Hydrogen Fuel Cell Tech Hits the Road
UT Austin’s Center for Electromechanics is putting hydrogen to the test with a 365-mile round trip from Austin to Houston in fuel cell vehicles—the first hydrogen caravan in Texas. The journey marks the launch of the Hydrogen ProtoHub, the state’s first public hydrogen fueling and research facility, showcasing hydrogen’s potential to power everything from clean transportation to AI data centers.
Transcript
00:00:02 Behind me is a hydrogen research facility that we established. With this project, we wanted to try to demonstrate the entire hydrogen ecosystem. We are co-locating the production of hydrogen, along with the end use of this hydrogen as well as storing it. When it comes to the use cases on site, We one are operating fuel cell electric vehicles. So providing fueling for those but we also have an end use case that's looking to kind of solve the big power problems of AI and data centers. So we are using some of our hydrogen we generate on site to create power
00:00:39 for the Texas Advanced Computing Center here on the Pickle Research campus. This is really the only publicly accessible hydrogen facility in the state. When I explain to my friends and family or anybody who asks how the hydrogen car works, I usually start by describing the fueling process and how similar that is to fueling an internal combustion engine vehicle. And then just explaining that, the hydrogen gas in the car combines with oxygen and that reaction creates energy. The only emission is, it's just water vapor. So this past summer, we drove three Toyota Mirais to Houston for hydrogen Technology Expo.
00:01:18 And it was the first hydrogen caravan done in the state of Texas. It was a little risky, right? We had no opportunity to refuel. So, thinking about it beforehand, monitoring the vehicles for about a year. And our daily driving gave us confidence that we could do this and meet the range. I felt confident because of our previous range tests, but I knew I wasn't going to feel 100% sure until we got to Houston. But after the first leg of the trip and we had 5/8 of a tank left, I mean, I was ready to book it on the way home, I was like, now we should now we should test it. No.
00:01:55 All right. That's not what we did. You know, I feel it's rather historic. It was kind of a historic, first of its kind event for Texas. It proves fuel cell vehicles are real and can do what we want to do. It's brought a lot of awareness to hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in Texas. And that's what we need first if we're if this is going to become a reality. When we were back in the CTM parking lot that's when It felt really cool to be a part of. The value
00:02:20 that this site brings to the students is it's really all about the hands on. Taking what they're learning in school, all the math and physics and thermodynamics and really making it real and tangible. It's a great place for education, outreach, workforce development and training. Already the site gives numerous tours almost weekly to different groups, whether it's students, different community stakeholders. Getting to work on hydrogen technology in such a practical sense, and couple that with a lot of the theoretical knowledge, I think it's just valuable experience coming up as an engineer.
00:02:55 UT is well positioned, and hydrogen is just another one of those areas where we have a lot of that expertise.