February 14, 2025 • 25 mins
In this episode of Charged Conversations, host Brigham McCown delves into the potential of hydrogen as a key player in the clean energy transition. Brigham interviews Mothusi Pahl, Vice President of Business Development and Government Affairs at Modern Hydrogen. They discuss the company's focus on decentralized (or distributed) hydrogen production through methane pyrolysis.
This process, which cracks natural gas into hydrogen and solid carbon, offers economic and environmental benefits, including enhanced asphalt production and reduced CO2 footprints for industrial operators. Mothusi Pahl emphasizes leveraging existing natural gas infrastructure to make energy more economical and reduce dependency on the electrical grid. The conversation also touches on responsible natural gas production and the importance of decarbonizing natural gas to meet commercial and industrial needs. The episode highlights the alignment of this technology with national security, economic benefits, and environmental goals.
This process, which cracks natural gas into hydrogen and solid carbon, offers economic and environmental benefits, including enhanced asphalt production and reduced CO2 footprints for industrial operators. Mothusi Pahl emphasizes leveraging existing natural gas infrastructure to make energy more economical and reduce dependency on the electrical grid. The conversation also touches on responsible natural gas production and the importance of decarbonizing natural gas to meet commercial and industrial needs. The episode highlights the alignment of this technology with national security, economic benefits, and environmental goals.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Charged Conversations. I'm
your host Brigham McCown, where we explore cutting edge developments
and energy technology and policy. Today, we're taking a deep
dive into one of the most talked about energy solutions
of the future, hydrogen. Hydrogen is the most abundant element
(00:22):
in the universe, and it's been used in various applications
for over a century. In the nineteenth century, it was
a key component of gas used for lighting and heating.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Later, it played a.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Crucial role in the space race, serving as rocket fuel
for NASA's Apollo missions. Today, hydrogen is at the forefront
of the clean energy transition, with a potential to decarbonize
industries ranging from transportation to heavy manufacturing. Hydrogen is a
versatile energy carrier that can be used in fuel cells
to generate electricity, burned in industrial processes, or combined with
(00:55):
carbon to produce synthetic fuels. It's already widely used in
refining petroleum ammonia for fertilizers and its feedstock, and chemical manufacturing. However,
its potential extends far beyond these traditional roles. The key
to hydrogen's future rests and how it's produced Currently, hydrogen
is categorized by color, representing the methods used in production.
(01:17):
We'll get into talking about some of these different colors today,
but first let me introduce Matusi Pull, Vice president of
Business Development and Government Affairs of Modern Hydrogen. Matusi, thanks
for joining us today.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Excellent Bringham, honor to be here, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Oh, it's our pleasure.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
And I think it's fair to say that one of
the companies pushing the boundaries of hydrogen innovation is in
fact Modern Hydrogen. You're focusing on decentralized hydrogen production and
methane paralysis.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
We'd love to discuss this technology.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
And see where it fits into the energy landscape, what
changes remain, and how hydrogen can become a mainstream energy source.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
So let's get started.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Could you tell us a little bit about modern hydrogen,
give us a quick overview, and how does your technology
differ from traditional hydrogen production methods.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Well, there were a lot of questions in that one prompt, so.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
I'm gonna all right, got to take them one at
a time. But the easiest way to think about this
is leveraging natural gas for all of the incredibly diverse
values that natural gas brings to the marketplace in the
United States. So natural gas today is used for power generation,
(02:41):
it's used for heating in buildings and heating.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
For industrial processes.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
It's also used as a feedstock for chemicals manufacturing, and
that those chemicals might be you mentioned at the beginning
applications for hydrogen in refining in the oil and gas space,
All the hydrogen that goes into refining comes originates from
natural gas.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
So the point here is that while our.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
Title is Modern Hydrogen and the technology stack that we're
working on is all about economic ways to generate hydrogen,
all of this maps back to natural gas and leveraging
the domestic infrastructure that we have nationally that delivers natural
gas to myriad applications.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
We're cracking that natural gas into a portfolio of new.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
Natural gas products that are high value for manufacturing, that
are high value for infrastructure and for roads, and are
really high value in catapulting our energy intensive economy kind
of into the next generation.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
How did Modern Hydrogen get started? Could you give us
a quick overview of the company.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
Absolutely, so, our founders originally came together about ten years
ago trying to figure out how to make energy cheaper
and clean it And there have been a number of
different technology iterations over the years, but the last three
to four years have really been focused on creating natural
(04:16):
gas pathways that solve problems for different use cases in
commercial and industrial operations. So I've been at the company now,
I'm now in my fourth year, and it's been a
wild ride, as you can imagine with kind of your
visibility and experience in the technology ecosystem. Our work is
(04:38):
new technology in infrastructure with a specific focus on making
energy more economic, wonderful.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
And did I have this right?
Speaker 1 (04:48):
I sort of see it as your company focusing on
what I'm calling decentralized hydrogen production.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Is that a term that you all use or not
so much? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (04:57):
So I would definitely you could call it decentralized. I
usually call it distributed. You know, we have as a country,
I mean, we have trillions of dollars of gas infrastructure
assets in the ground. The faster way of saying that
is we've got a lot of pipelines and the value
of those pipelines is number one. The infrastructure investment that's
(05:20):
been made over time, both at the transmission scale and at.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
The distribution scale. But also the fact and this is
something that your listeners.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
And actually most people I talk to aren't immediately aware of,
is that we.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Use more energy from natural gas than we do in
the form of energy that we.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
Use in electricity. So to put it in another way,
natural gas is a molecule that carries potential energy for
power generation that becomes electricity. That also carries a lot
of energy that goes into heat, and we use more
heat energy then we do electrical energy. But almost all
(06:04):
of the heat and the majority of electricity all come
from natural gas. So the infrastructure that's already in the
ground that's enabling these natural gas molecules to be delivered
everywhere where we need our energy, that's our force multiplier.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
So what we're.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
Doing, in whether you're calling it decentralized or distributed, what
we're doing is creating new products from natural gas at
the end of the line so that those products don't
have to be retransported.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
In the case of hydrogen.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
What we're doing is working towards the space where industrial
operators who are selling products to customers that want lower.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
CO two footprints.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
Those customers are buying from factories and they're demanding that
the factories provide a lower CO two product, and the
main way the factories can meet those objectives is either
by choosing renewables or the case that we're making is
that they should continue to choose natural gas and process
the natural gas to remove the carbon from the natural gas,
(07:09):
which creates a new fuel stream that meets all of.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
These end user demands for decarbonized products.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
So, Matussi, that leads into my next question, what the
heck is methane pyrolysis, and out with that a part
of your strategy.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
My usual turn of phrase is natural gas pyrolysis, and
in natural gas pyrolysis, what we're doing. The general idea
of pyrolysis has been around for a long time, and
the idea is that if you heat a molecule up
in a controlled environment, you can actually control what happens
as that molecule decomposes and breaks apart into the atoms
(07:48):
that make up the molecule. So by cracking natural gas
into its components, natural gas is methane methane ISCH four,
which means one carbon atom and four hydrogen atoms. If
we crack natural gas into carbon and hydrogen. One of
the methods to do that cracking is what's called pyrolysis,
(08:10):
and that means we're keating up those molecules to get
them to decompose into the parts that we want.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
So what we're doing with natural gas.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
Pyrolysis at the end of the line is taking the
natural gas that comes into the pipe, we crack it
into carbon and hydrogen. The carbon actually is a really
high value product for asphalt manufacturing. If you're in the
infrastructure and paving space, you're always looking for ways to
grow your business and get cost out of your business,
(08:40):
and the carbon that modern produces is a really effective
additive to enhance asphalt performance. So we pyroalize natural gas
to create new products for natural gas.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
One of those products goes is.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
A high value additive in asphalt. The other product is
clean hydrogen. So this clean hydrogen can be used for
the industrial applications that you spoke of before. We also
see a booming market for this decarbonized natural gas product
into data centers.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
There are a number of very.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
Large data center developers and power supply companies for data
centers that are looking to modern technology to remove carbon
from natural gas before the fuel goes into the power
plant for the data center.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Well Okay, that brings me to a good topic. I
have a water bottle here, is this not hydrogen?
Speaker 5 (09:37):
There is a lot of hydrogen in that water bottle,
both in the plastic, the processing of the plastic, and
then in the water itself.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
The water is H.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
Two O, which means that it has two hydrogen atoms
for every oxygen atom that is in that that's.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
In that bottle.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
So one way to generate hydrogen today is through a
process that's called electrolysis, and electrolysis means that you're using
an electrical current to crack water.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Molecules into hydrogen and oxygen.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
There's a lot of technology going on in the hydrogen
space around electrolysis.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
But the challenge there is that.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
You need electrolysis, you need electricity to drive the process.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
So while you may.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
Deliver hydrogen at the end of the day, and while
that hydrogen may have a low maybe like effectively generated,
the issue is that you're taking electrical capacity, both in
terms of power generation and transmission and distribution, and you're
using it for to generate a product that you know,
(10:49):
to be honest with you, it's just it's not very
energy efficient. Knowing the constraints of our grid today would
be it would be way more efficient to use natural
gas as the vehicle goal to deliver the molecule where
you wanted it and cracked it that way, rather than
taking really high value electrons off the electrical grid and
(11:09):
using them to generate hydrogen.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
Now, there are always going to.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
Be instances where one pathway is preferred over the other,
but at scale given the objectives of our commercial industrial
customers and data center customers today, the data centers want power,
so using power to create their fuel to generate power
for them doesn't work. The logic isn't there, the economics
(11:35):
aren't there. But natural gas delivering the molecules for power
generation and removing carbon from those molecules to meet the
data centers demand for lower CO too power. That's mission
critical and we think that is core to domestic energy
security at the end of the day, being able to
(11:55):
power our economy and being able to power data centers,
and being able to power data center demand for lower
CO two emissions per compute power delivered. The natural gas
is the pathway, and pyrolysis of natural gas helps data
centers get there faster.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
I love this, so just to recap for our listeners here.
Turquoise hydrogen is what we're talking about with modern hydrogen.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
Right, Yeah, So turquoise is a general term that a
lot of folks in the industry use to talk about
natural gas as a source for hydrogen and making sure
that that carbon is captured after it's been after it's
been cracked.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
So, yes, that is one term you can use to
call what we're doing.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
And the important part of this is other than other
processes like gray hydrogen, right is also using natural gas,
but gray hydrogen releases significant carbon dioc side emissions, whereas
you're producing solid carbon and as you've described, instead of
(13:06):
CO two, which is then pushed into other materials like
asphalt to make it stronger. And I've seen some of
your videos actually of even a very famous person using
your product to fix a pothole.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Could you talk about that for a minute.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
Absolutely so, and I'm glad.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
You brought it up.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
So we have.
Speaker 4 (13:30):
Asphalt customers in on both on both sides of the
United States. We have asphalt customers in Texas. We have
asphalt customers in New York and Florida and Washington, Oregon, California,
even up north to Alberta and those asphalt customers by
(13:50):
the asphalt additive that we manufacture that we produce by
cracking natural gas, by mixing that carbon into their asphalt binder,
the stuff that holds asphalt together, they make the asphalt
stronger across a wider range of operating temperatures, which at
the end of the day, means that if you're deploying
(14:12):
asphalt for a roads contract or a parking.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Lot, or a highway, or even a runway at an.
Speaker 6 (14:18):
Airport, you can reduce the amount of maintenance that's required
on the road because you're making the road stronger by
mixing this performance enhance this, yeah, this performance enhancer in
with the paving material.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
So what makes this really really interesting is.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
The alignment of our existing natural gas infrastructure carrying natural
gas where it's needed for commercial and industrial operations. And
usually what we find is that there's a lot of
road construction that happens, you know, within twenty forty to
fifty one hundred miles of where these industrial operators are.
So we're using existing infrastructure to bring value into every
(15:03):
corner of the US geography and economy by providing new
materials that enhance paving asphole construction and paving materials.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
You know, tying on to the infrastructure. I wanted to
just also highlight another piece for our listeners is you
mentioned let's not use.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Energy to make energy.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
By doing it this way, you're taking advantage of a
whole different set of existing infrastructure without overloading the electrical grid,
which you have to do with other types with several
other types of hydrogen that use electrolysis. Right, So we're
(15:44):
not putting a we're not putting all of our eggs
and want basket for an electric grid.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
B we know how.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Difficult it is to build out an electric grid.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
So is this too simplistic?
Speaker 1 (15:56):
But you're simply taking advantage of other infrastructure that's already existing.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
You hit the nail on the head.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
This is dispatchable, it's reliable, it's safe, it's already been proven. Like,
we're leveraging the assets that are already in the ground.
So you're not building new infrastructure. You're multiplying the impact
and multiplying the value of the work that's already been done,
(16:23):
the investment that's already been made. One of the things
that our utility customers talk about a lot, and this
was Actually there was a piece in I believe it
was the Oregonian. Earlier this week, comments from the organized
labor community in the Pacific Northwest talking about the value
(16:43):
of decarbonized natural gas. Get this, talking about the value
of decarbonizing natural gas as a pathway to achieving their
region's objectives for reducing emissions. Is organized labor saying, look,
the value of our existing workers being able to do
(17:05):
what they know best in getting natural gas to market,
and now the multiplier effect of removing carbon from natural
gas will help those regions get to their decarbonization objectives.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Faster than renewables.
Speaker 4 (17:21):
That's incredible if you think about it, that natural gas
as a pathway to help end users that are trying
to decarbonize, that they can decarbonize faster with natural gas
than with renewables. If you want to talk about like
a one two punch or a value multiplier both for
(17:42):
a community that's concerned with the environment and the force
multiplier of a community that's aggressively trying to grow markets
for natural gas.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
If you can do both of those at the same time,
everybody wins well.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
And you know, the United States currently produces more natural
gas than it uses right, we export, so we are
one hundred percent energy independent when it comes to the
use of natural gas. And some people think we're totally
energy independent, but that's actually not true because we consume
more petroleum oil based than we still make, but not
(18:20):
so in natural gas.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
But how do you address critics who argue.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
That hydrogen being produced from natural gas still relies on
fossil fuels And is this technology really as.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Clean as advertised?
Speaker 3 (18:39):
That is a good That is a good question.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
And at the end of the day, responsible production of
natural gas is important. I think you'd be hard pressed
to find anybody in the United States who's pro wasting energy. Right,
there's the pollution, there's theanomic element. So responsible production of
(19:02):
natural gas is something that I can personally go out
on a lemon and say is near and dear in
my heart and is something we as an energy industry
need to need to seriously advocate for.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Similarly, reducing leaks in our natural gas network from the
point of production all the way to the point of utilization.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
There are lots of industry initiatives, especially on the utility side,
on what they call tightening their networks. So historically, where
a lot of leaks would have happened where flanges meet,
where bolts need to be tightened, I would call I
would shine a light specifically on utilities like Puget Sound
Energy in Washington and Northwest Natural in Oregon.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
They're all both strategic partners.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
And clients of Modern Those two lead the pipeline ecosystem
in tightness of their networks, which mean they are addressing
exactly the problem that you're talking about, which is making
sure that the natural gas that's delivered is as clean
as possible, that.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
You're not wasting it.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
In our case, the problem that we're trying to solve
for is for the commercial industrial operators that are trying
to make progress on their own internal decarbonization objectives that
we're reducing the CO two emissions associated with the natural
gas that they're burning. They know today that they want
(20:25):
to reduce their emissions, that's number one. They know today
that they don't want to electrify their process because electrifying
their business is too expensive. They can't afford the capital
cost of overhauling all of their equipment, so they want
to decarbonized.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
They want to stick with natural gas, but they don't
know how to do both.
Speaker 4 (20:47):
And what we bring to the table is a solution
where they can do both and incrementally, they can economically
deploy this distributed natural gas pyrolysis technologlogy to remove carbon.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
The carbon goes into asphalt products that make the.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
Infrastructure community really happy, and the decarbonized distributed natural gas
pyrolysis that goes into these industrial operations help these operators
meet their internal decarbonization objectives.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
So this really sounds like a win win goal. And
one of the things I've always concentrated on is if
you're interested in decarbonization, then we should be somewhat agnostic
as to the way it's done. We're outcome based, right,
We're about results being driven by results, and the result
is you are reducing carbon footprint substantially absolutely.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
The other benefit here is economically you're making energy cheaper
within the marketplace.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
And I say you're making energy cheaper because our focus
on commercial and industrial operations.
Speaker 4 (21:58):
Means that we are helping those big energy consumers meet
their demand requirements without building new electrical infrastructure. So at
the end of the day, thinking about this objectively and
outcomes oriented exactly to your point, if you want to decarbonize,
(22:18):
then you should have options for how to get there.
And ultimately what we see is that people are choosing
distributed natural gas pyrolysis is the pathway to get to
decarbonization one because they're using natural gas.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Natural gas is domestically sourced.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
So if we're talking about national security, if you're talking
about equipment that is manufactured in the US, I mean,
this is not a solar panel that came from China
or a wind turbine that came from Europe. This is
talking about domestic natural gas, domestic technology, domestic manufacture that's
being deployed to achieve domestic decarbonization objectives. On the part
(23:02):
of corporations that are trying to figure out how do
they make progress, how do they grow their markets, how
do they reduce their cost this is another way that
we're helping them win.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
All right, So it's it's a plus for the environment.
It's a plus to actually make the other products like
asphalt better. Hardening the asphalt makes it last longer, fewer repairs, right.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Less potholes.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
It enhances our economic security, our national security.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
What am I missing here?
Speaker 4 (23:36):
You know, we are in a we're in a great
position today where it's a great feeling to be in
alignment with the Trump administration today. We are growing markets
for natural gas and we're creating new natural gas demand
by creating new products.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
From natural gas that are all made in America for
American businesses.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
And at the same time, we're helping data centers that
are trying to advance a decarbonization agenda, we're.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Helping them meet that.
Speaker 4 (24:11):
And other commercial industrial operators that are trying to meet
their own decarbonization objectives for their own customers, we're helping
them meet that too. So to your point about alignment,
and I think to the overarching objective of domestic energy security,
this idea of creating a new market for natural gas
(24:32):
in the decarbonization ecosystem.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
Regardless of where.
Speaker 4 (24:36):
You stand politically on decarbonization, the idea that you can
create new products from natural gas really objectively, you shouldn't
care who's buying it, right If somebody's buying it for
their decarbonization objectives, then we should be behind that full bottom.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
This is wonderful.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
I've really enjoyed this last half hour discussing this with you,
and on this of charge conversations I've been speaking with Matusi,
Paul Vice President of business Development and government Affairs at
Modern Hydrogen. I'm your host, Brighan McCown. This is a
Joe Strecker production. We'll see you next time.
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Charged Conversations. I'm
your host Brigham McCown, where we explore cutting edge developments
and energy technology and policy. Today, we're taking a deep
dive into one of the most talked about energy solutions
of the future, hydrogen. Hydrogen is the most abundant element
(00:22):
in the universe, and it's been used in various applications
for over a century. In the nineteenth century, it was
a key component of gas used for lighting and heating.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Later, it played a.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Crucial role in the space race, serving as rocket fuel
for NASA's Apollo missions. Today, hydrogen is at the forefront
of the clean energy transition, with a potential to decarbonize
industries ranging from transportation to heavy manufacturing. Hydrogen is a
versatile energy carrier that can be used in fuel cells
to generate electricity, burned in industrial processes, or combined with
(00:55):
carbon to produce synthetic fuels. It's already widely used in
refining petroleum ammonia for fertilizers and its feedstock, and chemical manufacturing. However,
its potential extends far beyond these traditional roles. The key
to hydrogen's future rests and how it's produced Currently, hydrogen
is categorized by color, representing the methods used in production.
(01:17):
We'll get into talking about some of these different colors today,
but first let me introduce Matusi Pull, Vice president of
Business Development and Government Affairs of Modern Hydrogen. Matusi, thanks
for joining us today.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Excellent Bringham, honor to be here, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Oh, it's our pleasure.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
And I think it's fair to say that one of
the companies pushing the boundaries of hydrogen innovation is in
fact Modern Hydrogen. You're focusing on decentralized hydrogen production and
methane paralysis.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
We'd love to discuss this technology.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
And see where it fits into the energy landscape, what
changes remain, and how hydrogen can become a mainstream energy source.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
So let's get started.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Could you tell us a little bit about modern hydrogen,
give us a quick overview, and how does your technology
differ from traditional hydrogen production methods.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Well, there were a lot of questions in that one prompt, so.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
I'm gonna all right, got to take them one at
a time. But the easiest way to think about this
is leveraging natural gas for all of the incredibly diverse
values that natural gas brings to the marketplace in the
United States. So natural gas today is used for power generation,
(02:41):
it's used for heating in buildings and heating.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
For industrial processes.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
It's also used as a feedstock for chemicals manufacturing, and
that those chemicals might be you mentioned at the beginning
applications for hydrogen in refining in the oil and gas space,
All the hydrogen that goes into refining comes originates from
natural gas.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
So the point here is that while our.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
Title is Modern Hydrogen and the technology stack that we're
working on is all about economic ways to generate hydrogen,
all of this maps back to natural gas and leveraging
the domestic infrastructure that we have nationally that delivers natural
gas to myriad applications.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
We're cracking that natural gas into a portfolio of new.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
Natural gas products that are high value for manufacturing, that
are high value for infrastructure and for roads, and are
really high value in catapulting our energy intensive economy kind
of into the next generation.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
How did Modern Hydrogen get started? Could you give us
a quick overview of the company.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
Absolutely, so, our founders originally came together about ten years
ago trying to figure out how to make energy cheaper
and clean it And there have been a number of
different technology iterations over the years, but the last three
to four years have really been focused on creating natural
(04:16):
gas pathways that solve problems for different use cases in
commercial and industrial operations. So I've been at the company now,
I'm now in my fourth year, and it's been a
wild ride, as you can imagine with kind of your
visibility and experience in the technology ecosystem. Our work is
(04:38):
new technology in infrastructure with a specific focus on making
energy more economic, wonderful.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
And did I have this right?
Speaker 1 (04:48):
I sort of see it as your company focusing on
what I'm calling decentralized hydrogen production.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Is that a term that you all use or not
so much? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (04:57):
So I would definitely you could call it decentralized. I
usually call it distributed. You know, we have as a country,
I mean, we have trillions of dollars of gas infrastructure
assets in the ground. The faster way of saying that
is we've got a lot of pipelines and the value
of those pipelines is number one. The infrastructure investment that's
(05:20):
been made over time, both at the transmission scale and at.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
The distribution scale. But also the fact and this is
something that your listeners.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
And actually most people I talk to aren't immediately aware of,
is that we.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Use more energy from natural gas than we do in
the form of energy that we.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
Use in electricity. So to put it in another way,
natural gas is a molecule that carries potential energy for
power generation that becomes electricity. That also carries a lot
of energy that goes into heat, and we use more
heat energy then we do electrical energy. But almost all
(06:04):
of the heat and the majority of electricity all come
from natural gas. So the infrastructure that's already in the
ground that's enabling these natural gas molecules to be delivered
everywhere where we need our energy, that's our force multiplier.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
So what we're.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
Doing, in whether you're calling it decentralized or distributed, what
we're doing is creating new products from natural gas at
the end of the line so that those products don't
have to be retransported.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
In the case of hydrogen.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
What we're doing is working towards the space where industrial
operators who are selling products to customers that want lower.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
CO two footprints.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
Those customers are buying from factories and they're demanding that
the factories provide a lower CO two product, and the
main way the factories can meet those objectives is either
by choosing renewables or the case that we're making is
that they should continue to choose natural gas and process
the natural gas to remove the carbon from the natural gas,
(07:09):
which creates a new fuel stream that meets all of.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
These end user demands for decarbonized products.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
So, Matussi, that leads into my next question, what the
heck is methane pyrolysis, and out with that a part
of your strategy.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
My usual turn of phrase is natural gas pyrolysis, and
in natural gas pyrolysis, what we're doing. The general idea
of pyrolysis has been around for a long time, and
the idea is that if you heat a molecule up
in a controlled environment, you can actually control what happens
as that molecule decomposes and breaks apart into the atoms
(07:48):
that make up the molecule. So by cracking natural gas
into its components, natural gas is methane methane ISCH four,
which means one carbon atom and four hydrogen atoms. If
we crack natural gas into carbon and hydrogen. One of
the methods to do that cracking is what's called pyrolysis,
(08:10):
and that means we're keating up those molecules to get
them to decompose into the parts that we want.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
So what we're doing with natural gas.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
Pyrolysis at the end of the line is taking the
natural gas that comes into the pipe, we crack it
into carbon and hydrogen. The carbon actually is a really
high value product for asphalt manufacturing. If you're in the
infrastructure and paving space, you're always looking for ways to
grow your business and get cost out of your business,
(08:40):
and the carbon that modern produces is a really effective
additive to enhance asphalt performance. So we pyroalize natural gas
to create new products for natural gas.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
One of those products goes is.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
A high value additive in asphalt. The other product is
clean hydrogen. So this clean hydrogen can be used for
the industrial applications that you spoke of before. We also
see a booming market for this decarbonized natural gas product
into data centers.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
There are a number of very.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
Large data center developers and power supply companies for data
centers that are looking to modern technology to remove carbon
from natural gas before the fuel goes into the power
plant for the data center.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Well Okay, that brings me to a good topic. I
have a water bottle here, is this not hydrogen?
Speaker 5 (09:37):
There is a lot of hydrogen in that water bottle,
both in the plastic, the processing of the plastic, and
then in the water itself.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
The water is H.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
Two O, which means that it has two hydrogen atoms
for every oxygen atom that is in that that's.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
In that bottle.
Speaker 4 (09:57):
So one way to generate hydrogen today is through a
process that's called electrolysis, and electrolysis means that you're using
an electrical current to crack water.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Molecules into hydrogen and oxygen.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
There's a lot of technology going on in the hydrogen
space around electrolysis.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
But the challenge there is that.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
You need electrolysis, you need electricity to drive the process.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
So while you may.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
Deliver hydrogen at the end of the day, and while
that hydrogen may have a low maybe like effectively generated,
the issue is that you're taking electrical capacity, both in
terms of power generation and transmission and distribution, and you're
using it for to generate a product that you know,
(10:49):
to be honest with you, it's just it's not very
energy efficient. Knowing the constraints of our grid today would
be it would be way more efficient to use natural
gas as the vehicle goal to deliver the molecule where
you wanted it and cracked it that way, rather than
taking really high value electrons off the electrical grid and
(11:09):
using them to generate hydrogen.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
Now, there are always going to.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
Be instances where one pathway is preferred over the other,
but at scale given the objectives of our commercial industrial
customers and data center customers today, the data centers want power,
so using power to create their fuel to generate power
for them doesn't work. The logic isn't there, the economics
(11:35):
aren't there. But natural gas delivering the molecules for power
generation and removing carbon from those molecules to meet the
data centers demand for lower CO too power. That's mission
critical and we think that is core to domestic energy
security at the end of the day, being able to
(11:55):
power our economy and being able to power data centers,
and being able to power data center demand for lower
CO two emissions per compute power delivered. The natural gas
is the pathway, and pyrolysis of natural gas helps data
centers get there faster.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
I love this, so just to recap for our listeners here.
Turquoise hydrogen is what we're talking about with modern hydrogen.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
Right, Yeah, So turquoise is a general term that a
lot of folks in the industry use to talk about
natural gas as a source for hydrogen and making sure
that that carbon is captured after it's been after it's
been cracked.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
So, yes, that is one term you can use to
call what we're doing.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
And the important part of this is other than other
processes like gray hydrogen, right is also using natural gas,
but gray hydrogen releases significant carbon dioc side emissions, whereas
you're producing solid carbon and as you've described, instead of
(13:06):
CO two, which is then pushed into other materials like
asphalt to make it stronger. And I've seen some of
your videos actually of even a very famous person using
your product to fix a pothole.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Could you talk about that for a minute.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
Absolutely so, and I'm glad.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
You brought it up.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
So we have.
Speaker 4 (13:30):
Asphalt customers in on both on both sides of the
United States. We have asphalt customers in Texas. We have
asphalt customers in New York and Florida and Washington, Oregon, California,
even up north to Alberta and those asphalt customers by
(13:50):
the asphalt additive that we manufacture that we produce by
cracking natural gas, by mixing that carbon into their asphalt binder,
the stuff that holds asphalt together, they make the asphalt
stronger across a wider range of operating temperatures, which at
the end of the day, means that if you're deploying
(14:12):
asphalt for a roads contract or a parking.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Lot, or a highway, or even a runway at an.
Speaker 6 (14:18):
Airport, you can reduce the amount of maintenance that's required
on the road because you're making the road stronger by
mixing this performance enhance this, yeah, this performance enhancer in
with the paving material.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
So what makes this really really interesting is.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
The alignment of our existing natural gas infrastructure carrying natural
gas where it's needed for commercial and industrial operations. And
usually what we find is that there's a lot of
road construction that happens, you know, within twenty forty to
fifty one hundred miles of where these industrial operators are.
So we're using existing infrastructure to bring value into every
(15:03):
corner of the US geography and economy by providing new
materials that enhance paving asphole construction and paving materials.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
You know, tying on to the infrastructure. I wanted to
just also highlight another piece for our listeners is you
mentioned let's not use.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Energy to make energy.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
By doing it this way, you're taking advantage of a
whole different set of existing infrastructure without overloading the electrical grid,
which you have to do with other types with several
other types of hydrogen that use electrolysis. Right, So we're
(15:44):
not putting a we're not putting all of our eggs
and want basket for an electric grid.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
B we know how.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
Difficult it is to build out an electric grid.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
So is this too simplistic?
Speaker 1 (15:56):
But you're simply taking advantage of other infrastructure that's already existing.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
You hit the nail on the head.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
This is dispatchable, it's reliable, it's safe, it's already been proven. Like,
we're leveraging the assets that are already in the ground.
So you're not building new infrastructure. You're multiplying the impact
and multiplying the value of the work that's already been done,
(16:23):
the investment that's already been made. One of the things
that our utility customers talk about a lot, and this
was Actually there was a piece in I believe it
was the Oregonian. Earlier this week, comments from the organized
labor community in the Pacific Northwest talking about the value
(16:43):
of decarbonized natural gas. Get this, talking about the value
of decarbonizing natural gas as a pathway to achieving their
region's objectives for reducing emissions. Is organized labor saying, look,
the value of our existing workers being able to do
(17:05):
what they know best in getting natural gas to market,
and now the multiplier effect of removing carbon from natural
gas will help those regions get to their decarbonization objectives.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Faster than renewables.
Speaker 4 (17:21):
That's incredible if you think about it, that natural gas
as a pathway to help end users that are trying
to decarbonize, that they can decarbonize faster with natural gas
than with renewables. If you want to talk about like
a one two punch or a value multiplier both for
(17:42):
a community that's concerned with the environment and the force
multiplier of a community that's aggressively trying to grow markets
for natural gas.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
If you can do both of those at the same time,
everybody wins well.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
And you know, the United States currently produces more natural
gas than it uses right, we export, so we are
one hundred percent energy independent when it comes to the
use of natural gas. And some people think we're totally
energy independent, but that's actually not true because we consume
more petroleum oil based than we still make, but not
(18:20):
so in natural gas.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
But how do you address critics who argue.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
That hydrogen being produced from natural gas still relies on
fossil fuels And is this technology really as.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Clean as advertised?
Speaker 3 (18:39):
That is a good That is a good question.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
And at the end of the day, responsible production of
natural gas is important. I think you'd be hard pressed
to find anybody in the United States who's pro wasting energy. Right,
there's the pollution, there's theanomic element. So responsible production of
(19:02):
natural gas is something that I can personally go out
on a lemon and say is near and dear in
my heart and is something we as an energy industry
need to need to seriously advocate for.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Similarly, reducing leaks in our natural gas network from the
point of production all the way to the point of utilization.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
There are lots of industry initiatives, especially on the utility side,
on what they call tightening their networks. So historically, where
a lot of leaks would have happened where flanges meet,
where bolts need to be tightened, I would call I
would shine a light specifically on utilities like Puget Sound
Energy in Washington and Northwest Natural in Oregon.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
They're all both strategic partners.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
And clients of Modern Those two lead the pipeline ecosystem
in tightness of their networks, which mean they are addressing
exactly the problem that you're talking about, which is making
sure that the natural gas that's delivered is as clean
as possible, that.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
You're not wasting it.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
In our case, the problem that we're trying to solve
for is for the commercial industrial operators that are trying
to make progress on their own internal decarbonization objectives that
we're reducing the CO two emissions associated with the natural
gas that they're burning. They know today that they want
(20:25):
to reduce their emissions, that's number one. They know today
that they don't want to electrify their process because electrifying
their business is too expensive. They can't afford the capital
cost of overhauling all of their equipment, so they want
to decarbonized.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
They want to stick with natural gas, but they don't
know how to do both.
Speaker 4 (20:47):
And what we bring to the table is a solution
where they can do both and incrementally, they can economically
deploy this distributed natural gas pyrolysis technologlogy to remove carbon.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
The carbon goes into asphalt products that make the.
Speaker 4 (21:05):
Infrastructure community really happy, and the decarbonized distributed natural gas
pyrolysis that goes into these industrial operations help these operators
meet their internal decarbonization objectives.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
So this really sounds like a win win goal. And
one of the things I've always concentrated on is if
you're interested in decarbonization, then we should be somewhat agnostic
as to the way it's done. We're outcome based, right,
We're about results being driven by results, and the result
is you are reducing carbon footprint substantially absolutely.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
The other benefit here is economically you're making energy cheaper
within the marketplace.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
And I say you're making energy cheaper because our focus
on commercial and industrial operations.
Speaker 4 (21:58):
Means that we are helping those big energy consumers meet
their demand requirements without building new electrical infrastructure. So at
the end of the day, thinking about this objectively and
outcomes oriented exactly to your point, if you want to decarbonize,
(22:18):
then you should have options for how to get there.
And ultimately what we see is that people are choosing
distributed natural gas pyrolysis is the pathway to get to
decarbonization one because they're using natural gas.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Natural gas is domestically sourced.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
So if we're talking about national security, if you're talking
about equipment that is manufactured in the US, I mean,
this is not a solar panel that came from China
or a wind turbine that came from Europe. This is
talking about domestic natural gas, domestic technology, domestic manufacture that's
being deployed to achieve domestic decarbonization objectives. On the part
(23:02):
of corporations that are trying to figure out how do
they make progress, how do they grow their markets, how
do they reduce their cost this is another way that
we're helping them win.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
All right, So it's it's a plus for the environment.
It's a plus to actually make the other products like
asphalt better. Hardening the asphalt makes it last longer, fewer repairs, right.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Less potholes.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
It enhances our economic security, our national security.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
What am I missing here?
Speaker 4 (23:36):
You know, we are in a we're in a great
position today where it's a great feeling to be in
alignment with the Trump administration today. We are growing markets
for natural gas and we're creating new natural gas demand
by creating new products.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
From natural gas that are all made in America for
American businesses.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
And at the same time, we're helping data centers that
are trying to advance a decarbonization agenda, we're.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Helping them meet that.
Speaker 4 (24:11):
And other commercial industrial operators that are trying to meet
their own decarbonization objectives for their own customers, we're helping
them meet that too. So to your point about alignment,
and I think to the overarching objective of domestic energy security,
this idea of creating a new market for natural gas
(24:32):
in the decarbonization ecosystem.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
Regardless of where.
Speaker 4 (24:36):
You stand politically on decarbonization, the idea that you can
create new products from natural gas really objectively, you shouldn't
care who's buying it, right If somebody's buying it for
their decarbonization objectives, then we should be behind that full bottom.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
This is wonderful.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
I've really enjoyed this last half hour discussing this with you,
and on this of charge conversations I've been speaking with Matusi,
Paul Vice President of business Development and government Affairs at
Modern Hydrogen. I'm your host, Brighan McCown. This is a
Joe Strecker production. We'll see you next time.
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