What's up, sunshine? Welcome to a
special episode of CNN 10. Today, we are
focusing on one of the biggest issues
facing our planet's future and the
innovative ways one company is looking
to tackle it. We're talking about
energy. It's a crucial part of our
everyday lives. But as the global
population continues to grow, so does
its toll on our planet. Pollution from
our constantly increasing demand for
energy has long been a key driver of the
climatic and environmental disruption
we're seeing. Greenhouse gases and other
emissions are raising global
temperatures, acidifying our oceans, and
fueling extreme weather events. This has
led scientists from around the world to
focus on developing clean, sustainable
ways to help fuel the future. And one of
the minds behind this movement, Dr.
Lonnie Johnson, right here in Atlanta,
Georgia. We got an all access look at
how he and his team at J-Tech Energy are
developing ways to turn waste heat into
clean, sustainable energy. Dr. Lonnie
Johnson is a man who needs no
introduction, and his story reads like a
movie script. The engineer, inventor,
and entrepreneur rose from a childhood
in a deeply segregated Alabama to become
one of the brightest minds of his
generation. He holds more than 100
patents and worked on nuclearpowered
deep space probes for NASA and stealth
bombers for the US Air Force. But he's
also the mind behind one of the
bestselling toys of all time, the Super
Soaker.
>> Super Soaker MDS
>> gives water guns a whole new twist. I've
always been an inventor. I think we're
all inventors. You know, the human
beings, creativity, problem solving.
It's what we're built to do.
>> These days, he's turned his focus to our
planet's energy crisis and the J-Tech,
which stands for Johnson thermmo
electrochemical converter. It creates
energy using an incredibly unique
technique that he hopes will help solve
one of humanity's biggest issues.
>> A lot of the conflicts that you see in
the world are centered on energy, oil.
So if we could reduce our dependence on
oil, we'd not only improve the
environment,
but we'd also have one less thing to
fight about.
>> So I think energy is very important.
>> But he's not doing it alone. He's got a
whole team of bright minds helping make
this a reality and they're still
pinching themselves that they've come
this far.
>> Lonnie is a extraordinary scientist,
engineer, inventor. He puts on his lab
coat and he wants to be in the lab. He's
running experiments. He's trying to
figure out the next big thing. I mean,
Lonnie's a certifiable genius. His mind
just works on a different plane. The
idea of taking waste heat, geothermal
heat, all this heat that comes out of
your car exhaust, comes out of your
chimney of the factory, if we could
capture that and convert that directly
into electricity at high efficiency, it
truly could be a big solution to the
world's energy needs.
>> Okay, you may be wondering how exactly
this process works. That's where Julian
Bell comes in. He's the VP of
engineering at J-Tech and he gave us an
uplose look at the process in real time.
What the J-Tech device does at its
simplest level is it takes waste heat.
Basically, the heat that's produced by
industrial processes and converts it
into electricity at much higher
efficiencies than competing technologies
at potentially much lower temperatures
than competing technologies. You put
waste heat in one side, electrical power
comes out the other side. Do you want to
see how we actually do that?
>> Yes, absolutely.
>> Let's go on around. So, like I said,
we're feeding waste heat into the J-Tech
through this line here. The waist heat
can be sent to one of the one, two,
three, four reactors that we have on
this particular device. So, what's
happening right now actually is we are
feeding waste heat into reactor number
three. Here you can see this light is
on. This reactor here which is full of
hydrogen and is increasing in pressure
is pumping hydrogen out. This reactor
over here which is kept being kept cold
and is sucking hydrogen in is pulling
that hydrogen back in. And that's how we
close this hydrogen cycle to produce
power.
>> So you're kind of using the same
hydrogen all the time.
>> Exactly. That's what's critical here.
That's how we manage to make the system
work without having to add any fuel. All
we're doing is pumping the hydrogen from
one place to another place and then back
again. So if the reactors are one of the
two kind of core things that make a
J-Tech a J-Tech, the stacks are the
other one. Inside the stacks are the
magic component, the membranes that make
hydrogen fuel cells work. The hydrogen
can't sneak its way through that
membrane. So it has to do this really
cool trick where the hydrogen separates
into two hydrogen atoms. The hydrogen
atoms release their electrons to become
protons. And then at that point, those
protons can wiggle through the membrane.
The electrons, meanwhile, though, have
to find their way back to those protons.
And we make them go through a specific
path to do that. We make them actually
come out. Still confused? Let's break
this down even further. And science
teachers, feel free to jump in and back
me up here. Think of it like going
through the security line at an airport.
You're a hydrogen molecule. The
electrons are your bags and the
checkpoint is the membrane. As your
electrons detach and pass through a
load, they create electricity. You
become a proton and pass through the
checkpoint, beating back up on the other
side to reform hydrogen gas. The process
is repeated over and over, and the more
heat you add, the faster it becomes.
>> So, would you like to see this thing do
something useful with the power
producer?
>> I want to see how waste heat was turned
into something we can actually see.
>> Sounds good.
>> Or here. What's this?
>> Yeah. This device here is what's called
a boost converter. It's going to take
the power that's coming from the J-Tech
and boost it into a range that's useful
to us.
>> We
hotter than a man
>> with a mic in my hand.
>> And we have a tribe called Quest. What?
>> All this water that's not even hot
enough to make a cup of coffee. Using
that to generate electricity and throw a
party.
>> Okay. So, now that we have an idea of
how this all works, where could we see
J-Tech help create power in the real
world? Turns out one potential
application involves something we've
been talking about a lot lately,
artificial intelligence. Tech giants are
in a heated race to dominate the AI
landscape and building thousands of data
centers to do it. The Department of
Energy has estimated data centers could
consume up to 12% of US electricity by
the year 2028,
but our aging power grid may not be
ready for the massive demand increase.
And many households could end up footing
the bill for power increases. Plus, not
only do data centers consume a lot of
power, they generate a lot of heat.
J-Tech CEO Mike McQuary or McHugh says
it's the perfect environment for a
J-Tech to thrive.
>> The proliferation of data centers is
almost unimaginable. AI drives a lot of
it, of course, but
>> and they all give off so much heat these
servers.
>> Yeah. Yeah. So, so the heat isn't high,
but the amount of heat is spectacular.
So what we're doing is we're starting to
work with data centers to figure out how
can we put a J-Tech in the stream of
that waste heat to create your own
electricity. So you take some of the
burden off of the grid. So the local
community doesn't have to worry about
our power bills are going to go up
because we're competing with that.
There's going to be a scarcity. So I
think you're going to see a big
application for us in data centers going
forward.
>> And get this, another perfect spot for a
J-Tech has been hiding in plain sight.
the byproduct of traditional energy
production methods. The company says
spent oil and gas wells, which are left
behind once drilling operations end,
present a perfect environment for a
J-Tech to thrive. All the oil's out, all
the natural gases out, but what's left
is a hole that goes down a mile into the
ground. At the bottom of that hole,
geothermal heat. Constant geothermal
heat. If you could extract that heat
with a J-Tech, convert that to
electricity,
I mean, that's that's a game changer.
>> Okay, so we've learned what a J-Tech is,
how the science behind it works, and
where it could help our energy demand.
But another key part of this mission is
the who. We met some positively
inspiring people during our time in the
lab. scientists, engineers, inventors,
and staff members from all different
walks of life coming together for a
common goal. We asked them what advice
they have for the next generation of
bright minds who will tackle this crisis
and how to not lose sight of the big
picture. What's your advice to everyone
out there who someday wants to be a CEO
or an entrepreneur? Something that you
learned along the way that you know made
you who you are today?
>> Yeah, I think a couple things. One is
work at something that excites you. If
you're not excited about it, it's hard
to put your whole self into it. Um, and
then when you're at work, realize that
it's important. What you're doing is
important. And when you're there, learn
from the people around you. I surround
myself with really smart people. You
can't be intimidated by people smarter
than you. You need those people. It's
exciting to come in to work with those
people because you're learning stuff
every day. I love that your team, all
different walks of life, all individuals
who bring their own strengths. They
don't have to be able to do it all. They
don't have to know it all. They rely on
each other and they work towards a
common goal, something that they're
passionate about. And solving a really
big problem like finding better, smarter
uses of energy, creation of energy that
humanity is going to benefit from. Yep.
>> That's incredible stuff.