DTN 018: Transforming Hydrogen Fuel Cells

Plus: A wooden satellite, sending a physical Bitcoin to the moon, a paralyzed man walks again, toward Ta 100,000 qubit quantum computer, and more.

May 27, 2023

Welcome to The Deep Tech Newsletter, a weekly exploration of the business, science, and engineering behind the world’s most important frontier technologies.

On accelerating fuel cell adoption through policy in the EU: “For the past few years, people have been doing pilot projects. Then the EU Green Deal happened followed by the war in Ukraine, which basically saw the EU multiply its ambitions for hydrogen because of energy security and its decarbonisation goals. Then the Inflation Reduction Act just threw things to the stratosphere. So policy is there.”

On the distributed hydrogen production: “I think it's quite clear that this is going to revolve around hubs where you’ve got grid connections and where there is a type of heavy industry user, such as ports. In the States there's actually a specific policy to create hubs and that will make sense where you have the right types of industrial users or hydrogen capacity to predict the right price of energy. In Europe, I think it's gonna be more structured around ports like Rotterdam. But clusters are the natural way for this. Transporting hydrogen across big distances is a challenge and I think to accelerate adoption the cluster or hubs approach is the right way. ”

The Big Picture

“Today in Nature, an international team of researchers reports giving a man who lost the ability to walk in 2011 a way to digitally bridge the communication gap between his brain and lower body. Brain waves signaling Oskam’s desire to walk travel from a device implanted in his skull to the spinal stimulator, rerouting the signal around the damaged tissue and delivering pulses of electricity to the spinal cord to facilitate the movement. Oskam can now walk more fluidly, navigate obstacles, and climb stairs. “The stimulation before was controlling me, and now I am controlling stimulation,” he says.” (Science)

“In an act that is one part interplanetary performance art and one part dress rehearsal for an event that astronomers hope will one day occur, a coded radio message from Mars will ping radio telescopes on Earth on Wednesday. But it will only be a test. Anybody can follow along on A Sign in Space, a website that will host comments, guesses and weekly workshops on what it all might mean. (New York Times)

“The perovskite solar race is heating up, with a cue of manufacturers forming to test products at the US Department of Energy’s (DoE) PV commercialization facilities, and academics on both sides of The Pond announcing new advances in recent months.” (PV Magazine)

WE’RE HIRING

We’re looking for writers, editors, and communications pros to join our team. You’ll have a front row seat for the future and tell the stories of the world’s most innovative deep tech startups. Learn more on our website or drop us a line: [email protected]

Deep Tech News

Crypto News

Peer Review

Funding x M&A

DEEP TECH

CRYPTO

Miscellanea

a digital agency built for the future.

Haus Biographics is a digital agency in NYC that specializes in marketing and communications for web3 and deep tech organizations. Check out our website, follow us on Twitter, or say [email protected]