Record Numbers at World Summit

Star Scientific attended its third World Hydrogen Summit in Rotterdam this year where we were a finalist in the Industrial Application Category and part of the 50-company strong Australian contingent.

It has been amazing to see the growth of this conference and exhibition in the last 3 years, from 1,100 attendees in 2022, to 11,000 in 2023, to a staggering 30,000+ this year.  Australia’s lead in the “country pavilion” category was seriously challenged by Canada with India a late and large addition to the event.  The organisers are expecting more significant growth next year.

With so much interest apparent in hydrogen it has been interesting to watch the debate and take note of the evolution of the industry and the issues it is facing.  Being a “world” Summit, this event is targeted by governments, industry bodies, consultants and community groups, and the continuous theme coming from the “stakeholder” speakers was that governments need to invest more.  Conversely, when industry delegates spoke, it was more about projects, and how the hydrogen sector needs to focus on realistic use cases.

A nice sideline was a chance to catch up with our friends from New Mexico, including the Governor, and to co-chair a joint Australia/New Mexico industry panel.  It was here that Star Scientific was able to explain to other Australian delegates why we chose New Mexico as our first US destination.

Star in Washington

The Sustainable Energy Council’s second big annual conference is their Americas conference in Washington D.C., which Star attended for the first time.  This was a smaller, much more focused conference, with a clear and recurrent theme being that there needs to be more focus on demand-side issues, as well as IRA-stimulated supply-side issues.  The feeling from the conference floor was “ok we’re making the hydrogen now, but what are we going to use it for and how are we going to use it?”

This, of course, is what Star Scientific has been saying since the unveiling of HERO® to the world and very much reflects what we hear from the market.  Many, many companies have approached us with very advanced supply contracts but with concerns about the technological challenges they are encountering at the “off-take” end of the supply chain.  HERO® would appear to be the answer to many of their concerns.

Star was able to have many interesting side-line conversations at this conference, with the more intimate nature meaning that many very senior company executives were in attendance.  We were also able to visit the Australian Embassy and give a high-level briefing to our trade commissioners there.

Star Scientific Europe

Star Scientific Europe’s Managing Director, Amy Halliday, recently met with officials at the Australian Embassy in Bern, Switzerland and gave them a briefing on Star Scientific and HERO®.

An interesting takeaway from the meeting was learning about the Australian Swiss Academic and Innovation Network (ASAIN) that will be formally launched later this year. They will bring together people with an interest in fostering academic, innovation, science and research between Australia and Switzerland.

Star Scientific strongly believes in engaging with diplomatic officers, both Australian and foreign, in countries which we plan to operate, and we look forward to extending our relationship with the Swiss post.

Australian matters

Here in Australia, the renewable energy debate has taken an interesting turn in the run-up to our next Federal Election.  The incumbent Labor government and many climate-change motivated independents are vigorously supporting the role of intermittent renewables in the energy transition and, in the case of the government, backed by firming gas.  The conservative opposition coalition has escalated the debate to a new level by proposing nuclear power stations (Australia does not have a nuclear energy industry).  Hydrogen, at least clean hydrogen supply, has not been forgotten, with the incumbent government proposing a $2 per kg hydrogen production tax offset.  This is currently before the Australian Parliament for debate.

All this and more were discussed at the recent “Friends of Hydrogen” exhibit hosted by the Australian Hydrogen Council at Parliament House, Canberra.  The exhibit was attended by Ministers and Members of Parliament from all sides of politics, and Star was there, exhibiting the “Unit”, as the cut-away facsimile of the heat exchanger has come to be known.  We were also able to hold some private briefings of Australian politicians while we were there.

All these matters and more will be discussed at the third leg of the Sustainable Energy Council’s Summit series, the APAC Summit, to be held in Brisbane in September.  Star Scientific will be a major participant.  You can register to attend here: www.asia-hydrogen-summit.com.

On the workshop floor

Our TrendPac and Mars pilots are proceeding, with testing being done to confirm our carbon inputs and outputs, an important part of our regulatory compliance.

However, we are happy to announce that a third pilot program has been given the green light by the Board, this time to do with one of life’s most basic essentials – water.

Saline and wastewater treatment with current technology involves a huge amount of both heat and energy, and we have always said that this is a prime commercial target for HERO®.  One of the big attractions for New Mexico for us was the recognition by the government there that hydrogen can be the key to unlocking the massive amounts of naturally occurring underground “brackish” (saline) water for human and agricultural use – and also to make hydrogen.  On top of that, they (and other South-Western states), are looking to treat and use wastewater from the gas and oil industries, known as “produced water”.  Of course, there is a major market opportunity in the Middle East and North Africa as well.

In Australia, desalinated water is seen as the key to unlocking vast mineral resources in the arid centre of the continent. Indeed, Star had a long discussion with South Australian Government delegates at the Washington conference about their plans to use desalinated water to further drive the State’s mineral potential.

Construction of our test units is well underway, and we will keep you updated.

Rotary Science Challenge

As we do every year, Star Scientific sponsored the Star Scientific Science and Engineering Challenge, organised on the Central Coast by Rotary and co-sponsored by the University of Newcastle.  At this event, teams from the Central Coast’s high schools compete in a series of science and engineering challenges, viewed by local dignitaries like Members of Parliament.

Our favourite “challenge” is the “ElectraCity Challenge”, where students must solve several situations, requiring connecting “power stations” to end users like hospitals.  Teams lose points if they can’t make all the connections, they lose more points if they use more expensive connections, but they earn points for efficient solutions. The team with the most “profit” wins this particular challenge.  A good way to teach the students about the problems of grid-connected energy supplies!

Our sponsorship of the Science and Engineering Challenge is one way we “give back” to our local community, and hopefully foster interest in science and engineering careers in new generations of young Australians.