H2 CLIPPER: THE GREEN HYDROGEN DELIVERY COMPANY

For decades, the hydrogen economy—based on the most abundant element in the universe—has been heralded as the ultimate sustainable carbon-free energy solution to replace humanity’s deadly reliance on fossil fuels. Dorason Corporation launched its H2 Clipper, Inc (“H2C”) division to provide a critical missing link—economical and highly efficient transportation of H2 molecules in the ‘midstream’ between the producers of H2 and the consumers of H2.

The founding vision, as stated on the first of many H2C patents filed for and granted, it developed a system and apparatus for moving H2 molecules from where it was least expensive to make (e.g. where green energy is as cheap as 1.5¢/kw) to where the consuming public needed to use it (e.g. Japan, USA, the European Union, etc.).

The creation of H2C was inspired by a pro bono consulting project Rinaldo Brutoco performed as President of the World Business Academy over several years at the request of Enterprise Honolulu, Speaker Calvin Say of the Hawaiian legislature, and the office of Governor Linda Lingle.

In the early 2000s. Brutoco was consulting with those three entities of the business community and the state government of Hawaii on how to reduce that state’s 97 percent reliance on imported fossil fuel. The Hawaiian economy was so heavily dependent on the import of oil due to structural imbalances in the purchases of oil that financially benefited the Hawaiian Electric Company at the cost of the rates being forced upon Hawaiian homeowners and businesses. They all needed to explore a more sustainable energy infrastructure while gradually reducing the artificial windfall that HECO was obtaining.

The volcanic islands of Hawaii have an abundance of all forms of renewable energy: solar, wind, biomass, and most of all geothermal. Brutoco, after an on-site review of the geothermal plant at Puna on the Big Island of Hawaii, confirmed to the state the costs for creating that energy from the abundant volcanic heat and the abundant water from rainfall at the state licensed Puna Geothermal facility.

In fact, Brutoco confirmed that there was enough electrical generating capacity at Puna to provide electricity to the entire Hawaiian island chain at a production cost of less than 15 percent of what HECO was charging for electrical service in Honolulu. The State’s idea was to build an undersea cable grid to connect all the islands. Brutoco: “I thought it was a bad and expensive idea. The sea between the islands is very deep with rough currents. Installing and maintaining cables would be extremely costly.” He reported this information to Speaker Say directly who thereupon froze the proposed legislation that was then being actively discussed.

Instead, Brutoco, who had published about the prospects of the hydrogen economy in his book Freedom from Mideast Oil, suggested to Speaker Say that the State use the geothermal energy of the volcano to cheaply electrolyze water to produce hydrogen and subsequently transport the hydrogen throughout the Hawaiian islands.

“How would we get the hydrogen from Puna to Honolulu?” asked Speaker Say.

Brutoco responded that “It should be done by a dirigible using the hydrogen itself as a lifting gas that would economically and efficiently ‘float’ the hydrogen the 250 miles to Honolulu.”

“Do such airships exist?”, asked Speaker Say.

Brutoco immediately replied: “No, but there is no reason that they shouldn’t exist for that purpose.”

That story led to the founding of H2C in 2008. Brutoco brought together a team with a shared concern for climate change to facilitate the transition from fossil fuel globally to a hydrogen economy based upon pure hydrogen being consumed in pollution free fuel cells.

In order to obtain hydrogen in large enough quantities, at delivered prices that would be competitive with fossil fuels, it used its advanced technical capabilities to design the H2 Clipper: a 1,000 foot long, 200 foot wide, 100 percent ‘green’ hydrogen dirigible. The airship consumes on board hydrogen in fuel cells for propulsion that create zero greenhouse gas emissions.

It is capable of flying at speeds up to 300 mph, and carry up to 400,000 pounds of liquid hydrogen. In addition, each Clipper is built to carry up to 35 specially designed freight containers, each 20 feet long, when it drops off its liquid hydrogen cargo thereby avoiding any ‘deadheading’ which further reduces the cost of delivering the liquid hydrogen.

Following the first Clipper patent in 2008, H2C has since introduced additional technical breakthroughs which, taken together, would be most effective, safest, fastest, and lowest cost end-to-end ‘midstream’ hydrogen transport system ever conceived.

The company has 4 operating divisions: a depot and storage division, a Safety Pipe division, an airship division, and a patent licensing division. As of October 2023, H2C has filed more than 20 patents, has received more than 10 as granted (including one for their advanced robotic manufacturing technology), has 9 more currently pending, as well as several new innovations not yet filed. H2C has literally become a hydrogen transport patent powerhouse.

H2C’s Safety Pipe technology is a ground-based system for using abandoned or still active methane pipelines (or new trenches built to house the Safety Pipe) that distributes unadulterated hydrogen (99,999 percent pure) which is required for all Proton Exchange Membrane (“PEM”) stack at pressure up to 2500psi (170 Bar). 

The Safety Pipe technology uses existing infrastructure for distribution of gaseous hydrogen up to 500 miles without recompression. In addition to H2C’s proprietary gaseous storage systems, it has developed the technology for large scale storage depots which are capable of receiving energy-dense, liquid hydrogen at negative 253 degrees Centigrade and converting it to gaseous form at 2500 psi for local Safety Pipe distribution.

Across these innovative technologies, H2C has developed a suite of patented technologies which KPMG has recently established at a liquidation value of between $181 and $270 million. Since then, H2C has been granted three more patents including the basic patent for robotic manufacturing referenced above. 

H2C is confident that energy production and distribution companies, car manufacturers, aviation firms, and others could use H2C’s patented technologies to implement them in their business strategies   thereby reducing manufacturing costs while dramatically improving safety. 

H2C technology makes it possible to deliver hydrogen in a commercial way—competitive with current fuel prices—where the demand is today. Cars, trains, forklifts, ferry boats, and factories can be powered with pure hydrogen immediately— without interrupting current energy supplies.

Due to the Safety Pipe’s ability to be threaded into active and abandoned methane pipelines H2 can immediately and economically be delivered without any residual methane adulteration (otherwise unavoidable if Safety Pipe is not used) for direct use in all components of the mobility sector (including trains and boats), s well as for “hard to abate” sectors like steel and cement manufacturing. 

There is no need to consider existing methane pipelines, active or abandoned, as ‘stranded’ as they can be used thereby permitting the existing energy infrastructure to immediately support consumer demand for hydrogen. 

In addition to existing methane pipelines, due to the self-contained nature of the Safety Pipe, H2C innovation makes it possible to use virtually every existing pipeline—from oil and gas to water, storm drain, and sewage—for the safe distribution of hydrogen without disrupting the current use of that pipeline. 

Governments are increasingly realizing that safety is an essential component for transporting large commercial quantities of H2 from the points of creation to the myriad of end users as the massive, emerging hydrogen economy requires. 

H2C Safety Pipe technology is available today for the first phase of the hydrogen economy’s deployment. Safety Pipe can quickly replace the expensive distribution of hydrogen by tube trucks. This division, secured solely by the Safety Pipe patents, has recently received a firm Term Sheet from a well-respected Venture Capital group to fund a $7.5 million seed funding round with a post money valuation of $32.5 million.

As even a casual observer will note, the emerging hydrogen infrastructure also requires H2 storage innovation. In its liquid form, hydrogen has the energy density that makes long distance distribution competitive with today’s fossil fuels. However, as noted above, liquid hydrogen is maintained at minus 253 degrees centigrade—just a few degrees above absolute zero. This poses major technological obstacles which H2C has been able to overcome through its patented clipper technology and its proprietary depots to receive the liquid hydrogen the Clippers will transport. 

It is important that the Clipper can carry any form of liquid hydrogen. It was designed, however, to be the enabling tool for the development of ‘green’ hydrogen (hydrogen made from green renewable resourced electricity like solar, wind and geothermal among others) in remote corners of the globe where renewable energy is the least expensive (e.g wind at the tip of Patagonia, wind and solar in Morocco, solar in the Gulf States, wind in Scotland, etc.).

H2C’s unique Clipper airships, can serve all those remote locations due to its globe straddling operational distances, and connect them to the major consumer/industrial markets that are developing worldwide. That’s how human society will meet the challenge, and reap the full benefits of, the emerging hydrogen economy. The Clipper is uniquely capable, in a way that ships at sea are not, to bring unlimited quantities of pure green hydrogen to global markets in a cost-effective manner.

From the foregoing descriptions, it is easy to see why a fixed superstructure dirigible capable of carrying enormous quantiles of liquid hydrogen at very high speeds between any two points on the globe. The advantages of the airship technology are obvious. An airship can vertically take off and land anywhere. It does not require any airport, nor any seaport, and is thus freed of the increasing bottleneck being experienced in supply chains around the world, and it can deliver directly to the destination without relying on any intermodal transfers which are both expensive and time consuming in the traditional energy world.

H2C refers to their Clipper as a ‘Pipeline-in-the-Sky’, and sees a fleet of the massive airships in the thousands ferrying liquid hydrogen in one direction and airfreight in the reverse direction at freight costs less than a third of traditional airfreight on a per ‘ton mile’ basis. 

The ‘Pipeline-in-the-Sky’ does not follow one-way traffic, won’t ever get clogged up in the Suez Canal or any other manmade bottleneck. The flexibility of the airships offers a breakthrough improvement for existing supply chains. Goods can be delivered from factory to factory skipping roads and ports. 

With its knowhow about transporting and storing liquid hydrogen, H2C has built a patent portfolio that KPMG initially valued at up to $270 million, which would now be higher given that more patents have issued since they did their published report.

Liquid hydrogen technology is going to be a core part of the hydrogen economy. Across industries, companies will need to adapt their infrastructures and supply chains to liquid hydrogen, and full utilization of gaseous hydrogen as well. They will be happy to discover that the heavy lifting of the necessary technology development has been provided by H2C and that the technology is available for licensing.

More information: https://www.h2clipper.com/