Canadian Transit “Assume” Tank Presenting Fluff & Denials To Mississauga Council

Join every day information updates from CleanTechnica on e-mail. Or comply with us on Google Information!

Over a few the final months of 2024, a part of my time was spent trying on the weird scenario of the Canadian City Transit Analysis and Innovation Consortium (CUTRIC). That’s resurfaced, because the Mississauga hydrogen bus trial goes ahead regardless of having zero benefit, and CUTRIC’s founder and head Josipa Petrunic is presenting to metropolis council February fifth. Among the many just about information-free contents of the 26-slide presentation is a ‘refutation’ of factors that Michael Raynor and I’ve made, particularly his presentation to Council final yr.

Metropolis councillors must be asking themselves and CUTRIC the next questions:

1. Why are they participating with a sole sourced advisory company that’s recommending sole-sourced hydrogen buses offered by one in all its Board members?
2. How a lot will the true value of hydrogen as a gasoline be?
3. How dependable will the provision of hydrogen be?
4. How dependable will the hydrogen buses be in comparison with battery-electric and diesel?
5. Can comparable warranties and repair plans be procured for hydrogen buses as for diesel and battery-electric buses?
6. What’s going to they be taught from this pilot that may’t be discovered from speaking to the 21 transit companies that trialed hydrogen buses and deserted them for electrical buses?
7. What certainty have they got of continued provide and servicing of gasoline cells from Ballard given its monetary issues?
8. What certainty have they got of continued provide and repair of gasoline cell buses from New Flyer given its monetary challenges and the failure of comparable corporations which tried to do each battery-electric and hydrogen heavy autos?
9. Given the dearth of reliability of hydrogen provide, hydrogen refueling, and hydrogen buses, what’s going to the influence on service ranges for residents and precise prices?
10. Does CUTRIC have adequate workers of adequate expertise and training to supply helpful steerage on transit decarbonization?
11. Most significantly, will hydrogen buses be remotely low-carbon, the whole level of the train.

Based mostly on the next evaluation of CUTRIC’s virtually content-free, 26-slide presentation deck for a ten minute deputation, the council ought to cancel the deputation and inform CUTRIC to return to the drafting board and produce again a substantive standing report with schedule, prices, points and dangers as a substitute of a gross sales pitch for CUTRIC, a historical past lesson, and a bunch of denial of issues with their modeling and information.

The Issues With CUTRIC

As a reminder of the challenges, CUTRIC is utilizing inaccurate data and flawed modeling to push hydrogen buses into transit companies throughout Canada. Additional, it’s the one accepted group to get 80% of the prices of its ‘research’ funded by Canada’s Zero Emissions Transit Fund. No truly competent agency can compete, so no transit group in Canada is getting good steerage.

On the time I used to be digging into this, their Board of Administrators and membership had deep conflicts of curiosity. Enbridge was on the Board and is pushing onerous for hydrogen as an power provider, because it will get zero income from battery-electric options. Ballard Energy was on the Board and pushing onerous for hydrogen for power as a result of it solely sells gasoline cells for hydrogen, and would get zero income from battery-electric options. New Flyer was on the Board and was pushing onerous for hydrogen as it’s the solely accepted vendor of hydrogen buses in Canada, so could be sole-sourced for them, and in addition receives extra per hydrogen bus.

The membership checklist is equally problematic. The three corporations listed pay the best membership charges of any class, and are joined by two extra pure fuel corporations, Fortis BC and Fortis Alberta, which as soon as once more get nothing if battery-electric buses are chosen.

Sole-sourcing studies resulting in sole-sourcing procurements with a Board and membership with deep conflicts of curiosity stinks in and of itself and is clearly resulting in deeply skewed outcomes.

For instance, Brampton paid 20% of a $15 million price ticket to CUTRIC and their sub-contractor Deloitte to get a report that jammed 400 hydrogen buses right into a blended fleet. Canada’s Zero Emissions Transit Fund paid the opposite 80%, $12 million, which suggests Canadian taxpayers paid for the hassle. Raynor and I recognized $1.5 billion in errors and deliberately skewed modeling in a $9 billion value estimate to assist the pretense {that a} blended fleet could be the most cost effective.

• $1.1 billion for modeling that pushed hydrogen bus acquisition out thus far in time that discounting as a result of inflation lowered their prices by 40%
• $200 million further for grey hydrogen prices which can be according to actual world actuals for trucked-in hydrogen
• $100 million much less for alternative of batteries in battery-electric buses as batteries in actual world fleets are lasting for much longer than projected and prices within the 2030s will drop considerably
• $25 million further in prices for hydrogen gasoline cell replacements as they’re lasting solely 3 years in actual world fleets
• $25 million further for carbon pricing for grey hydrogen which was solely excluded from the fee case by CUTRIC
• $10 million further for hydrogen storage and refueling services as CUTRIC had low-balled that value based mostly on international information, ignoring the prices of the hydrogen liquification elements they’d included.

All of this was documented in excruciating element with references to international information units, governmental studies, peer reviewed publications, and the like within the collection of articles I revealed final yr. CUTRIC and Deloitte’s report was actually indefensible.

CUTRIC’s conflicts of curiosity prevented it from fixing the deep errors within the report, fixing its personal governance, and dealing to be a helpful member of Canada’s transit group. As a substitute, Petrunic employed a social media PR company which she seems to have fired after they informed her that what she wished them to do was a nasty thought, and as a substitute revealed a prolonged and dyspeptic put up on LinkedIn doubling down inaccuracy, defending CUTRIC’s flawed modeling and including a wholesome dose of vitriol and advert hominem.

CUTRIC’s Standing Report Is Content material-Free

So now Petrunic is displaying up in entrance of Mississauga’s council to spend 5 minutes offering a technical replace on the meritless hydrogen bus trial she talked them into over the previous few years and 5 minutes on “Misinformation Clarification.” The slides are a delight.

The primary couple are about CUTRIC, naturally, as that’s clearly what the councillors are considering. Oh, wait, that’s what Petrunic is considering, not her viewers. The third is a timeline of CUTRIC’s eight years of pushing for the hydrogen trial, together with a minimum of one funded feasibility research.

The fourth is a slide concerning the eight years of wasted time, cash, and expertise costing hundreds of thousands in direct expenditures and cash which have led to 2025.

The fifth is feasibility research previous and future and who’s paying for them. Thus far, it’s a prolonged historical past lesson and on condition that Petrunic solely has 5 minutes on the agenda for this, she’s undoubtedly going to expire of time earlier than telling the councillors something of worth.

Lastly, on web page six there’s a ‘standing’ report.

I’ve run a whole lot of main packages and developed and delivered a whole lot of standing studies on multi-year initiatives with as much as billion greenback value tags. This is among the most content-free standing studies I’ve ever seen. That is alleged to be a technical replace, however there’s precisely zero know-how and nil element, simply claims to have efficiently achieved all targets.

program standing report features a ahead projected schedule, which this doesn’t have. It contains ahead value projections, which this standing report doesn’t have and is sorely missing. It contains a difficulty register articulating points recognized and overcome and excellent points, which this report lacks. It features a threat register of threat sorted by magnitude and together with mitigations, which is totally absent from this report.

A helpful program standing report would have a slide for every of the six bullets on this single slide, in addition to a schedule slide that extends past 2024, a price issues slide, an points slide, and a dangers slide, presumably with the most important dangers having a slide of their very own.

The final slide within the part is on protection, with a small handful of articles and displays, and understandably excludes something revealed in CleanTechnica.

This can be a gross sales pitch for the Mississauga hydrogen bus trial that excludes something which may give councillors both helpful data or perception and presents a possible inaccurate image that all the things is rosy.

The Issues With Hydrogen Being Low Carbon

As a be aware on the inexperienced hydrogen provide, that’s being procured from Enbridge — as soon as once more the identical Enbridge paying the best membership charges to CUTRIC and on the Board of the group — from a small electrolyzer that Enbridge in-built Markham, 60 kilometers away from Mississauga’s transit depot. That 2.5 MW electrolyzer has a capability of manufacturing as much as 1,000 kg of hydrogen a day. It’s alleged to be a utility-scale power-to-gas facility, turning Ontario’s pretty low carbon electrical energy into loads much less power within the type of hydrogen and mixing it with pure fuel to decarbonize its product.

Let’s put that in context to make it clear that that is extra greenwashing, similar to Enbridge’s now 14 years of pushing renewable pure fuel that makes up solely 1% of its transmission and distribution volumes. A thousand kilograms of hydrogen has 142 gigajoules of power, so this equates to 52,000 gigajoules yearly, assuming the electrolyzer and different tools is in operation as a lot as is meant (a nasty assumption with hydrogen). Enbridge distributes 2,300,000,000 gigajoules of pure fuel in Ontario yearly, so in the perfect case, that is 0.002% of the gigajoules delivered, much more of a rounding error than renewable pure fuel.

It’s value noting that hydrogen has a a lot decrease density than pure fuel, so the blended hydrogen delivers much less power per billion cubic ft than pure fuel does, which means that even at 20% mixing charges — which that is orders of magnitude away from — solely 7% decarbonization of power happens.

The Mississauga pilot intends to make use of a number of the hydrogen from that facility, which brings up a couple of factors. The primary is that per its paperwork it requires 30 kilograms of hydrogen per bus per day and is planning to function 10 hydrogen buses. Which means 300 kilograms of hydrogen a day, or 30% of the overall most output of the Enbridge facility. Which means Enbridge goes to scale back the homeopathic dilutions of hydrogen within the pure fuel community even additional.

The second is the greenhouse fuel depth well-to-wheel of the hydrogen buses. The hydrogen is being generated intermittently when there may be surplus electrical energy in Ontario, which given its grid means at evening when its nuclear vegetation want one thing to do. That’s certainly low-carbon electrical energy, and it’s low cost electrical energy as nicely, given Ontario just about needing to provide it away to keep away from surplus baseload era expenses from neighboring jurisdictions, one thing that’s been plaguing the province for a few many years given it has too excessive a ratio of electrical energy from rigid nuclear era.

The 60 km distance turns into an element. The one option to get the hydrogen to the transit depot is with a hydrogen tube truck. Relying on the design of the refueling facility — unspoken and significant — a truck would possibly be capable to carry 280 to 380 kilograms of hydrogen. Calling that adequate for the needs is affordable, so about one Class 8 semi truck a day will go away Markham for Mississauga and return for a 120 km spherical journey.

Given freeway speeds and a diesel drivetrain, that’s 0.15 tons of carbon dioxide or equal for transporting the hydrogen. Given the choice of ten diesel buses touring 300 km a day and emitting round 0.3 tons of CO2e per day every, that’s not unreasonable. Sooner or later, the semi could possibly be electrical, so this could possibly be eradicated.

Nevertheless, there’s one other facet of greenhouse fuel emissions and hydrogen. It’s a potent greenhouse fuel and it leaks. Reviews from governmental companies and from peer reviewed journals which have measured leakage discover that small electrolysis services like Enbridge’s leak 2% to 10% per day earlier than remediation, and after remediation nonetheless leak 2% to 4%. As hydrogen is the smallest molecule within the universe and have to be transported at pressures equal to three to 7 kilometers underneath the floor of the ocean or at temperatures 290° colder than room temperature in liquid kind, each time it’s dealt with 1% or extra leaks. Additional, testing in South Korea of hydrogen buses after a refueling station explosion final yr, and automobiles throughout common testing, discovered 15% of the autos have been leaking hydrogen.

The mixture means 5% to 10% of the hydrogen Enbridge manufactures in its Markham facility is prone to leak throughout the a number of contact factors inherent in pumping it into tube vehicles, pumping it into refueling services in Mississauga, pumping it into buses, after which working the buses.

If hydrogen weren’t a greenhouse fuel, this is able to be merely a problematic financial difficulty and an much more problematic security difficulty, however it’s. That it might intrude with the breakdown of the potent greenhouse fuel methane — the first part in pure fuel — was recognized in 2000. The primary quantification was revealed in 2021 and an improved one by a world group of researchers was revealed in Nature in 2023.

Hydrogen is 12 to 37 occasions as potent a greenhouse fuel as carbon dioxide over 100 years and the extra related 20 years, respectively. All hydrogen that leaks will trigger 37 occasions as a lot warming for a few many years after it’s leaked than carbon dioxide.

300 kilograms of hydrogen a day leaking 5% would end in one other 0.5 tons of CO2e per day, 60% of a single diesel bus’ emissions. At 10%, that’s a ton a day, as a lot as three diesel buses.

This isn’t topic to raised engineering due to the pressures concerned and the tininess of the molecule. The most important part that fails in hydrogen options are seals on compressors, because of the requirement for very tight mechanical tolerances, excessive and altering pressures, and thermal degradation because the fuel is compressed and uncompressed, inflicting important temperature adjustments.

Operational Dangers & Points With Hydrogen Buses

Enbridge has launched no public information on the operational uptime of its Energy to Gasoline facility, however the historical past of small hydrogen services is a historical past of normal downtime. Quebec’s equally costed hydrogen electrolysis and refueling facility in Quebec was out of service for a full third of the hours within the 4 years of the now deserted hydrogen automobile trial, about 500 days in all. South Korea noticed its hydrogen refueling stations out of service for 1,100 cumulative days over two years. California’s hydrogen refueling stations, within the six months of highest use earlier than they stopped reporting utilization and upkeep information, have been out of service for 20% extra hours than they have been truly pumping hydrogen.

Operational prices for small hydrogen services are including loads to the price of hydrogen, between the dearth of provides of hydrogen endemic globally to the 15% to 30% value of capital for annual upkeep of the services. Enbridge is probably going experiencing these prices, and at $5.2 million for the power, that’s $0.8 to $1.6 million a yr, including one other $2 to $4 to its prices of producing and delivering hydrogen.

Actual world expertise with small electrolysis stations finds that not solely are they sources of hydrogen leakage, they’re much much less environment friendly than the hypothetical numbers revealed. Reviews are displaying 50% extra to double the electrical energy required per kilogram of hydrogen, which impacts all value instances considerably.

Mississauga is meaning to enter right into a gasoline as a service contract with Enbridge, one thing Enbridge has been pushing for onerous as it’s dealing with the existential menace of electrification that may make its total enterprise mannequin out of date. No matter the price of manufacturing the hydrogen, trucking it, and sustaining the refueling infrastructure is, Enbridge might be going to value it under a worthwhile level for ‘trials’ as a result of they need to get transit companies hooked on it.

The capital value of the trial, by the best way, is predicted to be within the $40 million vary per metropolis paperwork, however with Canada’s Zero Emission Transit Fund footing 50% of the invoice. Word that as hydrogen isn’t and might’t be zero emissions, Canada shouldn’t truly be paying for it.

Regardless, Mississauga will find yourself paying for the true prices of sustaining the hydrogen buses — 50% higher prices for upkeep per California’s bus fleet reported outcomes — and finally the true value of hydrogen, which can stay costly to fabricate, distribute, and pump.

The Misinformation Non-Clarification

And so to the “Misinformation Clarification.” In case you anticipated CUTRIC to really present citations to worldwide research or any credible sources of their deck, you’ll be sadly disenchanted. That part entails 14 slides, but is predicted to be delivered in 5 minutes, a outstanding ratio of slides to time as the conventional ratio for speedy displays is a slide per minute and the conventional price is 3-5 minutes per slide.

Even so, the slides include virtually no substantive content material, and what little is there may be deceptive, misinformed, or just flawed. The primary 11 slides within the part repeat the claims they’re questioning and principally say “Incorrect” with precisely zero additional clarification or citations. Right here’s an instance.

Incorrect? Right here’s a reasonably full checklist of hydrogen bus trials over the previous 25 years. Word the placing consistency of attempting hydrogen and giving it up for battery electrical as a substitute.

1. Vancouver (1999): 3 buses had excessive capital and upkeep prices and trials have been ended.
2. Chicago (2000): 3 buses skilled excessive capital and upkeep prices, and three-hour refueling occasions so trials have been ended.
3. Ottawa (2000): Properly seemed on the failures in Chicago and Vancouver and mentioned, not us.
4. Perth (2004): BP put grey hydrogen into Daimler buses. Deserted with no hydrogen buses in Australia immediately.
5. Reykavik (2005): Ran 3 buses with EU cash for 4 years, then mothballed them when the cash ran out as they have been too costly.
6. Whistler (2010): 20 buses failed as a result of freezing water emissions and excessive upkeep prices; deserted in 2014.
7. São Paulo (2010): Trialed hydrogen and selected electrical.
8. Oslo (2013): Operated briefly earlier than switching to electrical buses, concentrating on full electrification in 2023.
9. San Remo (2014): Switched to electrical trolley buses, abandoning hydrogen.
10. Flanders (2014): Transitioned to electric-only technique.
11. Hamburg (2019): Returned 4 hydrogen buses, purchased 183 electrical.
12. Wiesbaden (2021): Returned 10 hydrogen buses as a result of infrastructure points.
13. London (2022): Hydrogen buses deemed too pricey and sophisticated in comparison with electrical in report, and couldn’t do all routes.
14. Liverpool (2022): Couldn’t run hydrogen buses as a result of lack of inexperienced hydrogen.
15. Montpelier (2022): Hydrogen bus six occasions costlier to function than electrical.
16. Pau, (2023): 6 hydrogen buses have been too costly and failure susceptible.
17. Vienna (2023): Canceled order as a result of hydrogen system provided didn’t meet necessities.
18. Bakersfield (2023): Hydrogen bus destroyed in a refueling fireplace. Additionally broken $3 million gasoline pump. California’s hydrogen bus fleet 50% dearer to take care of than diesel.
19. Palma de Mallorca (2023): Leaking refrigerant crippled 5 hydrogen buses.
20. South Tyrol (Ongoing): Hydrogen buses 2.3 occasions costlier than electrical.
21. Tarragona (2023): Deserted hydrogen procurement in favor of electrical buses.

What precisely is Mississauga transit going to be taught by trialing hydrogen itself that may’t be discovered by speaking to the virtually two dozen transit companies that attempted it and deserted it? 2.3 to six occasions dearer full lifecycle. Much less dependable. Hydrogen provide challenges. Refueling challenges.

Mississauga is about to be taught precisely the identical classes at nice expense.

It’s not value attempting to determine what CUTRIC means on any of those slides, as a result of they aren’t making any arguments with information and logics, simply denying issues.

Lastly on the finish of the deck there’s some information. One declare is that inexperienced hydrogen buses are decrease emissions than battery-electric buses, which is a outstanding assertion given the GHG work-ups above. The declare relies on a necessity for diesel heaters within the buses, which is true for New Flyer battery-electric buses as a result of they’re inferior. Main follow globally in chilly cities is higher insulation on buses, warmth pumps, and radiative electrical heaters. That’s what they use in Harbin within the north of China the place they’ve two-month lengthy ice sculpture festivals, for instance. The issues about vary are short-term as battery power density continues to climb as battery costs fall, so lengthy vary, heat, absolutely electrical buses will do the job simply wonderful, thanks very a lot.

The rationale why hydrogen buses don’t want them is that gasoline cells are inefficient and provides off warmth that comes from the pricey hydrogen. As a substitute of burning cheap diesel or working hyperefficient warmth pumps, hydrogen buses devour costly hydrogen, which is like warming your property with spirit lamps full of costly scotch.

You gained’t get insulated electrical buses with warmth pumps and radiative heaters from New Flyer as a result of it’s made the unhealthy strategic resolution to supply any drivetrain conceivable, driving up the price of its battery-electric buses with the spillover from hydrogen manufacturing prices and making inferior battery-electric buses as a result of they aren’t specializing in doing that. Principally it’s simply shoving batteries into the identical body that it places diesel engines or gasoline cells in as a substitute of constructing top quality and optimized electrical buses. You may get warmth pump buses from BYD.

My assertion is that for each hydrogen bus New Flyer sells in North America, it loses three battery-electric bus gross sales to corporations like BYD, with its manufacturing unit in California racking up lots of of models of battery-electric buses up to now couple of years. Quantron, a European truck producer, tried the New Flyer route, promoting each hydrogen and inferior battery-electric vehicles, and went out of enterprise, leaving IKEA Austria’s fleet of supply autos with no elements or servicing assist. New Flyer’s technique is main it on to the identical finish, following on its very important fiscal challenges of a few years in the past.

The deck can be inflating the complete lifecycle emissions of battery-electric buses as a result of its modeling continues to be caught previous to international expertise that electrical car batteries are lasting 40% or extra longer than predicted. CATL is delivering EV batteries immediately with million-mile or 1.6 million kilometer warranties, for much longer than the complete driving lifecycle of a battery-electric bus. On the identical be aware, CUTRIC is pretending that gasoline cells final for much longer than they really do, with international information on excessive obligation cycle heavy autos displaying 2-3 years earlier than important degradation. CUTRIC’s modeling pretends that gasoline cells and batteries have to get replaced in the identical variety of years, when that isn’t remotely true.

The EU’s finish of yr standing report for its hydrogen packages for 2023 pointed this out, indicating that whereas eight-year warranties and five-year full service plans have been accessible for battery-electric buses, solely 20-month warranties and plans have been accessible for hydrogen buses. Additionally they identified the entire failure of their gasoline cell longevity program, IMMORTAL.

In different phrases, as soon as once more CUTRIC is skewing the information towards hydrogen buses, in three other ways. First is by lowballing hydrogen greenhouse fuel emissions, second is by asserting the worst case battery lifespans, and third is by pretending that gasoline cells final so long as the prematurely truncated lifespans of batteries.

Then there’s a lithium-ion battery power density chart. It misses the purpose that it’s each power density and value per kWh that matter, pretending solely the density issues. It additionally misses the continued innovation in battery chemistry that’s seeing important will increase that will probably be commercialized for heavy autos within the coming years, together with CATL’s doubling of present lithium-ion power densities in a battery it’s delivering proper now. There are a number of corporations delivering silicon anodes which considerably enhance battery power density, and people will probably be frequent in a couple of years.

Then there’s the whining concerning the impacts of purported misinformation. If CUTRIC wasn’t riddled with conflicts of curiosity, wasn’t badly ruled, wasn’t deliberately skewing research towards hydrogen buses, and was competent, then there would have been no collection of articles about their repeated failures to ship good steerage to Canadian transit organizations.

One level I famous late final yr was that along with having a Board of Administrators laden with conflicts of curiosity, the Board was additionally greater than the whole workers of CUTRIC. It seems each of these have been ever so barely adjusted, as perpetual cash loser Ballard — no earnings ever and an common of $55 million in annual losses since 2000 — is now not represented on the Board per CUTRIC’s web site. It’s nonetheless a member, per the web site, however per the Wayback Machine, that web page hasn’t been up to date since a minimum of April of 2024, so it’s doable that many members have departed as many had indicated that they might on the CUTA convention final yr.

The takeaway relating to Ballard is that it’s the sole provider of gasoline cells to New Flyer and it’s shedding a lot cash that its viability as an organization is significantly in query. The previous three years have seen actuality setting in round hydrogen for power and so there will probably be many fewer buyers keen to prop it up with continued capital, and its restricted revenues don’t almost cowl its bills. Mississauga’s and New Flyer’s expectations of continued warranties, elements and assist for Ballard gasoline cells usually are not aligned with the shaky fiscal actuality of the agency.

Principally within the 26-page deck there are two slides with precise data on them, one in all them is flawed, and the opposite — charitably — incomplete. If I have been Mississauga Metropolis Council I might inform CUTRIC to go away and write an precise standing report and never waste its time with this piece of skewed fluff.

Statements Relating to Experience

CUTRIC will probably try to claim that I and others commenting on the hydrogen trial, comparable to Michael Raynor and Paul Martin, usually are not consultants in transit or hydrogen transportation when the fact is that the reverse is extra correct. That’s definitely the tone of Petrunic’s LinkedIn put up defending its efforts.

I’ve been researching, analyzing, synthesizing, and publishing on transportation globally for all transportation modes and all articulated decarbonization options for many years. My first essay on transit that I bear in mind was a UofT undergraduate evaluation of the Sheppard subway line within the mid Nineties. In simply the previous 5 years I’ve revealed projections of maritime delivery decarbonization, aviation decarbonization, and hydrogen demand situations by means of 2100 based mostly on my evaluation of the entire applied sciences and economics concerned. Along with this website, my work has been republished in a couple of peer reviewed journals at their request, revealed in Forbes, and revealed on different websites as nicely.

This has led to me being requested to take part in three guide initiatives up to now couple of years. Dr. Joe Romm, a frontrunner within the Clinton-era DOE and now working with main local weather researcher Professor Michael Mann within the College of Pennsylvania middle for local weather communication, requested me to do a technical edit of the twentieth anniversary version of his guide The Hype About Hydrogen, publishing in April 2025. The staff engaged on the second version of the guide Supergrid Tremendous Resolution: A Handbook for Vitality Independence and a Europe Free from Fossil Fuels, requested me to take part in offering edits and content material, together with on the sections relating to hydrogen vs electrification. The editor of Confirmed Local weather Options: Main Voices on Speed up Change requested me to contribute a chapter on decarbonizing aviation, one other place the place hydrogen is usually touted, and I’ve carried out the evaluation, alongside luminaries comparable to Mark Z. Jacobson, the driving force behind 100% renewables for 147 nations globally by 2050, and Invoice McKibben, founding father of 350.org.

I used to be additionally requested to serve on the advisory board of the Swedish RISE Institute research on decarbonizing European highway freight, the 2035 Joint Influence Evaluation of Greenhouse Gasoline Lowering Pathways for EU Street Transport, alongside David Cebon, professor at Cambridge and founder and director of the Centre for Sustainable Street Freight, and Volker Hasenberg, the pinnacle of hydrogen for Daimler.

My views on international decarbonization have led to innumerable requests for displays on a number of continents. Maybe most pertinently, I introduced between the pinnacle of the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) and Jeremy Rifkin, who’s the writer of the power illiterate however very influential The Hydrogen Economic system within the second quarter of 2024. Moreover, I’ve introduced on varied facets of decarbonization together with transportation as a result of requests at Columbia College, Tsinghua College, California Polytechnic State College, the India Sensible Utilities Week convention, and quite a few different occasions. A key occasion in Brussels in October noticed me on stage with the Belgian power minister, a European member of parliament, the editor of the Irish Occasions, and the chair of the grid innovation know-how affiliation currENT Europe.

As famous within the conflicts part, I’m engaged as an knowledgeable witness in lawsuits towards Toyota in California as a result of my publications on the failures, prices, and local weather challenges of hydrogen for transportation. I’m usually engaged by corporations and funding funds to supply knowledgeable steerage.

This isn’t to say that I assert that I’m appropriate on all issues, however merely to say that a whole lot of third events globally contemplate me a reputable voice on decarbonization evaluation. As I say usually associated to my situations projecting area decarbonization by means of 2100, I don’t declare to be proper, I simply declare to be much less flawed than most.

Paul Martin is an expert chemical course of engineer with a three-decade profession constructing modular chemical processing pilot vegetation with common expertise working with hydrogen and is a founding member of the Hydrogen Science Coalition. Michael Raynor was till lately a managing director of sustainability and thought management for Deloitte (though clearly not concerned with the challenged Brampton research). He’s the writer of 4 books on technique and innovation in addition to the founding father of a agency targeted on addressing onerous to abate local weather challenges. I’m solely engaged associated to CUTRIC as a result of Michael requested me to have a look at it based mostly on my experience.

In the meantime, CUTRIC has fewer workers members than Board members. The workers members virtually uniformly have very brief skilled careers and really brief occasions working for CUTRIC regardless of its decade in existence. Its greatest research, the deeply challenged Brampton effort, needed to be subcontracted to Deloitte as a result of CUTRIC didn’t have the assets to execute on it. The mannequin they declare to have in its third iteration was initially dropped at them by one of many workers members they subsequently fired and which they misplaced throughout a wrongful dismissal lawsuit, resulting in them having to rebuild it from scratch. It’s a weakly staffed group with an boastful and weak chief who takes credit score for the work of others then fires them in the event that they disagree along with her or request to be handled respectfully.

CUTRIC merely isn’t a reputable or revered group in comparison with its critics.

Statements Relating to Conflicts of Curiosity

At current I personal no electrical car shares, having simply divested the final of my TSLA throughout my present portfolio rebalancing, and am not engaged in shorting hydrogen shares or certainly any shares. I’ve no funding positions in any rivals to New Flyer or Ballard and have generic renewable power ETFs, not particular rivals to Enbridge. My purchasers up to now yr have been renewables builders, inexperienced infrastructure pension funds, enterprise capitalists, household wealth funds, power storage startups, aviation startups, and the EU for an EU-Canada methane emissions mitigation dialogue. I’m at the moment engaged as an knowledgeable witness towards Toyota in California for its false and deceptive promoting relating to its Toyota Mirai having the identical reliability as a normal inside combustion automobile based mostly on my international analysis, evaluation, and publications on hydrogen for transportation. Lastly, I’m a principal in a UK-centric agency based final yr to ship speedy, light-weight digital twins for water and highway belongings as they’re challenged by local weather change and getting old infrastructure.

Whereas clearly Canada’s transit companies want dependable advisory companies which CUTRIC isn’t offering and Deloitte working by means of CUTRIC isn’t offering, I’ve not approached any transit companies providing these companies nor have I been approached by them. Whereas I might be fairly keen to help transit companies and cities professionally, I’m not engaged in doing so and am not pursuing this, as my purchasers and corporations are international and my analysis and evaluation is productive and consuming.

I’ve no pores and skin in Mississauga’s — or Brampton’s, Edmonton’s, or Winnipeg’s — selections relating to buying hydrogen buses. My motivation is to stop cash-strapped Canadian cities from losing cash repeating hydrogen errors which have been made and deserted globally, and to make sure that transit customers in Canada get dependable and cost-effective service.