Hydrogen For Heavy-Duty Long Haul

Thursday, May 11, 2023

11am – 12pm MT

Presenters: Rick Mihelic and Kevin Otto, North American Council for Freight Efficiency

Moderator: Grace Meikle, Emissions Reduction Alberta

About the webinar:

Authors of the report, Hydrogen Trucks: Long Haul’s Future?, Rick Mihelic and Kevin Otto of the North American Council for Freight Efficiency (NACFE), discussed the results from a comparison of a range of alternative fuel heavy-duty truck technologies including hydrogen. This webinar focuses on using hydrogen-based power trains for heavy-duty Class 8 long-haul freight routes pulling van trailers, including a range of fuel cell battery electric types and internal combustion engines (ICE) based on the diesel cycle.

About the presenters:

Rick Mihelic is NACFE’s Director Emerging Technologies. He has authored NACFE Guidance Reports on electric, hydrogen fuel cell and other alternative fuel medium- and heavy-duty trucks. Other reports include technology Confidence Reports and insights on efficiency, aerodynamics, platooning, regional haul and production. President of Mihelic Vehicle Consulting LLC, he has 41 years’ experience in the trucking and aerospace industries including 20 years in commercial vehicle development for PACCAR and Peterbilt. He received the 2016 SAE L. Ray Buckendale Award and 2020 SAE Crawford award. An associate editor for the SAE Journal of Commercial Vehicles, he is an active member of multiple SAE and TMC groups.

Kevin Otto is the Electrification Technical Lead for the North American Council for Freight Efficiency where he provides consulting services and has authored a number of Confidence Reports and Guidance Reports. Kevin assisted in the authoring of the recent Hydrogen report from NACFE, and participated in several other NACFE reports including Vehicle Electrification, Solar Panels and Engine Idle Reduction. Before NACFE, Kevin spent 38 years at Cummins where he held a number of key positions in Technical Service, Engineering, Quality and Program Leadership in several of the Business Units. Kevin has a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.

About the Moderator:

Grace Meikle is the Technology Strategy Lead at Emissions Reduction Alberta where she oversees strategic knowledge sharing of ERA’s project portfolio. She has 10 years’ experience in clean energy technology scale-up, business development and project management. In her current role she manages clean energy innovation projects at a high technology readiness with a focus on hydrogen and CCUS technologies spanning multiple industries, including the oilsands, cement production, and power generation.