Synergy

A filmmaker, an environmentalist and Earth Day Dallas founder

Trammell S. Crow conspire to spread the word about ‘the cure’ for the world’s energy crisis

Story by Brittany Nunn | Photo by Danny Fulgencio

Behind the closed door of his home o ce in East Dallas, Michael Henning leans toward his phone and listens intently. The speaker emits the voice of New Jersey resident

Mike Strizki into the little room, and it rattles against the walls like rocks in a tin can.

“We’re at a change in history between the horse and bug- gy and the automobile,” Strizki near-shouts. “And they’re claiming collapse, but we’re on the verge of a full paradigm shift in the way energy is stored and reconverted. And we’ve had the technology for years, and they’ve tried to suppress it,” he says, pausing.

“And they’ve done a damn good job,” Henning encourages.

“But once the public knows about it, knows there’s a cure,” Strizki continues. “They’re going to start to demand it. Americans are right on the verge of that right now. Things are changing, big time, and energy is the No. 1 cause.”

A casual listener might be hard pressed to fully decipher the men’s conversation. But they are excited to share their ideas about hydrogen energy, which they aim to do both via this year’s Earth Day Texas and through a documentary that will wrap soon.

Henning is a filmmaker who produced and directed a 2009 documentary featuring Woody Harrelson called “Hempsters” about the oft-taboo hemp plant.

Strizki gained notoriety in 2006 when he launched the Hydrogen House Project and became the first resident in the United States to run his home entirely on solar panels and hydrogen fuel cells, a little empire complete with a hydrogen vehicle fueling station.

Strizki, an engineer, began using his home as the flagship prototype for his company, Strizki Systems, which designs and installs clean and renewable solar hydrogen systems for homes and businesses. He has even installed systems in the homes of celebrities, including consulting Johnny Depp on how to convert his Caribbean island home to solar hydrogen technology.

When Henning heard the story on NPR about this man making energy in his garage, he was intrigued, but he pictured a redneck doomsday prepper hunkered down, waiting for the apocalypse, Henning quips. What he found, when he went to New Jersey to see the system for himself, was a man who has the knowledge and tools to upend the energy industry.

For decades, scientists and engineers have been harnessing the power of hydrogen and making it clean and accessible, but governments and industries are not using it to its potential, Strizki says.

Strizki preaches that we have the “keys to the cage” — the resources, the technol-

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Henning wholeheartedly agrees; creating hydrogen is so simple that high schoolers have been doing it in chemistry labs for decades, he says. He agrees so much that he has made Strizki the focus of his next film, tentatively called “Strizki: The Keys to the Cage.”

Henning wants the movie to depict the problem, which is this: We have what we need to save the world from its dependence on non-renewable energy; car companies will begin selling hydrogen fuel cell cars next year, in fact. But we are not supporting the technology. For instance, there are few fueling stations for said vehicles. Using Strizki as an example, Henning aims to show the public a new world of possibilities.

“We’re going to bust all the myths about hydrogen, and when people find out how duped they have been … it’s shocking,” Henning says.

The pieces fall together

While working on “Hempsters,” Henning met East Dallasite Michael Cain, the founder of the Deep Ellum Film Festival (now the Dallas Film Society).

In 2011, real estate investment broker Trammell S. Crow founded Earth Day Dallas and hired Cain as executive director of the event.

Since then, Earth Day Dallas has grown to be one of the biggest Earth Day events in the nation and recently was renamed Earth Day Texas, “a family-friendly and freeadmission event that allows leaders in the corporate, academic and non-profit worlds to unite and show Texans how green lifestyle choices can lower their cost of living, improve their health, and help save the environment,” according to the website.

Over the years, as Cain worked to build Earth Day Texas and Henning delved headlong into researching hydrogen, the two stayed in contact.

Crow and Cain brought on Henning to help give Earth Day Texas 2014, slated for April 26-27, more hydrogenfocused exhibitors.

Earth Day Texas already had more than 70 electric and hybrid vehicles lined up for the event. Attendees also will get to meet

Strizki, an o cial Earth Day speaker who will expose them to products such as a fuel cell vehicle, a portable charge station capable of providing continuous o -grid electricity called the Joule Box, cellphone chargers, flexible solar panels and even a water purification system.

The final scene in the movie about Strizki also will be filmed at the two-day event, Henning says.

And even before Earth Day festivities or movie releases, the e orts of Strizki and Henning are resulting in action. Henning, on behalf of Earth Day Texas, is working with a company called Air Products to build a hydrogen highway across Texas — that is, a chain of hydrogen-equipped fueling stations, Cain says.

Air Products is the No. 1 supplier of hydrogen in the country, which makes it the ideal candidate to establish the first hydrogen highway in Texas.

Crow, Cain and Henning hope this year’s Earth Day Texas will be the much-needed catalyst in pushing the hydrogen movement forward by bringing the fuel suppliers together with the vehicle suppliers, neither of which can exist without the other.

“That’s their dilemma, is who is going to go first?” Henning says. “What we’re trying to do in order to solve that problem is to take the initiative, so we can solve this at the event.”

Is this the “change in history between the horse and buggy and the automobile” that Strizki was talking about?

“If you think of the synergy of how this all came about,” Cain says, “Michael was on the journey to make this movie, which supports a movement that he feels very passionate about, and at the end of the day, every great movie has a great ending. The great ending is this hydrogen highway, culminating at an event with 60,000 people, surrounded by all 70 hybrid electric vehicles.”

And who would have thought Texas, a state historically steeped in oil and gas, would be one of the first states to truly embrace this new system?

“What a nice surprise ending,” Cain muses. TO LEARN MORE, VISIT THESE WEB PAGES: facebook.com/StrizkiOutOfTheBox hydrogenhouseproject.org earthdaytx.org