Jack Brouwer started thinking about the potential of using hydrogen to store massive amounts of energy around 12 years ago. … Brouwer, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of California, Irvine, took the idea to the U.S. Department of Energy … But the agency didn’t move forward with the idea so Brouwer and a group of his students began researching the issue.  In 2013, they published a paper … That paper caught the attention of some people at Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas) — the nation’s largest gas utility …. The discussion led to a demonstration project that was set up at UC Irvine’s campus in 2016, Brouwer said, that made renewable hydrogen from solar power using an electrolyzer. Read More