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Governor Inslee To Address Washington State As Global Hub for Alternative Fuels

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On May 20, the Consortium for Hydrogen And Renewably Generated E-Fuels (CHARGE) is offering its inaugural conference to address critical materials challenges in the energy and transportation sectors. As hydrogen and e-fuels are deployed as alternative fuels, several organizations are joining forces to make Washington State a global hub for commercializing new fuels and technologies.   

Save the Date: Thursday, May 20 from 8AM to 1PM.

Learn more about CHARGE.

JCDREAM CHARGE Conference visual explaining how renewable and alternative fuels are the future of energy.
Image Courtesy of JCDREAM

The following Washington State University (WSU) centers will act as founding members of the CHARGE Consortium:  

  • JCDREAM – Joint Center for Deployment and Research in Earth Abundant Materials 
  • HYPER – Hydrogen Properties for Energy Research 
  • ESIC – Energy Systems Innovation Center 
  • ASCENT – Aviation Sustainability Center

The consortium seeks commercialization partners in the following sectors (the survey request linked below is about identifying potential partners for pilot projects and programs): 

  • Transportation: marine, aviation, shipping, trucking, and personal transport OEMs with a focus on long term deep decarbonization 
  • Harvesting: agriculture, fishing, logging, and mining with the goal of long-term sustainability and circular carbon economies 
  • Cloud Computing: companies interested in alternative fuels for decarbonizing the cloud 
  • Utilities: focus on deploying and managing low cost or excess clean energy assets towards hydrogen or fuel production which is sold or used for long term energy storage and reintroduced to the grid  
  • Process Engineering: firms dedicated to innovative chemical engineering and process scaleup 
  • Chemical and Materials Manufacturing: companies that will commercialize new processes for hydrogen or fuel/chemical production and materials needed to enable efficient processing 

If you are interested in the CHARGE event, this page shares the details and asks you to take a short survey which will be used to connect potential collaborators around new pilot projects, including opportunities around public and private funding. 

More info:

MatEdU News wrote about the critical materials shortage last year: JCDREAM Drives Innovation For Earth-Abundant Materials:

“Around the globe, world leaders are issuing calls to action on the shortage of critical materials, also known as rare earth elements (REE), that impact everything from our cell phones and computer hard drives to military defense capabilities. The United States, the European Union, and Japan have all raised concerns for materials shortages and supply chain risks.”

We also included them in a post about the Race to the Ocean Floor that highlighted ocean explorations and plans for mining rare earth elements there. 

If you are wondering about the need for shifting from critical materials to sustainable materials, read this JCDREAM blog post on The Importance of Materials Science Education & Workforce Development.