OU Engineering Students Place in DOE Hydrogen Contest

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Three University of Oklahoma engineering students have taken top honors in the first Hydrogen Business Case Prize Competition supported by the Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office in the U.S. Department of Energy. 

The OU team – Hydrogen for South-Central Region of the U.S., or H24SCR for short – placed fourth in phase two of the national contest, receiving a $20,000 cash award. 

Seniors John Fisher and Raelin Lane, along with graduate student Megan Fox, developed a financial analysis tool to help address the best places for hydrogen energy production. Their concept was titled “Probability of Hydrogen Integration (Phi) tool to calculate the viability of hydrogen production in a given location.”

Mentoring the OU team were aerospace and mechanical engineering faculty members Pejman Kazempoor, Ph.D., and Farrokh Mistree, Ph.D., and Janet K. Allen, Ph.D., an industrial and systems engineering professor.

The south-central region of the United States – Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas – is in a unique position to become a leader in the hydrogen economy nationally and internationally, Kazempoor says. He stresses that Oklahoma has an abundance of natural gas and renewable energy, such as wind and solar, that is needed to produce large amounts of hydrogen. 

“Oklahoma has a well-developed natural gas infrastructure that can readily be used to transport a large quantity of hydrogen together with depleted sub-surface formations for hydrogen storage that, in the face of severe weather events, ensures an uninterrupted source of energy,” Kazempoor said. 

This combination of resources gives Oklahoma the advantage of being able to develop and manage an effective system of hydrogen production and delivery, Mistree says.

Allen adds that the shift to hydrogen will give students many opportunities both for jobs and research. 

Part of the American-made Challenges Series, the competition was structured in two phases. The OU team previously earned a $10,000 cash award in phase one. OU engineering student Matthew Hartless took part in the phase one competition. Learn more.

By Karen Kelly, OU Gallogly College of Engineering







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