Meet the Honorees: Gus Block, Director of Marketing & Corporate Development, Nuvera Fuel Cells

The Environment+Energy Leader Honoree program is an annual list that recognizes the environment and energy “doers” who break trail in creating new solutions, programs, platforms, best practices and products to help their companies – or other companies – achieve greater success in commercial and industrial environment and energy management. Meet the Honorees… is an ongoing series that features Honorees throughout 2022. See the complete list of 2022 Honorees here.

Meet Gus Block, director of marketing and corporate development for Nuvera Fuel Cells. Gus’s work involves discovering where the company’s products and services can deliver meaningful outcomes for government and industry partners and creating opportunities for positive policy and business results. “The common themes in most conversations I have with customers and collaborators are reducing carbon and toxic emissions, improving productivity, and minimizing total cost of ownership for the next generation of commercial vehicles and equipment,” he says.

Nuvera makes high-efficiency fuel cell power systems that can replace diesel internal combustion engines in many transportation applications: trucking, buses, container handling,rail, and marine vessels, to name a few. Electrifying these platforms has many benefits – zero emissions, less maintenance, high performance – but batteries aren’t always the right answer because of weight, size, charging time, or other limitations.

Fuel cell electric vehicles are a good alternative when long driving range, fast fueling, or high power (for propulsion or auxiliary needs) is required. “So, we look for win-win situations where our fuel cell solutions help maximize our customers’ success,” Gus says.

A great way to connect with potential partners is by being active in government and industry groups. “I’m a member of the governor’s Zero Emissions Vehicle Commission in Massachusetts, chair the Communications and Marketing Committee of the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Association, and serve on the board of the California Hydrogen Business Council,” Gus adds.

Can you tell us about your biggest energy management challenge, and how you’re addressing it?

Gus Block: Shipping ports are concentrated sources of emissions from diesel equipment. These include carbon dioxide, the most common human-made greenhouse gas, and chemical toxins like NOx, SOx, and particulate matter, all of which are serious health hazards for workers, truckers, and residents of communities in the vicinity of ports. Given how significant the air quality impact from port equipment is, not to mention the CO2 emissions from equipment powered by internal combustion engines, eliminating diesel emissions can make a huge difference.

To reduce port emissions while maintaining the productivity of terminal operations, Nuvera partnered with Hyster-Yale Group, our parent company and a leading port equipment provider, to develop a fuel cell electric container handler called a toploader in a project funded by the California Air Resources Board. This type of vehicle is used to handle fully loaded shipping containers delivered to or leaving the port by ship, truck, or rail locomotive. There can be dozens of toploaders at a major port, and this type of equipment is typically used for at least two shifts a day. A single toploader can emit 128,000 kg of carbon dioxide per year.

The Hyster hydrogen fuel cell toploader developed under this project is being delivered to a terminal operator at the Port of Los Angeles and will undergo trials in daily service. This is the first step in the development of a commercially available version and is expected to be followed by other types of container handlers. With the proper infrastructure established — ideally providing hydrogen produced from entirely renewable sources, such as solar or wind-powered electrolysis of water — hydrogen can replace diesel in virtually every operation at a port. Our aim is to offer customers zero-emission options that perform as well as – or better than – today’s best internal combustion engines. This project has been a heavy lift for all involved (literally and figuratively!), but it has the potential to lead to greener ports in California and around the world.

What trends do you expect to see in the market in the next few years? What challenges will the industry face and what technologies or organizational changes will overcome them?

GB: There’s been a huge shift in focus towards hydrogen solutions across many industries over the last couple of years, most notably in on- and off-road transportation. The primary trend is being driven by the demand for high-performance, zero-emissions vehicles and equipment, national and international targets for reducing or eliminating carbon emissions, and regulations that are curtailing the use of diesel-poweredequipment in order to improve air quality and mitigate climate disruption.

Because fuel cells are the only solution that work for some of the heavy transport sectors that are the most difficult to decarbonize, and because hydrogen can be produced without reliance on fossil fuels, it is inevitable that these technologies will be a major part of the clean transportation future.

Tell us about a favorite hobby, passion, or book you’ve read recently that has had an impact on you and your work.

GB: Wooden boatbuilding has been both vocation and avocation for me for the past forty years. It combines many elements of things I am passionate about: the integrity of craftsmanship (a boat not well made will sink, so the stakes couldn’t be higher), the beauty of natural materials and of forms that take shape in response to function, adventure and interaction with the sea – our most wild and unexplored place, yet one that covers three quarters of our planet’s surface. I think of boatbuilding as the grandaddy of mechanical engineering – the field I entered after a decade of working as a boatwright, and which led to my career in hydrogen out of a lifelong concern with energy sources and the environment.

To keep my hand in the craft, I continue building small boats for my own use. My most recent project is a wooden sea kayak that allows me to explore the Gulf of Maine and beyond.

I like the idea of making the world better by making better things. For me, wooden boats are a response to that impulse, and fuel cells are a response to that imperative.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

GB: It’s been extremely rewarding to work alongside so many exceptional colleagues at Nuvera. Years of product and technology development have culminated in Nuvera’s fuel cell engines, which put eight generations of fuel cell technology advancement to work in very demanding on- and off-road motive applications. I am proud to be part of an organization at the forefront of the hydrogen revolution, and of an industry that is providing solutions to some of the most daunting challengesof our time.

Company Twitter: https://twitter.com/NuveraH2
LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/gusblock/

Editor’s note: nominations are now open for this year’s E+E Honorees. Nominate a colleague — or yourself — for the 2022 E+E Honoree list today.