Jerzy Jurasz, a high-class freethinker and inventor, began his journey in a small mountain town in Poland.
He managed a mineral water factory and solved water supply problems without losing valuable minerals. He later invented hydrostatic vertical gravity, which allowed water to absorb and assimilate mineral additives. Jerzy’s next invention was a system for pascalizing food-related liquids in a U-shaped tube, ensuring long shelf life without losing original nutritional values. He is open to global news and is interested in improving people’s well-being and protecting the planet’s ecosystem.
His third most important invention is “The method of storing and distributing hydrogen,” which aims to safely and cheaply store and transport hydrogen for industrial and domestic use. This comprehensive solution includes energy-autonomous houses, public utilities, and renewable energy consumption points.
We spoke with him about his hydrogen transportation and storage invention.
Can you tell us more about the inspiration behind HBS? What made you focus on the problem of hydrogen storage and transport?
I have been interested and fascinated by hydrogen itself for a very long time. The fact that the era of coal, oil and gas will end in favor of nuclear, hydrogen, RES and in the future of thermonuclear energy has been certain for a very long time. However, until a few years ago, no one finally knew when this moment would come and when it would become irreversible.
I have been sure of this moment for over the last 2 years. Therefore, at the end of 2021, HBS was created – a complete and coherent, patent-pending hydrogen storage and transport project, which I am currently systematically developing together with my HBS Team.
Analyzing very carefully the global trends and the level of technological development of individual stages of the hydrogen supply chain, I noticed a long time ago that the transport and storage of hydrogen is not developing in parallel to other segments of this chain, for example the production or use of hydrogen.
We now know that if we do not solve these problems quickly, our “hydrogen revolution” may come to a standstill. So what, that we are able to produce more efficient and cheaper electrolyzers, hydrogen cells or photovoltaic panels today, and we are able to produce hydrogen in all possible ways, since we have a problem how to efficiently, simply, cheaply and safely transport and store hydrogen without uncontrollable continuous losses.
Therefore, look at hydrogen from a different angle. Not as a magical, unlimited, lightest, unbridled gas – a source of clean energy, but also as “an abstract energy accumulator that can be safely charged with RES and any surplus of clean energy and discharged indefinitely anywhere on Earth”
This is what prompted me to work on HBS.
The patent describes a structure that includes at least two vertically arranged tubular elements forming a U-shaped profile. Could you please explain the meaning of this design and how it helps in transporting and storing hydrogen and become such an “abstract accumulator”?
Of course. HBS is all about maximum simplicity. The U-shaped profile in various configurations, on which the entire system is actually built, is nothing more than a system of connected vessels known since antiquity. Gaseous and liquid hydrogen are ideal for this system.
I will not talk here about the principles of operation of connected vessels, because this knowledge is widely known and used for a long time in many areas of everyday life and in many industrial applications.
Let me just say that for such a connecting vessel to exist, at least two vessels connected at the bottom (U-tube) are needed so that gas or liquid can flow in it freely in a homogeneous gravitational field.
So if we put the simplest U-tube in the soil near our house, we have a safe hydrogen storage, the capacity of which can be freely adjusted with the length of the U-tube and the diameter of the pipe, as well as the possible pressure (depending of the strength of the material from which the U-tube is made) and the soil will give not only gives us an invaluable sense of security, but also additional insulation against the loss of hydrogen to the atmosphere. In addition, you do not have to spend almost nothing on the surface for the exploitation of the hydrogen supply chain.
However, the Connecting Vessels System is not necessarily just two elements. There can also be 3, 4, 10, 20, etc. (actually from 2 to infinity in any configurations) in one connection system and the distance between them is also not limited. And so we create a larger system in which we can both store and transport gigantic amounts of hydrogen, connecting many producers, prosumers and consumers of hydrogen to the System on the way.
I leave the rest to your and the readers’ imagination.
How does the Hydrogen Bar System improve the safety of using hydrogen compared to existing methods?
Almost all hydrogen storage and transport technologies known to me (such as above-ground water pipelines, tanks, cylinders, stationary and portable warehouses, etc.) are located on the surface of the earth or are buried at small depths in the soil, often also placed in or around built-up facilities. The transport of hydrogen itself means the need to reload it, which irrevocably additionally exposes people, losses and the risk of explosion.
Such traditional methods require the expensive need to comply with very strict safety standards, numerous security zones, special transportation vessels, which means substantial additional costs. Despite this, as we know, something can always go wrong or even explode. At HBS, we can afford to be more slack in these matters, achieving the same thing cheaper. All our main HBS installations are placed outside any buildings. All our valves are always one-way. A possible explosion will not cause us any substantial material or above all human losses. In this way, hydrogen becomes more predictable and therefore safer.
And this is a very important aspect of the entire hydrogen revolution
In your vision, the Hydrogen Bar System is used to store hydrogen produced from renewable sources without the loss of water and any hydrocarbons. How to achieve it in practice?
The water on earth is in constant motion. In general, always storing energy in green hydrogen using water and renewable energy is very ecological but still too expensive. To produce 1 kg of hydrogen, apart from the cost of energy, about 9 liters of water are needed, which can be recovered in the reverse energy production process. Water evaporates, so it somehow returns to the natural cycle. However, it is not such an ideal closed circuit and the whole water cycle from steam to drinking a glass of good mineral deep water on the ground lasts for years (about at least 15 years). The closed water circuit is therefore important but not the most important.
It should be remembered that we can only use demineralized water for the production of hydrogen, and its production costs money and is very energy-intensive. How much it costs – it depends on the type of water taken and the degree of its purification (the purer the water, the purer the hydrogen, and thus the greater and longer life of electrolyzers and hydrogen cells). Let’s assume, to visualize this situation, thet the cost of 1 liter of demineralized water is 0,25 USD, which means that the cost of producing 1 kg of hydrogen from this water is about USD 2.25. So why waste demoralized water and money ? If we produce hydrogen and use it on site (for example in energy-autonomous houses) where we treat hydrogen as the aforementioned “abstract energy accumulator”, we can easily close the water cycle in a closed system and it obviously will be cheaper and really super ecological . This is a very simple and logical solution, because water vapor, i.e. water resulting from the production of energy from hydrogen, is always demineralized and it can be endlessly recycled.. So saving $2.25 and we can still keep producing 1 kg of hydrogen from the same water, once only embedded in the System.
As a side note, I would like to add that even if we do not use such a closed system, we should not transport large amounts of hydrogen produced from water over long distances and convert it to energy and water far from water original source, because in the long run it may seriously disrupt water management and the climate at the place hydrogen production as well as at the place of consumption of such hydrogen transported.
I remember how in 2021 some irresponsible politicians were trying to build a giant water pipeline from Ukraine to Germany. It was about the production of green hydrogen from the surplus of nuclear power plants in Ukraine together with using Ukrainian water, which in fact would “go” in large quantities with hydrogen also to Germany. This project was strongly criticized by Ukrainian scientists, who calculated that such production will cause “steepening” of parts of Ukraine and climatic changes in Ukraine and Germany after some time. Paradoxically, fortunately, the war thwarted these plans of politicians and investors.
The patent mentions that the hydrogen rod system could have a positive impact on the “hydrogen revolution”. Could you explain what you mean by “hydrogen revolution” and how your invention contributes to it?
For me, in addition to ecology, stopping climate change and leaving all hydrocarbons for future generations, the “hydrogen revolution” is primarily full energy autonomy and freedom for people. It is probably no longer a secret that, in fact, under any global latitude and longitude, every inhabitant of the Earth and his family or group can quite easily, without major problems, (using the various possibilities of RES), produce for himself, after a one-time not such large investment, a sufficient amount of almost free energy for his own needs, including not only his personal and domestic needs, his workplace but also his needs of transport and he can even sell surplus of his energy to others.
Currently there are growing tendencies, based on science and numerous innovations in this topic, which inevitably lead us to this obvious and life changing energy freedom.
However, due to the high unpredictability of RES, an indispensable element of these solutions is the need to use some kinds of energy storage.
It has also been known for a long time that for the efficient operation of such systems, generally speaking, the size/capacity of these energy storing facilities increases, as further we are located from the equator.
And here begins the role of hydrogen, which, apart from the currently mainly used chemically manufactured batteries, is the only such “abstract energy accumulator” already mentioned.
Today, the advantage of traditional batteries over hydrogen is significant, but soon it will certainly start to change (up to 80%) in favor of hydrogen.
Today, hydrogen can be stored in a variety of ways, from ground cylinders and their bundles in the so-called trailers, tanks or silos, mobile warehouses, cryo systems (liquid hydrogen) and even in huge salt caverns, etc.
All of these methods certainly have their advantages and disadvantages. However, all of them can basically only store hydrogen and if we want to transport it, we can do it only by means of wheeled transport. For transport we can only do it with cylinders and small tanks because you can’t transport a large silo or sizable hydrogen tank by truck or rail; salt caverns also can not be transported. Of course, we can pour this hydrogen in a gaseous or liquid state into tankers and transport it around the world in this way, but it also costs and is dangerous, causes its losses and forces the additional participation of the human factor. Of course, we can also build above-ground water pipelines, which is also expensive and difficult to implement because nobody wants to stay or live next to such a “hydrogen bomb”. However, in fact, no possible investments in this area will eliminate 100% neither explosions nor losses, those are facts coming from ordinary physics knowledge.
We can also try to introduce hydrogen (under appropriate conditions) to gas installations, build hydropipes underground using the open-cast method, which will never fully protect us against hydrogen losses to the earth’s atmosphere, etc.
So you can see that in the hydrogen storage and transport sector, the world has not yet developed a simple, cheap, universal, safe and common concept of development for the future. Have not developed the “hydrogen wheel” on the bases of which the entire “hydrogen revolution” will safely and successfully continue
And that’s what HBS is to me. An ultimate and most obvious solution and revolution in this most important stage of hydrogen progress, all around the world.
The Hydrogen Bar system is mentioned as a solution for the construction of fully energy-autonomous houses and other public utility facilities. Could you expand on this and give examples of how this would work in a housing context?
As I said, HBS is a comprehensive hydrogen storage and transport system. Therefore, it is not without reason that on the first slide of our presentation we always show a single-family house, which is the simplest and most obvious way to use HBS. However, you must remember that we do not deal with the production of energy from RES and its processing, but only with its storage in hydrogen.
Such houses have been built all over the world for a long time, for example in Scandinavia. People are becoming more and more convinced that it is possible and worth investing a little, once every 20-30 years, and thanks to RES (sun, wind or geometry) to have complete energy autonomy – that is, spend nothing on corporate electricity and gas and even have the opportunity to refuel your electric or hydrogen cars for free.
Of course, today it is still a bit of an expensive investment or even a certain extravagance, but I am sure that the synergy of:
- falling prices of these (HBS) installations with a simultaneous increase in their efficiency
- increase in prices of traditional energy carriers and high uncertainty in this area
- as well as the growing prevalence of electric or hydrogen cars will soon cross a certain investment rubicon in this matter. It’s just going to pay off for all of us. Already today, we observe the rapid development of many companies that offer customers such comprehensive independent solutions in the field of energy autonomy, using hydrogen for this.
I am sure that if these trends continue and favorable financial instruments are created, and of course as well as energy monopolies and politicians do not hinder these processes, in 2025 a real boom for energy autonomous houses will truly begin.
Then HBS can become one very important element of such investments. Chemical batteries are too weak, too large and too expensive to store the energy of such a house for the winter period, especially located beyond the tropics.
So only hydrogen will remain, and if so, moving the hydrogen storage outside the buildings and digging them into the ground in the form of one, two or three U-cars, with a closed water circuit, is the simplest, cheapest and, above all, the safest and most ecological solution.
It should be added that such HBS solutions, for hydrogen underground U – storage, can also be used in broadly understood public facilities or even workplaces.
The patent discussed the use of the system in the construction of hydrogen fueling stations, stating that they would require less space and safety zones. Could you expand on this and how would it change the infrastructure of such gas stations?
Yes, this is another possibility to use HBS. Each hydrogen distribution point (like for example a car refueling station) requires a tank or even tanks to store it. These are the additional operational problems of the area, the security zone, and thus the size of the station area. In addition, each station requires constant delivery of hydrogen by wheeled transport, simply the entire logistics.
If we are talking about full ecology, i.e. hydrogen from RES, it is also difficult to imagine photovoltaic or wind farms in cities and other sensitive places. However, we can realistically imagine that such farms will be located a few or several kilometers away in convenient and cheaper locations . However, the problem of transporting hydrogen to the aforementioned tanks and security zones remains to be solved.
Therefore, it is much cheaper and safer to use one or several HBS modules in the form of a U-tube with a horizontal connection of two vertical vessels extended even up to several kilometers. This horizontal connection, in accordance with the HBS technology, is made using well known borehole technology and horizontal drilling technologies.
Thanks to this, after partial filling of the system, hydrogen will be supplied to such a station continuously “from the bottom” and supplemented on an ongoing basis by the production of RES. Everything can be almost automatic and very safe without unnecessary logistic operations. At the same time, the long horizontal “between U-tube” connector will provide an easy way to store (replacing the traditional tank at the station) a large amount of hydrogen and solves the transport need at the same time.
This completely changes the infrastructure of the station with HBS. Increasing their simplicity and thus universality. Thanks to this, it will be possible to build hydrogen stations almost anywhere. Also, it allows to modify freely existing gas stations. I also do not exclude the introduction of a “MIX” station for a period of 20-30 years – petrol, diesel, LPG, electric charger, hydrogen.
The system is described as a way to create local universal networks for the production, distribution and consumption of hydrogen. Could you describe what these networks might look like and how they would function?
Yes, this is basically what the entire “hydrogen revolution” is based on. More and more cities, housing estates, towns and even villages in the world are planning a complete transition to ecological supply of all energy using hydrogen from RES from their own, often dispersed, production sources. Such own local hydrogen supply chains are already implemented at various stages of project development. These plans are not limited only to larger population centers, but also, for example, in Europe, in accordance with the “Forty 55” directive, they also apply to almost all factories. The whole idea of decarbonizing the world is to be based on the construction of photovoltaic and wind farms around these human clusters and factories.
Such solutions are very good because we avoid the need to introduce/ sell our own produced energy to the national energy systems, which is always much more effective (especially in financial means) for the original energy producer .
In such solutions, the amount of energy produced and the storage period always speak in favor of storing it in hydrogen, and again we face the same problem – “How to store and possibly transport hydrogen from local producers to final consumers”?
Again, the solution to this problem is HBS. By building a network of local connections with the use of boreholes and horizontal drilling, we obtain not only a safe and cheap in operation possibility to transport hydrogen, but also a powerful buffer storage for hydrogen. For relatively small investment in multiple U-Pipes we can store a very powerful energy, in the form of hydrogen, for years, or even centuries. I will most probably not be mistaken, that it could be a considerably good way to multiply money, as a “side effect” of HBS multiple advantages.
Our initial calculations in this regard are very promising and surprised us.
Specifically, for example, to illustrate the possibilities of HBS, if we lay underground a pipe with a cross-section of only 30 centimeters and a total length of 1,200 km, under a pressure of 700 bar, we can fit in it hydrogen with the energy value of the production of 1 day of the largest Polish coal-fired power plant Bełchatów, which secures as much as 20% of Poland’s energy demand.
Thus, if we arrange a network of such pipe connections in the system of connected vessels over a total area of several or a dozen or so square kilometers, we obtain a powerful energy storage with the possibility of its free transport for all recipients living in this local area.
This solution guarantees, for example, in Europe, a quiet “waiting out” of the winter period and free balancing of energy production and consumption throughout the year.
Can you tell us more about how the Hydrogen Barium System can be a buffer to use the surplus energy of other power plants and how it supports the national energy system during peak hours?
Nuclear energy is widely recognized as green energy. These power plants, together with other, unfortunately, non-ecological coal and gas power plants, are the necessary basis for all national energy systems in the world. Such an energy mix with the developing RES will certainly last another 30-50 years until the creation and dissemination of fusion energy.
So my forecasts for the next 30-50 years are very simple – the more we develop RES together with all types of energy storage, the faster we will be able to reduce the role of these power plants. Of course, I am not talking only about the gradual exclusion of individual entities from the national energy systems that are transitioning to full energy autonomy, but also about the construction of new energy storage facilities connected to the National Power Systems.
These solutions will allow for effective coordination and use (at the national level) of any energy surpluses for later use.
Unfortunately, with the development of RES in many countries, the problem of oversupply of energy with zero or negative value often appears today (especially on sunny or windy days).
The lack of sufficient infrastructure in the form of pumped storage water power plants, battery storage facilities, forces an urgent need to store such surpluses in hydrogen. No country can afford to shut down unnecessary conventional power plants without fully securing any possible peaks in energy consumption or temporarily bad weather conditions, which is the case with RES
In this sector, along with the development of RES, I see a very important place for the “hydrogen revolution”. As I have already told you, HBS is ideal for simple storage and storage of hydrogen as an energy carrier, in every corner of the world.
The patent mentions that the Hydrogen Bar System is a solution for storing and transporting hydrogen and its mixtures. Can you expand on what these “blends” are and why they are important?
Yes, hydrogen mixtures in the form of ammonia, hydrogen mixed with natural gas or even synthetic fuels are a very important element of the “hydrogen revolution”. Therefore, their transport and storage naturally fits into the HBS concept.
The universality of our system allows it to be used on the same terms not only for hydrogen but also for all its mixtures, of course using different pipe and valve parameters. Each of these blends has its advantages and disadvantages. It all depends only on market demand and investor needs in a given place and time.
Finally, how do you envisage the evolution of the hydrogen rod system in the future and what impact do you hope will have on the global approach to energy storage and distribution?
This certainly requires more time and further work by our team. It so happened that we are developing HBS almost simultaneously with the development of the current “hydrogen revolution.”
When two years ago I was preparing the HBS project for patenting together with my excellent Patent Attorney Dawid Pijanka, I tried, with great futurological passion, to analyze and predict what will happen in the area of hydrogen revolution development in a scope of very long time, even several years. Some things, which few years ago look to be unnecessary, strange and even funny – today they seem obvious and very hot.
For example for almost a year as of today, the already mentioned today problems of hydrogen losses to the atmosphere from its conventional supply chains have become and may become an increasing obstacle to the “hydrogen revolution”.
However, I foresaw this upcoming problem two years ago, because HBS installations, thanks to the borehole technology and horizontal drilling, ensure complete safety in this matter. I believe that soon, with the development of hydrogen installations, many countries will tighten their regulations and will strictly control the functioning of hydrogen installations. I think that in such a situation no serious investor will risk a lot of money and the loss of possible government subsidies for technologies that do not fully solve this problem.
There are more such smaller or larger issues not yet raised in the storage and transport of hydrogen. We at HBS are fully prepared for this. Therefore, sooner or later, the hydrogen world will be unequivocally convinced of HBS concept of hydrogen storage and transport.
I would also like to add that if the HBS analogy to the “hydrogen wheel” invented by one of our reviewers works, I don’t think I have to explain to you how much the current approach to hydrogen storage and transport in the world will change. We will experience a global era of HBS revolution. I am certain of this.
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