim: Well, that sounds pretty comprehensive of how we can help the hydrogen producers and, I guess, on the consuming side of the hydrogen coming in, as we’ve done for decades. And I guess, finally, where can our listeners go to learn more about valve solutions for blue hydrogen applications?

Scot: That’s a good question. For more information, you can go to emerson.com/blueh2valves, and that will take you to our page, that will take you deeper into the hydrogen applications specific to blue hydrogen and the products that support those challenges that come with that process.

Jim: And I’ll make sure to put a link to that, the emerson.com/blueh2valves, as well as some of the other products you mentioned through the course of the podcast so our listeners can go learn more about each of those. Scot, I wanna thank you so much for sharing your expertise today with our listeners.

Scot: Thanks, Jim. It’s been great to be on the podcast with you, and hopefully, everybody learned something along the way.

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Objectives need their measurements to understand the progress being made. The organization CDP runs an environmental impact disclosure program that allows global companies, governments, and other organizations to manage their environmental impacts.

Emerson Chief Sustainability Officer Mike Train joins me to discuss Emerson’s progress as measured through the CDP program and ways it’s helping its customers drive their environmental performance.

Give the podcast a listen, visit the CDP site to learn more, and visit the Environmental Sustainability section on Emerson.com for more on Emerson’s commitment to driving environmental sustainability improvements.

Jim: Hi everyone. I’m Jim Cahill with another Emerson Automation Experts podcast. Today, we’ll be discussing recognition of Emerson’s actions to improve the sustainability of its global operations, as well as that of our suppliers and customers. Today, I am joined by Emerson’s Chief Sustainability Officer Mike Train, to discuss the progress Emerson is making on our path to Net Zero and the work of organizations like the CDP to help assess this progress.

Welcome Mike.

Mike: Hey Jim. Good to be with you.

Jim: Well, it’s great to have you. I know we did one of these in the past, and I look forward to our conversation here today. Well, I heard Emerson recently received a rating from the CDP, which, as I understand it, is a not-for-profit charity that runs the global disclosure system for investors, companies, cities, states, and regions to manage their environmental impacts.

Can you tell our listeners a little more about this organization and their mission?

Mike: Yeah, sure. Jim, the CDP has been around now for a couple of decades and is really the leading environmental disclosure system in the world. I think there’s over 20,000 companies or something now that, report information through the CDP platform.

We at Emerson have been reporting for a long time, since 2010, and have worked our way through to being kind of fully using the platform and all the guidance that’s built into it for how to run a better or best-practice environmental program.

Jim: I understand we have an A- rating with the CDP, so what does that signify for our organization’s climate change efforts, and how does it align with our broader sustainability objectives?

Mike: Yeah, no. Very pleased to receive our rating again this year of an A minus.

It represents that we have a very strong program. We have very full disclosure. We have a set of targets that we report to. We’ve done some of the work like climate scenario analysis and planning for the future. Kind of all of those great elements that are built into CDP. So very much appreciate the rating.

And I think for us, it represents a few things. One is the CDP rating is something that we kind of rally around in the company. It helps bring all of our stakeholders together for conversations. It helps, again, guide our improvement actions over time.

Given that that they rate and they share it with the world, it gives you a good sense of our leadership now in the environmental sustainability areas. I’d say it’s also supportive of conveying to a wide set of stakeholders, our customers, our suppliers, our investors, communities that we operate in, that we are committed to a very strong environmental sustainability program. We’re making our own contribution and, you know, we’re part of that larger dialogue in the world about how we get to a net zero world, if you will, in the future.

You know, through that CDP reporting mechanism, we share, again, targets that I mentioned. Our company has net zero targets, for example, in GHG emissions. With a near-term set of targets around 2030 to get to net zero operations, our footprint, our scope, one or two activities, and a longer-term, 2045, inclusive of our value chain net zero. So I think again, the CDP kind of built in all of the best approaches. They fully sort of embraced the TCFD (Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures) recommendations for how to manage environmental activities. And, it’s a great signal, that we’re on the right track, I think, to working the things that we need to do.

We still have many things to do in the future. We’re still very focused, obviously, on making our reductions, making investments to make reductions, and also participating through our portfolio in a lot of the activities that the world’s counting on to make the improvement in our collective roadmaps.

Jim: Yeah, it definitely sounds like it’s a journey, and getting this rating, I think, just helps assess our path along the way, like as we went through school and got our grades to help assess how we’re doing along the way. So which specific practices or innovations do you believe had the most significant impact on our climate change strategy?

Mike: I would say, you know, first of all declaring externally, publicly, openly, that you have a set of targets and you have viable pathways or programs to work to make those targets. Which again, those are the types of things that you lay out in your CDP reporting. So I think that part’s absolutely important. I think the work we do to engage our organization. And reflecting that in the response to, in the CDP platform is super important. And, you know, none of us can do this individually. We’ve got to work as a team, broad team. And I think those elements are really important.

I think the management and the leadership elements, how we’re organized, how we govern, what’s the governance for our environmental sustainability activities, what are our strategies, what are our metrics, presenting those really key measures that you bring and that heartbeat of doing that every year, bringing that, bringing that forward, and again, having that all built into the organization so they can bring those metrics forward every year. That’s a big part of, I think, what the contribution is from CDP.

You know, I think the rating recognizes a lot of the different best practices and that we’re making great progress. Obviously, an A minus means we didn’t get an A, so, you know, I’m still striving to go farther, and I think that’s a great attitude for companies as we look ahead.

Jim: Yeah, we definitely want that 4.0, so we got to just keep going till we get there with it. But you know, we can celebrate this milestone where we’re at. How will this achievement influence our future sustainability strategies and actions, I guess, to further reduce our environmental impact?

Mike: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Jim: Let’s see. I guess turning from what we do internally here at Emerson, what are some ways we’re helping our customers in the manufacturing and production industries drive their sustainability improvement initiatives?

Mike: Yeah, I think that’s a great, great question. Many of our customers – we have thousands and thousands of customers around the world–and of course, they also report to the CDP. They have also established targets. They’re also trying to make their progress.

And I think the great thing about what we do and what we can be helpful with is providing that automation capabilities so that customers can measure so that customers can optimize, so they can maybe reduce their energy and reduce the emissions associated with that energy.

They can think about starting to utilize some of the pillars of activities in energy transition so maybe standing up and trialing some hydrogen projects or having a carbon capture system or, in some cases with some of our customers, making a biofuel from a waste. Those types of activities. So, our portfolio is super important, whether it’s in the measuring sense of that, in the controlling the operation, what’s going on physically, in that sense, the control systems where usually our customers put their logic of what it is that they’re doing or manufacturing and how they manage all of those things in a real-time basis.

And then a lot of software. We have a lot of software that’s related to analysis and simulation and training, recipe management, and just all of the things that you can do to make yourselves better and probably look at the metrics that you would consider to be the environmental metrics and then the ways that you can make improvements in those.

Jim: Yeah, I think you raise a good point. It used to be you put in enough measurements and everything just to get the process to run smoothly for you, but now with what technology has enabled all the diagnostics and everything else to be able to do things like measure the energy efficiency in real-time and optimize around that and other parts, I think that’s really significant. I guess looking forward, what’s next for us at Emerson to really drive our performance in this area even further.

Mike: Jim, I think there’s a couple of things that we’re focused on what’s next in the one to two to three-year timeframe. Things that we’re activating. One thing is and I think this is an issue every company has, is just getting your data to a better place. A lot of effort around capturing more metrics. Having the visibility on those, being able to present those to our employees, our management teams around the world.

There’s a lot of data work going on. And I think that’s a space where lots of companies are involved in those things. We’ve also got regulatory activities where there’s gonna be more reporting required about either some of the materials maybe that we put into the world as a product or some of your activities. Certainly, emissions are a good example of that.

We’ve also introduced a zero waste of landfill target, which requires a significant amount of diversion away from sending something to landfills and having good options for what you do with waste in your facilities. So we’ve embarked on that journey. Again, that’s a data that’s having a program around that’s doing waste treasure hunts, which kind of emulate our energy, treasure hunts, where we go, work with our facilities to make their improvements, see those opportunities.

So I think as we look ahead, we’ve got some more of that data, that whole data management structure to go there. Obviously, I still continue to focus on our organization learning and engaging and being directly active in what we do in our facilities.

And I think also Emerson’s got, I’m gonna call it a duty to take what we know and take it out into our communities. We know how to measure things. We know a lot of engineering and technical things. Those are gifts that we can give to our communities, and having our employees do that outreach and that educational piece as well, I think, is really important.

Jim: So the culture you’re instilling around just being more sustainable in all we do. How are you as you speak to other chief sustainability officers or the leaders in our company’s sustainability efforts, coaching them on how to change their culture?

Mike: First of all, I’d love to learn from others and I’ll steal any good idea I can find and obviously want to share what we’ve learned.

I think the great part about environmental sustainability space is it’s not proprietary. We all want to make the difference. We all have to work collectively, frankly, to get the world to net zero. So I think it’s a great collaborative space to begin with. You know, guidance I give is to get started, to get rolling, work through your employees.

I think that’s, again, we have 70,000 here at Emerson. I work through the 70,000 folks here. We have 15,000 supplier organizations. We’ve spent a lot of time with many of those to kind of paint the picture of how to go about this. Exchange best practices. I learned from them, they learned from us.

So I think those are really important things. And I think what’s interesting is every year or two you think you’ve learned something. We’ve done an energy treasure hunt. We’ve found some great ideas. We’ve implemented them. The next time we go back into an energy treasure hunt, we’ve gotten so much smarter and we see more.

So I think it’s just stay focused and keep making progress. There’s always gonna be more opportunities that are out there to focus on as we look ahead.

Jim: You made such an important point there that this isn’t like technology development and the competition and worried about keeping your intellectual property private.

We’re all on the same mission here, and being able to share freely, whether they’re your competitors, whether it’s suppliers, whether everyone else and I liked what you said there, I have kind of variation on that. Sometimes the best ideas are the ones that you borrow from someone else and then implement, maybe taking a new direction.

I guess as we wind things down here, any closing thoughts that you have for our listeners and maybe from the standpoint of what they might do to carry that torch into their organization if they’re at the front end of this and seeking to instill change in their organization.

Mike: Yeah, I would say, first of all, every company’s capable of getting an A and A-minus in the CDP ratings, right? There’s a great guide there to follow, to build up your processes over time. So certainly take a look at that, that it’s great information. I’d say secondly, on the cultural front again, driving employee engagement, giving them permissions, giving your employees permission to activate to do things, and what always boggles my mind and love is the creativity of our employees and the people that we engage with.

People come up with things that I had never thought of, I didn’t have a point of view on. We celebrate those. We actually have environmental sustainability awards in the company, which we will be announcing during Earth Month in April this year. There’s just the number of ideas and how high quality they were. It’s just amazing. So get going, make progress, embrace it. I think the disclosure aspect of it is a good accountability mechanism that we continue to make progress. Don’t go for perfection; just keep making progress. I think that’s a big point.

Jim: Well, that’s really good guidance. Just keep driving it forward. Just be persistent and consistent about the way you go about it. Well, Mike, I want to thank you so much for joining us here today and sharing your thoughts and continue to move our company forward and get all of us and we’ll get that A. We will strive and we will achieve that A. So thanks for joining us.

Mike: Thanks Jim.

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The 2050 Net Zero carbon target challenges all of us across the globe. Manufacturing and Production companies that are part of the hydrocarbon value chain are particularly challenged in driving their operations toward Net Zero.

LyondellBasell Chief Procurement Officer Jennifer Jewson and Artemis Energy Partners CEO Bobby Tudor join Emerson’s Denka Wangdi and me in this special podcast to discuss the importance of collaboration and engagement in tackling the Net Zero challenge.

Learn more about some of the initiatives underway by visiting the LyondellBasell Sustainability section on their website, the Carbon Neutral Coalition and Houston Energy Transition Initiative websites, and the Sustainability section on Emerson.com.

Jim: Hi, everyone. I’m Jim Cahill and welcome to another “Emerson Automation Experts” podcast. In today’s special podcast, I’m joined by Jennifer Jewson, LyondellBasell’s chief procurement officer, Bobby Tudor, retired founder and CEO of Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co., and currently the CEO of Artemis Energy Partners, and Denka Wangdi, Emerson’s director of sales for sustainability and growth. We’ll be discussing some of the sustainability-related initiatives they are advancing. Welcome, Jennifer, Bobby, and Denka.

Denka: Thanks, Jim.

Jennifer: Thank you.

Bobby: Thanks so much.

Jim: Well, it’s great that you’re all here. We’re excited to have you share your perspectives. I guess, Bobby, let me begin with you. You have a vast background, including beyond what I said in our introduction being currently Chairman of the Houston Energy Transition Initiative, a consortium of Houston’s leading energy companies working to shape the region’s energy transition strategy. Also, you are the board member for the Carbon Neutral Coalition and several other organizations, and other various positions. That must keep you pretty busy, all that going on.

But let’s start by asking you about the Carbon Neutral Coalition and its goals.

Bobby: Jim, the Carbon Neutral Coalition is a coalition, very broad-based coalition of stakeholders in Texas. It’s a Texas-centric proposition. It was put together by Corby Robertson of the Quintana Corporation. And the aim of the Carbon Neutral Coalition is to organize and sort of unite a very broad base of stakeholders in the incumbent oil and gas industry in Texas who are focused on driving the movement of the industry towards true carbon neutrality. And that would include upstream producers, midstream gatherers, downstream users, mineral rights owners, ranchers, landowners broadly, environmentalists, etc. So, a very broad-based group of stakeholders.

And the desire at the end of the day is to have a oil and gas business in Texas that is, in fact, carbon neutral. And so, all of the things that might help get us there are the focus of the Carbon Neutral Coalition’s. That would include carbon capture, use, and storage, CCUS, it would include regulations around methane detector measurement and capture, it would include the elimination of routine flaring, etc. So, it’s really focused specifically on what I call the incumbent oil and gas business in Texas and a drive to make it carbon-neutral over time.

Jim: Well, that certainly sounds like a large challenge for a hydrocarbon or carbon-based business to become carbon neutral in all of that. But I know we’ve got a lot of people here in the state energized to take on that challenge. Jennifer, you have an amazing background with a PhD in inorganic chemistry and an MBA and a lot of experience in your background from perusing LinkedIn, research, chemistry, consulting, feedstock, unit acquisitions, and overall procurement for materials and services.

I guess with that broad experience, can you share how LyondellBasell is advancing its sustainability initiatives to drive towards net zero?

Jennifer: Sure. So, we actually just announced an updated version of our initiatives. And so, we had originally said we were going to reduce our Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas footprint by 30% by 2030. Well, we just raised that to 42%. And we are joining the Science-Based Target initiatives as well so that they can help look at the programs that we have at the sites to make sure that they’re vetted and they’re using the latest technologies.

So, we look at the sites, so that’s Scope 1 and Scope 2. We’ve also announced a Scope 3 target, which is a reduction of 30% by 2030 as well. And so, with all the sites, we have, our carbon reduction programs in place, and we are looking at things like alternative fuels, renewable energy, electrification, so all of those things as we create these roadmaps by the sites.

We signed six actually virtual power purchase agreements in the U.S. this past year and two in Europe. And so, we have a target there where we’d like to have at least 50% of our electricity through renewable by 2030, and then at least 75% of our energy, which should be low carbon. So, we’re working on that as well, and so, for electricity.

So, with all the power purchase agreements we did, we actually combined, it actually could power, I think it’s 370,000 homes. So, it’s exciting for us. So, we drive towards 2030, and then we do have a goal of net zero by 2050. And so, it is very important that we keep on these roadmaps and keep driving the sites.

Jim: Well, congratulations on driving an even higher target for 2030 and all the great things you’re doing so far to move yourself down that path towards net zero.

Denka, let me ask you to share ways Emerson is helping our customers, like LyondellBasell, to achieve their sustainability targets.

Denka: Yeah. Sure. Thanks, Jim. And I just wanted to preface by thanking Jennifer and Bobby for joining us today. So the platform for Emerson essentially is…it’s almost in three manners. It’s “greening of,” essentially how do we keep our own house in order. And it means improving our carbon footprint across 187 facilities. Our “greening by,” which is essentially the technologies that we serve companies like Lyondell with our solutions, our technology that really help them along their sustainability journey.

And then the “greening with,” which is almost the most powerful. It’s, like, the understanding of the ecosystem whether it’s working with universities or the Carbon Neutral Coalition, or really partnering and making sure that we are embedded into that ecosystem. So, the greening of essentially is a smaller mix. It means that we can check off our Scope 1, 2, and 3 net zero targets, which is for the year of 2045, and our Scope 1 and 2, which is for 2030.

Now, we’re far along the ways to making sure our Scope 1 and 2 is met, but when it comes to vendor selection or supply selection, Lyondell and all of our other customers are looking at the people that they wanna partner with to making sure that we’re meeting our targets. So, that’s essentially point one. But really the secret sauce or, if you will, our strength is around the greening by. And if you think about the chemical industry alone, Jim 60% of CO2 comes from just the combustion process.

And Jennifer touched on Scope 3, which is in the chemical industry, about 75% of the total emissions, 75%. I mean, that’s insane. So, the way that we help, whether it’s optimizing the steam turbines or their pumps, their facilities, pressurized equipment, it’s done through really the advancement of digitization, digital solutions, efficiency improvements is how we get there. And then really putting and ensuring, like, there’s a change management taking place. So, the way I like to say it is our greening by is essentially a customer’s greening of.

Jim: Yeah. That makes total sense as an automation supplier and all the digital technologies that we can help people in their journey through a number of different ways. Thanks for sharing that, Denka.

Bobby, with Texas being an energy hub for all of North America and even beyond globally, what does the energy landscape look like as we go forward?

Bobby: Well, in many ways, Jim, it will look much like the historic landscape and in other ways, it will look dramatically different. And here in Texas particularly, I think we are very clear that the challenge is, in fact, a dual challenge, which is to say we have to deliver reliable, affordable, and secure energy to the world today, while at the same time, dramatically driving down CO2 and other emissions. And if the challenge were just one of those two things, it would be quite a different proposition.

But in fact, the challenge is that we need to be able to walk and chew gum, which is to say we have to do both of those and we have to do them simultaneously. And so, a big part of the energy complex here in Texas will continue to be focused on the former, which is to say, just delivering reliable, affordable, and secure energy today to the world as it’s needed. And then there’s also a subset of companies who will be doing that and will be focused on truly new things. And there will also be a group of companies focused exclusively on innovation, new company formation, new forms of energy, and all the services that go around that.

And so, it’s really a very exciting time, but we have to remind ourselves that there’s no one silver bullet. Energy is truly a system or in fact, multiple systems that are highly, highly complex, and the challenges that we face are multifaceted. There are challenges of the physical world, of chemistry and physics. There are also challenges of the geopolitical world, security, and reliability. And then there are challenges of the consumer, which is to say that people who are using energy every day are simultaneously desiring, if not demanding, that it be cleaner and lower emissions, yet they also want it as cheaply and reliably as they can possibly get it.

So, you roll all that together and it means that the challenges are huge and complex, and likely to take a long time. But the good news is that we have a world that is increasingly focused on this challenge, and ultimately it’s our industrial companies like Jennifer’s companies and many, many others who will drive the change that’s needed for us to get to where we need to go, which is to say dramatically lower CO2 emissions to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change.

Jim: Well, that does…that dual challenge there certainly presents a lot of challenges. But with the amount of people focused and all that brain power, there’ll be technology innovations, there’ll be a lot of things along the way that help us drive that way just by the sheer focus on the challenge there.

Jennifer, I guess the same question for you. How do you see the Texas energy landscape from your perspective as we go forward?

Jennifer: So, I think what Bobby said was spot on. I think for Texas… maybe to take one step back, this year with the Russia-Ukraine War really highlighted the need for energy security and we saw costs rise tremendously. And so, I mean that really hit at home for all of us in industry, especially those of us that are global companies watching that.

I think for Texas you do need…you need reliable, low-cost, but sustainable energy. And so, I think when we look at what we do as an industry, it’s got to be reliable, rateable energy. So, renewable energy’s wonderful. We love investing in it. I think it is absolutely important for our future. Battery storage isn’t where it needs to be yet today. So, I think you are going to need other sources of energy. So, I think it’s gonna be, I always call it lumpy. You’re gonna have a lot of different things moving, and I think Bobby said it very well, it’s going to take time.

So, I think about hydrogen. And so, we’re actually participating in a collaborative group with Chevron and with Air Liquide to bring hydrogen as a hub. So, infrastructure. Infrastructure takes time, it takes a lot of money, but I love the opportunity now that we can collaborate in this sustainability space. We collaborate more now, and I think that’s very exciting.

So, PetChem companies, because of IP, we didn’t always maybe collaborate as much, but we are today. And I think it’s really important that we’re doing this because there’s high cost and higher risk. So, if you can get supply and demand together, working together, it adds a little bit more comfort as you go through the infrastructure build or the technology improvements or driving new technology.

So, I mean, for me, I think you’re gonna see a big change. Hydrogen could be…it could be blue, it could be green. I mean, we’ll see what that looks like, but I do think that is an alternative way to look at energy. So, renewable energy, hydrogen as a source. And one other comment too, here in the Houston area, you’ve got a lot of olefin crackers. And a lot of them are cracking ethane because ethane is a lower-cost raw material. When you crack it, you do actually make a lot of hydrogen.

So, a lot of folks are starting to recycle their hydrogen to also cut down on the natural gas they’re using. So, I think people are getting smarter, they’re becoming more energy efficient, and I do think you’re gonna see a change over time. And I agree, Bobby, it’s gonna take some time. But if you have a lot of companies that are willing to collaborate, I think it allows for a much higher success rate going forward, and faster.

Jim: Yeah. I think that collaboration is everything. I mean, from a supplier standpoint of equipment to understand the challenges and move the technology along to help address that, and then some of the examples like recycling that hydrogen, with hydrogen being so promising an energy carrier there though, yeah, it’s…we’re on the train moving that direction, and it seems to be accelerating, which is great.

Denka, since a large part of our automation business is here in Texas, how do you see it, how we play in the Texas energy landscape, and how it’s evolving?

Denka: Yeah. So, I was saying that we’ve always been industrial leaders in aerospace, in healthcare, in oil and gas. And now really this energy addition, if you will, is where we take place as the frontier runners in the renewable sector. So, in 2022, Texas added 8,000 megawatts of solar and wind as well. California, just as a benchmark, was only 3000 megawatts.

So, we look at the amount of infrastructure and capital that’s being invested in the renewables, and then to what Jennifer said around the hydrogen hubs, that mix of who we’re working with and the companies that we’re working with. I mean, you see lithium refineries coming in place, Tesla has moved and big tech has moved into Texas in a very meaningful way. And with that, what do you get? You get a lot of startups, a lot of Cleantech companies moving in this space as well.

So, I like to put it into two ways. The industry has changed, and more importantly, I almost say, like, the talent demographic has changed.

And what do I mean by that? I don’t think people understand, like, Texas is the fastest-growing state in the rest of the country right now. Houston is the most diverse city, beating out LA and even New York. So, when it comes to thinking about what makes us special, we have 8 billion people in this world that need clean energy, that need reliable sources of energy, and the talent is here. So, in some ways, Texas is positioned to be the epicenter of how we actually enable other areas of the world to come and go green.

Jim: And I think Texas is a place that’s blessed with all forms of energy from the carbon-based ones that were being creative in how we remove the carbon or capture and sequester the carbon to the wind, the sunshine, and everything else in there. So, it seems natural that blessed with all this energy, that we lead the way in helping the world with how to reduce the carbon and all of that energy.

Bobby, let me turn to you. Can you share your views on the importance of partnerships in achieving these net zero goals?

Bobby: Well, the goal certainly will not be achieved without partnerships and collaboration. That’s very, very clear. And I would say it’s clear for two reasons. One is that, as I mentioned before, there’s no silver bullet here and we’re going to have to have progress across a very, very wide range of issues. And some of that has to do with technology, some of it has to do with markets, some of it has to do with customer preferences. But there’s a very wide range of issues that will require solutions. And no one company touches all of those, and no one regulatory body touches all of those for that matter.

So, almost by definition, we have to have collaboration and partnerships. But perhaps the even more important reason, and Jennifer touched on this earlier, is risk sharing I think is going to be really, really critical here. The IEA says we need to be spending call it $4 trillion per year globally every year between now and 2050 to meet the goals of the Paris Climate Accords. We’re currently spending about $1 trillion globally. So, we’re $3 trillion a year short, and we’re whatever the number is, 28 years away. So, we’re talking about a lot of capital required here.

And there is no one company nor is there any one government that could possibly afford to pay for the majority of that. The capital is gonna have to come from everywhere. It will have to come from governments in the forms of R&D and grants, and tax incentives. And we’re doing a lot of that here now and the EU is close behind us. A lot of it is gonna have to come from the private capital markets true risk-taking where that…whether that’s at a venture capital level or a more traditional private equity level. A lot of it’s gonna have to come from the budgets of our big industrial companies who generate free cash flow and are gonna have to take some of that free cash flow and invest it in innovation and new products and new ventures.

And ultimately, and this is quite an unpopular thing to say, but I’m gonna say it, ultimately, it’s gonna have to come from us as consumers of energy. We’re gonna have to be prepared to help pay for the innovation and incremental cost that’s required to decarbonize quickly on the pace that we need to be on to make all of this happen. So, it is going to require collaboration and partnership across every corner of industry and every corner of our society, and every corner of government around the world.

This is a massive, massive undertaking because there’s a huge amount of inertia in energy systems. They are big and complex. We have to be able to leverage what we already have because completely replumbing the world’s energy systems is simply too expensive and it will take too long to have an impact on the problem, the climate change problem, in the way that we really need to. So, I’m a big believer in the importance of collaboration.

Jim: Yeah. When it extends to all of us, even as consumers, that’s everyone’s got a stake in this and everyone’s got… step up for their part of it.

Jennifer, I was fascinated reading through on your website about how your company will achieve your goal of ending plastic waste. Can you share more about the ways you’re tackling this goal?

Jennifer: Sure. So, we actually were a founding member of the Alliance To End Plastic Waste. And so, we have…we actually have a multi-pronged program. So, our goal is to get to 2 million metric tons of recycled product that we sell in the market. And it can be from chemical recycling, mechanical recycling, or a circular, like, renewable feedstock.

So, on the advanced recycling, we actually have our own technology, we call it MoReTec. The MoReTec technology takes hard-to-recycle plastic and it makes it into what we call pyrolysis oil. And that oil can then be cracked to create olefins that can then go into polymers.

We also look at things like JVs [joint ventures], we get involved with those as well, again, about the collaboration part that Bobby was talking about. So, we’ve invested in some JVs already, a state-of-the-art sorting units. One is in Germany with Source One Plastics. We are also part of a partnership in Houston to reduce the landfilling that’s going on with Exxon and Cyclyx.

So those are areas where we’re now trying to procure the recycled materials plastic bottles and whatnot to bring into our facilities to either, make pyrolysis oil out of or also expand into our current mechanically recycled programs that we have. We just signed a few more MOUs and LOIs with others so that we can also make more, we have one already QCP in Europe where we make mechanically recycled polymers.

So, we look at things like our Circulen brand that we’re trying to bring to market, working with our customers that really want it. They want to be able to say things are made out of recycled plastic. I think about the drink cups that a lot of the fast-food restaurants are now recycled plastic. So, the biggest issue there really is not the technology, it’s the collection of the plastic.

So, I think for us, again, talking about partnership, the way to make that happen is to partner with folks maybe that we wouldn’t have partnered with in the past and start trying to figure out how to solve that problem so that we can bring it into our sites and use it. So, I’m actually super excited to see us doing this and really expanding. We also on our leadership team, as we reorganized under Peter, we do have a circular and low carbon solutions business line. And I think that’s important so that we are more customer-facing to try and bring those solutions to customers and help them be more innovative as well.

Jim: Well, and that really brings that partnership aspect to life, all those different ways you described your working with others to do some of that. So, that’s really exciting from what Bobby said that you as a company are putting that into practice and really driving what you’re doing for more sustainable operations.

Denka, what role can we play in helping Lyondell and other companies in this?

Denka: Yeah. Jim, I sometimes think about, adding to what Bob and Jennifer said, we are in some ways the conduit to making sure that the alliance or the partnerships make sense. Like, we’re the vehicle. We ourselves don’t do the production. But I have never signed more three-way NDAs, I’ll tell you this much, between companies that are very similar to us. So, I think that there’s been a natural collaboration and a congregation in trying to do the right thing, which I have not seen in the last 10-plus years.

And, I think I’m very passionate actually around the greening with, Emerson’s greening with, in our ethos. And it means how do we work with OEMs, with maybe even competitors, dare I say it, but people who are in the same space of how we bring solutions to the Lyondells or to the other customers that we have.

And I go back to this, look one fundamental saying that I think it’s a Zambian proverb. If you run alone, you run fast. But if you run with others, you run far. And the whole purpose of what we’re doing is we want to run far, past a net zero goal, past what Wall Street is expecting. I think we owe it to our children and our children’s children, who are by the way, ready to pay for it.

I think Bobby touched on it is up to us as individuals to be able to say we will be able to maximize and make sure we are able to deliver those promises, but our next generation are willing to actually spend in that more efficient manner. So, I think I’ll conclude with this. I don’t think that the ecosystem or the partnerships are linear, which we’ve often thought about, but they’re in some ways almost like a bubble of moving the same way in the same direction in a very calculated manner.

And it’s almost the analogy, the fingers have a job, your body parts all have a job. But when you come together and you’re able to actually make the impact that is needed, it’s so much more meaningful. So, I think we have to think of sometimes putting the ego aside and understanding how can we come into alliances and partnerships in a very meaningful and calculated way.

Bobby: Jim, one thing I might add, if I might, to Denka’s comments is that an area of importance in the energy transition that probably doesn’t get enough airtime, if you will, is just that of efficiency gains and conservation. And, we can think a lot about alternative forms of energy. That’s one way of kind of getting out greenhouse gas emissions. But we can also think about more efficient operations that in fact conserve energy so that we don’t have to use as much of it to create the same amount of energy output in industrial activity.

And when I think of the business automation world and of Emerson in particular, your company is right at the heart of that. And I think that alone is sort of poised to make really, really big contributions to this whole effort. So, we need to remember and concentrate on the role that industry and industrial automation can and must play in the energy transition. And we’ll be counting on Emerson and your like-minded companies around the world to help us do that.

Jim: Yeah. One thing that’s really helping in this area is technology advanced and wireless communication has grown. It’s really the ability not just to instrument a plant to control it, but to really measure how are we doing energy-wise and others. So, more companies can take advantage of that. And creative engineers in our industry are figuring what are more things we can put devices and analytics and other things to help drive greater energy efficiency. So, I appreciate you bringing that up.

That’s something that we wanna make sure we’re continuing to advance the technology to make it easier and easier for people to be able to do that and drive their energy usage lower. I guess let’s wind down. This has been a great discussion, and I know that our listeners have gotten some, or will get some great things out of it.

I guess kind of a looking forward, Bobby, what progress do you see being made by the end of this decade?

Bobby: I think there’ll be tremendous progress across a whole range of areas, some of which we’re already sort of firmly on the path. So, for example, in the world of renewable power generation, I think we will continue to have very large expansions of wind and solar, and hydro, and geothermal, and other forms of renewable power generation. So, we’ve got great momentum there and we’re on our way.

I think the evolution of hydrogen is a really important component of this. The next three or four years is critical for the hydrogen world for us to get to economics that make both blue and green hydrogen possible and feasible and desirable. And then I think there’s a whole nother bucket of things that we will be doing at the end of this decade that we can’t even imagine today.

And much of that will come, I think, out of our DOE labs and our research universities. And those two things are real competitive advantages that America has versus the rest of the world and we need to put them to use and put them to use in a very big way between now and the end of the decade. So, I kind of go back to my original point, Jim, which is that there’s no silver bullet. This is going to take a little bit of progress across a million different things. In the aggregate, we can make a big difference. We can dramatically drive down CO2 emissions and live in a much cleaner, more sustainable world.

Jim: Yeah. I think that’s an excellent summation. And, just in energy storage alone, there may be some breakthroughs that we can’t even imagine now in the seven years we have left in this particular decade.

And Jennifer, I know that you said you’ve lifted, what, from 30% to 42%, what you’re gonna do by the end of the decade. But beyond what you said earlier, what do you see advancements as we close out this decade?

Jennifer: So, I mean, I think for us to get to 42%, and I think a lot of companies that look like us are very similar trying to do the same thing, it’s not just about energy efficiency. You actually have to do something holistically different. So, carbon capture carbon capture is one, hydrogen is another. So, I do see, I agree with Bobby.

I think, we have the Inflation Reduction Act, we have ways now that helps, I think, encourage this and support moving forward so that you do have, the right cost levels to make it work, hydrogen in particular. So, I actually do think by the end of the decade, you could see a lot of things starting to come online. And so, the other thing I think too is that I think as this starts to grow, it’s the beginning is always a little bit slow, but once you start to get to momentum, it really starts to take off.

So, for example, trying to get wells permitted, these types of things. Folks will start to see it and hopefully help us streamline it and make sure that we can do these things a little bit better, a little bit faster. So, I think by the time we get to the end of the decade, I think you will see a lot more renewable power. I agree with Bobby on that. I think hydrogen’s another one.

I’m excited about what technology’s going to be there that isn’t there today. Those are the things that are super exciting. I think energy storage would be great. So, that’s one where I really do hope we see even more significant advancements. But even for us in our labs, we’re looking at making products differently in the future than we make ’em today. And so, these things that we partner with universities as well. And so, I think the “not knowing yet what’s gonna be out there” is kind of super exciting to me.

Jim: Well, that’s also excellent summation. There are so many different things going on, and each of us and where we’re at have a big role to play with that. Well, I want to thank you all so much for sharing your time and your expertise with our listeners. And I know we look forward to doing our part in helping meet these lofty goals that we have before us and improve the quality of life we all enjoy again. So, thank you so much.

Bobby: Thanks.

Denka: Thank you. Thanks, Jim.

Jennifer: You’re welcome.

Denka: Thanks, Bobby. Thanks, Jennifer.

Bobby: Thank you. Thanks for having us.

-End of Transcript-

One of the pillars of the globe’s path to decarbonization is electrification. Lithium-ion batteries play an essential role across many segments, including transportation. But what about the limited lifespan of these batteries?

That’s where a company like Li-Cycle comes to help. Their unique recycling process takes spent batteries and waste from the battery production process back to elements and compounds that can be reused in the battery production process.

In this Emerson Automation Experts podcast, I’m joined by Li-Cycle’s Chris Biederman and Emerson’s Nathan Pettus to discuss how the collaboration between the companies is helping to bring the process online sooner and enable scaling for future recycling processes across the globe.

Jim: Hi everyone. I’m Jim Cahill with another Emerson Automation Experts podcast. Electrification is one of the critical pillars in moving toward a more sustainable future. For example, moving from internal combustion engines, powering vehicles to electric motor and lithium battery-based vehicles. The demand for lithium continues to snowball, and the battery production process and limited lifespan of lithium batteries potentially means a lot of waste. That’s where lithium recycling comes into play.

Today I’m joined by Li-Cycle Chief Technology Officer Chris Biederman and Emerson’s Process Systems & Software president Nathan Pettus to discuss the challenges in recycling lithium and other component metals in these batteries and the role of automation and industrial software in driving safe, reliable, and efficient operations. Welcome, Chris and Nathan.

Nathan: Hi, Jim. Great to be here.

Chris: Thank you.

Jim: It’s great to have you both. Let’s get started. Chris, can you give us a little bit of your background and the genesis of Li-Cycle?

Chris: Yeah, sure. First, thanks for having me today. And I’ll start with the genesis of Li-Cycle. So as a company, we were started back in 2016. Our co-founders, Ajay Kochhar and Tim Johnston, were involved in the lithium industry. They both worked at that company called Hatch. They were involved in the project space in lithium, and they noticed that there was a, at least at that point in time, a fairly significant forecast of electric vehicles.

And they looked at that and said there are a lot of raw materials that go into making the cells for batteries, but there was no viable solution at the time for what happens when those lithium-ion batteries reach their end of life. They give them credit, took a risk, and said we want to come around this idea of electrification and we want to play in that space and be part of it.

And so they formed Li-Cycle. They developed what we now know is our core Spoke & Hub business model. And we’re now seeing in 2022 a drastic increase in electrification, cell production, and all these different project announcements. So Li-Cycle is actively involved in this space and how I fit in. I’m a chemical engineer.

I’m our Chief Technology Officer, so I’m responsible for all of our capital projects globally as well as research and development at Li-Cycle and our intellectual property portfolio. So I get to play in anything technology.

Jim: That’s a great background, and I know I’m going to hit you up with some questions about the Hub & Spoke and that kind of thing as we get into it a little bit. So thanks for that. Nathan, can you give a little bit of your background and your path with Emerson?

Nathan: Sure. And like Chris said, I’m really happy to be here. Jim, thanks for letting you have the opportunity to share some of our work we’re doing with companies like Li-Cycle. My background with Emerson, I’ve been with Emerson for about 20 years, 23 years exactly. Actually almost always in the systems automation part of the business. So helping control and automate facilities like Chris’ and I actually started in the company as a software developer.

So like him, I’m a techie at heart, mechanical engineer. Didn’t really ever do any mechanical engineering though. Got into controls and software pretty early in my career. And then at some point got my MBA and got into this dark side of sales and marketing and done a lot of things inside Emerson. Run a lot of different parts of the business, but as I said, always within the automation of systems and software business. Really happy to be here today. Can’t wait to talk a little bit about recycling lithium.

Jim: Thanks for that, Nathan. It’s a real dangerous bunch. We got a chemical engineer, a mechanical engineer, and I’m an electrical engineer by background, also on the dark side of marketing. So yeah, this should be fun.

Chris, I was watching some of the news updates on CNBC and it was interesting how the lifecycle management of batteries was a to have around 10 years ago. Now it’s a need to have. Can you tell us more about the entire lifecycle and participating stakeholders?

Chris: I can. So it’s an interesting industry and the lifecycle starts with the raw materials that make up lithium-ion batteries. So we have to go all the way back actually to where those come from, predominantly mines. Things like nickel, cobalt, lithium, manganese, copper, and aluminum. All that goes into making lithium-ion batteries.

So really that’s where it starts and what those raw materials are eventually converted into is something called CAM or cathode active materials. There are a lot of steps that go in between, but effectively that’s what we’re driving towards is the active materials in a battery. Those cathode active materials are then combined with other things like graphite and aluminum and copper foils and plastics to form cells.

And I’m not a battery expert on the chemistries and batteries. I like to take them apart and recycle them. Forgive me if I’ve misstepped a little bit there, but ultimately what those cells go into are things like energy storage devices and phones, and electric vehicles. And so where Li-Cycle gets involved is actually on the back end.

When those cells reach the end of their life we’ll take them and we’ll process them through our technology. And ultimately arrive back at those raw materials, perhaps not in the same form as when they started, but things like nickel sulfate and cobalt sulfate, and lithium carbonate are really what we are after. And we’ll eventually sell from our Hub facility in Rochester, New York, and others. And so that’s where we fit in. That really is intended to close the loop. So right now there’s not a lot of recycled material in lithium-ion batteries that industry like Li-Cycle is growing. And so over time, you’ll see more recycled content of those raw materials in batteries. That’s really our goal.

The other point I’d like to make on the end of that is we don’t just take lithium-ion batteries, we also take in what they call manufacturing materials or things that are produced throughout the manufacturing of cells that perhaps don’t need quality requirements.

Some of the offcuts, for example, we’ll take those into our process. We recycle them because they also have value of metals like the nickel and the cobalt in the lithium. That gives you an idea of generally the lifecycle. It is quite a complex one. It’s a global industry. It, it’s quite exciting and we play a part both in the, I would say in anti-intermediate with those manufacturing materials, but also on the back end with end of life batteries themselves.

Jim: Wow. That’s quite a bit of different things that you’re recovering from. You know your processes unique to what a lot of other people are doing. What are its recovery rates? And I think you mentioned most of the materials that can be reclaimed, but are there any others in there as part of that process?

Chris: Yeah, so we, we aim to recover as much as we can. Of course, that’s the goal and the objective. We have a technology model called Spoke & Hub. I’ve mentioned it a few times and maybe I’ll talk a bit more about it. And I think there’s some more questions probably in the conversation coming.

But what our technology train really is our Spoke facilities are module- based or modular smaller facilities where we do pre-processing of battery and battery materials. And then our Hub is hydrometallurgical recovery, which means water-based chemistry for the recovery of metals effectively.

And When I look at recovery process it’s really across the board on our technology train or our full technology suite. And we’re driving towards 95% recovery of all the materials in a battery, although, things like the electrolyte solvent, for example, is not something that we actively recover.

Just based on our process. It goes into our Spoke facility into the solution. And we’ll get into exactly what we do in our Spoke, I’m sure in a little bit. But most of what we recover is the metal value. So the aluminum, the copper, nickel, manganese, cobalt, lithium. That’s really what we want, and we’re driving towards that 95% recovery rate for those.

Jim: Wow, that’s really getting a lot of that value back out of it. Nathan, let me turn to you with lithium-ion battery recycling so important in the global drive for greater sustainability. It’s great that we’re working with Li-Cycle on their process automation. Can you share Emerson’s sustainability framework and I guess specifically that “Greening By” part to help our customers achieve more sustainable operations?

Nathan: Yeah, I’d say, our framework is built around really three pillars. One, “Greening Of”. So we work really hard inside of Emerson to try to make ourselves more efficient every day using different types of programs around the globe to green ourselves to the scope one, two, and three.

The things we use directly with, assets we own that use energy and then our supply chain, etc. So that’s “Greening By”. And on the other end of the spectrum, we have “Greening With”, where we partner with universities or government bodies around the globe to steward new programs or research. To try to make the world more sustainable or come up with new ideas and new programs to drive more energy efficiency or all kinds of things.

But the pillar that, you mentioned, “Greening By”, that’s really where we can change probably the biggest chunk of energy reduction in optimizing and sustainability programs when we work with customers like Li-Cycle. There’s just a tremendous amount of work. Our software and devices and solutions do every single day, regardless of industry, regardless of the customer, to try to make those customers help those customers run their operations more efficiently. And those are really important programs. Every single time we help run a boiler a little more efficiently than it would otherwise. It’s saving energy.

Those things are being done every day around the globe with thousands and thousands of facilities. But then once in a while, we get to work with a company like Li-Cycle, which is truly revolutionizing a part of our society to try to make the world a better place by tackling a problem, like in this case, recycling lithium that we all know is going to be something for a number of decades we’re going to have to deal with as we have more and more electric cars and in other ways to power electrification of other devices around the globe. And that’s really both fortunate and powerful for us to be able to work with those companies because they really are trying to change the world.

And so it’s our software, our devices are intelligent products that help them run their facilities, but also as they go and build out their plants around the globe, the Spoken & Hub that he’ll talk about, we want to be there the whole time. So “Greening By”, with you’re working with our customers to green, their operations are really the place that we can make the biggest impact.

Jim: Yeah, and that’s so true. Anytime you get out on the roads, more and more electric vehicles, so that trend is just rolling and rolling there. So it’s great that we can work with companies like Li-Cycle who are tackling that challenge. Not just around the spent batteries but in the production process, the waste, and everything else. That’s great.

So Chris, what are some of the significant technical challenges in this brand new one-of-a-kind type of process that y’all have?

Chris: This is the, it is a good question because that’s what keeps me and my team really excited about the industry that we’re in and what we’re doing at Li-Cycle.

There are a lot of different technical challenges. Of course, when I look outside of the walls of the company, we have to keep abreast of the changing chemistries, for example, in cells. All the different new technologies that cell makers are coming out with in terms of the mix of different types of metals, some of the different anodes that are coming out, and just battery technologies in general because eventually those technologies will come to us and we have to be flexible in how we accept and recycle those materials. Internally, when I look at what we are doing, we’ve made some really interesting strides this year, I’d say. We have a number of Spoke facilities in North America. We have one in Kingston, Ontario, and one in Rochester, New York. And we just have rolled out two additional ones—one in Arizona and one in Alabama.

And the Spoke facilities for us in Arizona and Alabama are unique because they can process full packs. So that is essentially a pack from an electric vehicle. We can take and process all the way through to our intermediate products at our Spoke facility. And as far as I’m aware, it’s the first of the kind in the industry to be able to take a full pack and process that without dismantling, without discharging as well.

And we can get into some of the reasons why. That’s a unique technology for us, in general, a little later on. But we’ve got some really cool innovations going on. We’re starting to see those roll out into our asset mix of what we’re building at Li-Cycle. And that’s only on the Spoke side. When I look at things like our Hub technology, of course, there’s a lot of innovation that goes into that.

We use off-the-shelf equipment and control equipment as well. But what we do is we put it together in the right way, and we run it under the right conditions to make it unique for the feed material that we get. And so we have a very rich feedstock, I would say, of high-quality metals at high concentrations. And therefore, our process is designed to recover the nickel, the lithium, and the cobalt from that.

Quite interesting, lots of innovation going on inside and outside the company, and we’re really active in that, which is an exciting place to be as a chemical engineer.

Jim: Yeah, it sounds like there’s a lot of technical challenge in there, taking it through and some solve working with the complete pack instead of having to break it down into components and work with it. I guess besides the technical challenges, I imagine there are logistical challenges in this. Can you talk through some of these challenges and how you address them?

Chris: Sure. So we’ve structured our business so that we can address some of the logistical challenges. Let’s say with electric vehicles at their end of life. Batteries could come to us through a variety of different ways. And that could be from the OEMs directly, it could be from a dealership network, but ultimately, it’s really distributed as electric vehicles throughout in this case, the United States.

So the question that we have to answer is how do we best get the batteries safely to one of our locations, process them fairly quickly to what we call intermediate or more inert products, and then ship those to our Hub facilities or other assets that we have? And so again, going back and I keep talking about the Hub & Spoke model, but maybe we’ll dig in a little more.

And so our Spokes, we deploy to anywhere that has a demand for recycling or pre-processing of lithium-ion batteries. So, in that case, we can put them in areas of high demand, perhaps co-located with cell manufacturers or OEMs. And really, what that’s intended to do is take the battery pack, which is probably the highest risk for transportation, and move it to a pre-processing location quickly, and then process it through.

And we do that through our Spokes, and we do it in what’s called submerged shredding. So effectively, we take a battery pack, and we process it. We shred it or deconstruct it underwater effectively. And that has a number of benefits. Predominantly safety. And it allows us to take a pack and convert it into three products.

One, a shredded plastics product which is fairly low value, but it’s something that we recover, and we take very seriously to try and get that back into the economy. I would say a mid-value product, which is shredded copper and aluminum foil. So think of aluminum foil in your kitchen, only much thinner.

We get small pieces of that, and that is the current collector and a battery the positive and negative current collector. We catch that, and we produce that as a product. And then lastly, we get what’s called black mass. And that’s an industry term. It’s really the graphite and the oxide, the metal oxide materials in a battery, and it’s combined for us, and we filter that out of our solution.

And that becomes really the key intermediate product for us that we ship to our Hub. And that’s where we start to recover the metals in that black mass material. It’s an inert product, so everything we produce in our Spoke is inert and that allows us to safely ship it to the different assets that we have for post-processing.

So that’s how we handle logistics at a high level. Of course, really, it’s driven by shipping and safety. For us, that’s the two.

Jim: Yeah. That’s really interesting, and I have a follow-up question down the road a little bit on that, to take a battery, which is a highly charged thing, to be able to drive a motor to get you down the road or whatever else it’s doing into an inert product that’s safe to transport for further processing. That’s really interesting.

Nathan, I guess given the technical and logistical challenges that Chris highlighted, what are some of the industrial software and automation solutions that will play an essential role in this project in future projects to come?

Nathan: Yeah. I think as you mentioned, the Spokes, they collect all the material, the Spokes, they break it down and they’ll ship the main material, the black mass material to the Hubs.

And our control & automation system is what they’ve selected for their first refinery and Rochester, their Hub there in New York. And. It’s really become the central nervous system of their operations, at least for that facility. And we feel innovation is really important, and most of the innovation that we bring to market, we try to do it before customers like Li-Cycle know they need it or any of our customers know they need it. And it’s usually done through software. So as they’re building their facilities, Chris and his team will be looking at ways to innovate how they operate the facilities, whether it be simulation, digital twins, training their operators in time, or maybe even more and more autonomous operations.

And DeltaV has got that software built in. And so as they decide to, you leverage more and more of that control and automation capability at that one facility that will be something useful for them. And then, as they want to integrate their Spokes in the operations across the U.S., there are other Hubs they’ll be able to do that. And then ultimately, we hope to partner with them as a programmatic partner so that layer across that one refinery can be used and duplicated at other refineries that they may build across either United States or even globally.

Jim: Yeah, that sounds like that role of technology in there, not just making it operate safely and reliably and everything, but the data that you get from it to optimize what you’re doing and is more of these Hubs & Spokes get out there coordinating among them. Chris, I’ve heard you’ve mentioned urban mining or mining above ground. Can you tell us how that’s helping out the supply chain and the commodity shortages in some of these areas around batteries, around the world? And how is that affecting your business?

Chris: Sure. We do the term urban mining because what we’re getting is really a refined product at its end of its life in the form of a lithium-ion battery. We look at that as you have a cell phone, for example, or in your garage. I’m sure you have a battery-powered drill that you use around the house.

We take all of those materials and we’ll convert them back into their raw materials to get that back into the industry. And we have a way of doing that fairly quickly. We can be agile, of course. With our Spoke rollout, our Hubs are a little less agile, given the size of the investments. But we also think that because these are refined products, our feedstock material is quite high value, quite high in concentration of metals, and therefore what that allows us to do is capture the value and push it back into the supply chain, hopefully, a little bit quicker than it takes to permit and get moving on a primary mine, for example, for lithium or for nickel. Now I think over time recycled content of these metals will continue to increase in batteries, but we’ll play a role alongside other commodity producers or other nickel. For example, in lithium producers we can’t do it on our own.

And they definitely need to start incorporating recycled material into cells. So we work well together. We have to. That’s the goal of making sure that we alleviate the supply chain and commodity issues that you’re speaking about. We have to play a part in recycling. I think it’s the right thing to do when you look at the amount of global resources that’s put into making a battery in terms of the raw material supply and all the different smarts of people and different companies that come together to produce a sell and ultimately an electric vehicle that you can drive on the road.

We owe it to ourselves to use the materials wisely as they are finite. And they do take a lot of effort to, in most cases, dig out of the ground first in order to get them into the battery. So I like to look at it as the right thing to do from an environmental perspective. And it just so happens that there’s a very solid business case behind that as well for us.

Jim: Yeah, and it seems like as that growth continues to happen over time, that recycle seems like it would play a larger and larger role in that whole process. So that really will be a significant and even more significant piece as we move forward. Nathan, I understand that. , the initial projects are on a fast track. What are some of the project methodologies, technologies, and I guess, team makeup used to help execute the project to meet the timeline?

Nathan: Jim, a company like Li-Cycle, they’re investing heavily to try to bring this technology to market as quickly as they possibly can, and they need to have a partner that will help them execute these projects in a timely fashion.

They are aggressive schedules. And good solid project management, project execution has got to be done with intent. And we take it very seriously. We’ve built our capabilities over the years. We weren’t very good out of it, 20, 25 years ago, but we’ve become very good at it.

And to me it really takes a Venn diagram of people. You’ve gotta have really good people that have domain expertise, in this case a blend between mining and chemical processes. You’ve got to have procedures and documentation tools. Things that you can do over and over you. You can’t just rely on just the best people.

You’ve gotta have a team of people that follow the same processes globally or regionally, and then technology. So it’s a blend between people, technology and process that really to have an execute a project really well. Particularly a fast-track project like these. And we have 6,000 people around the globe we can bring to bear to programs like this.

And we really do take it very seriously and have done a lot of it around the globe, and we’re very excited to work with Chris and his team on this project. But there are some things that we feel like we do really well, that our technology based smart commission is a great example.

So as you’re building a plant like they are, you will invariably find out that you wish you could have measured something you didn’t think to measure when you’ve put the design. If only we had this temperature, if only we had this pressure. And while it may sound like a simple thing, we’ll just order another device, and you put it in, and you measure it.

The configuration of that device that wasn’t preconfigured, wasn’t set up, can put, a big gap in the schedule. And we have the capability to have that device shipped from the factory readily preconfigured, so to speak. Show up, wired up and it automatically uploads into the automation system without any intervention from people.

So those types of technologies. Another one that we use a lot we call it electronic marshalling, but basically it’s a technology that allows if a module to show up at site and maybe that had been specified with three types of measurements. And instead of those three types of measurements, they came in with different types of measurements.

And so, typically you would have to change the I/O cards, and you would have to change the configuration. Our technology allows you to basically just change those three signals very quickly and, through software, essentially change those I/O types on the fly, again, without having to do any paperwork or documentation or any of that because it’s all done automatically.

So while those things understand, each one of those individually may not take maybe a day or two. If you’re in the middle of trying to start the plan up, those two days could be a huge deal. And more importantly, sometimes they can have waterfall effects that could change by weeks. So they’re really important.

And so we do think between that blend of technology having the right processes and a lot of really good domain expertise in our people. We can help companies like Li-Cycle even in the fastest, most critical timelines.

Jim: Yeah. I know you get towards the end of the project, those changes come in, and it’s nice to have technology be able to adapt to it without setting the project back, delayed a week or weeks, or whatever else in there.

So that’s a real good advancement because I don’t know any project. The way you draw it up is the way it is installed and ready to go. All right, Chris, I know we spoke a lot on the Spoke side of it and that initial breakdown of the battery into the components that could go over to the Hub, and it makes sense in that model. Those are highly decentralized, spread out, and doing their thing. Can you talk a little bit more about the Hub side and what goes on with, what they receive in from the Spokes to get to where the finished recycled product that you’re looking for?

Chris: I am just forewarning. This is the exciting part for me. You might have to reign me back in if I get too deep. But the Hub process I think, is really neat. It’s again, hydrometallurgical, so water-based recovery of metals in our case. There’s of course reagents that go into it, and we’ll speak a bit about that. But the key points for us is that it’s water-based chemistry.

It’s low temperature. I think the highest temperature we run is somewhere around 180 to 190 degrees Fahrenheit. So less than boiling, quite low temperature. It’s a patented process. I forgot to mention that with our Spokes as well. So we have a patent around our Spoke and our Hub as a core technology for Li-Cycle.

So we’ve done a lot of work on this one. Spent about a year in piloting, if not a bit more, before we rolled into the full commercial design. That’s the lead-up to what we’ve done on the Hub. The Hub itself is roughly 10 different areas all combined into a hydrometallurgical plant. So they all play together and they all have a function, but effectively it starts with us taking the black mass material from our Spokes and we slurry it up, we make it a slurry, and then we leech all the metals with acid.

The intent there is to really dissolve all the metals, and once you have them dissolved, the game is really to systematically pull them back out again, out of solution, into the product form that you want. That’s the high level. It’s not nearly as easy as that, but we have a number of unit operations that we work through.

So the first couple are looking at recovering things like copper and aluminum and iron. The middle section of our plant is what’s called solvent extraction, and that’s where we do a lot of the heavy lifting to recover manganese and cobalt and nickel. And then the back end of our facility is really focused on lithium carbonate recovery.

So a lot of those unit operations are independent but then all linked together. And that’s where controls become really important because you have all these different systems that are working and really producing different types of materials or products for us. And they all have different operating conditions, be it pH or temperature or the addition of reagents like acids or bases.

Really a neat process. As I said, we spend a lot of time developing it ourselves, getting the operating conditions right, and then turning that into a full-scale commercial design, which is what we’re working on now. Our first Hub is going to be in the greater Rochester area in New York, New York State.

It’s an old piece of land that was owned by the Eastman Kodak Company. So a lot of really good infrastructure there that’s supporting the plant or that will support the plant. For Li-Cycle, it’s $485 million investment. So quite significant for us in our first step into the hydrometallurgy recovery of metals.

Jim: That sounds like a fascinating process as it’s going through, and you’re stripping off the different metals out of it and bringing them together—that’s really cool. Nathan, I guess given Li-Cycle’s plan for additional Hubs & Spokes across the globe, can you describe the role of what we do as far as standards and treating the project as a program instead of a single project?

Nathan: Sure. When we get to work with a customer like Li-Cycle that selects us as their partner for a project like this but also has expansion plans, it’s really great for us. It’s great for them. You can think of a program as almost a series of projects.

So Chris talked about their first Hub that they’re going to, they’re going to put in place there in, in New York. We’ll learn a ton together through that project. No matter how well we plan it, no matter how well we work together up front and we work through these projects, we will find things that we learn together. But all of those things can be captured and will be captured.

A program is a series of projects where it takes long-term dedication and, frankly, partnership. We love them because it allows us to co-invest or not co-invest with our customers, right? We’ll put a dedicated team in place that will over time, continue to work with Li-Cycle as they build Hubs & Spokes and Hubs regardless of where they are, whether they’re in the United States or beyond. That team can stay intact.

We have technologies that allow that remote team to be. Almost as if they’re in the same location. And then we’ll start to build out libraries and templates and things that they can reuse from plant to plant. And frankly, our own domain knowledge around Li-Cycle’s process.

Because while we may have a tremendous amount of chemical processing, refining capability, or mining expertise and understand them, the raw sort of high-level chemistry or mining dynamics. Their process, as he just said, is patented. That means no one’s done it before. And so there will be things we’ll learn through this first development of this first Hub that will codify, and protect for them.

It will be theirs and ours together to be able to reuse. And we really do appreciate not just this opportunity but the long-term opportunity with them around the globe. And then, finally, after each project gets finished, you’ve gotta support it. One of the things that’s very important to customers like Li-Cycle they told us as they were talking to us about this program, is they want to make sure that they have the support they need at those facilities to keep the plants running.

And we have a dedicated group of offices around the globe or impact partners in North America or sales offices around the globe to help them keep those plants running, which is very important because if you’re going to spend a half a billion dollars on a facility, you need it to run all the time for many years.

And so all three of those things are important. Keeping those projects going and making sure we learn what we do through the projects and then supporting them afterward.

Jim: Yeah, you take the learnings from the first and then apply what you can and just keep rolling through as you’re growing this over time. Chris, I probably should have asked it earlier. Lithium-ion batteries are in everything from our cell phones, PCs, watches, automobiles, and everything else. Does this process work with all the different types of lithium-ion batteries that are out there?

Chris: It does. So I consider our Spoke facilities, what we call chemistry and form factor agnostic.

So effectively what that means is you could pretty much put whatever you want in there that’s a lithium battery within reason. And the Spoke won’t really matter. It’ll produce its three key products out of that, the black mass, the foils, and the plastics. Very flexible on the front end.

When we look at the Hub, it’s a little bit different. So the Hub of as a hydrometallurgical facility has to be designed to work within a limit of chemistry, let’s say. So our first Hub in New York state is predominantly designed for nickel, cobalt, and manganese chemistries. The alternative that you’re seeing in the industry now is LFP if you’ve heard of that, lithium-iron-phosphate chemistries.

Those are starting to; I would say, become more prevalent. And so we have a process ourselves that we’ve developed to actually recover lithium from lithium iron phosphate derived black mass. So we can take some of that in, into our Hub in New York state, but we also have a dedicated process. Then as that chemistry becomes more prevalent, we’ll start to look to roll that out as well.

Again, be agile and look at what’s coming from a chemistry point of view outside of our company, of course. And then how do we manage internally? Very long-winded way of saying we have flexibility in both the front and the back end of our technologies, but certainly, the Spokes are very agnostic when it comes to what types of batteries you can feed them.

Jim: Yeah, and it sounds like you have to be on your toes for what’s getting developed, coming out that may put the others away. So that keeps it exciting. Never a dull moment, I imagine. Let’s start winding things down. Nathan, do you have any closing thoughts on our work with the Li-Cycle team?

Nathan: I guess I’d just say it’s really both a pleasure and something super exciting for us to be able to work with a company Li-Cycle. When I talk to my own kids about things they’re doing, I can explain it to them, and they can get it.

They understand how recycling the batteries that they see being used in their computers, or certainly, their cars that they may drive someday, is really important. And it means a lot to us and our employees to be able to work with a company life Li-Cycle. So we want to make sure they’re successful. They need to be successful.

The world needs companies like Li-Cycle to be successful, and it’s really something special to be able to work with them. I tell our employees, I tell myself every day, you may not know our products change the world. Our products and solutions help our customers change the world, and that means an awful lot to us.

So we’re very grateful and honored and humbled to help ’em, and certainly, we’ll do everything we can to do.

Jim: Yeah, I think you’re a company that we can brag to people we meet that ask, what does Emerson do? In ways that we help our customers, and the things they do that are changing the world.

So Chris, how do you envision everything unfolding over the next several years?

Chris: Wow. Li-Cycle is extremely active, I would say. And we’re pretty excited about the industry that we’re in. So if I look at our portfolio, We’re very quickly moving into Europe. So that’s our focus right now. We’ve announced, of course, a Spoke in Germany as well as in Norway, and we’re actively moving on those two.

You’ll see I think more from us as we continue to grow our Spoke network as well around the world. Our first Hub, of course, we talked about in Rochester, New York. That is a key component for us as we go forward over the next year to two years. Be focused on that, and that’s a big milestone for our company.

So I guess all I can say is really excited to to see where Li-Cycle goes and to be a part of it. To bring new technologies into the industry is just it’s great, and to have a great partner in Emerson is also adding to that. So I appreciate your kind words, Nathan.

Jim: We’re really excited to be part of that journey too. I want to thank you both so much for sharing your insights with our listeners, and we look forward to seeing how this future unfolds. And I guess for our listeners who wish to learn more, visit li-cycle.com for everything they’re doing. Chris and Nathan, thank you so much for joining the podcast today!

-end of transcript-

Here is the second HydrogenNowCast episode with the Emerson team, Moving and Dispensing Hydrogen Interview with Emerson. You can find the first episode in the post, Hydrogen Movements Challenges and Solutions Podcast. In this episode, Emerson’s Brandon Bromberek and Marc Buttler join Colorado Hydrogen Network host Brian DeBruine to discuss the measurements in moving and dispensing hydrogen through the supply chain.

Give the podcast a listen as Brandon and Marc discuss the challenges and solutions in safely, reliably, and efficiently addressing the movements of hydrogen as an energy carrier for the global energy mix.

Visit the Measurement Instrumentation section on Emerson.com as well as the links added in the transcript for more on the technologies and solutions for hydrogen movement and dispensing.

Brian: Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 60 of the HydrogenNowCast for September 2. 2022. The HydrogenNowCast is sponsored by New Day Hydrogen, who’s helping fleet owners meet their zero-emission vehicle needs. If you’re with a fleet or transit operator and your fleet is wondering how to convert to zero-emission vehicles but still meet your operational needs, New Day Hydrogen can give you the option of fuel cell vehicles by providing public hydrogen fuel stations near you and showing you the available fuel cell trucks, vans, and busses. To find out more information about both vehicles and fueling, visit the NewDayhydrogen.com website, where you can also submit requests on the contact page.

Well, the podcast today is the second episode of a two-part interview with a company, Emerson. In the first Emerson podcast, we talked about measuring hydrogen. In this episode, we’re going to focus on moving and dispensing hydrogen. So to tell us all about that, as well as Emerson’s products and services around hydrogen, today, we have two guests, and our first guest is Brandon Bromberek, who is the vice President in Emerson’s Measurement Solutions Group. Brandon, welcome to the show!

Brandon: Hi, Brian. Thanks for having me. Glad to be here.

Brian: So happy for you to spend time with us today, Brandon. And our second guest is Marc Buttler who is the Emerson Applications Innovation director. Marc, welcome to the show!

Marc: Thank you, Brian. I’m also glad to be with you.

Brian: Well, thank you as well for spending some time with us.

There’s a lot that we want to talk about in this episode. Both moving hydrogen and dispensing hydrogen are pretty complex subjects. So maybe what we ought to do is start out by talking about moving hydrogen, for example, tanks and pipelines, and then we can follow that with the subject of dispensing hydrogen, which we did touch on a little bit in the last episode.

Now, to give you listeners and appreciation of some of the difficulties of moving and dispensing hydrogen, I’d like to mention that when it comes to moving hydrogen, helium, and neon, those are the three gases that behave a little bit differently from other gasses. And specifically, these three gases actually heat up when they expand instead of cooling down like most other gases. And this effect is called the Joule-Thompson effect, and it can sort of complicate efforts to move hydrogen, but hydrogen also presents other challenges as well. So, Brandon, do you want to maybe start us off with an overview of some of these issues and the expertise that Emerson possesses to address some of these challenges?

Brandon: Sure, Brian. I guess I’ll start by just reminding everyone of where hydrogen sits on the periodic table, and that’s in the top spot, so it’s the lightest gas in the universe, and there are some things that this affects and how we deal with it as an energy carrier compared to other gasses such as methane or natural gas, hydrogen’s, energy density by mass is extremely efficient. However, when we look at it by volume, not so much. Which means we have to compress hydrogen significantly to capture that energy and to move it efficiently and so on. And when we do that, we also start to deal with pressures that can get quite high. When you add to that the fact that the hydrogen molecule itself is extremely small, we also face issues like permeation through materials that, again, in dealing with other gases, we wouldn’t have to think about. And finally, when we look at the lower and upper explosive limits of hydrogen or that band of concentrations that can become combustible or flammable, it’s a pretty wide range. So there are some different challenges and risks that arise. Now, I should remind everyone that hydrogen is the most abundant gas in the universe as well.

So in some respects, we’ve been safely dealing with it for quite a long time. When we look at Emerson’s involvement with hydrogen, the first point to make is that while there is significant investment going on in the hydrogen space in the last few years, as the world becomes more aware of climate change, hydrogen is not new at all for Emerson. Our experience started somewhere around 30 to 35 years ago – at least that’s what we can find that’s documented – primarily in the metering space and in the refining industry where it’s for a long time been used to remove things like sulfur from diesel fuels and other fuels. When we look at our footprint and capabilities today, we really cover the entire value chain of hydrogen from the production side, whether that’s green hydrogen or blue hydrogen to transport using various means and types, either pure or blends, really to end use, and the fuel cell dispensing that Brian you touched on earlier.

Brian: Okay, well, thanks, Brandon. The other thing too, to think about is that, as our listeners know, hydrogen can be made at point of use by splitting water molecules with electricity, which is a process called electrolysis. But there’s probably a lot of situations where it’s better to generate the hydrogen at the source of the renewable energy, for example, wind or solar array, and then transporting the hydrogen. And of course, there’s other sources of zero carbon hydrogen, like either the natural hydrogen wells or hydrogen that’s derived from old oil wells using underground hydrogen separation. And these last two likely cannot be performed at the point of use, which also means that hydrogen needs to be transported either in tanks or by pipelines.

So, Brandon, why don’t we talk about some of the options for moving hydrogen and discuss some of the cost tradeoffs between this energy penalty, which comes from combining hydrogen with other molecules, which you would, of course do to make hydrogen easier to transport versus maybe just transporting hydrogen that’s a gas or liquid. And what those transportations costs are that compared to the energy losses that we have when we translate hydrogen into other forms.

Brandon: Sure, yeah, as you touched on there, we can really break down the movement of hydrogen into what I like to think of as two groups, the pure form and then, as you mentioned, using some type of carrier to move the hydrogen. So if we start with the pure form and go a little bit deeper, we can break that into two groups as well. First is as gas. And when we’re moving hydrogen as a gas, we’re usually doing it either by a pipeline or a tube trailer that’s been trucked. Obviously smaller amounts can be done more economically by truck and trailer where larger amounts pipeline starts to make sense. And as I mentioned earlier, that gas is incredibly light, which means in order to move a reasonable amount in a gas state, we must compress it significantly. So you’ve got some energy there that needs to go into compressing the gas. And when we talk about hydrogen pipelines, specifically, there are some out there, but not exactly millions of miles in today’s landscape. And the pipelines that are out there for other fluids may or may not be suitable, for hydrogen. So there’s sort of an additional effect there of all the energy that might need to go into a dedicated hydrogen infrastructure.

If we look at the liquid side, we’re talking about cryogenic hydrogen, which is cooled to negative 250 deg Celsius and then transported by cryogenic tanks, by road, or here we can add marine vessels to the mix and -253 degrees. C is pretty darn cold. We’re talking 20 degrees above where molecular motion essentially ceases. And so, if you think about the energy needed to cool hydrogen to that level and then to keep it cool, especially if you can imagine marine transport over long distances, it’s not insignificant. If we look at hydrogen carriers, we also sort of have two groups. We have that group in which we convert the hydrogen into some other chemical compound like ammonia or methanol or some other type of liquid organic hydrogen compound or LOHC as you may have heard it called. And then we separate the hydrogen back out on the receiving end. So again, some energy input there to make those conversions on both sides. And then finally a carrier that maybe has been out there and discussed a little bit more mainstream is to talk about blending hydrogen with natural gas. And in this way, we may be able to use existing pipeline networks to move that blend the same way we move natural gas today.

Brian: Well, that’s right. And as some of the listeners may know, there are ways to – once you’ve added hydrogen to natural gas – to separate that out.  How does that really impact the gas measurements though? It seems like things will get a little bit complicated. So why don’t we talk about trying to measure these blends and these things that we’re doing.

Brandon: Sure. You mentioned that there are really two routes of consumption, we either separate that hydrogen back out or in some cases, or we can potentially consume that blend directly. Now, there are limits when we’re going to directly consume that blend. There are some studies out there that say some traditional appliances or process units can consume blends of 20% to 25% hydrogen and still run relatively efficiently. So typical fired appliances. And so you can start to understand that understanding that compositional analysis becomes that much more important if we are not going to be able to consume that blend downstream if it’s not on spec. And so understanding that blend spec, confirming the quality, understanding what type of injection amounts we are injecting into that pipeline, and then measuring the blend after the injection is done becomes even more important. In addition, we need to look at things like material compatibility. And so, as I mentioned earlier, traditional pipelines may not be suitable for hydrogen even in that blended form. And so understanding what’s going on with the pipeline there itself or the carrier vessel is also critically important. And then finally, I touched earlier on the fact that hydrogen has a pretty wide combustion range. And so safety measurements or understanding the presence of that usually pressurized blend is incredibly important as well when we’re dealing with that blend.

Brian: Interesting. Thank you. Well, what are people doing today in order to measure hydrogen going into pipelines?

Brandon: Sure. Well, if we start with metering, we are seeing that there are a couple of different meter technologies that customers are looking at and that Emerson provides. The first is Coriolis technology where we’re essentially able to meter up to 100% hydrogen. Additionally, we have seen that customers are interested in understanding what can be done with ultrasonic meters. And there they’re typically looking at larger line sizes and where that hydrogen composition is less than 30% or so of the total volume. They’re also looking at leak detection technology, where we play, as Emerson here is, with a wide array of technologies that can help customers understand where they have leaks from ultrasonic measurement, where we’re listening for the leak to point gas or even open pass type devices, where we’re looking across a physical section of space for a release. And then we can also run virtual leak detection type measurements where we use flow meters to measure the mass balance on two ends of the movement. In addition, we have folks talking to us about wanting to look for hydrogen flames which are invisible to the naked eye. And so you need to employ some different type of technology there to get ahead of some type of upset or safety issue. And then again, finally, corrosion is a hot topic in the space. And so making sure we’re measuring the effects hydrogen can have on certain materials of construction is also important.

Brian: There’s a lot to it. Well, thanks Brandon. Well, Marc, why don’t we turn to you now to talk a little bit about the regulations around transport and measuring and dispensing hydrogen.

Marc: Yeah, that’s a very interesting area to discuss as well, Brian, so thanks for bringing that up. I would say that from what I’m able to observe through our interactions with helping to develop standards around the world, that there are really two main areas around the measurement standards that impact how hydrogen is transported and dispensed, and those tend to fall into areas of either high pressure or lower pressure. And then the third area as well would cover what Brandon touched on earlier in terms of the cryogenic liquid measurement. So it all has to do mainly with the state of the hydrogen as it’s being measured. The good news is that the high-pressure gas measurement and sale of hydrogen gas and the high-pressure state, which is essential for fueling hydrogen-powered vehicles, are pretty far along in their development and have been around since 2010 and earlier, and these are all around the world. They’re published by organizations like our NIST in the US. And OIML for international standards. And the other area that these standards are helping in is helping to define and regulate and bring consistency to how truck loading is done as well. So in addition to fueling vehicles that are going to use the hydrogen on board as the fuel for making the vehicle go, there’s also a growing need to be able to fill high-pressure tube tanks on trailers with hydrogen for transportation. And even though it’s not being used as a fuel, these tend to fall under the same regulations that govern the vehicle fuel dispensing. The other area where it’s a little bit lower pressure is what I think Brandon was referring to earlier when he mentioned that a lot of hydrogen is being blended with natural gas and shipped in pipelines as well. And these tend to be covered by a different group of standards, but it’s still mainly the same standards organizations that are helping to review the existing standards and update them as necessary. It looks like most of those standards are pretty well set for hydrogen measurement as they are, but there might be a few minor tweaks, and the entire world is working together to identify and make these updates as necessary.

Brian: Okay, thanks, Marc. Well, you mentioned dispensing, and maybe we’ll kind of continue to talk about that. And of course, if you’re going to dispense something, you want to be able to measure it so you can charge people for what you’re dispensing. And we’ve got to look at quantity, as we talked about in the last Emerson podcast, unlike a liquid, the quantity of gas changes with variations in temperature and pressure. So it does make it a little bit more tricky to do than measuring a liquid. What challenges exist in metering hydrogen, and what products does Emerson have for that?

Marc: Well, I’m glad you asked. This is an area that’s very important to us because we have had a long history of working together with the agencies that help to define and standardized measurement practices that directly affect consumers. And consumer confidence is the ultimate goal here. We all want to be able to go out and buy products that are sold to us by measurement and be confident that those measurements are done in a way that’s always going to be fair and equitable, so that we are charged the right amount for that product we receive. And some of the challenges that are pretty unique to hydrogen are similar to challenges that we’ve learned about for dispensing compressed natural gas. But maybe even on a greater scale. Because the hydrogen is compressed to even higher pressures than natural gas in order to fit more into a vehicle storage tank so that the range of that vehicle before it needs to be refilled can be as good or greater than your typical gasoline-powered or CNG-powered vehicle. And so there are some engineering measures that are made to enable the dispensing equipment and the vehicle that’s receiving the hydrogen to receive the optimum amount while still keeping it in a safe state. And that involves a couple of things that are unique to hydrogen, including pre-cooling of the hydrogen so that as it’s compressed into the vehicle storage, it doesn’t heat up too much. And also, again, as I mentioned, compressing it to an even higher pressure than you would normally find for compressed natural gas, and definitely much higher than liquid fuels that were used to with gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles. So those unique characteristics of the hydrogen make measurement a little bit more challenging, because in that high pressure and precooled state, it tends to flow at very high flow rates and then slows down as the dispensing cycle is completed. And flow metering technologies that can handle that kind of dynamic measurement throughout the entire delivery cycle to guarantee that the total amount that was delivered is represented accurately, is the challenge.

Brian: Well, there’s no question that hydrogen is a very tricky substance to handle, and it’s good to know that Emerson’s got a lot of products around that. So we’ve talked a little bit about the gas and the high temperatures and the flow rates and things. What about other types of dispensing, like for liquid cryogenic hydrogen?

Marc: Brandon had mentioned earlier that hydrogen is one of the coldest liquids when it’s in cryogenic liquid state by being just 20 degrees Kelvin above absolute zero. It makes it challenging from a measurement perspective because that cold of temperature can have ancillary effects on the metering equipment. But the good news is that especially with the Coriolis technology, which is favored for these applications, the modifications in order to make the meter remain accurate at those very cold temperatures are fairly easy to accomplish. And so, combined together with the same type of technology that makes Coriolis technology very capable for those dynamic and high-pressure applications, we have a pretty complete set of product solutions that can be used for these dispensers.

Brian: All right, well, kind of carrying with that idea how have the measurement devices adapted and developed, really to meet these unique needs of hydrogen dispensing?

Marc: I’m glad you asked, because although the solutions are in place, it does require a certain knowledge of how the technology works. And Brandon touched on this earlier when he mentioned the importance of material compatibility. And so the high-pressure hydrogen gas as a vehicle fuel is offered to consumers at two different pressures, and these are 350 bar and 700 bar. And the reason that there are two pressures offered is so that the vehicles that need to be able to go farther can employ the 700-bar filling cycle. But those vehicles that are doing short-term commuting and able to refill more frequently only need to fill up to the 350 bar. In either case, the challenge for meter design to be compatible with both of those different pressures and still have good material compatibility sent us on a search for different types of alloys.

And one of the most common alloys that are very compatible with hydrogen are stainless steels. And there’s one specific version of stainless steel that’s called XM 19, which is an austenitic stainless steel that adds greater strength in the material properties and still maintains that good compatibility with hydrogen so that it’s not subject to the attack that those small hydrogen molecules can have on other materials. And that higher strength is important for Coriolis meter design because we use it in the vibrating flow tubes that are the heart of any Coriolis meter in order to maintain the strength necessary to adapt to either of those two high pressures and still have very good measurement sensitivity with the flow tubes designed optimally using this XM 19 material. And this gives us good reliability, which is what many of the dispenser manufacturers are looking for, because they want these dispensers to be able to be installed and operated on a daily basis without the need for maintenance. And this is one other really desirable characteristic of the Coriolis meters that are the meter of choice for these applications, is that they don’t require ongoing maintenance and they operate for years without really any need for attention at all once they’re installed and commissioned. In fact, some other types of technologies have been tried. And ultimately, for CNG and hydrogen dispensing applications, it’s been determined that the Corolla solution is really the only one that is capable of the very dynamic measuring conditions while still providing the extremely good reliability over time to keep those dispensers operating for years on end with no need for maintenance.

Brian: Excellent. Well, I’m thinking that when it comes to measuring something, of course, you always want to make sure that you’re within calibration. And it sounds like maybe Coriolis meters are inherently pretty accurate. They don’t tend to drift, things like that. But is there some kind of a master meter or something that’s used to really check dispensing. I know whenever you go to a gasoline or a diesel fuel pump, there’s a sticker on the side that’s usually provided by the state saying they’ve certified, that if you’re getting a gallon of gas, you’re really getting a gallon of gas. Is there some kind of a master meter? And how does that work?

Marc: Yeah, that’s absolutely right. And I don’t know if consumers really fully appreciate the amount of protection that we all receive from those organizations that are out inspecting gas pumps and scales and grocery stores and all the other equipment that’s used to sell us products and goods by measure. And the challenge of testing a hydrogen dispenser is very similar to the challenge of measuring the hydrogen in the first place. So the gas pumps that you mentioned before are easy to test. You can take out a measured can and fill it up with five gallons of gas and see if it’s really five gallons. Well, it’s not that simple with hydrogen because it’s a compressed gas. So you’ve got to capture that, and there are multiple different ways to do that. But what seems to be the easiest and safest way to do it is to use the same kind of meter that’s inside the dispenser, that is to say, another Coriolis meter. But in this case, as what we like to call a field reference standard or a master meter, it’s under the control of the regulating authority whose job it is to come out and verify that not only are these dispensers measuring accurately, but they stay accurate over years and years. And so there are a whole army of people around the world who travel around and do this testing and for hydrogen dispensers, and also, as it turns out, CNG dispensers. By being able to use the same type of Coriolis metering technology as a controlled field reference standard, they’re able to improve the safety and efficiency of their work.

Brian: Well, thanks, Marc. That’s one of those things that seems so obvious when you stop to think about it. But until you do stop to think about it, you don’t realize that there’s some technology there and this could be an issue. Well, I think as we start to wind this down, I want to thank Marc, you and Brandon for being with us today. Maybe I’ll give you both a chance if some ideas have occurred to you or something we missed talking about before you wind it down. I know. Brandon, have you got any other thoughts? And then after you’re done, maybe Marc can jump in as well, if there’s any last ideas.

Brandon: Yeah, sure, Brian. I’ll just leave everyone with a point that I started with. I mentioned earlier that we at Emerson have been dealing with hydrogen for 35-plus years. But that being said, we’re also learning. In fact, the whole world is learning as hydrogen continues to develop. And so I’m looking forward to engaging with some of the listeners here in the future and working together to continue to take the hydrogen economy forward.

Brian: Okay, thanks, Brandon.

Marc: Yeah, it’s been a real pleasure. Thank you both enjoyed being on this podcast together. And the only thing that I would add is that it is an exciting time and as I’m reading and learning more and more about all the different innovative ways that people are coming up with to produce hydrogen and deliver it to consumers. It’s exciting for us to be able to take the technology and the capabilities that we have to help with the solutions that are needed for transporting and then dispensing and helping with the custody transfer part of the hydrogen delivery chain.

Brian: Thank you very much. Marc. Well, there’s no question that renewable electricity alone is not going to replace fossil fuels, so we’ve got to turn to hydrogen for those other cases, and it’s good to know that everybody is working on ways to handle it safely and efficiently and accurately. Well, Brandon, why don’t we finish up with you giving us the Emerson website specific to hydrogen and also if listeners want to reach out to you or to Marc, what’s the best way to contact either one of you?

Brandon: Sure. Well, you can certainly head to our landing page Emerson.com and use the menus there to navigate towards hydrogen, but I’d really say search is your friend. So whether that’s Emerson Hydrogen production or Emerson hydrogen fuel, dispensing, whatever area the value chain you’re interested in, that’s probably the fastest way to get right to some of the expertise and solutions that we provide in terms of reaching out. You can find Marc and I on LinkedIn or if you want to reach out directly by email, our Emerson emails are pretty easy set up as [email protected], so for myself, that’s [email protected]. Or if you want to reach out to Marc, it’s just [email protected].

Brian: Right. And Buttler has got two T’s in it. And I will also put your emails as well as the Emerson website into the show notes for the podcast. Well, again, thank you both of you, for your time to be with us today. It’s been really interesting. And listeners, if you enjoy listening to the HydrogenNowCast, please consider subscribing to the podcast and also give us a rating in your podcast app. Good rating does help us be discovered by other people and of course, word-of-mouth recommendations are really important. So consider letting people in your own network know about the HydrogenNowCast. So once again, I’d like to thank New Day Hydrogen for sponsoring the HydrogenNowCast. New Day Hydrogen is working to build out and deploy hydrogen infrastructure to enable any of us to convert to zero-emission vehicles. And lastly, if you’d like to contact me, as always, I’d love to hear from you and you can reach me through the website at Colorado-Hydrogen.org or on LinkedIn. So until next time, this is Brian DeBruine wishing you health and prosperity. Goodbye.

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In order to strike a fine balance between expanding global energy consumption and reducing GHG emissions, alternative fuels and materials, also known as Biofuels, Biomaterials, and Biochemicals, are gaining increased attention from worldwide leaders, including AP.

As a part of our Asia-Pacific Sustainability & Decarbonization podcast series, I had a wide-ranging conversation with Emerson’s Sanjay Thakker on the trends, challenges, and solutions in the Biofuels & Biomaterials sector to achieve circular economy goals.

Listen to the podcast and visit the Renewable Biofuels and Sustainability & Decarbonization sections on Emerson.com for more on the technologies and solutions to help advance these production processes. You can also connect and interact with an Emerson Asia-Pacific sustainability & decarbonization expert in your area.

Jim: Hi everyone. This is Jim Cahill with another “Emerson Automation Experts” podcast. We continue our Asia-Pacific Sustainability & Decarbonization podcast series with a closer look at the fast-growing Biofuels & Biomaterials sector, as it has a growing role in the energy & chemical mix in this region. I am joined today by Emerson’s Sanjay Thakker to discuss all about Biofuels & Biochemicals.

Jim: Sanjay, thank you for joining!

Sanjay: Hello, Jim. Thank you for inviting me to be a part of the show.

Jim: It’s wonderful to have you here with us, Sanjay. Let’s start by asking you to tell our listeners about your background and how you got to where you are now.

Sanjay: Thanks Jim. Well, I completed my bachelor’s degree in Instrumentation from India in 91. After graduating I joined India’s leading fuel manufacturer & retailer, Indian Oil Corporation. Worked here for more than two decades in refining & petrochemicals operations. Initial refineries were very simple with crude distillation & downstream fluid catalytic cracking, but big energy guzzlers & highly polluting. Later in mid-90’s global leaders started working on environmental concerns & refineries were added with fuel quality improvement units, viz isomerization & diesel hydrotreater. Later Natural gas joined energy basket & became the natural choice for industries leading to glut in Naphtha production. Earlier naphtha was feedstock to fertilizers, but later it was replaced with NG & refineries were compelled to enter more energy intensive petrochemicals production which by then was finding increased application in downstream polymers. Working in all these units in various roles led me to think about how polluting our industries are. After working so many years in fossil fuel related industry, I can appreciate the tremendous impact biofuels & materials is going to make in the time to come. Also, I noticed a very significant global shift by all leading Oil & Gas industry giants, to focus on projects that support sustainability and decarbonization. I joined Emerson in 2019 to support refinery & petrochemicals business in India. Emerson team is also committed to global S&D efforts & my natural choice was Biofuels & Biomaterials. I support the Sustainability & Decarbonization business for Emerson Automation Solutions in the Asia Pacific region. So, my role aligns well with my passion in energy space & and Emerson’s purpose, to help customers make measurable progress towards their Net zero targets.

Jim: That’s great Sanjay. So, we are talking today about Biofuels & Biomaterials, and there seems to be a lot of talk about changing global energy mix & circular economy. Since we will be talking about wide ranging industry applications, perhaps you can start our discussion off first with biofuels by just explaining what are biofuels.

Sanjay: Sure Jim. In simple terms, biofuel is a fuel that is not derived from fossil fuels & is rather produced from biomass. Since biomass can be used as a fuel directly like say wood logs, some people use the words biomass and biofuel interchangeably. However, in industry parlance, the word biofuel usually refers to liquid or gaseous fuels, used for transportation or other industrial energy usage.

Biofuel can be produced from plants or from agricultural, domestic or industrial biowaste. The two most common liquid biofuels are bioethanol and biodiesel. Others include renewable heating oil, renewable jet fuel, also known as sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) or alternative jet fuel, renewable naphtha, renewable gasoline, and other emerging biofuels that are in various stages of development and commercialization.

Gaseous fuels that may be compressed for use as a gaseous biofuel include compressed biogas (CBG) or renewable natural gas (RNG). Waste / Bio-mass sources like agricultural residue, cattle dung, sugarcane press mud, municipal solid waste and sewage treatment plant waste, etc. produce biogas through the process of anaerobic decomposition. The biogas is then purified to remove hydrogen sulphide (H2S), carbon dioxide (CO2), water vapor and lastly compressed as Compressed Biogas (CBG). CBG has calorific value and other properties like CNG and hence can be utilized as green renewable fuel. Thus, it can replace CNG in automotive, industrial and commercial areas.

Jim: That’s good to know Sanjay, so it’s all about waste to energy! These days, we hear a lot of noise around bioethanol, biodiesel etc., tell us something more about all this.

Sanjay: Sure Jim, let’s talk more about these next gen fuels. Bioethanol, which is a renewable fuel can be made from various plant materials. Most ethanol is made from plant starches and sugars, but technologies today allow for the use of cellulose and hemicellulose, the non-edible fibrous material that constitutes the bulk of plant matter.

The common method for converting biomass into ethanol is called fermentation. During fermentation, microorganisms (e.g., bacteria and yeast) metabolize plant sugars and produce ethanol.

Basically, Ethanol is an alcohol used as a blending agent with gasoline to increase octane and cut down carbon monoxide and other smog-causing emissions.

The most common blend of ethanol is referred as E10, E15 or E20, where the numerical number is basically referring to the percentage of ethanol in petro-gasoline. When we say E10, it refers to 10% ethanol, 90% gasoline and is generally approved for use in most conventional gasoline-powered vehicles. Some countries like India are moving towards E20. Newer vehicles, called flexible fuel vehicles, are being designed to run on higher gasoline-ethanol blend.

When we talk of Biodiesel, it’s a liquid fuel produced from renewable sources, such as new and used vegetable oils and animal fats and is a cleaner-burning replacement for petroleum-based diesel fuel. Biodiesel is nontoxic and biodegradable and is produced by combining alcohol with vegetable oil, animal fat, or recycled cooking oil.

Like petroleum-derived diesel, biodiesel is used to fuel compression-ignition (diesel) engines. Biodiesel can be blended with petroleum diesel in any percentage, depending on geography, season & application. While the most common blend, we see in most countries is B20, which is a blend containing 20% biodiesel and 80% petroleum diesel. Maximum we see Indonesia moving to B40 blend.

SAFs are jet fuels that are certified for use in commercial jet aircraft and that meet GHG and other sustainability criteria, and are also made from raw materials other than fossil fuels, such as wastes and agricultural residues.

USA is the largest producer of bioethanol, while EU is the largest producer of biodiesel & RNG or CBG, but AP is fast catching up & large capacities are being set-up for domestic consumption as well as export. As per IEA estimates, Asian biofuel production may surpass that of Europe by 2026.

Jim: Sanjay, biodiesel & renewable diesel terms are interchangeably used, tell us something more about the two.

Sanjay: Let’s understand the difference between renewable diesel (also known as R99) and biodiesel. Biodiesel, also called fatty acid methyl ester (FAME), and renewable diesel, also known as hydrogenated vegetable oil, (HVO), can both be blended with diesel fuel. While, Renewable diesel has the same chemical composition as fossil diesel and so is fully compatible with existing diesel engines, Biodiesel has a different chemical composition as compared to fossil diesel and so blending is limited. Europe, for example, limits blends to 7%.

While renewable diesel and biodiesel are made from the same organic waste streams – including animal and seed fats – there are significant differences between the two products, which primarily comes from the way it has been produced. Biodiesel is made through a chemical process called transesterification. This process converts the biomass oils into fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) and glycerine. On the other hand, renewable diesel is chemically made through hydro processing, using hydrogen under high temperature & pressure, same as petroleum diesel.

Biodiesel is generally referred to a blend than a traditional fuel. In the same sense that ethanol is blended with gasoline, biodiesel is a blend of Petro-diesel and biofuel. It’s there to help reduce fossil fuel content therefore reducing carbon emission

Jim: Quite interesting Sanjay! So, can we use any available renewable or biodiesel in our current vehicles, without any modification in the engines or are there any challenges in large-scale adoption of biodiesel?

Sanjay: Let’s try to understand more Jim! While renewable diesel is for all intents and purposes, a pure diesel fuel & can be dropped directly into current diesel engine, it functions identical to fossil fuel, with lower carbon emissions and environmental impacts, yet without any performance or maintenance impact. Renewable diesel greatly improves greenhouse gas emissions by up to 75 percent while retaining all the power of standard diesel. The carbon intensity of renewable diesel is approximately 60 percent less than petroleum diesel.

Biodiesel, on the other hand comes with some challenges, especially when it comes to storage conditions. Biodiesel must be stored at right temperature range & may pose some challenge in cold weather conditions. If it is too warm, it could grow mold, if it gets too cold, it may gel up. Biodiesel can also thicken to a gel if it is exposed to oxygen for too long & can also lead to more deposits in a fuel tank and pipes, which may call for more frequent replacement of fuel filters. In technical terms, both cetane & cloud points are compromised to some extant in biodiesel.

To sum up, although both fuels are made from similar materials, the difference between the two comes from how they are manufactured, but both helps in reducing greenhouse gas emissions & Government policies are the principal driver of the growing production capacities.

Jim: So, you mentioned governments are recognizing the potential for Biofuels, can you elaborate on what countries in Asia are communicating their strategies for biofuels & how Emerson is helping them in meeting their goals?

Sanjay: You’re touching a very relevant point, Jim. Improved policies and COP26 climate goals are set to propel renewable fuels growth to new heights. Government mandates, incentives, and standards to lower the carbon intensity of fuel combined with consumer demands for meaningful action on climate change has accelerated the demand for biofuels. IEA estimates that, Asia will account for almost 30% of new production capacities coming up in next 5 years. This is mainly due to strong domestic policies, growing liquid fuel demand and export-driven production. Recent Indian ethanol policies and blending targets for biodiesel in Indonesia and Malaysia are responsible for most of the growth in Asia. India is set to become the third largest market for ethanol demand worldwide by 2026. Although biofuels and bioenergy received scant attention in China’s recent Five-Year Plan, the country plans to peak emissions before 2030. As part of that plan, China plans to vigorously promote alternatives like advanced liquid biofuels and SAF & biofuels will play an important role in achieving emission reductions in China.

Another driving point to changing global energy mix is the post corona world order & now emerging geopolitical equations, largely due to the conflict in Europe, driving governments working on reduced dependence on fossil fuels which are largely controlled by handful of countries. Added to this, record high prices of fossil fuels are helping in making renewable fuels more viable.

Within Asia, due to huge push by government of India, India is emerging as hub for Bio Ethanol & Biogas. Recently a National Oil Company, Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL) has joined hands with two Finnish companies viz M/s Fortum and M/s Chempolis to make a strategic entry into the field of producing ethanol, from cellulosic feedstock ‘Bamboo’ which is available in abundance locally. The Bio refinery being setup will not only produce bio ethanol but other chemicals like Acetic Acid, Furfural & Furfuryl Alcohol. Emerson is the lead technology supplier for India’s first cellulosic feedstock-based Bio-Refinery. India’s largest National Oil companies IOCL is setting up a CBG plant in Gorakhpur & here again, Emerson is the lead Instrumentation technology supplier. Almost all National oil companies are establishing CBG plants & are promoting private sector investment with assured buyback of products.

Neste of Singapore is another hub of renewable production. Neste’s renewable and circular solutions are produced by renewable raw materials, the majority are wastes and residues such as used cooking oil and waste animal fat & Emerson is proud solution partner.

To summarize, major AP countries have demonstrated an understanding of the current situation and opportunity it provides of shifting global energy transition and are aligning their strategies around the same.

Jim: It is clear from what you outlined that biofuel is going to assume significant importance in changing energy mix scenario. Tell us something about changing biochemicals or biomaterials sector, and what opportunities & challenges are you seeing in the Asia region?

Sanjay: Yes Jim, let’s focus on biochemicals, which presents another exciting opportunity to replace fossil fuels. Given the tremendous focus on actions to mitigate climate change, steps are being taken to move from today’s fossil-based economy to a more sustainable economy based on renewable materials and recycling. The main driver for transition to a bio-based circular economy is the global issue of climate change and the need to reduce GHG emissions.

The desire of many countries to reduce an over dependency on fossil fuel imports by diversifying their energy sources is another reason driving the need to develop an environmentally, economically and socially sustainable circular global economy

To become truly sustainable and circular, industry is increasingly viewing chemical and polymer production from renewable resources as well as chemical recycling as the future modus operandi. Since plastics has become an integral part of economy, another area where lot of work is happening is bio-degradable plastics. Industry is working on both bio-degradable plastics from fossil-based chemicals and from renewable resources.

Within Asia, China is setting up large capacities to produce plastics which are bio degradable in nature from fossil fuel based resources like PBAT (polybutylene adipate-co-terephthalate), which is mainly derived from esterification & polycondensation of BDO (butanediol), PTA (Purified Terephthalic Acid) & AA (Adipic acid).

Thailand is making major progress in renewable bio-based plastics, most notably cassava and sugarcane. As it contains glucose, sugarcane is highly useful raw ingredient for bio-based products. As opposed to other starch-based feedstock, Glucose requires no additional processing before use in biochemical and bioplastic production, thus shortening the conversion process and decreasing production costs. In Thailand, Purac (Thailand), from Corbion Purac is producing lactic acid which is the most vital biochemical for bioplastic industry production. Total Corbion is another company in Thailand focusing to manufacture polylactic polymer (PLA), another bioplastic material. PTT MCC is a joint venture between PTT Thailand and Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation (MCC) installed first Polybutylene Succinate (PBS) plant which is another bio plastic plant in Thailand.

To sum up both fossil based, as well as renewable material based bioplastics are gaining significance in Asia pacific.

Another important aspect of circular economy is plastics recycling, where Purecycle & Mura technology are key Technology providers. Both Japan & Korea are setting up facilities for plastics recycling. Emerson is again Key partner to provide technology solutions to overcome the challenges posed by these new technologies. In fact, Emerson is official partner for Born Digital-Smart Plant Program with Purecycle technology.

So, several challenges do exist Jim but with all of them, solutions are being developed and here at Emerson we certainly see ourselves as partners to finding those solutions to overcome them & make this world more sustainable.

Jim: Sanjay, I want to thank you so much for joining us and sharing your expertise with our listeners. I’ll add links to the transcript and here at the end to the Renewable Biofuels section and Sustainability & Decarbonization web pages, as well as the contact details for Sustainability & Decarbonization experts in the Asia-Pacific region.

-End of transcript-

The HydrogenNowCast, part of the Colorado Hydrogen Network is “…devoted to encouraging the deployment of Fuel Cell EV’s, hydrogen fueling and hydrogen infrastructure throughout the world. Our intent is to encourage and motivate others to take charge, to help deploy hydrogen as a means to decarbonize the transportation and energy sectors, and accelerate the movement to stop climate change.”

In the podcast, Hydrogen measurement and flow with Emerson, Emerson’s Don Fregelette, Laura Chemler, and Andrew Sgro join host Brian DeBruine to discuss some of the challenges and solutions in handling hydrogen across its supply chain from production through distribution. Special thanks to the Colorado Hydrogen Network for permission to rehost and share this podcast.

Listen to the podcast and visit the Accelerating the Transition to a Hydrogen Future section on Emerson.com for more of the technologies and solutions to drive your sustainability and decarbonization initiatives forward.

Brian: Well, hello, everyone, and welcome to Episode 57 of the “HydrogenNowCast” for July 22nd, 2022. The “HydrogenNowCast” is sponsored by New Day Hydrogen, who’s helping fleet owners meet their zero-emission vehicle needs. If you’re with a fleet or transit operator and your fleet is wondering how to convert to zero-emission vehicles but still meet your operational needs, New Day Hydrogen can give you the option of fuel cell vehicles by providing public hydrogen fuel stations near you, and showing you the available fuel cell trucks, vans, and buses. To find out more information about both vehicles and fueling, visit the newdayhydrogen.com website, where you can also submit requests on the contact page.

Well, the podcast today is the first episode of a two-part interview with the company Emerson. In this episode, we’re gonna focus on measuring hydrogen. So, to tell us about that, as well as Emerson’s products and services around hydrogen, we have three guests. And our first guest is Don Fregelette, who’s Emerson’s VP of Chemical Industry Marketing. Don, welcome to the show.

Don: Thank you, Brian. It’s a pleasure to be here. I’m excited to talk about this opportunity and everything that’s going on in hydrogen.

Brian: Great. Thanks, Don. Well, our second guest is Laura Chemler, who’s the Emerson Industry Manager of Sustainability and Emerging Market Solutions. Laura, welcome to the show.

Laura: Hi, excited to be here.

Brian: Well, thanks, Laura. Great to have you with us. And last but not least is Andrew Sgro, who’s the Emerson Director of Product Marketing. Andrew, welcome to the show.

Andrew: Yeah. I appreciate that. Thanks for having us.

Brian: Yeah. Great. Well, we really appreciate the time that all three of you have taken to do this. So, thank you so much. You know, Emerson is a pretty large company with quite a diverse number of products and services, and also quite a few locations around the world. Laura, why don’t we start with you giving the listeners an overview of Emerson the company?

Laura: Emerson is a global technology and software company providing innovative solutions for our customers in industrial, commercial, and residential markets. Our automation solutions business, and specifically, the measurement solution business that we’re a part of helps manufacturers maximize production and protect employees and the environment while optimizing energy and operation costs all through data collection and data analysis. In essence, we design and manufacture the devices that give you insights into your process flows, and help you maintain data to better manage your facility. We have experience in chemical, oil and gas, refining, pharmaceuticals, food and beverage, metals and mining, pulp and paper, and more. So, there’s a good chance we’ll be able to help you regardless of what industry you’re in, including hydrogen. I mentioned that Emerson is a global company, but we’re local too. Most of us on this call are from Boulder, Colorado, and I’m from Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Brian: All right. Great. Well, thanks, Laura. I know you’ve got quite a few products and things. Are they mainly focused around consumer and commercial products, I mean, you don’t really get into military things, do you?

Laura: No. They’re mainly gonna be things like pressure devices, flow, giving you insights to what’s happening in your pipes, in your system, and if something’s coming out of your pipes, we can help you identify that. We can tell you the flow rates, the temperatures, pressures, all the data that you need to better control and optimize your process flow so you’re not having excess waste, rework, using excess raw materials in your process, and we’re making sure that you can optimize and have good process control.

Brian: Okay. Great. Well, that really helps kind of give us and the listeners, I think, an idea of what these products are really centered around. So, well, you know, the hydrogen ecosystem is pretty vast, I mean, it runs the gamut from generation, to transport, to use, and, you know, the handling of hydrogen in each of these three functions, things like measurement, and like you said, flow control, detection and containment, and other tasks need to be performed. So, let’s talk a little bit about how Emerson fits into this ecosystem, and some of the products, and especially the expertise that Emerson brings to bear. And, maybe, Don, do you wanna start with that? Get a little technical here, and Andrew, you’d like to follow up maybe?

Don: Yeah. Absolutely. So, I think, you know, maybe first thing to note for everyone here, and I think most of, you know, hydrogen isn’t new, right? It’s really the fact that all of this sustainability and people are looking for greener energy is really driving all of the interest and all of the activity around it today. And so from an Emerson perspective, we’ve been engaged with this for years. In fact, you look at some of our brands, you know, Micro Motion, which we’ll talk about later, is close to 50 years. You’ve got Rosemount, they have the pressure and temperature and level stuff, they’ve been 60 years. Fisher with valves and regulators, they’ve been over 100 years. And then look at our control systems and our software business, as we’ve just acquired AspenTech. We’ve really been in business for 40 to 50 years on that end. So, quite a bit of experience.

And, you know, if you go back to the production side and you just think about the value chain, I mean, we’re involved in the front end in producing, so you look at the traditional way. So, you take a hydrocarbon, and you reform it, and it gives you hydrogen. You know, we’ve been involved with electrolysis, I mean, the early days on the alkaline side. And, you know, as we’ve moved forward now to some of the newer technologies like proton exchange and anion exchange, you go through, and then you look at the transportation of it, whether pipelines, trucks, that type of stuff, and then continue on to the actual usage. So, you think about power plants and how they’re starting to use hydrogen, you look at things like the actual usage of hydrogen in an industry. So, you know, it’s used for ammonia. It’s used in the refining industry, steel, all of those things. And then finally, what I think a lot of your listeners are used to, which is the actual transportation and dispensing of hydrogen, either into fuel cells, or into vehicles, or things like that.

If you think about, you know, our solutions and what we do as a company, I mean, there’s some really good examples. So, if you look at the production of it, so let’s take the reforming. So, reforming is done in a furnace and as such, combustion is a big issue. So one of the things that we would do is we might take a Coriolis meter for the natural gas, a differential pressure transmitter that has kind of a conditioning orifice plate for the air measurement, and then on the backend, you’ll have an oxygen analyzer. All this is put into a control system where we actually can modify the ratio and optimize that so that when you look at the production of energy, it’s optimized. So you get a better energy intensity number, but also, you’re reducing your carbon. So, we’ll take it as far as that, but if you look then at some of the other things that we do… Analyzers, so if you look at an electrolyzer today, you’ve got pH in conductivity is really critical because you want your water to be as pure as possible. Because if you have any contamination, if it gets on the electrodes, what’s gonna happen is you’re gonna damage those electrodes.

We get involved with things like leak detection, so we have flow and pressure, we have corrosion measurement, and software that ensures that you have the integrity of that pipeline and that it’s safe. We have things, you know, if you look at the hydrogen, and you look at this, there’s a lot of rotating equipment. A lot of compressors, heat exchangers, pumps, blowers, chillers, I mean, all these things, which you really need to look at the reliability. So combined with our measurement equipment like pressure, and temperature, and flow, into our software with AspenTech and our systems group, I mean, we can really determine the reliability of those products, be more proactive, and more predictive on the maintenance, and really make sure that those facilities or those operations are more reliable. Tank, you know, so we do tank safety and level. We have systems that we put together to do all the loading and unloading. If you look on trucks, or on rail, and moving hydrogen, or even in the pipelines in full-blown metrology or custody transfer system, so the Cash Register that actually determines the amount of hydrogen that’s switching hands.

And then other parts, I mean, you got ASCO. So, ASCO is well-known in the dispensing business for their solenoid valves for the fuel, as well as our TESCOM regulators, which are both used in dispensers, but also for determining the measurement of fuel going into the fuel cells and so forth. And then obviously, simple things like just analyzers that can tell you the quality of the hydrogen, or to make sure there’s no contamination in that hydrogen as it moves forward, just a whole bunch of safety devices. And whether it’s safety devices around flame and gas. So, knowing how much hydrogen is in a line or being able to detect hydrogen flames, there’s just a lot of things that we do in this entire value chain to really help the customers. And we’ve been doing this for a long time. And so, whether it’s today ticking and trying to take gray hydrogen, and capture that carbon, make it, and then transport it in a supercritical phase, or even going back to something as simple as working with sub -300-degree hydrogen, and we have just a tremendous amount of experience over the years in this industry.

Brian: Wow. Thanks, Don. My head is spinning. Maybe just to unpack a little bit about that, of what you said there, so you mentioned a number of different companies like Rosemount, and Fisher, and AspenTech, those are all in the family of Emerson, right?

Don: That’s correct. I mean, in Emerson we actually have two parts of the business, and we’re all part of the automation side. I mean, there’s a commercial side, and you’ll see things like InSinkErator, so your garbage disposal, right? I mean, that’s actually an Emerson or RIDGID tools. But for us, I mean, we really are all part of the automation and process control side of the business. And so all those businesses, TESCOM, I mentioned ASCO, Rosemount, Micro Motion, I mean, just a ton of brand names that are really associated with the company.

Brian: Wow. Very impressive. Thanks. Well, some of the other things you went through, you mentioned, like, Coriolis meter, and maybe we’ll call on Andrew to talk about some of these things. I think of Coriolis, I think of the water going down the drain, right? The way that spins, and you mentioned metrology and things like supercritical. So, Andrew, I mean, maybe you want to start helping us understand things about flow, and so on and so forth, and maybe explain some of these terms, like, you know, how Coriolis effect is used in measuring flow and things like that.

Andrew: Yeah. I think I can get into a little more detail there, you know. Don gave a great overview of sort of the overall business for Emerson, and how we’re looking at hydrogen across all those technologies. The part of the business I work in is specifically focused on flow, and even more so is design and development of Coriolis flow meters. And, you know, Coriolis meters are the ideal technology really, as we look at all these opportunities with hydrogen. For those that aren’t aware, you know, it’s a direct mass flow measurement, and so you’re able to go out and access mass balance measurements, or density measurements, pretty advanced diagnostics to look at meter health, and capability. And then just the fact that Coriolis meters are not affected by temperature and pressure conditions, like lab volumetric technology out there, really set it up well to be, you know, very super on measurement for hydrogen across that value chain. And so whether it’s all the way down to these liquid hydrogen stream cryogenic temperatures like Don mentioned, or, you know, all the way up to very high pressures where we’re talking about 5,000, 10,000, 15,000 psi type of measurements.

And so then flow specifically really is a critical measurement, you know, no matter where you are in that hydrogen value chain. Somebody explained it to me once is, for all of these measurements, you know, what our customers really need is to know what it is and how much of it it is, and how much there is, and so, yeah. The “what it is” comes from the analytical side of our business, and that’s some of what Don spoke to. How much it is, is that flow measurement, and so when we look at flow, it’s, you know, across production, whether it’s the air going into the turbine cooling like Don mentioned, you have the water feed and electrolysis, then you move into transportation. And, you know, whether you’re in a liquid state for hydrogen transportation, or we’re looking at gas pipelines and these hydrogen-enriched natural gas pipelines where we’re trying to move hydrogen from one location to another, and then all the way to that end use, and dispensing, and refueling.

We’ve got solutions that we are in development, and that we’ve been working with our customers for years on across that value chain from start to finish. It’s interesting to me because form, fit, and function are really very familiar, and most of…even though hydrogen seems like a newer interest that’s really starting to spool up in the last few years, a lot of the applications are really pretty mature applications for something like natural gas. The difference is that with hydrogen, there’s certainly unique measurement challenges, so as we look at pure or even the hydrogen-enriched natural gas lines, that escalates your hazardous area approval, so now you have to start thinking about, “Okay, now I’m in gas group B, what does that mean for my installation?” If you’re looking at custody transfer we talk about how custody transfer and weights and measures, requirements, and certifications here in the U.S., or over in Europe, have special regulations built up around hydrogen specifically. And then even just the unique fluid properties of hydrogen, so we look at the very high velocity of sound or the compressibility of hydrogen as a gas. And all of this needs to be considered when we’re trying to size the meter or help customers select what is the right product for that application that they’re targeting.

Brian: Yeah. Thanks, Andrew. And, you know, to that point, I think possibly a lot of our listeners are thinking, you know, if you need a meter, or you need a valve or something, you just go to a catalog and order it, but it seems like this is pretty technical. And I know in the avionics business that I was used to, you didn’t just go buy a product, you actually talked to the company, they would help you with the design and specifying it. So, maybe, Don, we should go back to you, what are some of the important questions users need to ask to ensure that they’re specifying the right product, and how does Emerson really help them do that?

Don: Well, I mean, it’s interesting because when you look at it, yeah, hydrogen can be challenging, right? I mean, like, just look at, and Andrew mentioned a couple of things with, you know, the low density, the high speed of sound and all those things. But really, when we look at it, there’s three primary questions I think people need to think about. Operating pressure, operating temperature, and the concentration of hydrogen are probably the three top ones. And then what is the flow so that we get an idea of the actual rate that the product is moving? And, you know, some of these are because hydrogen is this unique product, right? A lot of people think it has a very strong bond, but it has a really weak bond.

So, part of the reason you’re asking these things around pressure and temperature is if at high pressures, and high temperatures, and in the presence of iron, it’ll actually break down to its ionic state. And so it gets really small. And so it gets into the lattice structure of these metals, in certain metals, and so what ends up happening is you end up with some level or some type of corrosion. And there’s a number of different ways that happens. But I think the critical thing is, you know, knowing what the pressure and temperature is, you can pick the right types of materials. So for instance, I mean, at higher temperatures and pressures, I mean, you wanna stay away from things like carbon steel and Monel, ceramics, titanium. So, some of the harder steels, you wanna move towards more of the things like 3/16 stainless, or platinum, or even gold plating. And so, by knowing these things, what we as a supplier can do is really recommend what is the right material and have the right information to determine what we need to do there.

You know, and Andrew can talk a little bit more about flow, but if you look at the whole business, I mean, you know, flow is critical because, you know, as he said, you got this high speed of sound, and so what ends up happening is it can be very noisy, so that can affect your valve. So, you know, I mean, we do things like have special trim, the case of Fisher it’s called the Whisper Trim. And it’s a cage and actually fits in the valve, and it reduces the noise that you can get as the hydrogen goes through this. Boy, I mean, you look at it, just think about it, hydrogen is basically colorless, odorless, highly explosive, and is an asphyxiate. It is dangerous. And so recognizing, you know, that you need to really…whether it’s your valves, or your regulators, or other equipment, you’ve gotta minimize the amount of emissions. And so, you’ve gotta look at and recognize, you know, what kind of packing, or what kind of seal is on those regulators or valves to really ensure that you’re minimizing the emission. So there’s just a lot of things that you gotta take into effect that, you know, one, look at the materials of construction, two, take into account the fact that you really do not want leakage of any kind of hydrogen because of the level of concern and regulations around safety that exist out there. You know, and there’s a lot to guide people, but those are really probably the top things that you need to think about as you’re looking at this.

Brian: Well, thanks, Don. And I’m glad you mentioned emissions because a lot of the environmentalists are concerned that hydrogen can be a greenhouse gas. So, they’re kind of antihydrogen because they’re worried about it being a greenhouse gas, but because of the safety issues as well as just loss of your valuable material, I really think that hydrogen leaks are gonna be a very minor concern in the future. Andrew, did you wanna add anything to that?

Andrew: Yeah. You know, I thought I could give maybe a couple of specific examples. Don mentioned, you know, all the considerations here as you’re looking at hydrogen opportunities, and that’s part of where we’re trying to develop our own education and really kind of partner with our customers and with the industry to figure out, “How do we help guide users to that correct product?” like Don was mentioning. A couple examples here would be when we look at maybe the gas pipelines, and we’re seeing a lot of these opportunities where companies are starting to leverage the infrastructure of natural gas pipelines, but inject hydrogen to help with the emissions questions we were just discussing, and at the same time maintain the energy content and the BTU level.

And so the question is then, “Okay. How do I determine what is the right size meter to put in this application?” And especially, when we start mixing in something like hydrogen with that low density, that high velocity of sound, it makes that sizing and selection process a little bit more complicated. And so, in that case, one of the ways we’ve been trying to simplify the discussion, and the process, and open that up to a broader audience is to really focus in on Mach number there, and so we look at what is the velocity through the pipeline, through the meter, and have some general rule of thumb, what is sort of a target Mach number and a maximum Mach number for how fast you really wanna be flowing through that meter? If you exceed about one-third Mach…and Mach again is that percentage of a speed of sound based on the gas going through there. If you get too high, you start to get too much noise in the process, and you really aren’t gonna get a reliable or clean measurement there. And so, having this guideline of trying to limit down to about 0.2, 0.3 Mach is our general starting point, is our recommendation as we’re looking at these pipeline measurements.

Alternatively, we look at dispensing as an example. And dispensing becomes, again, a difficult challenge as we’re trying to figure out what is the right size meter to put in here to be able to measure flow. I think we’ll get a lot more into dispensing in the next episode, but it’s got a really unique challenge because it’s not a stable flow rate. If we had a fixed flow rate pressure and temperature, that’s generally a pretty easy measurement, but what we’re seeing is people are building up these dispensing units, is that that flow rate changes. You hook up to your truck, your car, it starts to ramp up, and it’s constantly increasing flow and pressure through this three-minute fill cycle. And because of that, it makes the measurement itself significantly more challenging. And yeah, at the maximum condition, this is all happening at as high as 350 bar, maybe 700 bar, depending on the system. So again, really trying to figure out, “How do we help simplify that guidance and guide customers to that correct product and the right meter for the application?”

As I mentioned before, it’s something that we’ve been working on in different applications that weren’t hydrogen for many years now. And actually what we’re seeing is a lot of our existing customers who have compressed natural gas stations or the CNG dispensing units trying to determine for themselves, “How do they evolve their own infrastructure and convert some of their business over to be able to adapt and have access to this hydrogen market?” And so with that, it’s us as a supplier and a partner doing the same thing, and trying to figure out, “How do we adapt our tools and our processes to help our customers make that conversion as well?”

Brian: Okay. Thanks, Andrew. Well, there’s no question that hydrogen is a tricky substance to handle, and it’s good to know that Emerson has really got this well in hand, and has kinda worked it all out, and can help people, you know, solve their problems. All right. Well, Laura, let’s turn back to you. I know one of your responsibilities is sustainability, and you mentioned earlier that Emerson really helps manufacturers optimize their production to not only have a well-running business but also to protect the planet. So, how does all of this play into Emerson’s sustainability initiative?

Laura: Great question. Because we can’t just talk about sustainability and not look at our own sustainability and what are we doing to walk the walk, so to speak, instead of just talk the talk. And Emerson has a framework we use when we talk about sustainability. We call it the greening of, greening by, and greening with. The greening of means we’re looking internally at how to improve our own Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions. And what we’re doing to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, and our carbon footprint. Greening by is where we’re helping our customers achieve their own sustainability goals through emissions reductions, metering and energy efficiency projects, and everything from food and beverage to chemical, to hydrogen. In growing markets like hydrogen, the sky is really the limit when it comes to what manufacturers are capable of. Greening with is where we’re looking at how we can partner with others to increase collaboration, support, sustainability-related policies, and drive innovation that helps the world become more sustainable together.

Brian: Great. Thanks, Laura. I like that. Greening of, greening by, and greening with. Maybe we should look at some examples. Some companies really come under criticism today because they talk about sustainability, but not necessarily really having a plan, or tracking, and reporting their progress. Laura, why don’t you give us a few examples of steps that Emerson is taking to reduce internal emissions, and then next, how you’re helping customers to help take steps to achieve their own sustainability goals, and maybe lastly, if there’s any way that Emerson’s working with governments and agencies on policies that can help improve sustainability,

Laura: I would love to. So, this year we just renewed our climate ambition from our 2018 climate goals, and after an in-depth analysis, we established a target to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions across all scopes, Scope 1, 2, and 3 by 2045, from our 2021 baseline. And we have a midpoint goal in there at 2030 to reach net zero Scope 1 and 2 with a 25% reduction in our Scope 3 emissions. And this is just really exciting because we partnered with a science-based target initiative to have this net zero standard, and they’re the world’s leading organization in driving the adoption of science-based targets. And we’re using the latest climate science to set those goals, and align with what the science is really saying is needed. And that just came out this June, you can go to emerson.com and read more, there’s a great report on it. But that’s how we’re trying to set our own goals for ourselves.

And in order to reach these goals, we’re looking at internal energy reduction projects and being smarter about the energy we’re consuming. We’re being smarter about the energy we’re producing, and seeing how we can be better at our own production and operations, and how we’re running our facilities. We’re looking at sourcing 100% renewable energy through our electrical providers or doing on-site installations ourselves with solar panels or wind turbines. And there’s a lot of activity happening through Energy Treasure Hunts, Sustainability Champions, and Green Teams, where we’re organizing our own employees to help Emerson come up with sustainability solutions.

And if you’re not already aware, the Department of Energy and the EPA have partnered to create ENERGY STAR challenge and Energy Treasure Hunts that are available to everyone. And these tools and guides are really useful to facilities, any type of facility located anywhere in the world. So, you don’t have to be in the U.S., in order to use these tools. And if you’re looking to evaluate your energy usage and identify really low-hanging fruit improvement opportunities, they’re a great place to start. But that’s only our facilities. We also have to look at our products, and we’re using lifecycle assessments to evaluate how we’re designing our products, building our products, sourcing our products, and Andrew, I know you’re a little bit closer with that, Coriolis.

Andrew: Yeah. Actually, I had the opportunity to be part of one of the lifecycle assessments that we completed last year on our Coriolis meter. Really, the first lifecycle assessment that we’d ever done on the Coriolis meter. And just for clarity, I guess, so that’s a cradle-to-grave type of assessment where we’re looking at everything from, what are those raw material inputs, and where are the foundries that metal is coming from, to the manufacturing processes where we weld and brace all the components together, the calibration, how much water is running through the system? Is it reused? Is it heated? All the way to packaging, shipping, transport. Is it going on a plane, a bus, a truck, or a boat? And then even the lifecycle.

And so with Coriolis meters, often they’re in the field, they run 10, 20, maybe even 30 years before being decommissioned. And so all that feeds into that lifecycle assessment in the report. And when we worked our way through this, it really helped inform our new product development, as well as many other aspects of the business as we’re continuing to learn and grow through this pretty typical, or measure, offset, and reduce type of mindset. And one example would be that hydrogen dispensing meter I mentioned briefly earlier. And so what we learned from the lifecycle assessment, actually helped us reevaluate the design, and we ended up with a product that had less overall components, required less raw material, reduced the energy inputs in manufacturing and the water usage through that process of developing and manufacturing those sensors.

Another example would be our packaging. Laura had mentioned it I think briefly but I’ll be the first to admit that if you looked at any of our packaging several years ago, it wasn’t a great impression from a sustainability perspective. We used lock hardboard and wood, you open it up, and we were still using the expanded foam, and a lot of plastics, because it just wasn’t an area of focus 5, 10, 15 years ago. Right now, we’re actually working through a handful of pilots to figure out, “How do we get to a mono-material type of packaging that just makes recycling really easy for our customers but still meets all of our quality and reliability needs for transportation?”

Brian: Okay. Thanks, Andrew. And, Laura, go ahead if you had some other clients.

Laura: That’s just what Emerson’s doing. And we can take a lot of what we’re learning here and help our customers do the same thing. And we’ve talked a lot about instrumentation, and measurement, and different devices that you can install, and the information it gives you. And that information is what helps our customers reach their sustainability goals because it provides them more data. And the more data you have, the more you know about what’s happening, and you can identify if there’s something unexpected happening in your process, or maybe you haven’t looked at the efficiency of your heat exchangers, or furnaces in a sustainability lens, you’ve only looked at it from a cost efficiency lens before. And so that’s where we’re helping our customers look at the issues that they’re experiencing in a slightly different lens with extra expertise to help them identify how they can go above and beyond the solutions that they’ve thought of before to reach those sustainability goals and identify how they can reduce their energy efficiency even more than they have before, and improve their process efficiency, reduce rework, and the waste that they have to end up creating. And how can they reuse that waste or identify different ways of making their process even better?

Brian: Well said. Well, that’s the old adage, if you can’t measure something, if you don’t measure something, you certainly can’t change it, so.

Laura: Exactly.

Brian: Well, as we wind this down, I wanna thank you all again for your time to be on the podcast today, but I’d like to give you each a chance if there’s any other things you’d like to mention or some ideas that have come up as we’re talking, and Don, should we start with you, and then Andrew, and then Laura if you’ve got any last thoughts?

Don: Yeah. Like I said earlier, I think in general, hydrogen’s been around for a long time, we all kinda repeated it. There is a lot of experience and I think you, and your listeners recognize that, but right now it’s just the whole industry is exploding with innovation. And whether it’s trying to make greener hydrogen or blue hydrogen out of gray, or whether it’s all the way down to all these new technologies such as the small little kits or trailers with full electrolyzers in them to have on local sites to help with the production of hydrogen for something as simple as a fertilizer, right? And there’s just a lot of unique innovations going on in the industry today, and they all really do require some level of measurement and automation, and for us, I mean, we just have a tremendous amount of experience in that area that are really able to help you in your needs.

Andrew: Yeah. And I’ll just add to what Don said there. Even though hydrogen’s been around forever, I mean, we’re seeing this really exciting ramp in investments, and whether it’s private or government initiatives, you can’t look in the news today without seeing some sort of article on whether it’s California, or Japan, or Korea, or in Europe, for commitments to invest in hydrogen, and in this industry. So, our interest is really to ensure that we’re staying connected and engaged with all these companies and these initiatives to make sure that we’re educating ourselves and that we’re up to speed on how the industry is changing. And to Don’s point, I think there’s still a lot outstanding questions out there too. Do you produce hydrogen in these very centralized facilities the way we see refineries today? Or do you distribute it as natural gas and produce hydrogen sort of locally in smaller distribution centers? And as we look at dispensing, a lot of questions still around, what’s the pressure target? What’s the timeframe for what an acceptable fill cycle is? And so, our goal is just to always be on the frontlines of that discussion, and really are just excited to continue to be engaged with folks like yourself and groups like this to make sure that we’re constantly getting input on where do we head next to help support that.

Laura: If you’d like to learn more about Emerson’s net zero goals, check out our ESG Report on emerson.com. It goes into a lot of detail about what are we doing internally with all our environmental goals along with a lot more on our social and governance too.

Brian: Okay. Thanks, Laura. Well, listeners, we’ve been talking with Don Fregelette, and Andrew Sgro, and Laura Chemler, today from Emerson. Laura, what’s the best way for folks to try to contact either you, or Andrew, or Don, is it through LinkedIn, or what’s the best way?

Laura: You can do LinkedIn or email. Emerson makes our emails very easy. It’s just [email protected]. So, either of those would be perfectly fine.

Brian: Okay. All right. And I’ll put that in the show notes, as well as, of course, the spelling of everybody’s last name, just to make that easy. Well, all right. Thank you, all three of you, for your time to be with us today. And listeners, you can look forward to hearing more about Emerson, in a follow-up podcast where Andrew’s gonna rejoin us, but we’ll have three additional guests from Emerson, and we’re gonna talk about moving and dispensing of hydrogen, so, I know you won’t wanna miss that. Listeners, as usual, if you enjoy listening to the “HydrogenNowCast” please consider subscribing to the podcast, and also give us a rating in your podcast app. A good rating helps us be discovered by other people. And of course, word-of-mouth recommendations are really important, so consider letting people in your own network know about the “HydrogenNowCast.” And lastly, I’d like to thank New Day Hydrogen for sponsoring the “HydrogenNowCast.” New Day Hydrogen’s working to build out and deploy hydrogen infrastructure to enable any of us to convert to zero-emission vehicles. So, if you’d like to contact me, I would always love to hear from you, and you can reach me through the website at colorado-hydrogen.org, or on LinkedIn. So, until next time, this is Brian DeBruine, wishing you health and prosperity. Goodbye.

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Worldwide, wind farms are growing in number and size as global demand for renewable energy increases. This is true, especially in the Asia-Pacific region.

Emerson’s Shubhi Goel and Andy Wang join me in this Asia Pacific Sustainability and Decarbonization podcast to discuss the trends, challenges, and solutions to more effectively manage and control wind farms with integrated monitoring, supervisory control, and asset management.

Visit the Sustainability & Decarbonization section on Emerson.com or connect with a local expert in your country in the Asia-Pacific region.

Jim: Hi everyone. This is Jim with another “Emerson Automation Experts” podcast. Globally, we are seeing an increasing emphasis on sustainability & decarbonization as countries, corporations and communities further define and implement their roadmaps to achieve net zero / carbon neutrality and operate in a more sustainable way. Today we’ll explore the role of Wind Energy with Andy Wang & Shubhi Goel.

Welcome Andy and Shubhi!

Andy and Shubhi: Thanks Jim

Jim: Thank you for sharing your background. Let’s jump into this. Shubhi I’m going to pick on you first for a little bit on the trends and developments. Why is Wind energy important for the sustainability-driven transformation of the energy sector?

Shubhi: Wind power is one of a popular sustainable renewable energy source. You WILL agree that at this moment, we are consuming a lot of natural resources that isn’t sustainable and this is leading to environmental issues, such as greenhouse emissions, pollution, and climate change… AND all of these is actually causing harm to the environment, wildlife and humans.

But the Good news is that people have started realizing that we need to become more sustainable to protect the Earth for future generations. Also, we can see countries, Governments, businesses, corporations around the world who have also begun to realize the same need for developing Renewable resources to help reduce emissions… AND Yes, There is a clear understanding on the role of wind energy in the whole Decarbonization movement.

Within Renewable Energy, Wind has a great role to play. Wind power generation is considered one of the most attractive energy sources when it comes to alleviating Climate changes and the need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions concerns. I can say Wind power is not just doing its part in reducing carbon emissions, it is doing so at an impressive rate.

Also, with Wind Energy if used along with Solar in Hybrid projects combined with efficient storage can improve the Plant Load factor and also improve Plant efficiencies. In addition to this Wind Energy will have critical role to play in growth of green hydrogen and green ammonia. So, Yes, Wind energy is definitely enabling the transition to clean energy, Green Future and is poised at the cusp of unprecedented opportunities…

Jim: That’s an interesting point about hydrogen and ammonia in the context of energy storage. What are the latest trends, and new patterns in the Asia-Pacific Wind Energy Market that are influencing the sustainability-driven transformation of the energy sector?

Shubhi: At present Asia accounts for almost half of global energy demand. According to the bp Statistical Review of World Energy 2021 data: with increasing demand Asia has the highest emissions overtaking historical emitters: North America and Europe.

A host of countries in Asia like China, Korea, and India have recently announced major commitments to significantly cut their carbon emissions, promising to reach “net zero” in the coming years… And if we see Wind is shaping a forward Path playing a Vital role in this mission at Asia.

Let me share some of the data around wind energy based on market surveys conducted in year 2021 -22:

Jim: That’s nice to know about wind energy Growth in this region.

Shubhi: Yes, Jim…in Asia Pacific, the intention and purpose have reached a handshake, and transformation in Wind Sector is inevitable. Even GWEC Market Intelligence expects ~more than 110 GW of new Wind installations each year and out of which ~70GW is projected to be added annually in Asia itself until 2026.

Jim: Can you share which are the Enablers/Growth Contributors necessary to support the scale-up of Wind in the Asia-Pacific region?

Shubhi: Let me first cover the Enablers or as you rightly said Growth Contributors to support the scale-up of Wind Energy in Asia:

Jim: Shubhi, India is another country that is quite active on the wind energy front. What policies have they established?

Shubhi: Sure Jim. As said earlier climate action is gaining momentum worldwide and I must say India is at the forefront of this transition and strongly committed to the Wind energy growth.

Jim: Andy, now let me turn to you. Could you tell us a bit about Emerson’s approach to Renewable Energy and especially the Wind Market?

Andy: There’s several approaches into renewables. Your immediate thought may take you to controls on new and retrofits. While we have a great solution for controlling wind, solar, and batteries, what we find is that often the first discussion with owners/operators of PV and Wind sites revolves around a common renewable SCADA that can be used across all renewables and all models of turbines. There are several SCADA companies out there, but often focus on one type of renewable or don’t have good interfaces to the assets. The other thing is, those same companies may not have a good control product to complete the solution.

Jim: That makes sense that more often than not, there is a mix of energy sources that benefit from common SCADA and control systems. Andy, can you share with us more about Emerson’s Wind Turbine Solutions and the value this acquisition brings to Wind consumers?

Andy: Mita-Teknik has nearly everything for wind. Turbine control, pitch control, SCADA, and most importantly, engineering skills that know the industry and the application. They can customize solutions to improve AEP or hardware life. It makes them unique in comparison to our competitors. We expect to be able to combine their products and skills with our global sales and project engineering to reach much farther than they dreamed possible. The potential is very exciting. Let me add that similar to our fossil customers, renewable owners/operators value aftermarket support. We have been learning that they haven’t been getting what they expect from OEMs and PPC providers. Emerson is known in the industry for this and I think it will be a differentiator for us in this market.

Limited access to data generated by the wind turbine generator (WTG) / Little insight into operational data / Elongated wait times for service/response from OEMs for troubleshooting are common challenges for Wind Operators and Plant Owners.

Jim: How does Emerson’s Wind SCADA Solutions help to increase operational visibility, flexibility and performance with OEM-Independent asset management solutions?

Andy: A typical Wind OEM only permits the owner to access a limited subset of the data usually through an OPC output from their SCADA server. This might be 30-40 values, where the unit might actually have 1000s of data points the OEM can see and use for themselves. It’s like the difference between the Engine Light on your car dash coming on telling you the problem versus getting the exact fault itself and all the underlying issues that created the event. The access we provide empowers the owner to truly own their data and make use of it. MiScout can directly interface to over 750 wind turbine models using native, proprietary protocols. With it, owners can not only operate and monitor their units, but access the data to perform more diagnostics or understand failure modes in more detail. MiScout has tools that allow an owner to analyze the data. Now, some owners have LTSAs with the OEMs or extended warranties where the OEM supplies the SCADA and provides services through it. MiScout can be independently installed in parallel with the OEM SCADA allowing the owner to get that data and not impact their OEM agreement.

Jim: Retrofits offer a large opportunity for end-to-end monitoring & control providers (controller, SCADA, CMS, performance monitoring, protocols, communications, support, trading, reports, etc.) Can you share more insights on Emerson Wind Solutions aimed at streamlining retrofit projects and optimizing repowering costs that will hold a notable market advantage?

Andy: Mita has done a tremendous job of simplifying control replacements. From a logic standpoint, they have libraries of proven operating logic to draw from and simply customize the parameters when going to install. From a hardware perspective, they create kits that can quickly replace the legacy system in less than a day. They often install the first kit, and the rest either the customer or a third-party installs. From order to install usually takes only 3 months. For units they have not yet developed, they have the engineering talent to develop retrofit solutions. We are doing that today on GE SLE units, the largest fleet in the US. The prototype was installed earlier this year and in May we are installing the remaining units.

Emerson’s strategy is to be ahead of the changes happening in the industry and to be the go-to automation partner for delivering power-to-X, single resource, and hybrid solutions that provide more value to Renewable customers.

Jim: How do you see this as a growth opportunity and are we able to support our customers to incorporate wind /solar hybrid projects combined with energy storage in the new hybrid renewable energy mix—for example, Wind/Solar Hybrid with Green Hydrogen?

Andy: Consider that there are a lot of similarities between Solar PV and Wind. The real value to the customer is not always at the site level, but at the remote operations center where the data is leveraged to make operating decisions. A unit out of service or a failed inverter rarely draws a fast action response from the owner as a boiler feed pump failure would in the thermal world. Instead, they quantify the failures or impending failures and then address in batches of maintenance. Another way to look at it is, renewable companies try and keep their “truck rolls” down. Most sites are remote, so driving 300km to a site to return a 1MW inverter to service impromptu is probably not worth it. Just as important, when that “truck rolls” to site, the owner needs to know what to put on that truck (parts) to fix the problem on that one dispatch.

Jim: What’s different about renewable SCADA versus just an HMI?

Andy: HMIs were originally developed around the process world where operators are sitting in front of them 24/7 and actively changing settings, turning pumps, opening valves, recovering from upsets, and all of that. They are not necessarily looking at KPIs or making cost-based decisions. Whereas in Renewables, there’s not a lot of operation going on. It’s a lot of monitoring and occasionally troubleshooting issues. You will often see the control room empty or no control room at all, where operators respond to text messages when something needs to be addressed. But touching on that other point, cost-based decisions and KPIs are a huge component of what SCADA and by extension, APM, provide to the owner/operators. The data from the field, combined with the market, weather, and other information empower them to make decisions to best use their assets. As an example, on a low-dollar day, a wind operator may choose not to dispatch their units and subject them to wear & tear.

Jim: That’s an interesting distinction between the two, thanks for that. Let’s wrap up this podcast by asking you to share with our listeners where they can go to learn more.

Andy: So Jim, you can go to Renewable Power on Emerson.com including a link to the Mita-Teknik site.

Jim: I hope our listeners learned as much as I did in this podcast and make sure you check out other ones in our Asia-Pacific Sustainability & Decarbonization podcast series. Also, we have a link to the Asia-Pacific Sustainability & Decarbonization experts in your country for more. Bye for now!

Companies across the globe are increasingly focusing their efforts on more sustainable environmental performance. This includes increasing energy efficiency, reducing waste, lowering emissions and working across supply chains to help others to do the same. Emerson is deeply committed to sustainability as reflected in our global purpose:

We drive innovation that makes the world healthier, safer, smarter and more sustainable.

In this podcast, Emerson Chief Sustainability Officer Mike Train joins me to discuss Emerson’s “Greening Of, Greening By and Greening With” sustainability framework and the recently released 2021 ESG Report with firmly established net zero targets.

Give it a listen and visit the Sustainability section on Emerson.com and the Sustainability category here on the blog for more on ways to drive your sustainability initiative forward.

Jim: Hi, everyone. I’m Jim Cahill with another “Emerson Automation Experts” podcast. Today, I’m joined by Mike Train, Emerson’s first chief sustainability officer, to discuss Emerson’s sustainability initiatives and what we’re doing to help our customers. Welcome, Mike.

Mike: Great to be here, Jim. Pleasure and a privilege to join your podcast series.

Jim: Well, it’s a great day here in Austin for me too. You’ve had a variety of broad experiences within Emerson, how have these experiences set you up for your role as chief sustainability officer for Emerson?

Mike: You know, Jim, I’ve been with Emerson for more than 31 years, a lot of it in business leadership. I was in Asia Pacific for a couple of assignments. I led one of our big business units. I led our automation solutions platform, at one point in time. And then, most recently, I’d served as Emerson’s president. So, had a lot of business leadership, strategic kind of perspectives. And I’m finding that that area has been very useful in the context of being a chief sustainability officer. You know, I’ve got appreciation for our technologies. I’ve had a lot of experience with our customers. And, of course, a lot of discussions with our 86,000 employees. So, I feel like I’m perfectly suited to go into this space now, and provide some of that context. That’s really important.

Jim: Well, that is nice broad experience in that whole area. And I recently saw a statistic that there are, as of March 31st of last year, 95 chief sustainability officers in Fortune 500 companies. And this has grown from 29 a decade earlier. So, what drives companies to invest in this role, and programs a CSO is responsible for?

Mike: You know, I think we’ve seen environmental sustainability come to the forefront, especially in the last few years. I think investors have started asking a lot of questions about what does the future look like, climate science and how we deal with climate, and the net-zero commitments of the world by 2050 to make those things happen. So, I think from a company’s perspective, you know, there’s so many stakeholders now in the conversation that it’s become important for companies to put the focus on it, have leadership in that space. And again, I think you’re going to see more and more companies create this role to make sure that we’re driving these initiatives going forward.

Jim: Yeah, I would bet even by this time, next year, we’re going to see that number more than double. I just have a feeling about that.

Mike: I would agree with you on that.

Jim: So, what changes have you been able to make since coming into this role?

Mike: You know, for me, a few things, first of all, going full time in this space and spending every day on this space is really important. And there’s so many things to do, so many things to do, whether that’s the greening of Emerson working on our facilities and that type of thing, or being in the marketplace, talking about, you know, what does energy transition look like, maybe how do Emerson technologies and global reach help those perspectives? And then, of course, our employees are very passionate about this space. And it’s really been fun to sort of harness that passion and take advantage of that as well.

Jim: Well, that sounds like, even in the time you’ve been in there, that’s getting involved in a lot of activities. So, that’s a great thing. What are some common misconceptions you hear from people about the broad topics of sustainability and decarbonization?

Mike: You know, I think trying to get some facts in front of people is still a really important discussion. For those that have seen me present, sometimes I use a Sankey diagram of the U.S. energy system as a proxy for the world’s energy system, and try to teach what happens in that system, right? We put a lot of primary energy into the system, we do transformations in that system. We have a lot of losses in that system. And then, of course, we have the different use cases and what the relativity of those are from an energy and emissions perspective. So, I think trying to just bring some factual base for people, so they understand what that means. And then as we talk to energy transition and being net-zero, that’s a big mission to pull off in 30 years of time and trying to make that happen. And again, kind of bringing reality, if you want to call it that, to the discussion.

Jim: Yeah, that certainly is a tall order, not only for companies but countries, everyone else involved in doing that. Now, I’ve heard you speak about our Greening Of, Greening By, Greening With sustainability framework. Can you give our listeners a little bit of an overview of this framework?

Mike: Yeah. So, the greening of Emerson is the first element of that. The greening by Emerson is really our portfolio and our technologies enabling a lot of solutions for our customers. And then the greening with Emerson is really around collaborations that are required, and the focus on maybe innovation or policies, and those kinds of things, kind of that whole dialoguing process. But let me start with the greening of Emerson. That’s really our first and foremost responsibility. This is to take care of ourselves first, right? And make sure we build a solid contribution from the greening of Emerson aspect. So, for us, we’ve had an existing target around our carbon intensity reduction. We’ve had that for about three years. That’s been really helpful to motivate progress and focus with our employees on energy efficiency. We’ve started buying renewable electricity, trying to really to amplify what we can do in our own facilities.

And I think it’s been really helpful to sort of get sustainability, starting to be built into our culture, and bringing our employees to a level of awareness and a level of commitment. That’s very similar to other things we do, you know, ethics and all the other kinds of things, safety, all the other things we kind of do in our daily lives. So, it’s been really important. And it was Emerson’s first-ever long-range target. We didn’t have long-range financial targets. It was the first long-range target that we ever had. And it’s been useful in that context. So, that’s the greening of Emerson and the activities there.

The greening by Emerson, of course, is we have a tremendous sustainability portfolio. I’m trying to get people to see us that way. I think it’s really important that they understand that. We have two platforms, the Automation Solutions platform that you are familiar with and you share a lot about. But we also have the Commercial & Residential platform, which has Climate Technologies. It’s an automation stack similar to what we have on the automation solution side, but it’s on that compression, refrigeration, air conditioning, of course, heat pumps, as a form of electrification versus traditional combustion. It has remote monitoring, you know, it has a lot of the same kind of column automation elements in that commercial residential side of the business. So, across the spectrum of what we do, we touch so much, potentially touch and impact so much. So, the greening bike stuff I get really excited about.

And then the greening with Emerson, collaborations with universities, research institutions, government bodies. You know, in the U.S. context, we do a lot of work with the Department of Energy and the EU context. We spend a lot of time with the EU commission on what are the pathways forward, in some of these spaces, you know, methane, hydrogen, things of that ilk. We work with industry groups. And ultimately, we’re trying to have those dialogues to figure out those pathways, where actually make this change happen.

Jim: Yeah. I know from a blogging standpoint, I get to talk about so many of the technologies that can have such an impact, whether it’s energy efficiency, the material usage, being more efficient in that part of it. So, it’s exciting that greening with, but what we’re doing greening by and our work with universities. Yeah. That’s a good solid framework there. So, can you give some specific examples of each of these three areas that Emerson is leading or supporting? I know you already shared a couple things there, but anything specific?

Mike: Yeah. I’d say a couple of, you know, things I’m learning. You know, what’s fun about being a CSO that doesn’t have like a steep environmental background, right, I didn’t grow up in the environmental sciences space, is I get to be a rookie in this space. And, frankly, I use that to my advantage sometimes. But, you know, in the whole greening of activities, you know, I would say, the thing that’s helped spark a lot of our activities, what we call the energy treasure hunts. We have over 200 major facilities and about 700 facilities in total around the world. And we’ve asked our teams to go conduct an energy treasure hunt. We have a few experts that help go and help work through and guide some of those activities. But they’ve been amazing efforts. You know, typically, for us, at energy treasure hunt, we go in on a low production day, like a Sunday in the U.S. context.

Listen and learn, you find so many places where we’re just wasting energy, and people forget to turn off the monitors, and there’s lights on. We don’t have things on controls, and you hear hissing sounds, and you sort of get tuned into, “Oh my gosh, there’s a lot of energy going on in this building on a day when we don’t really need to have energy.” Then you go back on a high production day, again, you observe all the processes again, and then you prioritize, “Hey, there’s some things we can do here. Some of it’s low-hanging fruit. Some of it we need to make investments in.” But we’ve been coming out of those sessions with kind of a roadmap for about 15% reduction in our energy use in these facilities. And then, of course, then the teams will follow up and go to work on those things. And I think it’s engaged everybody in the organization. We’ve been helping figure out the hows, the how of all of this is really important. And I’d say, with the employee base, especially everybody’s for this topic, you know, sustainability is not a push topic. Everybody wants to is for it. Again, trying to bring in the tools so they can make progress is what we’re trying to do.

Jim: Yeah. If energy’s just being wasted for no use, then that makes complete sense. And from when you were describing, it almost sounded like cybersecurity or other things. You’re starting with an assessment, you’re looking, what’s the easy things to get done, prioritizing the other things. So, kind of a common process there, but really neat that we’re applying it to sustainability. I’d say, among Emerson customers, what are some of the challenges that you’re hearing from your peer chief sustainability officers?

Mike: You know, what’s been really fun about this job of, I have gotten the opportunity to go spend a lot of time with customers. They want to learn, and they’re open to ideas. And I think the one thing about the sustainability space, it’s not like a secret space. We can all learn from each other, we can share competitors, peers, customers, whoever. You know, for the most part, we’re all trying to figure this out, we’re all trying to learn, and proceed on this. So, I’ve been fortunate to have a lot of those kind of meetings, and discussions, and dialogues. And again, you know, we’ve had a little bit of experience now, especially in the last two years, about some of the things that we’ve learned. I love sharing those and giving those away.

We’ve been having summits with our suppliers to kind of bring them the whole topic, give them some tools. I’ve promised them I want to give every tool away to them. I want them to do treasure hunts. I want them to go stand up a culture of sustainability. You know, anything we learn, we want to share with them and vice versa. We learn from them a lot of things as well. So, I think from that regard, it’s been great. I’d say, the customers, specifically, you know, they’re looking for ways to reduce their emissions. I think a lot of their organizations have made commitments from the top is, you know, we need the tone from the top, obviously. But now that it’s kind of getting to the middles of the organizations like it, as at Emerson, people want those ideas, they want to know if they make an investment in something that they get a carbon, we’ll call it, return on investment. And again, having those discussions about what those ideas are. Some of this is experimentation, right? Trying some things and see what happens. I don’t think you can wait to have a perfect plan, I think you gotta get on the road and make some progress.

Jim: Yeah. It seems like if you can get that energy started and just build on that and build some momentum, and then the culture grows around it.

Mike: Yeah. And you get smarter through that process as well. You’re more tuned in, and then you learn more beyond that.

Jim: Yeah. Nothing like focus to get after that kind of thing. So, I was just reading the fresh-off-the-press ESG report, and I guess you own the E, environmental in ESG. I saw that we had achieved a 17% decrease in emission intensity since 2018. Now, you’ve shared a couple things we’ve done, but are there some other things we did to accomplish that?

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. I would say a couple of things in that regard. The first one is the energy efficiency activities, finding those opportunities, obviously making changes in what we’re doing. And, first and foremost, everybody should just try to have less energy need, right? That’s the most important thing. On top of that, then, of course, we’ve started to buy renewable electricity and some other things that also have an emissions profile to them. And I’d say, in the last year, we’ve gotten a little bit aggressive around that. And we’ve made good progress in Europe. We’ve made good progress in the United States. I still gotta go figure out how to do that in China. We’re having discussions right now on that. I still gotta go figure out how to do that in Mexico. But we have that in focus, and we’re going to work on those things. So, I think those are some of the places where we’ve gotten that progress and that emissions intensity number that you talk to.

Jim: Well, that’s great that we’ve got a rolling start in building momentum because, also, in that report, we have a goal, our net-zero greenhouse gas emissions, and that includes scopes 1, 2, and 3 by 2045 to get to net zero. And I guess that’s compared to last year at 2021 baseline. And I notice it with a science-based approach. In what way can we accomplish this? And what are some of the ways Emerson’s employees can pitch into this effort?

Mike: Yeah. As you indicate. So, we have announced, finally, I’ve been…you know, it’s one of those things where you’re working on it and you want to expose it, but you can’t expose it. Finally, we got to expose it, right? So, we do have a science aligned, and actually a near-term set of targets that have been approved by the Science Based Targets initiative, which is a group that evaluates your plan and tests whether it’ll meet the needs of the climate science to get to net-zero world by 2050, right? There’s kind of a reduction rate that you need to achieve that. So, we did announce that we will have a net-zero by 2045 across all the scopes. And just for your listeners’ benefit, a scope1 is a combustion in your facility, a scope 2 is the electricity that you use in your facility. So, those scope 1 and 2 things, consider those your four walls. And that’s what we’ve been working on with that carbon intensity reduction that we already focused on.

Scope 3 now goes beyond our walls, right? It lives upstream of us. So, our supply chain activities, the logistics to move things, our employees commuting to the office, our business travel. Those are all kind of scope 3 upstream things that we can influence. Downstream, we have some products that need energy to perform the role, right? And those have associated emissions. And we have a shared responsibility with the ultimate customers in those emissions downstream of us. So, across that scope 1, 2, and 3, by 2045, we’ve committed to try to get there in net-zero. And what’s interesting about the Science Based Targets initiative, in their world of net-zero, that means you reduce absolute emissions by 90% plus. And then they allow for that last 8% to 10% or whatever the number is to be something where you could have some kind of a neutralization activity. They’re science-based, but they’re very ambitious, they’re very aggressive. And, you know, as an engineering company, we wanted to spend some time and really think about the depth of how we’re going to do that. So, it took us a little longer to come to the world with these, but I think we feel very prepared now as we go forward.

Jim: Yeah. It sounds like some solid key performance indicators that we can use and like to drive our results to get there on the path.

Mike: You know, the fun part about that is a lot of the solutions we’re working with our customers on, we will use in our own scope 3, call it context, right? As we help our suppliers decarbonize because they could trial some hydrogen, they can electrify some things. The same things we’re talking about with our portfolio will be the solutions that we’ll see, in both the scope 3 upstream and the scope 3 downstream. So, I think, for us, maybe versus a lot of other companies out there in the world, we actually kind of see the roadmap for how to get there.

Jim: Yeah. And we can see really how to help a lot of people across our supply chain with the things that we can help them do, which is really a great thing. Now, the ESG report highlights some technologies that help our customers drive sustainability improvements. Can you highlight a couple of examples?

Mike: Yeah. You know, as we think about energy transition broadly, right, all across that roadmap of production and use of energy, there’s going to be changes everywhere, right? A lot of solutions are going to be needed. We are obviously very involved across, I would say, every form of lower-carbon energy generation, whether that’s solar, wind, hydroelectric. I would put nuclear back into that equation. If you’re going to solve the mathematics around emissions, nuclear’s going to have to help step up a little bit, I think, and perform in that space as well. So, Emerson gets to touch all of that. We touch it with all of the automation capabilities we have, and we work closely with customers on that. So, in that sense, all the energy going into the system we touch, think about moving electrons around or moving molecules around. And Emerson portfolio is used extensively in both of those distribution of electricity, as well as the distribution of energy, running through pipes and terminals and those kinds of things. So, a lot of activity there.

Emissions management, big space. You know, a lot of our customers want to manage their emissions better, which, of course, everybody’s for that. We give them a lot of capabilities and technologies for that. The thing about carbon capture is kind of that next item that’s going to be utilized in that space. Again, we enable carbon capture and sequestration. And in my mind, that’s still going to be one of the real ways that we actually remove carbon out of the atmosphere and get stuff back below the crust of the earth, where it belongs. Heat pumps and electrification, big category against, I don’t have to use combustion, use electricity. It’s same as an EV, right? You have an electrified process. Now, you go back to the back sources of electricity, and you can work on those kinds of things. And I’ll say, the biggest one is still energy efficiency. Only about one-third of the energy we put into the system actually does things we want it to do. And we lose two-thirds of it, because, you know, the heat leaks through the windows, and we put the brakes in the car, and food gets wasted, and there’s lots of conversions. If we could just crank the energy efficiency up a few percentage points, it would make a big difference in the world. So, lots of opportunities and lots of solutions.

Jim: Yeah. And the neat thing is, as technologies advance, things like being able to add wireless measurements so you can track it better and then drive it better in there that there’s so much more that people have at their disposal than they did when they just had enough to keep the plant operating reliably, safely.

Mike: Totally agree with that. And bringing those insights to people, right? They want those insights.

Jim: Exactly. So, how can we leverage knowledge and experience from digital transformation in sustainability initiatives?

Mike: I think they go one and the same together. Using digital means, again, you’ve mentioned sensing, for example, a lot more sensing points. We can gain a lot more understanding of what’s going on. We can then kind of use that for better control, tighter control, better control. Obviously, we’re involved around control systems at all kinds of sizes and spaces and those kinds of things. And then using analytics, right? Digital transformation. A lot of what you can do there is kind of, again, using analytics to get more insights and give that information back to the users in those, let’s call them those organizations so that they can each perform the roles better as we look forward. So, the digital transformation space enables, I think, every one of these sustainability solutions that we’re talking to.

Jim: Yeah, it’s kind of, like, you can’t have one without the other really, it comes together. And that’s what’s able to drive these initiatives forward. Now, I’ve had you in the hot seat for quite a while here. Let’s just wind it all down. And if you could deliver one key message for our viewers and listeners here, what would that be for their sustainability initiatives?

Mike: One is so tough. You’re so tough. I knew there was a reason why I hadn’t been on this podcast yet. You’re so tough. Let me summarize just a few points. One is I think be focused on building the culture of sustainability in your organization, right? Everybody’s got their own starting points. Get on that road, have some urgency to making that happen. The tone at the top is important. But I know, from all of my worldly experience from the past, the middle of the organization is what matters. There’s a lot of reflex. There’s a lot of muscle there. The middle of the organizations know what success has looked like in the past. We gotta use that muscle somehow to get success and sustainability. So, again, I think making it urgent, having KPIs, having focus on it. You know, a lot of people debate, should we have targets? Should we…? Because what if we don’t reach them? Well, I don’t think we get anywhere close to them unless we don’t have the target.

So, establishing some targets with a pathway towards them, I think is a big step in the process. And then getting on the road to the future. I don’t think it can wait for perfect solutions. I think we’re going to use everything that’s being discussed out there, in some forms, we’re going to have EVs, but we’re going to have some hydrogen-powered vehicles too, either because of the battery dimensions, because of the nature of things, maybe transportation will look different. Different forms of transportation are going to need different solutions. Getting hydrogen available now. A lot of people get into the colors of the rainbow discussion around hydrogen. We need hydrogen available now to support the use cases so we can decide if the use cases are going to be on the roadmaps. So, getting on the road, getting committed, get your first levels of progress, and driving this into the culture of your company, I think, is the way to go.

Jim: It’s interesting what you said, you know, hydrogen today and the different ways they’re getting it and you got battery technology. So, some of this is we’ll just see how it emerges over time. But if everyone gets on it going down, you know, if one turns out better than the other, that’s where we’ll go with it.

Mike: Yeah. Go and adapt and move forward, right?

Jim: Whatever it is in there. Is there anything that I didn’t ask you that I should have asked you about any of the things we are doing, or our customers are doing, or anything else?

Mike: You know, I would say that I like to bring it back to our employees a lot. Our employees, and generally, everybody’s employees, right? The talent of the world right now, this sustainability issue, especially I’ll use the word younger since I’m not so much anymore. I mean, I have a runway, I still have a runway.

Jim: You and me both.

Mike: You know, they’re passionate about this topic. And they want to make a difference. And we need that talent to come to these critical industries to make the change happen, right? So, we gotta make sure that, that they hear us, they see the opportunities to come and make an impact. So, that future talent, or that next talent, or unleashing the talent, however you want to view it, is really critical in this space. And we gotta keep enabling that. And, you know, for us, we have some targets. Now, I need to get out of the way and let people go. If they don’t get the opportunity to make a change, they’ll get frustrated. And we gotta trust that we’re going to make those changes, and we gotta let people go and go after it.

Jim: Yeah. I’m so glad you brought up the people side of it, because that is such a critical element, especially the people with enthusiasm and energy as they’re coming up through it, because they’re the ones driving it and they’re the ones that are going to be there as we’re getting closer to 2045, 2050 and driving this forward. Well, I want to thank you so much for joining us today, Mike, this has been a real pleasure.

Mike: Jim, great to be with your group here. Love being on your podcast. And again, we have a lot of work to do, collectively, as we look forward. So, I’m really looking forward to it.

Jim: And I want to thank everyone for listening, and look for other podcasts in our series.

-end of transcript-

Moving from combustion-based energy to renewable energy is one of several decarbonization strategies. An example is a move from internal combustion engine vehicles to battery and fuel cell-powered vehicles.

In this episode in our continuing Asia-Pacific Sustainability & Decarbonization podcast series, Emerson’s Ryo Hashimoto joined me to discuss the electrification trend and battery developments as an energy storage solution.

Visit the Sustainability & Decarbonization section on Emerson.com or connect with a local expert in your country in the Asia-Pacific region.

Jim: Hi everyone. This is Jim Cahill with another “Emerson Automation Experts” podcast. We continue our Asia-Pacific Sustainability & Decarbonization podcast series with a closer look at Electrification especially for batteries as an energy storage solution and its growing importance for the Net Zero Emission goal in this region. I am joined today by Emerson’s Ryo Hashimoto to discuss Electrification. Welcome, Ryo!

Ryo: Hi Jim. Thanks for having me on the podcast.

Jim: Ryo it’s great to have you here with us. Let’s begin by asking you to share your background and path to your current role with our listeners.

Ryo: Thanks Jim. Well, I joined Emerson in Japan in 2004 and having several roles such as strategic planner, Marketing, and Business development.

Jim: Thanks for sharing your background, Ryo! What are some ways battery usage has advanced?

Ryo:

Jim: In sustainability and decarbonization, the demand for batteries is discussed a lot these days. Can you elaborate what are the main drivers for battery usage in the energy mix?

Ryo: As I mentioned, there are two major sources that driving the battery demand.

Jim: So what is actually required for battery capacity in 2030 and what is the current deployed capacity? And, how much is needed to ramp up battery production capacity?

Ryo:

Jim: Wow, that’s quite an increase required! Can the battery industry meet the demand for the 2nd scenario? If not, what can be done?

Ryo:

Jim: What are some technical trends in the Battery market?

Ryo: As I mentioned at the beginning, Lithium Ion Batteries are there for more than decades but the technology is continuously improving. Currently what we are seeing is 3 major trends.

Jim: What are some challenges in the Battery market?

Ryo: There are several challenges in the market, but I like to pick up one of them.

Jim: Demand for metal components in Lithium Ion Batteries is one of the challenges. How about battery price? For road transportation electrification, the cost is inevitably a concern area.

Ryo:

Jim: What are some ways these challenges can be addressed?

Ryo: There are several points to mention here but the interest of time I just want to mention 1 or 2 here.

Jim: And finally, where can our listeners go to learn more?

Ryo: Visit our sustainability & decarbonization webpage to learn more solutions for batteries and other decarbonization technologies. Also, see the contact details of the Emerson Sustainability & Decarbonization expert for your respective countries here in Asia Pacific.