Okay, we're back. We're live. I'm so happy to be here. 4 o'clock, rock on a Wednesday and you know what that means. Hawaii, the state of clean energy. I'm Jay Fidel, my co-host. It's my cabinet. He's a co-chair of the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum, which is the progenitor of this whole episode and show and series and everything. I'm like, hey, we have two special guests from HNEI followed by a third guest later in the show. And to my left is Tatiana, wait, Reshentenko. Yes. Okay. And to her left is Jean-San Pierre, without a hyphen. That's correct. Hello, Jay. Nice to have you guys here. We've had a great month talking about HNEI. We found out so much stuff. All this great research is going on right under our noses on Cook Street, believe it or not. So we are delighted to have you here. We want to know more. Tonight's show is about fuel cells. We're going to dig deep on fuel cells. Do you want to put this as a perspective, Mike? Well, it is the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute at HNEI for the acronym folks. And this is a long-standing research unit at the University of Hawaii and they've been working on hydrogen for quite some time now and a bunch of other things. And it's funded partly by the state, probably by the fuel tax. And put some really good work going on there. Fabulous. Okay, so what are we going to talk about tonight?  So, Summary now, what are you going to talk about tonight? Well, I would like to tell several words about how fuel cells are working and then introduce which kind of fuel cell products are available in the market and which kind of challenges fuel cell technology is facing right now and why it's still in the early stage of commercialization. Okay, and you guys are doing some interesting research down there. You're going to talk about that, Jean? Yes, that's correct. Yes, I will talk a little bit about our own facility here in Hawaii, world class, I would say. And then after that, I will detail a little bit more to the research project that we have. And then that will link to what our third guest will talk about later. Okay, got patents? Plenty. Then you can talk about it. Oh, absolutely. There are no secrets here at Think Tech. We'll touch you on it, let's start with you. So give us the landscape, you know, how does this work now with fuel cells in the marketplace and in the continuum toward 100% clean energy? Okay, fuel cells is a system which can directly convert chemical energy or fuels to the electricity without involving in any movement parts or combustion. So because of that, it's very efficient compared to the regular Carnot cycle. So if you look on my first slide, you can see the principal schematics of the fuel cell operation. Let's see the first slide, then. Okay, so you can see that there are anode and the cathodic fuel cell and there is electrolyte which divides two electrodes. Fuel is supplied on the anode and there is oxidation of the fuel, the formation of the ion and electrons. Ions will move through electrolyte while electrons will go through wires from the anode to the cathode and this is electrical current and we can use it to power our devices. At the cathode, there is a reaction between oxygen, electrons and the ions with formation of the products of reaction which is water. Usually, you can see that fuel cell can operate as long as their fuel and oxidant are supplied and this is the main difference between fuel cell and the batteries because there is no charging step here. Usually, one cell produces voltage lower than one volt and that's why we need to put several cells and make a stack as you can see on the next figure here and to get our desired voltage to power our devices, electrical devices. So, if you look on there, so fuel cell provides different source of electricity and which kind of application for fuel cells. Fuel cells has application as stationary power sources, portable power sources and to power vehicles. If you look on the power, stationary power sources which we can do, we can produce actually electricity and we can produce a hot water which is actually implemented in any farm, Japanese any farm program. Then we use a natural gas to get a hydrogen and then use hydrogen to get electricity and hot water. Natural gas is the source of hydrogen for the fuel cell. Yes. And actually, this program started in 2009 and Japanese manufacturers and manufacturers, they distributed around 150,000 units through their how many age years and it was quite successful program and also for those stationary power sources, I would like to mention that there is a new product from Toshiba on the market. It's called H21. It's a unit which can utilize renewable sources of energy and you can produce a hydrogen from them through electrolysis. So, hydrogen. So, electrolyzer. Yeah. We can keep hydrogen there and then use this hydrogen to produce electricity. It's the power which can supply the system is around up to 100 kilowatts. So, it can be used. Expensive? It's probably expensive, but currently Toshiba distributed tests for field investigations to fulfill tests and it's right now in several cities in several port areas. So, what do you what do you think the future is and where is this all going to go? We know cars. Yes. But there are challenges and I'll ask you about that. What else beside cars and other vehicles? Well, as I said, there are stationary power sources and also there are portable power sources. So, small devices which can replace batteries or to power some devices. Whatever. It can be anything. So, okay. So, what are the challenges now? Well, there are several challenges here. First of all, of course, if you're talking about hydrogen fuel cells, there is a hydrogen infrastructure. It's a challenge here. And the next challenge, it's a cost of this material, of this system because they're using platinum and platinum is expensive. And there is a target to reduce cost of these units. What about as opposed to all the women give up their wedding rings? It's gold. It's a gold. So, gold does not work here. So, we have to stick to the platinum, which is a little bit. Just trying to be creative here. Yes. Of course. Part of the goal is to find other materials besides platinum that would be cheaper. Yes, that's correct. And there is an iron-containing catalyst, which might be a good substitute for that. The third challenge here, it's a durability. Durability of the system and environmental adaptability. So, the system should operate in different operating conditions. It's low temperature, high temperature, which kind of air quality or fuel quality. We have to be sustainable in such conditions. And the last, but not the least, it's of course, it's workforce development. So, if you have the system in the market, we need to maintain them to provide service. And of course, it's a way the educator should move. Of course, these challenges, they show us a direction where research and science should go in the future to make this technology viable and available in the market. And actually, in the Hawaii, here we have a facility which is working in that area for almost 15 years. And it's a good class facility. And I think Jean will tell several words about what we are doing in detail. Fair enough. Okay. Jean, tell us what's going on in terms of the research. Well, before going there, I think I wanted to say a few words about the facility itself. And I think I'll just slide to that effect there. So, this is a sub portion, I guess, of the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute. So, we have a fuel cell testing lab, which is, we renamed it the Hawaii Sustainable Energy Research Facility. Not this slide, I think it's not the next one, but the following one is possible. Yeah, let's skip this one. And here we go. So, it's the Hawaii Sustainable Energy Research Facility for short. Hi, sir. Yes, thank you. I didn't come up with the name. I think our director actually came up with that. Here we go. So, you got it. So, I think it's a fairly catchy name here for Hawaii. So, we are located on Cook Street. It's on Hawaiian property. It started back in 2002 after Public Utilities Commission decision in order, if I'm memory serves me right, it's 1993-98 to create this facility here. So, you can see our logo on top on the left there. And you can see that the logo are actually on the warehouse itself. So, if you look inside, obviously, I'm just showing here on the right, only one of the test stations that we use to obviously characterize fuel cells and investigate and try to understand them and that sort of thing. What is not clear here is where is the fuel cell. So, if you look at the computer screen there to the lower left a little bit there, you can see a black square essentially there. That's your fuel cell where all the wires actually converge themselves. So, we have a number of different units like that that we can test fuel cell. And if we compare ourselves to other labs in the world, we do good research and we definitely well equipped to actually characterize fuel cells. So, definitely world-class here. And it's right here in Hawaii. So, what are you testing them for? So, why are we testing them? Okay. So, during the last few years, maybe three, four years, there's essentially three major themes we've been exploring at the facility. The first one is somewhat obvious because most of our funding comes from the Office of Naval Research. So, as part of this deal essentially, we're supporting a lot of their activity at their Naval Research Laboratory in Maryland. So, we have a collaboration there and we have them on different topics. Obviously, I cannot necessarily talk about all the topics there, but it clearly has to do with about unmanned hair, unmanned, sorry, aerial vehicles and unmanned underwater vehicles because we're talking about the Navy here. So, we're supporting a lot of the activities there. The second topic here and I'll skip or keep it short because I'm going to come back later to it is contamination. So, Tanya was talking about that air and especially oxygen in air has to be supplied to the cell and hydrogen as well. But depending how these things hydrogen is produced, normally it contains substances that you don't necessarily want in a fuel cell. Same with air.  But if you're in an underwater vehicle, you need to have a source of air. Let's come back to that question. So, the point is there's substances that actually most substantial will actually sit on the platinum catalyst that Tanya was talking about and blocks the reaction. Okay. So, we don't want that. One key culprit here in Hawaii is sulfur dioxide, which is pewed by, obviously, the volcano. And we'll come back to that later because Mitch is going to give a little bit more detail about the program with respect to that. So, bottom line here is many substances actually are not very good for fuel cell operation. So, that's been essentially the second topic here. A third topic is also, because we understand fuel cell were a good experience, we continually also tried to develop new methods to actually characterize those fuel cells and understand them. So, to this day, there's still a need for doing that. So, that's basically these three topics cover pretty much what we've been doing in the last few years. And what are you seeking in the end?  Greater efficiency? Greater productivity? What? Well, we should expect to... Well, cheaper is part of it. But actually, since we're not at the moment doing material research, the cost is not necessarily something we directly look at. However, contamination is... I will link it to durability, okay? Because normally, if you have a contaminants that affect your fuel cell, it would take these contaminants in air or hydrogen usually are in part per million, okay? And it take quite some time to actually create the effect. So, that may develop over tens or hundreds of hours. So, we're talking about durability of the system at this time, okay? So, the other actually here is that, okay, okay, can I prevent the contamination in the first place? Okay, so, we were involved in the past to actually... Sorry, I'm losing my words here for a second. So, hydrogen has specification in terms of purity. So, we were involved in actually defining those specifications. So, that's one thing we've been working on. Also, in the lab, now that we contaminants, we recognize how important this is. We also, you know, you have that in the internal combustion engine. You have a filter, okay? So, in the fuel cell, you also have an air filter to try to capture all these things. This is the preventive part of the research here. So, we have capabilities to actually test new filters and we also have activities to design new filter materials, okay? So, we have material science as an essential part of this. Well, give me a second here and actually, you're totally right. I think in the future, we will do more and more of that. And I think, Tanya, all they mentioned with respect to, you know, different catalysts, but it's more than just the catalyst. There's also other aspects to look at. So, in turn, and also, let's say that the filter fails or somebody decides not to replace their filter on time, the fuel cell can get contaminated. So, in that moment, we're trying to answer the questions, what can we do about it? Can I recover the performance I lost? Okay. So, many contaminants, fortunately, if you remove the source of the contaminants, they will just recover by themselves. But there's still a number of contaminants that, and sulfur dioxide is one of those, if you get, it gets in the cell, you have to actively do something to remove it. And that takes some doing. And there's still research being done there because it's difficult to do in the actual application, okay? If you're using natural gas as a source, there's sulfur in natural gas. Yes, that's what's coming back to how the hydrogen is made. So, predominantly these days is methane-beforming. And obviously, sulfur is a key component of this. But if it's water electrolysis, then usually it's different type of contaminants that get there, if any at all. Because I think it's pure, you know, you would get a pure hydrogen there. Correct. That's right. So, is there anybody else doing this research elsewhere? Are you way ahead of the crowd or what? Are you collaborating? Yes, we are. Tanya, for example, is collaborating on catalysts with the University of New Mexico. In terms of contamination, we definitely ahead of the game here, I think. I think we, if you look at what's been done here in Hawaii, there's not many people in the world actually look at these problems. Yeah, that's the thing that people don't know. You have to know that we're way ahead. I mean, that Hawaii has some world-class research going on in the fuel cells. Thank you, Jay. I appreciate that. That's what I think anyway. And I think you guys are really a good example of that right here, you know, a quarter mile from where we sit. But let's, we have to close on this part of the discussion. At the end, we missed a couple of your slides. I wonder if you could sort of wrap around this and tell us, you know, what this research is going to mean in terms of the marketplace and what it's going to mean in terms of Hawaii's position in being a leader around fuel cells. Well, actually, I would like to tell you that every year, 60 to 70,000 fuel cell units are manufactured in shipped globally. And of course, Asian region, Asian, like Japan and South Korea, they are the leaders, the leaders for fuel cell deployments. So I think it's, for Hawaii, it's very interesting to be here because when in the middle between Asian region and America, and they probably could be sort of a place for adoption of this new technology, a decade advantage from their Asian, Asia and from America. So all these technology can meet here. And I think because we have here a world-class facility, I think we have a good opportunity to bring that together. Yeah. And if I may just add an element to that, that totally different than what Tanya is saying here, which is totally valid, is that we have to realize that even though many of these systems are commercially available now, there's still a lot of need for continuing research. Sure. And the reason for this is that somebody has to adopt or say, I'm going to buy this product. Now you're going back to social science and technology adoption usually follow a S-shaped curve. Okay. So it's slow at first, accelerate and then saturate when the market obviously has absorbed the technology, just like obviously the cell phone here. But where we are today, usually adoption is self-sustaining when you're about between five and 20% adoption. So even though these things are commercially available now, we order the magnitude below that at the present time. So that means that there's still a lot we can do to accelerate this. Okay. If you're operating on the assumption that this technology, fuel cell technology, will be an answer to many questions out there in energy, in consumer price. I remember it was a computer, it was a Japanese company, I think, it was going to build fuel cells into their computers in order to generate the electrical current necessary to run the computer. I don't know if that ever happened. No, it's happening now. There were some prototypes and there were products on the market for the development of fuel cells we've already developed for to power computers like Toshiba, Samsung. Toshiba is one thing. Toshiba, Samsung developed that. But as I said, it was the main challenge here because this system a little bit expensive compared to regular batteries. That's why probably it stopped. You know, one of the challenges here has been to find renewable energy for transportation. That's true. We've been hopelessly behind in that whole sector and fuel cells are promising. It is promising and the results out there, Atanya mentioned that there's always commercial systems available out there. They've been adopted. There's more and more of it. So that's a positive spin I will give. I've been in fuel cells since 95. The next, I guess, even longer than I am. And over all this entire period, I see more and more and more in the field. So something is happening. Something good is happening. Something's happening and you guys are on the point of it. We're not yet at the self-sustaining adoption ratio yet. We have to keep in touch with you actually, John. Okay. Yeah. John Sampierre with a hyphen. Yes. That's John and Reggie Cienko. Thank you for coming down to you guys. We're going to go to the second part of our show right after this break. All right, Mike? Yep. Okay. Time to go. Right back. You're watching Think Tech Hawaii, which streams live on ThinkTechHawaii.com, uploads to YouTube and broadcasts on cable OC16 and Ollello 54. Great content for Hawaii from ThinkTech. You're watching ThinkTech Hawaii, 25 talk shows by 25 dedicated hosts every week, helping us to explore and understand the issues and events in and affecting our state. Great content for Hawaii from ThinkTech. Some say scuba divers are the poor man's astronaut. At DiveHeart, we believe that to be true. We say forget the moon. DiveHeart can help children, adults, and veterans of all abilities escape gravity right here on Earth. Search DiveHeart.org and imagine the possibilities in your life. Match Day is no ordinary day. The pitch, hallowed ground for players and supporters alike. Excitement builds. Game plans are made with responsibility in mind. Celebrations are underway. Ready for kickoff. MLS clubs and our supporters rise to the challenge. We make responsible decisions while we cheer on our heroes and toast their success. Elevate your Match Day experience. If you drink, never drive. Bingo. We're back. Mike Hamlin and I are enjoying an education in hydrogen fuel cells. Wow. We are indeed. We are indeed. We have one of our... And now we've got the program manager for hydrogen fuel cells at HNEI, that's the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute. And his name is Mitch Ewan, and we know him for about 600 years. Right. As a member of the forum. So where do you come in on this as a program manager for hydrogen? Yeah, I'm the hydrogen systems program manager. What I do is I take technology that's almost commercially ready and I deploy it in the real world. So I take the work they've done and I'm deploying it right now. For example, while I'm doing this show, I'll talk a little bit about what I'm doing on the big island. Where I'm deploying three hydrogen fuel cell buses that will be deployed on the big island. So if you want to throw up that first slide, I just want to give you an overview of the project. Which shows... Once it comes up. Let's look at that slide. There we go. So picture the big island. So we have a project on the big island where we are producing hydrogen and Kona right beside the Kona airport. You'll see that on the left of the slide. So I have a hydrogen production system there that's comprised of an electrolyzer. I'll have hydrogen storage. And we'll also have a hydrogen dispenser so we can fuel one of our buses there, which will be operated by the Helion bus service. The commercial bus service. Yeah, it's the county bus. And we purchase that bus using a braille tax money. And then you converted it. And U.S. hybrid, who is active here in Hawaii, converted that over to a fuel cell. That's Hcat. At Hcat. Right down the street. Just down the street from our Cook Street. All good things happening in Kakaako, we're going to say. So just looking at the slide. So we're producing the hydrogen and Kona. We have two additional buses that are going to be deployed at Volcano National Park. You can see that to the right of the picture. And in order to get the hydrogen from Kona to Havo, we use hydrogen tube trailers or hydrogen transport trailers.  I have some pictures, some photographs of them later in the show here. And it's about 138 miles. And we haul them by a truck. And we're working with a Loha Petroleum and one of their subcontractors to actually haul the hydrogen from Kona to Havo. So it is electrolyzer. What are you putting in? What are you getting out? Yeah, we're putting in electricity, which we get from the grid and water. The grid actually on the Big Island during the day, a bright sunny day, is about 83% renewable energy. And then that falls at night to about 50%. So you get it during the day. We get the maximum amount of renewable energy during the day, but we still have to operate this 24-7 to get the amount of hydrogen we need to operate these buses. So it's a storage device. The hydrogen is acting as a storage device. Exactly. Stores energy. Okay. Great storage. Why would I want a hydrogen bus instead of a regular old-fashioned bus? Well, I think that's a really open-ended question. Yeah, there's lots of reasons. But the two primary ones is people, there's like on the mainland, people will wait for the hydrogen bus before they take the diesel bus. First of all, the diesel bus is very noisy. And also it spews out hydrogen. I mean, yeah, car exhaust. So it's smelly, dirty, whatever. People will wait for the quiet stealth ride of the hydrogen bus every time. Yeah. Staying awesome is because on a trip in a hydrogen bus at Hickam one time, you couldn't hear anything. Yeah. The loudest sound was the, you know, it was... The rattling of the bus. The rattling of the bus, right. The keys in your pocket or something. There was no sound from the generation system. Yeah, it's got very good power, very good acceleration because it has lots of torque because it's propelled by electric motors. So the drivers love it.  It's not that much maintenance to do on it. And we're also able to recapture a lot of the energy from braking because the bus is always braking every time it stops. So we regenerate that power in storage of the battery on board the bus. So it becomes very efficient. So it's about twice as efficient as a diesel bus. That's great. Yeah. And of course, you know, all those environmental considerations are involved. Yeah, exactly. But what do you hope to achieve with this project? I mean, what are you going to show the world? Where does it go after? What conclusions do you want to make and what do you want to happen after that? Okay. So the strategy is to focus on public transportation because we're using taxpayers' dollars right now to put these systems in place. So the general public deserves to have an opportunity to use this. It also provides the general public with the experience of using these things. And so it's an educational tool to develop the awareness of just how good these things really are so that they will embrace it and want to use it. So that- Building confidence. Building confidence in the product. Because right now, it's just nobody knows what it really is. They haven't had the experience you've had of riding on the bus and saying, wow, this is really quiet. This is great.  So that's what it does. So there's a lot of anticipation for us to develop this and deploy these on the Big Island. By deploying the two buses at Volcano Park, they get over almost 2 million visitors a year at Hawaii Volcano National Park. So this is a great way to provide outreach, not just for Hawaii, but also nationally. And you've got educational materials that go along with the- Correct. Yeah, we'll have a very active outreach program once it starts. Now, you were here while we had the first part of the show. You heard John Sampierre and Petriona Resenchenko talk about their research at HNEI. I'm sure you know them. They must be in the same building. No, no, no. I had the honor of actually designing that building. That was my first part of the university. Yeah, but I office up at the Pennsylvania University. They're in the same organization. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know their research, of course. So how is their research going to affect your project? What do you hope to build into this whole bus system with that new technology, the new technology they are developing or enabling to make this happen? Yeah, well, one of the main focuses was on the effect of contaminants on fuel cells. So what we did is we designed a new air filtration system for the buses that will be operating at Volcano Park because they have a very high level of sulfur dioxide at the park. So it's like kind of an accelerated program, kind of the air like you'd find in Beijing, you know, China. So what we developed is what I characterize as a smart air filtration system. So what we do is we measure the level of contaminants coming into the air system before it enters the fuel cell. Then it goes through the filter. Then we have another set of sensors that measures the contaminants as it comes out of the filter before it enters your fuel cell. And if it reaches a certain maximum where it shows that your filter isn't hacking the job, it cuts it off and shuts down the fuel cell. So we change the filter. So we change the filter or as part of what we've developed is it can swap over to a brand new filter so that the bus can continue on going through this plume of high sulfur dioxide without killing the fuel cell. I hear you saying it's really bad to have the contaminants in there and it might damage the membrane in the fuel cell. Is that what it happened? Yeah, damage is the catalyst. Essentially it kills your fuel cell. That's the bottom line. And the degradation is very severe. So you don't want that. That's a thing you do not want to happen. That's an expensive one. Exactly. So we've actually submitted a patent for this. So it's still in process, but we've submitted a full level patent. So, you know, I actually thought you made some comment about that and I didn't realize how important it was. It takes air to run a fuel cell. And you've got to have good air. It can't be, you know, air with contaminants. Exactly. And a lot of air has contaminants. So you have to do this. Because this is going to be an enabler for technology around fuel cells everywhere. Killaway is a great place to test. We're working with a great partner with a U.S. hybrid who is actually now doing business in China. So we have a way to promote our technology and get it out in the marketplace and, you know, leverage UH technology and hopefully make money for the university, which is a good thing to do. Now, what about the membranes themselves? You're working on that, too. You're working on the essential nature of the fuel cell, the structure of the fuel cell. I don't personally work on that. He deploys. I deploy it and test it. No, I say you, I mean HNEI. Yeah. Yeah, we don't actually work on the membrane itself as developing new types of membranes. I mean, there's a whole industry out there that does that. But we look at what the effects are of the hydrogen contaminants and air contaminants on the performance of those membranes. Is this kind of what you call an experiment, I guess? It's kind of project being done elsewhere in the U.S. Are there other, you know, fuel cell buses running? Are there other people studying them the way you are? Probably not quite the way. We have a little bit of uniqueness. I mean, you have to be unique to be able to go out and win project money. But yes, they're, you know, for example, AC Transit in California has 12 full-size, 40-foot buses they've been operating for the last 10 years. And then you've got Sunline Transit in Palm Springs operating, I think, five or six fuel cell buses. So yeah, you have them all instrumented up and you take data and you analyze how long the system will last. So a little commercial for U.S. hybrid, they have one stack that's lasted over 25,000 hours and it's still going. That's impressive. That's impressive. Yeah. So there must come a time, or maybe it's a vision at this point, that every commercial vehicle, you know, whether it's government or private, whether it's a truck or a bus, any big commercial vehicle can and should run on hydrogen and fuel cells. Absolutely. What's the path between here and there? The pathway is actually to do what we're doing is get the demonstrations on the road to show industry that these things work and that they're not going to fail and they have the longevity. They last 25,000 hours. That's something. That's what you have to do to build the confidence because the guy running the business does not want to. So I rode over here in a cab and the cab driver is saying, yeah, those electric vehicles are great, but one of them just stopped dead in front of me in traffic. That's what you don't want to have that happen. So that's why we do these experiments and get lots of hours on the vehicle so that people have the confidence to make that investment. So for example, I'm working with the county of Hawaii bus agency, and what they want to see out of the bus that we're deploying with them is just that, is how long will it last? Will the passengers want to use it? All these kinds of things. How cost-effective it is. Just maintenance and repair is an element of cost, but taking that out for a minute, just in terms of running the bus down the road, is it cheaper? Can it be cheaper? Will it soon be cheaper to run a hydrogen fuel cell bus down the road than a gas bus? Like I said, the bus itself is twice as efficient as a diesel bus. The issue is the cost of the hydrogen, and the cost of the hydrogen, if you're making it from electrolysis of water, is the cost of the electricity that goes into it. So for example, if we were using our geothermal resource we have here in Hawaii, we can get pretty inexpensive electricity to do that. That would make it totally viable. If I'm taking electricity off the grid at 26 a kilowatt, a sense of kilowatt hour, that's not going to work. We need cheap electricity, electrical input. Near zero cost. Well, zero would be awesome, but there's no such thing as that. We'll think about solar panels on a roof somewhere. I thought you were going to... I thought you were going to say that when you began this morning. Well, I was at a meeting this morning where, just before I came over here, and they were talking about on the mainland for very large grid-scale PV installations, about 2.75 cents a kilowatt hour. That's getting close. That's there. We're there with that. So that's what we have to get down to here. We need to be about five or six cents a kilowatt hour for it to be viable. Sighting. Sighting possibility. But it's not necessarily... It's more than just economics. I mean, for example, we didn't go to light bulbs because light bulbs were cheaper. I mean, actually, well, all that kind of stuff was a cheaper way to get illumination, but it was the better technology because you didn't have sweat, you didn't have all these other benefits. If you have a little AA battery, the electricity in there is worth about $125 a kilowatt hour, but we use it because of the portability it gives us with our electronics that we have. You're in a great spot. This is a great thing. HNEI is in a great position worldwide, really, in terms of advancing this technology. And it's some really good work. Yeah. Mike, you want to summarize our discussion today as you will? Well, I mean, fuel cells, I think, hold great promise for the future, and the fact that they're doing both this sort of R&D work at HNEI as well as the deployment and testing of the technology is really doing both ends of the spectrum here. And it's what's going to make it work. Thank you, Mitch. Thanks for coming down. It's always nice to see you. There will be more right now soon. Yeah. Wait till I get the buses up and going. Then we can do a show on the big island. And thank you, Jean Saint-Pierre. And thank you, Tatiana Resniceko, for participating in the show. And thank HNEI in general. Now before we go, there's a certain announcement that it's important that we make. Mike? Yeah. We're coming up on Energy Policy Forum's 9th Annual Clean Energy Day. It's going to be August 28th at the Atlanta Kilaway. And this year, as we have in the past few years, we're going to be presenting transformational awards, the 2016-2017 Transformational Energy Awards in several categories. The nominations deadline is June 23rd, and the Energy Policy Forum will present those awards at the Clean Energy Day. So please go on the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum website, and that is hawaiienergypolicyforumatgmail.com. And the instructions and the forms are all there. And please do submit nominations for the 2016-2017 Transformational Energy Award. Thank you, Mike. Be there or be square, yeah? Yeah. It'll be a very important event that always is every year. Thank you, Mike Hamnett. Thank you. Thanks to all our guests today. And we'll see you next week with more on what HNEI. Yeah, we're going to study this subject. You can run with your crown jewel. Yeah. You are. Thanks.


If you want to beat more defenders, stand out a little more when you play. These are some soccer dribbling drills. In this video, we're going to do some soccer drills, some soccer dribbling drills. And I'm just going to kind of freestyle this, show you a bunch of different drills that you can use to improve your skills. First one that we would do, and you've seen this before, it's these footwork drills. So this is dribbling, yes, but footwork, I think that's foundation. These little touches help you when you're doing more matrilistic touches. So start with the little stuff, the tops. I like these touches. These are some of the basics that I always do. The croquette attach, like an NES attach, the cuts. So whether that's one foot cuts, but also bending in these, getting lower the ground, both feet, changes of direction. Okay, then you can do those things moving. So if I just did the first touches, actually going places, whether that's front and back from different directions. Okay, if you did that croquette attach, hooey, and if you make mistakes, just go again. But actually moving places with these touches, inside, outside cut. So those would be the first footwork drills that I would recommend. Moving into dribbling, actually with the head up, but. Hey, what's up? I hope you're finding this content helpful. Watch this all the way to the end if you wanna find out which subscriber got this video's special shout out. Changes of direction, something like that. So when you're changing direction, yes, you're focusing on the quality of the touch, but you're also focusing on the quality of the movement. The body control, okay? So when I make that touch, my upper body can't be here. If I wanna move, change direction efficiently. I want it to be down here. Because even if I have a bad touch, I'm on top of the ball, I can react quickly. If you're cutting your changing direction up here, slow, and if you do get a little bit of contact from a defender, he's gonna push you off the ball. So whenever you're turning changing direction, think about the sharpness of your touch, yes, but sharpness of your body movement as well. Next, you could do some 1v1 dribbling skills. So let's bring this guy out. Cracking scene attacking a defender. So first one might be something like that. These are all skills you've seen me do 100 times, but I like efficient skills that actually work. Okay, so when I'm doing these skills, again, the turn's still there, the forward's still there. Now we're incorporating and attacking someone. The timing of the move is extremely important. If I make my move too late, he's gonna tackle me.  So over time, you're gonna find the perfect distance to make this move at. With someone here, I wanna force him to bite, force him to lunge for the ball, or force him to shift his body, his body control or his body positioning in one direction. If I want this space, I wanna push him that space. And if I want that space, I wanna push him this space. Okay, so when you're practicing this, skills are great, but let's make it matrilistic. Because if you practice slow, you play slow. Yeah, it's good practicing my skills. But if I make my move and accelerate with that pace, I'm gonna get tackled every time. So when you make your move, quick change of direction. Really focus on, after I make my move, this step here, boom, try to get away from it a little bit because what's gonna happen, if you're too slow, I might shift him. I might force him to go that way. Because I don't get away quickly, now I have to beat him again. Now I have to beat him again. And again, and I might have good skill and I might beat him five times, but I haven't gone anywhere with the ball. So focus after you make that move, get away. Good. So I'm not big for cones. But if you like using cones, let's do a few cone drills. And now we'll breathe and recover in between. Talking and playing at the same time. Makes for a good video content. Tough to do. Okay, cones are good for you to practice your technique. The only problem I have with cones is it's not match realistic. In a game, you're not going to dribble the same pattern 10 times in a row. But for foundational skills, young players, it's a good place to start. So what I love doing through the cones is the cuts. Okay, if you watch most players do this, especially young players, what is it? It's one, two, three, or you see these little touches like this. Yeah, it's a good place to start, but it's not match realistic. In a match, you usually only have one touch to get away from the defender. And if you make a mistake like that, what do you do? You go again. If you're not making mistakes, that means the intensity of your training is not high enough. So you're not playing quickly enough or you're not forcing yourself to dribble when you're tired. You have to learn how to play when you're tired because when you're tired, the game does not stop. Okay, so cones, I think are really good for cuts, but is it match realistic?  So you can do this with cones. I like to do this with bolts. Is there a little bigger, a little more of an obstacle to get around? But I might just set up some balls like this and then freestyle dribble. Don't stop the ball. Don't stop moving. When you get tired, keep going. If you make a mistake, recover quickly, in and out, be creative. Dribbling is also about creativity. If you're doing the same pattern every time, you're easy to defend. If you go the same way every time, you're easy to defend. Have some fun with it. This is the featured subscriber for this video. If you'd like to be featured in future videos, hit that like button, drop a comment below, and let me know how my content has helped you improve as a player.


The reality is that true success is line by line, precept by precept, building block upon building block. Hard work, innovation, character, that's a measure of true success. Our creativity, our innovation, our hard work. And it was a command. So if we obey God, if we are creative, if we're innovative, we're hard working, our mission will change.


Arsenal wants to show they belong as their journey in Europe's top flight continues. The Gunners seek treasure against the blood and gold in Group B. On Matchday 2 of the UEFA Champions League, watch Arslan's host Arsenal Tuesday, October 3, 2 p.m., 3 p.m. UCT on Sportsmax. Get in the game. Watch on the Sportsmax app.


Hello, my name is Leslie and I'm from China. I'm studying political philosophy and economy at SOS. I graduated from high school in the UK in 2020. But unfortunately, my study was affected by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, leading me to take a break from education for two years. By the time the situation stabilized in 2022, I had to miss the regular UCAS cycles and now made an application in time and thought I would have to wait another year. It was during this period that I discovered that SOS was still accepting applications through UCAS clearing rates. I was particularly drawn to the curriculum in PPE and recognized the SOS academic reputation in this field. I seized the opportunity to maximize my time and putting in the application directly into clearing rates was straightforward and simple. Even though I had not made an application during the main cycle, I was fortunate enough to receive an offer, enabling me to embark on my journey at SOS. I am thoroughly enjoying my time here at SOS and could not expect enough gratitude to the clearing process for rescuing me from the potential disasters and allowing me to start a new chapter.


Hi friends, I did pick up this foundation. Of course it is what I'm wearing today. I'm going to be applying this, giving you all of my thoughts on it. I have worn this one other time and so I'll be giving you a few extra thoughts on it. I tell you at the end of the video that I probably won't be doing a check-in wear test because of my disability, but I will make sure that you're totally informed about it because I will put a paragraph of all of my thoughts about how it wore, the length of time that it wore, whether it broke apart, whether it oxidized, settled into pores, everything about it. You can see what it looks like right now, so far so good, I'm really liking it, but I'm not only trying this. I am also trying a couple of other things. The new NYX Bare With Me Concealer Serum, I'm giving that a try today. And ELF's, this is the Power Grip Primer. I'm trying that today as well. And I'm also trying the new NYX Plump Finish with Electrolyte Setting Spray. So I'm trying a few new things today and I'm kind of excited to share those with you. And then later on I'll be giving you my final thoughts on everything so that you can know that too. And I'll be making sure that I put it into a comment, the first pinned comment here on the video as well. So I hope you do enjoy the video. Next you're gonna see me, my eyes are done, but everything else is barefaced and we're going to get into it right now. Okay, so I'm gonna use two different primers, one on one side and then the other. One is more blurring, which is the Revlon Prime Plus Perfecting and Smoothing. And I'm just gonna use one pump for each side of this. And then the other one that I'm using is the new one from ELF. This is the Power Grip Primer. I've used this a couple of times with a couple of different foundations. I don't know if I'm super impressed with this one. It does feel gripping when you very first put it on, but it kind of dissipates quite quickly. So I don't know if it's really like gonna grip the foundation all that much, like maybe the milk makeup one does. And then I'm going to do this step that I always do, which is take the MAC Prepping Prime Skin Refine Zone Treatment. And I'm going to take just a dot of that, just a little tiny dot, and dot it into where I get my big pores and really press that in. This is a trick that Mel Thompson showed, and I love this stuff. It works so well for my mature skin that shows so much texture. Moving on to Color Corrector. I'm not gonna color correct anything on my face, but I am going to do my under eyes because I usually always do that first. And so what I'm using is the Charlotte Tilbury. This is the one in Medium. And I'm using it because I wanna use it up. I'm trying really hard to go through some of my makeup and use as much of the different things I have up. All right, if you have been with me for any time at all, you know that a while ago, I adopted Wengos technique of putting powder on before I put on my foundation works so well. So I wanna test this foundation with that technique because it one makes my skin look a lot more blurred. So the pores are blurred. And the other thing is it also really helps to hold my foundation on throughout the day. So we're gonna do that. Just using a big fluffy brush from Elf and also the Elf Halo Glow Setting Powder. And this one is in the pink one. I just lightly dust all the areas across my face. Another thing is if you're an oily person, you're gonna love this technique because it works so well. I know we're not necessarily talking about technique, but this one is great. I have very dry skin and it works so good for me. And for me, it works really good with almost every foundation I've ever tried it with because even though you saw me dusting across a lot, like I am, you don't use a lot of powder. You just kinda continue to bounce it or pounce it or fluff it into your face a little bit. All right, so now we have the magic which is the actual foundation. This is the Tarte Shape Tape Cloud coverage with the Broad Spectrum SPF, I think it says 15. If it says something different, it'll go up on the screen. Anyway, this I have tried one other time. Haven't tried it since then.  I will probably have to use another pump just for my neck and my chest. And a lot of people ask me, why do I go down my neck and my chest? Look at the discoloration I have. I have really bad discoloration and so I do it because I feel very self-conscious about that area and so I go down all the way. Now this, as I'm looking at it and as my very first impression of using it in front of the camera with you guys, is it feels a little bit orange. It looks a little bit orange, but we shall see how that goes. This is going on very nice, it's very pretty. I can tell by just bouncing it around or just by blending it in that it is almost a light medium coverage. So if you like something like that, then definitely this is a good one for you. It might look like it's covering a little bit more on camera, but I can guarantee you or I can assure you that it's not. Okay, I turned my lights down just a little bit in hopes that you guys can see it a little bit more true and I apologize if I'm looking over here. That is where my tiny little viewfinder is and so I have a tendency to try and watch my lighting in that viewfinder over there. So I just picked up another pump and now I'm gonna go down here across my neck and my decollete. It's so red and it just, it looks really bad. So we have one coat of the foundation on and it is covering, like I said, it's covering in a medium fashion. I don't know, I don't feel like it's covering as much as I like to have and also using two pumps of it. So I'm gonna do another coat of it. Only thing I'm only gonna take one pump this time. I don't wanna get too much on there and then I'm gonna concentrate in the areas where I feel like it's really not giving me good coverage. Now I felt like down here on my neck and my decollete because I only always put one coat just to even things out down there. So I feel like it really did a pretty good job down there but it's up here where I have my scarring, my dark age spots, that kind of stuff that I'm feeling like it's not doing that great of a job. Blending this in on this side, I feel like that's a lot better. The texture is a medium texture. It is not thin and it's not watery but it's not super thick. It feels lotion like, not as far as lotion hydrating, just lotion texture. And as I am bouncing it in, it also feels quite hydrating. I also picked up the NYX Bear With Me Concealer Serum. I recently heard about this and really wanted to try it so I heard that you also need only a tiny, tiny bit so I'm just gonna use a tiny bit and I am going to do the trick that I do where I just dot this around, let it sit and then go back in and blend a little bit. I also take the lightest foundation shade that comes from Catrice and I am going to put that on my inner corner in one dot just to give a lot of light. I have been doing this a lot lately and this is superb in the amount of light that it brings to this area.  This is kind of a combination of bronzer and contour. This is Soft Revenge from NABLA and it is their contouring shade or their bronzing shades and I like them so much. So this is gonna bring a lot of life to my face while it still does a great job of contouring. I'm using Catrice's Sun Gasm. I heard about this one from Emily Noel. She had it in her favorites of the year and I'm gonna put this on underneath my blush like I always do, staying away from that area. Boy, I look very greasy through here with this light on. Really greasy. So I'm probably gonna have to set that down but I want my under eyes to get blended just a little bit more before I do that. And then I pulled out an old favorite blush. I forgot I had. This is from Clinique. It's one of their cheek pops and this is Heather Pop. This is one of my favorite blushes. I love the cheek pops. I have several of them and I completely spaced off that I have them. They get pushed to the back of the drawer or something, you know? Okay, now I'm gonna go back in and I'm gonna make sure there is nothing here that is going to crease on me.  I wanna have a little bit of color up there and then I'm gonna take my number seven delicious lift and illuminate powder. I love this stuff and I'm going to take the sponge that I have been using and I'm going to very lightly dot underneath my eyes. Okay, I am just going through into the areas that I know are gonna break apart a little bit and I do wanna take this shine down just a little bit. I'm gonna take my makeup sponge and lighten up this little bit of contour I did right here. Got a little heavy-handed right there. All right, back to that handy-dandy sponge. This is from NYX. This is new. It's the plump finish with electrolytes in it.  I don't know. I'm gonna spray that on the sponge because I don't like the sprayer that comes out of here and then I'm gonna go over these areas. I usually do my Charlotte Tilbury flawless filter but I'm trying a few extra new things today. I'm going to put a little bit of mascara on my bottom lashes. I always use this one from Benefit. This is the Benefit The Real. I love the little spikes on the end of this. It just catches my bottom lashes so well. Okay, we're gonna do some liner. This is Cool BFF from Colourpop. I can't talk and do this at the same time. This liner will give me the perfect nude liner. I really like it. And then there is a new lipstick from the Sephora collection. And let me see if I can figure out what it is called. It's called S Clean. So I'm assuming that it is clean beauty. And then this one is in Dandelion and it is kind of just a very nude pink. All right, that is too nude for me. Much too nude for me. I'm gonna go and I'm gonna grab another lipstick. Okay, so what I decided to grab was from Persona. This is actually their liquid lips. You guys know I normally don't everywhere liquid lips but I've been doing a little bit of it lately because it holds so well and I have it throughout the day. Okay, I feel like that brightened the whole look up a whole lot. Okay, so I put my earrings in. I fluffed my hair a little bit. So this is the final look. Let me tell you what I feel about this foundation. Right now, even after I powdered and I put a little bit of that setting spray, it still feels dewy. Now, keep in mind that I have a ton and when I say a ton, yes, I have a ton of moisturizer on. I do double moisturizer and I do double SPF. So kind of has a little bit of time that it has to settle down and I didn't do too much time in between the two. I do feel like I probably, even though I'm very dry, would go in with a little bit more powder just to set certain parts of it down. However, I'm very dry. So throughout the day, this is gonna settle and my dry skin will begin to soak up everything that I've put on it because I have very, very dry skin. It's beautiful on. It actually did end up covering really well. It looks great on my skin. It doesn't show up any texture. I don't feel like it really is oxidizing or turning orange at all. I have a lot of bronzer on but I don't feel like the actual foundation is changing colors. I don't feel like there's any texture. I don't feel like there's any settling yet at all. So I feel like that's all really good about it. I'm a little bit worried with it being so dewy. That's the only thing. So I think if you like a satin or a matte, you're probably not going to like this very much. So it's very, very dewy. You probably do need two coats to really cover but if you like a very light coverage, you might like this one, light to medium I should say. The other thing is, as some of you may know, I do have a disability and I am not able to do a check-in in any time. So what I will do is I will leave a whole paragraph down below on my final thoughts about the foundation and how it wore throughout the day, how much time I got through it, whether or not it did break apart, whether or not it did settle into fine lines, change colors, any of that stuff that I find. I will make sure that I leave all of that down below in the description box along with all of the makeup that I did wear today, including my eye makeup. And I would love to hear from any of you that have already tried this and what you think of it and let me know that also. Thank you guys all so much for being here with me today. I really appreciate you sticking around until the end and I hope that I get to see you very soon in my next video. Love you much, bye friends.


Welcome to the Dr. Gendry podcast. You know, life can test you in many ways that feel frustrating, overwhelming, and even insurmountable. But with the right tools and the right frame of mind, you can unleash your inner warrior and tackle anything that comes your way. And my guest today is leading by example. In just a minute, I'm gonna be speaking with none other than JJ Virgin. JJ is a certified health expert, podcaster, multiple New York Times bestselling author and founder of the Mindshare Summit, a yearly conference for health and wellness influencers. As a tour de force in the wellness and health industry, JJ spent her entire career helping men and women, particularly those over the age of 40, get fit, lose weight, and enjoy happier, healthier lives. But in 2012, her own life was turned upside down when her son Grant was struck by a hit and run driver and left for dead. While doctors said Grant wouldn't make it through the night, JJ refused to give up and poured her efforts into helping him, not just survive but thrive. In her book, Warrior Mom, she shares what that ordeal taught her about resilience and beating the odds.  Because whether you're trying to lose weight, build a better business, or bring a family member back from the brink of death, JJ said the lessons she's learned are universal. And with the right mindset, you can be unstoppable. JJ, welcome to the podcast. Good to see you again. Good to see you. Thank you for that intro.  And I really wanted to concentrate on this part of your life because you and I were in Palm Springs when all of this happened.  But things weren't actually totally smooth even before that. Can you tell us a bit more about the accident and what life was like for you and your family leading up to it? I know, here's what was so ironic about the whole thing. My son had had challenges from early, early on. And early on, I took him everywhere. I went and I got to be really good friends with Dr. Daniel Amon, went and had him spec scanned. I took him to the Pfeiffer Clinic. I mean, I was really uncovering every rock. I even switched grad schools and studied pharmacology because I wanted to learn what nutrients could be doing what those drugs could do because the drugs had such horrible side effects. In fact, the side effects were creating a lot of his problems. And so the diagnosis, the first psychiatrist, you're gonna love this. The first psychiatrist I go to in Palm Springs tells me in five minutes that he has OCD, ADHD, oppositional defiant disorder, all this stuff.  You know, I like what- I just met him. I'm like, you just met him. Like, what are you saying about me behind my back? But you know, I like what Dr. Amon says about the brain's the only organ that we don't look at. And then we make these suppositions. And it was just ridiculous. And I just went, all right, something, we gotta do something else.  And I think that's one of the key takeaways we have to look at is, yes, the diagnosis now is bipolar disorder, but it doesn't really look like bipolar disorder. And what's interesting is I just started working with an awesome doctor out of Mindshare, Dr. Cat Tubes, who found a viral infection that happened when he was a young boy where his personality started to shift. That could be what's been causing it the whole time. So you just never know with these things, but what was really frustrating about this situation is we'd gone through all of these struggles with Grant. And at 16, he'd finally kind of gotten on the right path. He had a girlfriend, he was actually going to school and liking it. Like everything really was chugging along. And the other crazy thing was, I lived in Palm Springs area because it was such a safe place to raise kids, right? Right, exactly. Not L.A. or New York City. No, it's, I'm gonna live here. It's a safe place to raise your kids. Turns out it is one of the highest hit and run areas in the country. Who knew? So one evening, and this was right before the Virgin Diet was coming out, like a couple weeks before, and you know what that's like. It's absolute pandemonium. Grant goes to walk to a friend's house, it's dusk, and he gets hit by a car. Now no one saw it.  So that's all we know. And it was in an area that at the time had a speed limit of 40 miles an hour. After that, they changed the speed limit, interestingly enough. And Palm Springs also, I don't know if you're aware of, has an ordinance called the Starry Night Ordinance where they don't turn the street lights up very high so that you can see the stars. Forget the people in the street, but we can see the stars. So he was rushed. He was airlifted to the local hospital. And yes, we got to go to Desert Hospital so you know exactly the challenges already. And you know, here we are going to a hospital that the emergency room there treats older people, not 16-year-old boys. And I can totally understand if someone who was 85 had the injuries that my son had that they would have told me what they told me. He had a torn aorta that kills, you know, 90% of the people right on the scene. And the doctor said his aorta was gonna rupture sometime in the next 24 hours was, it was like an onion skin unless we had surgery. But the surgery he needed, they couldn't do there because it was a very specialized surgery. And his brain was bleeding. He had multiple diffuse axonal injuries. He was in a coma. And he also had like road, covered in road rash, literally bones sticking through his skin, 13 fractures. And the doctor said, you're just gonna have to let him go. Whoa. Right. And my son, my 15-year-old son standing there with me and my ex-husband who was a former medical malpractice attorney, which came in super handy. Oh my God. So, and it turns out, I mean like, you know, we actually had family connections to the doctor who ended up doing the surgery. I mean, it was like just one of those things where everything just worked in our favor. But we're standing there and the doctor says, you know, he'd never survived the airlift to the hospital. We needed to get him to Harbor UCLA. And even if you were to survive that airlift, he wouldn't survive the surgery. And even if he were to survive both of those, he would be so brain damaged, it wouldn't be worth it. And my son, Bryce, looks over at this doctor and says, well, maybe there's a 0.25% chance he'd make it. And the doctor said, yeah, that sounds about right. Bryce says, okay, we'll take those odds. He's like looking at me like it's not zero, right? Right. So we got into action. My ex-husband said a couple very good legal terms to get things going. And the hospital at UCLA, boy, they were amazing. At midnight, Dr. Carlos Donair assembled five surgical teams. He got ahold of a stint that had been one he'd used in studies that was not supposed to be used to, you know, was only approved for adults. He found it. He said, I figured I'd just ask for forgiveness and got ahold of it. And when we got there at five in the morning, it was like full court press. He walked up to me. He goes, you don't need to worry about this. I do this all the time. I got this. I'm like, okay. That's what you want to hear as a parent, right? Oh my gosh.   And then he said, let me show you where we're gonna do the surgery. And then I'll take you over to the waiting room. He just was trying to get me out of there because it was a bleak situation, right? And he just was fantastic. He came in after the surgery, said, okay, he's fine. You know, the stents in. Now, I don't know if he's ever gonna wake up. That's not my job. I'm just the plumber. So it was like highs and lows, this whole story all the way along. Good news, bad news. Yes, good news, bad. Well, here's the thing. Can't do anything if he's not with us anymore. I figure as long as we just keep him alive, I know so many people in the medical profession, I'm gonna figure something out. I just, we just need to keep him alive. And that first 24 hours when he was at Harbor UCLA, the doctor on call didn't go home. He was supposed to be off, he didn't. He stayed and he just monitored his kidney function, monitored everything to make sure that he was making it through. And they were just amazing. I mean, if you've got, we were number two trauma center in the country and this is what they're built to do, so. So, all right. So now you've come through this, you know, big surgery and we don't know if he's gonna wake up. We don't know what his brain's gonna do. So tell us as a warrior mom, what number one goes through your head and number two, what happens then from a mother's standpoint to make things happen or at least get the best for your son. Yeah, it was a very interesting time. So I will tell you when it first happened and I went to the hospital, it was like I was watching a movie. It was like I couldn't believe it was real. And then when it kind of clinked in that was real, I went into a big freakout and my son actually was the one who was being the most adult in the family at the time. And then I had this time to drive from Palm Springs to LA and I just processed a lot of it and by the time I got to that hospital, I just was prepared to do whatever it took and I remember standing in the ICU after this whole thing happened and he's in the ICU and he's on the ventilator and he's got a central line and everything's beeping and there's literally like two fingers I can get a hold of because everything else is either in a cast or it's bandaged or it's raw.  I've never believed that. So I said, Grant, I love you so much and you don't need to worry, I'm gonna do whatever it takes to help you get through this and nothing. And then I said and your brother loves you so much and I felt just the faintest little squeeze. And then I said another thing and no response and then I said and your girlfriend wants you to get better and he grabbed my hand and lifted it off the bed and then I said, Grant, you are a warrior. It turns out Grant's name means warrior. I go, you're a warrior, I got this. I can bring in everybody we need to get you to 110% but you have to fight.  So he has been fighting ever since and it was interesting, you know, one of the nights in the hospital, he said to me, he was just describing like where I was in the hospital, what was going on. He goes, yeah, that night the gray man came and asked me if I wanted to live or die. And it's really nice over there on the other side. He had the full near-death experience which I think is so cool and fascinating. He goes, it's really nice over there, mom. You never need to be afraid of that. He goes, but I kept hearing your voice and so I decided to come back. I was like, few, but I knew he'd get to hear me. Yeah, that's actually very, very true. Early on in my training I was at the NIH doing heart surgery and we had a fascinating story. We had a young man actually from Asia that we operated on and post-operatively he was in a coma, he did not wake up.  I mean, he did not wake up. And about two weeks into this, we're all kind of sitting around going, wow, you know, maybe we have to pull the plug. And his brother arrives from Hong Kong and his brother says, oh, you don't understand, he's actually a Kung Fu expert and he's designed to protect himself if he thinks he's being harmed and I actually have the secret word to tell him it's all right and he'll wake up. So he literally goes in the room, whispers the word and the guy wakes up, this is a true story. And we're looking at this going, what did we just see?   So you're right. People, absolutely. Be careful what you say around those people in comas cause they're hearing everything. Not only that, here's the even crazier thing. Grant described what his dad was wearing when we were waiting for him during surgery. He had changed clothes, we'd driven to LA, he was sitting and he described everything. He described the whole scene, but he wasn't there. He said, yeah, I would leave my body and go cruise around and look at everything. I was like, oh, okay, so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, well after gonna, we're gonna do that for another podcast, the out of body experience. Well, I haven't had one, so. And I hope, actually I hope I don't, but not in that way. So, you know, how long did this process go on at UCLA and then moving forward? So here's what's interesting. When he was in a coma and he was in a coma for a couple weeks and the doctors were super positive. They go, you know, kids are resilient, they can get through anything. And meanwhile, I am just doing everything I can. I've put the SOS out to all my friends and go, listen, I do not need your sympathy. I need your support. I'm gonna get my son to be better than before the accident. What you got, right?   But. Now, let me stop you right there. So the ICU nurses, are they thinking, oh, this is wacko change? Yeah, JJ Virgin. It was actually pretty interesting because they finally were like, who are you? Because all these doctors were coming in. I mean, Dr. Daniel Lehmann and Tana come in, they make me all this food and come in to visit. So all these people are coming in to visit. And so they're kind of like, what is going on here? Who are you? But here was what was interesting and this is what I think is a big challenge. Is they kept saying to me, when he wakes up, it'll be ugly. That was their big advice. When he wakes up, it'll be ugly. Now I thought, because I'd watched the movies, now I've seen the movies, when they wake up, they look at you lovingly and they say hi. So I figured he'd wake up, maybe he'd be a little bit like screamed for a minute and then he'd say, hi, mom, I love you. That is not how people wake up out of comas, as you know. And so Grant wakes up and every day, this big neurological resident would come in and literally do titty twisters on his nipples. And yell in his ear and I'm like, what are you doing? That is not the way I want him to wake up. That's horrible. So he finally wakes up, it's a couple of weeks in and his eyes are open. We get him off the breathing tube, but he, that's all he does. He stares off into space and he starts moving the only arm that's not in a cast. He moves it back and forth and that's all he does for days, looking to the side, moving his arm back and forth.  Cause you don't know, like I didn't know who was waking up. Here I'd had a son with bipolar disorder. I didn't know who was waking up. I didn't know, would he be paralyzed? Could he see? Could he hear? We had no clue on any of this. And truthfully, I have no idea how he is where he is today, except I believe that so much of it was this decision to just do whatever it took to get him to be 110% and a lot of luck. But as he started to wake up, I just thought, you know, I'm gonna wake up everything. I'm gonna wake up all of his senses. And so I started just smuggling all sorts of stuff into the hospital. I was doing music. I was doing massage. I had a friend come and do acupressure. We were doing essential oils. I was giving him popsicles to see what he would do. I mean, everything I could think of, I started throwing balls to him. And he just started to, it was very quick. It was like having a very large baby that went from zero to a year old to two years old very fast. But then he got stuck at the two year tantrum point and that's when really all hell broke loose. So, okay. So now he's two years old.  And he's big. He's big. Let me stop for a second. Do you think your career of nutrition and health and fitness helped you get through this time? So there's a couple of things that helped me get through this time. The first thing was that night in the hospital standing there and going, all right, I'm the financial support for my family. I've invested everything into my book. My book is coming out in a matter of weeks. If the book doesn't go, I'm gonna be bankrupt and I won't be able to pay for any of this great ideas that I have to help my son be 110%. So I've got to make sure the book goes, but I'm not leaving. And how am I gonna pull this off? And I realized that the only way I was gonna be able to pull this off and thankfully I walked into this situation in extreme health. And I just went, the only way I get to do this is I have no margin for error. I cannot get sick.  And when I was under the level of stress that I was under, which luckily I knew how to manage, you're at a higher risk. So I got my eight hours of sleep every night. I did exercise every day. I was running in the hospital stairs a lot of the times. I was eating healthy, whole foods was delivering. I just made it the absolute top priority above everything else because I knew if I didn't do that, I'd never be able to do any of the rest. But there was a level above that that I think was really important. And I wrote Warrior Mom and I wrote about all of these different mindset tools that I had that helped me show up strong. And people were like, well, how did you learn those? And I go, I don't know, they were just in me. Well, here's the funny part. When I was 30, I had a mentor who really is responsible for saving Grant's life.  She was supposed to help me with business but the reality was six months of working with her was all mindset training. And she taught me how to take a situation, a really challenging situation. And she always said, there are no limitations, only limitations in your mind and don't wish it was better, make yourself stronger. And all of these things that just were so much a part of me that when I looked at this situation and they said there was a 0.25% chance he'd make it, that's all I saw. I never saw the 99.75 chance that he wouldn't. It was solely that. And so I think that's a key takeaway because we can have, I mean, let's face it, like there's great nutritional information out there. There's great exercise information out there. We all know we should be sleeping and managing stress but yet so many of us don't do it. And really, when you look at the big differentiator between someone who's successful at life or not, it really comes down to their mindset. Yeah, it's absolutely true. So you think all of that mindset training is really what got you through this? I know it's what got me through it. And it's also what made me willing to put myself first, which especially for women is such a weird thing. I remember when I was seeing people one-on-one as a nutritionist, I had this client who came to me because she was in the hospital. She got super sick. She was the financial support for her family. She goes, I better take care of my health. So she comes to me, we outline her plan. She's supposed to be checking in. I don't hear from her. Pinger, don't hear from her. I mean, this is odd. Three weeks later, I hear from her and she goes, oh, I'm so sorry, I was so busy. I needed to get all these other things in order, including my life insurance. I go, so you prioritize your life insurance above getting your health in order, like that scratcher. Yeah, you know, that brings up an interesting point. Yesterday, I saw a patient who's now become a caregiver for her husband. And one of the things that you learned with your son is caregivers are actually some of the most stressed people who are not taking care of themselves. And you could actually see it in her labs. I mean, I hadn't seen her in about six months and her labs had just fallen apart. She'd fallen apart. And so we spent actually the time together all 30 minutes actually reviewing how she is not going to be a good caregiver unless she first cares for herself. Amen. And yeah, it's so true, the old saying, to give love away, you have to love yourself first. And it's, you're right. And it's, that's what I do with all my caregivers. It's so interesting because I wrote that book and the book was first called Miracle Mindset. I never, I was like, ah, you know, the publisher wanted a name at that age and wanted a name.  And I said, I'm a warrior mom. I went, well, that is it. And I really realized writing that book is really a book for caregivers. And here's the thing, most of us at some point in our life are going to be a caregiver. Yeah. Either for our children, for our parents, for our spouse. I mean, and it's a long game thing. And it really becomes a mindset management game to get through it because it can be exhausting and super stressful. So these are tools, what's awesome about it. These are tools that anyone can learn and use. And they can literally make the difference between life and death for you and for who you're taking care of. Okay, so we kind of touched on this a bit. So give us three tips to accomplish this. All right, so I actually have something I created called my jam for G-A-M, gratitude, appreciation and miracles. Now, you hear about gratitude all the time. Like it's all out there. And the challenge is actually getting it done. I think there's something super impactful about taking a pen to paper.  And that's what I did when Grant was in the hospital. And sometimes it was like he made it through the night. Right? Yeah. A lot of times it was, he made it through the night. Then the appreciation is really to help you manage yourself during the day because we all have those days where things just are not going the way they were supposed to go. And the easiest way that I know to shift my state when I'm in that state is to send someone a text or an email. I like to do it by text and tell them what I appreciate about them. The minute you do that, you know what you're getting back.  And then at the end of the day, I like to really put a frame around the day. So the morning's gratitude and the evening, I think of them as your little wins or your little miracles. It's like what were the amazing things that happened today because we don't celebrate those, you know?  So you gotta give yourself the little stars and smiley faces again. Yeah, believe it or not, in my office, I give away silver and gold stars for Meritorious Achievement on the accomplishments, particularly on breakage. It's fantastic. I love it. We all want those. That's exactly right. In fact, I was a personal trainer. I got trophies for my clients. You would have thought I bought them Bentley's. I mean, it was like crazy.  Yeah. So important. This last week, rereading the 25th anniversary edition of everything I know in life, I learned in kindergarten by Robert Foeh and it's worth reading again because you're right. We want those little bits of appreciation and little bits are really all we need, right? Right, just a little bit. All right, so gratitude, what's A? So appreciation. So gratitude, appreciation and miracles are little wins. Jam, five minutes, doesn't cost a thing. Simple, simple. That was one, I'll tell you the other big one. I used to be one of those grudge-holding people when I was younger and I really worked hard to not be a grudge-holder. It was not something I wanted to be. But I didn't realize that you have to take it further than that. You know, when this happened, this was a hit and run. This woman hit Grant, got out of a car, got in her car and left. And people were up in arms. I was at the hospital in LA and people wanted to start this fund to find this woman. And I'm like, well, if you're gonna start a fund, start a fund for my son. Don't start a fund for this woman. It's like, what are we doing? Who cares? It doesn't matter. And so I always thought it was fine because I wasn't like, none of us in the family were like, who's this woman? Let's go get her. We just focused on what was important, which was helping my son get to 110%. But what I didn't realize is that you can't, that's not enough. And if you've got any energy around something or someone, you actually have to go through a very active forgiveness process, which is the most freeing thing you can do. And as I started to talk about this and teach these people, they're like, yeah, but I can't even get a hold of that person. I go, it's got nothing to do with the person. It's all got to do with you. And I'll give you a powerful example of this. I just had the opportunity. This is honestly one of the coolest things I've ever done in my life. It's not gonna sound bizarre, but I have a girlfriend who goes into maximum security correctional facilities, prisons, and she helps rehabilitate prisoners by giving them business skills and personal development skills. So, and she has a 90% success rate when they get out of prison versus the 90% failure rate that's typical. And I heard about this and I go, this is the most amazing thing. And I went with her and she took a whole group of business entrepreneurs to do this. And we were doing some different things with the inmates. And one of the guys, I just had this instant connection with this kid. I was like, he was 30 years old. And I think he'd been in there for 12 years. And there were people in there who'd first been imprisoned at age eight. It was kind of crazy. But here he is. And we were talking about forgiveness. He goes, I can never forgive my mom. I'm here because of her. She was on drugs when she was pregnant with me. She was on drugs when I was a kid. She brought gang members into the house. I had no chance. And I'm like, well, you have a chance now, right? And so I walked through how my forgiveness system and how I do it that I learned from Dave Aspre at 40 years as in and explained to him what it's allowed me to do in my life is I've forgiven people. And he's like, at first, well, I couldn't do that. I go, well, could you be open to the possibility that you could learn how to do it? He goes, I could do that. Anyway, we've been conversing since. I sent him my book on how to do forgiveness. And it's like a complete shift. Complete shift. So the guy who's been doing a bunch of the forgiveness research found that in bad situations, like mass murders and stuff, the people who forgive the fastest have the least psychological damage from the situation. So this is a super powerful tool that we can all use because I think a lot of the disease we have is just like this anger and forgiveness eating us up inside. I want to come back to what you mentioned early on. You talk about Grant having bipolar disorder. And that actually affects over 6 million Americans. And I actually see a number of people with that in my practice, including kids. So tell me how nutrition, in your opinion, helped Grant before and after the accident and how it's going now. So I remember when he was in school, I got a call from school saying, you have to come pick up your son. He's climbing the walls, literally climbing the walls. I go, what happened?  Uh-oh.   What I noticed with Grant the most as one of his big triggers is unstable blood sugar. So what's super key important for him is to eat very, very clean. He doesn't eat gluten. He doesn't eat dairy. We pulled those out early on. I actually had to get like that was quite interesting to do when he was a kid in school. And so we've been doing that for a long period of time and he does not handle sugar well.  So he has connected those dots, which I think is one of the most powerful things in nutrition is when you connect the dots and go, oh, I eat this.  Oh, maybe I shouldn't eat that. I don't know. So stable blood sugar is super important. And then here's the other one. Early on, we started with high-dose fish oil. And honestly, I think one of the reasons that he was able to get through this accident, if you look at the research on high-dose fish oil and fish oil having good omega-3s in your brain, it's neuroprotective. Yep. So I felt very fortunate that he was already on fish oil when he got hit. The challenge was once he got hit, I got all the information. I mean, Dr. Barry Sears sent me everything I needed to take it to the hospital board to get him on fish oil. And they said, no. So, because I am a warrior mom, they wouldn't give him more than two grams, but he actually spit up his own feeding tube. And then at that point, to me, it was game on. So we were in our own room. I brought in my own stuff and I got him on 20 grams of fish oil. And I kept him on 20 grams for six months. And then I took him to 10 grams. And now he stays on five grams. And I think that that is a key important part of this. Now, wait a minute, JJ. The media tells us that fish oil is worthless. You know, these wonderful studies, controlled studies of a gram of fish oil a day has no effect.  That's so good. Because they just put a Dixie cup of water on a forest fire, right? I mean, it's so crazy. Like I look at what we've done to help Grant come back. And what's interesting now is he's better than before the accident. And he's so much more aware of his brain. And whatever this is, is whatever bipolar really is or how it's been triggered. Because again, I think there's some really interesting research now showing things like bordedella triggering a bipolar like, you know, brain. So who knows what's really going on there. But I think that the more we look at our health and say, all right, exercise makes a big impact. I mean, I keep telling Grant, hey, the number one thing we can do to heal your brain is exercise. So he exercises every day, learning new things. All of a sudden he's out in the dirt. He's grounding. He's doing gardening. He's drawing. He's reading. So learning and challenging. But I think the bigger one is really, and this is one I think is our biggest threat to our health today is social isolation, lack of community, not having a role. That's my biggest one I worry about with him. That's been our biggest struggle coming through this brain injury. Because when he got it, they said it'll be ugly, but they didn't tell me it would be ugly for years that there's so many things you have to do when you come through any kind of a brain injury. So how do you socialize him and get away with it? It's very challenging because big crowds, too much going on, too much stimulation, and he'll fall apart again. So we have to do it in small amounts and we give him, he'll come to family things with some friends and he comes for a little while and then he leaves. So we just don't put him into stressful situations. We kind of now have a feel for what it is, how much he can take. And I think we're all like that. I mean, I know with me I'm more of an introvert. There's only so much I can take and then I need to take a break. So it's fine. That's right. That's a great question. How do you take a break as a warrior mom? How do all of us take a break? Oh, this is a tough question. I know. I was like, huh, you got me stumped there. What is a break? Hanging out with my little dog. I was looking if she was under here, I'd show her to you, but what do I do? I don't really, I don't know. I don't know what to say about that exercise. Yeah. Exercise, I would say. Exercise I cook. Right now I'm in the middle of setting up a whole new house in Tampa, which is super exciting on the water. So we're working on that. Reading, listening to podcasts, hanging out with friends. I have a really cool network of friends. I feel like I have created a life that I never need to take a break from because I do and I'm sure you feel the same way. I love everything that I'm doing. I have managed to create businesses so that all the stuff I do not like, I found people who love to do that and they get to do it, not me. Wow. Right? Well, that's really the way your life should be. Everybody's like strength in people's strengths.  You know, I take care of a number of kids and young adults with bipolar and getting back to fish oil, I follow an omega-3 index, which basically looks at how much DHA and EPA is in you for the last two months. And the baseline that is normal is a number eight. And these folks, I make sure they're up at 12 to 14 because people have to realize that our brain is 60, maybe 70% fat.  And you're right, this is an insulating system of the brain. And I actually think that so much of a bipolar and a lot of anxiety is this short circuiting that happens between neurons. And I'm old enough to remember back in the good old days of stereos that we would have cables running across the room to our speakers. And those cables would have multiple layers of insulation because the electricity would degrade the farther it had to go. And so I actually use this example for my patients that you've got to have insulation, myelin sheath on all your nerves. And one of the best ways is to get fish oil into your brain. So thank you for pointing that out. It is not a placebo effect. It was interesting. I had some friends in the fish oil business that said, I think you've done more for fish oil sales because the story started to go everywhere. In fact, I ran into Sanjay Gupta in a green room and told him about it. And he did a CNN special around it too. And because I just want that out there.  So every time I knew they were gonna check his bleed time, I'd hit him with more fish oil before it never touched it. I was like, show me a study that shows that because there aren't any. They're none.  You don't plan it, right? So this is just one that we all should be doing. It's really clear. Yeah. And there's, you know, and most people tell me, oh, there's all these pollutants and mercury in fish oil. Almost all high quality fish oil are molecularly distilled. Right. That's why you take fish oil. That's actually the safest way to do it. Exactly.  You buy clean, pure, good fish oil. Exactly. Well, as you know, my new book, The Longevity Paradox, came out a couple months ago and, you know, I want people to live to a ripe old age while staying young. So I ask my guests, can you give us one thing our listeners can do today to live longer, happier lives? You've certainly given us some thoughts. Give us one pearl to take away. Prioritize your sleep. Very good. And, you know, I mean, I wear my aura ring. Yeah. Yeah, I'd hold up this finger, but I better not. I know, right? But, you know, it is so, whether it's an aura ring or a Fitbit, what you measure and monitor, you can improve. And I become so competitive, I'm so darn competitive with myself. So then I watch it. But if you look at like the things that you can do that make a difference, sleep is right there at the top. And I find for most people, it's not that they're not good sleepers, that they didn't make it important enough. Well, you're right. And, you know, right at the top of your book, our good friend Ariana Huffington found out from personal experience that you may be the greatest warrior of all time, but if you don't take care of your sleep, you will crash and hit your desk and break your face. And it took, you know, that to get her to understand the importance of sleep. And I can't stress that enough. And I think the aura ring is a phenomenal sleep tracker. I'm trying out a whoop, which comes out of Harvard, which is another pretty interesting sleep tracker. And they actually are tracking pretty well. It's a little too early to say, but absolutely track your sleep. And you'll get some big surprises, as I think you do. And even day to day, you can kind of look back and say, you know, what the heck? You know, why did this happen, right? Okay, so, you know, JJ has been great having you on the podcast. How do our listeners find you as if they didn't know? I made that one simple. JJvirgin.com spelled exactly like it sounds. All right, so stay with me for a second because we always have an audience question. And actually this, let me have you chime in since you're actually sipping on something like that. So soso.5703 on Instagram asks, what is your opinion of water kefir? Is it a better option for all sort of colitis patients than milk kefir? So that's actually a great question. So kefir is fermented. Usually people think of kefir as fermented milk. I have, quite frankly, a big problem with milk kefir because so many of my patients react to KCNA1, which is present in most American milk. It's an abnormal protein. A lot of goat's milk and sheep milk have KCNA2, but quite frankly with a lot of new testing I'm doing, there is a percentage of our population that clearly reacts not only to KCNA1, but they react away and KCNA2. So having said that, if you're gonna have a milk kefir, much rather you have goat or sheep, but I'd actually rather you do a coconut kefir or a water kefir and you take out that risk. JJ, what say you? Right there with you. Oh, there's a dog. There's a dog making her appearance. Now she's gonna bark. So I'm right there with you.  I don't find people feeling better with dairy so I would prefer to keep that out. I'm right there with you on coconut with that and kind of a bigger thing here, I'm gonna just stress is anyone with ulcerative colitis and anyone, I think one of the most powerful things that you can do is keep a food journal and really when you're introducing something like this, just introduce one new food at a time and really see how you feel. And you'll know within three to four days if that one works, but I'm not a fan of dairy or gluten. I'm not a fan of whey because I see and I see a lot of those whey shakes out there that have a lot of milk protein solids in them too. It's the way they keep the price down so be careful on all those things. Great point. Yeah, I just saw a patient with ulcerative colitis who followed my program and weight loss was a side effect but he lost 15 pounds. He and his partner were feeling great. They went on vacation. Uh-oh. He started eating like on vacation and he flared instantaneously and the big mistake was he went and visited his gastroenterologist and he got blasted with three immunosuppressants. And I just saw him after that. I said, what the heck? He said, I was feeling so great. I was off of everything and then I went on vacation. I said, wouldn't that tell you that? Hello? Like why wouldn't you just go back to the way you were eating?   So like just take your diet with you. It travels with you. That's how you should just be eating. You know, that's a great point. And I get that question all the time. How the heck, and you know, your program, my program have a lot of similarities.  That's easy. I travel 75% of the time. This is not challenging. Well, I also travel with a Nutribullet. I bring smoothie mix with me. I always know where I'm going so I can have food delivered to the hotel. I always make sure that I have a refrigerator in the hotel.  I don't go to like, you know, fast food places but there's so many great options around now that it's a lot easier. But I do always, I always carry emergency food with me and I think that's one of the things that will always save you is I have bars with me. You can soak some nuts, low roast them, bring them with you. You know, so you can bring things with you. So again, smoothie mix, get some coconut milk shipped in and then look where you're going and see if Prime Now or Instacart delivers there because it probably does.  It's not so much abroad unless you're going to Canada. It's just like the US, really. So. Yet Europe does not have a lot of glyphosate. It's coming, sadly, but I think that explains a lot of the reasons you can eat much better in Europe than you can in the United States. And here's one other thing that I do when I travel is it's a great time to throw in intermittent fasting and 24-hour fasting. I'm always amazed on planes. Like I look around and go, what is going on here? This is like a free-for-all over here.  This is silly. So I look at these things with time zone shifting as a great time to throw in some intermittent fasting, some time-restricted eating, and not eat. Like don't eat on the planes. You don't need to. And you're certainly not going to get great options there anyway. Right. Yeah, and most of the stuff you're given is gluten-based and high carbohydrate-based. And now some of the airlines are going, oh, well, we have three options and they're all pure carbohydrates. And it's like, I'll have a Diet Coke with that, though. Oh, yeah, that just kills me. I really am striving not to be judgy, but I am a bit judgy on what I see people doing on the planes, and gosh, especially when they sit down and have a Diet Coke. That's where I really want to get on my soapbox and start with them, because that's one of the biggest evils that we've ever done to our population as artificial sweeteners. Yeah, and I was a Diet Coke addict, you know. Me too. I grew up on Tab. Tab, yeah. I used to save my allowance to go get Tab, right? My mentor at the University of Michigan in heart surgery kept warm Tab in his drawer in his desk. And after every case, we would go to his office and we'd both pop warm Tab. There's probably nothing worse than a warm Tab. And he was my pusher, and that's how I got addicted to it. Yeah. And, you know, so, you're right. All right, we're preaching to the choir on that one. Please, folks, stay away from my push of you. Just a little bit of a rant. Yeah. All right, JJ, thanks so much for being on the program and hopefully we'll be talking soon. I think we will be. All right. So thanks a lot for watching the Dr. Gundry podcast and I'm Dr. Gundry, and I'm always looking out for you. Before you go, I just wanted to remind you that you can find the show on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts because I'm Dr. Gundry and I'm always looking out for you.