Green Giants – Episode 33

Lynn Lyon (01:40)

When you grow up as a coal miner’s daughter in West Virginia, you’re thinking about energy, right? So that’s the beginning there. Then at some point I moved to Washington, D.C. after I graduated, and I started doing some work with the Department of Energy. They had different student competitions to promote alternative fuel vehicles. So, fuel cell hydrogen was an option even back then in the 90s, as well as electric vehicles. So, it was very interesting to see what the students at the college and high school level were working on at the time and that led me into management consulting, kind of solving big problems for leading companies across the United States.

As I enjoyed that, at one point in my career, I had a fantastic opportunity to join one of my customers. They invited me to come on board, and that was Pioneer Natural Resources. So, when Pioneer offered me a spot, I said, thank you very much. I had just had my son recently, so it was perfect timing. And I didn’t know that I was about to really go through the shell evolution with Pioneer Natural Resources and really see what was possible in this country with natural gas and oil that they, on any given day, Pioneer was the largest oil and gas producer in West Texas, so that was a big one for me and it really took me back to my roots in some ways regarding how I think about energy and how important it is.

But while I was there, my boss asked me to really take over some important projects associated to natural gas and all oil producers only want to be oil producers. They don’t want to be natural gas producers because it’s a problem in West Texas where they don’t have enough pipelines, and it resulted in venting and flaring and other things that nobody wanted. So as a leader in the organization, we work together to figure out how we could better leverage those molecules. And so, I started buying natural gas trucks, putting in fueling stations to run our vehicles on natural gas, looking into other ways we could displace diesel in our operations with our drilling rigs or our pressure pumping services. And then as we were having these wins internally, we wanted to see how we could influence our partners and collaboration throughout the state as well, so we really said, hey, let’s lead by example here, but let’s also talk about what it takes in the supply chain to make these projects work. So, we reached out to the state of Texas, we got involved on the policy side.

One of my big accomplishments there was the Texas Clean Transportation Triangle, which elevated the opportunities for not only natural gas vehicles, but hydrogen vehicles, electric vehicles, anything that decreases their carbon emissions. Fast forward and I had a very specific view of the world being based in Texas, right, and being from West Virginia. I went to join a company that’s based in Ålesund, Norway that was 25% owned by Mitsui and Company, a large Japanese conglomerate. They gave me a good attitude adjustment, right, about how to look at clean energy, and I welcomed it. It was a very eye-opening experience to see how other parts of the world were looking at what was possible and so I spent a good amount of time with them, like I said, really opening my eyes and learning.

I came back to work in a North American based company with US Energy a few years ago. And we’ve really been seeing what we can do to be out there to be leaders, to find ways to collaborate and take everything we’ve learned, like on the fossil fuel side of the business, and apply it on the cleaner side.

Wes Ashworth (4:51)

Yeah, you’ve got such an interesting and cool story and just the, you know, how you got to where you are, which I want to get into, you know, more of those stories as we go. So, you’ve worked across diverse sectors, you grew up heavily around coal and kind of that environment, been in oil and gas, alternative fuels, other clean energy aspects. What are some of those other pivotal moments that shaped your perspective on the energy transition? And have got you to where you are today.

Lynn Lyon (05:20)

I’ll say that really the transition came from focusing on natural gas first and understanding that when we were looking at what you could do with natural gas vehicles around 2010, 2015, that was one of the only alternatives to diesel at the time. And while it didn’t get you zero emissions, it could significantly decrease emissions. So, kind of looking at it from a perspective of, how can we incrementally improve air quality with what we have and what’s affordable? Because you could still use a combustion engine and very similar, my trucks that I drove around Dallas at the time, they looked like anybody else’s Ford truck, so it’s an experience people were familiar with, and especially in the oil and gas industry.

We transitioned to the Peterbilt heavy duty trucks and the Ford lighter duty trucks, and it works. So, I mean, that was a big thing for me, just seeing that it works, and we could decrease emissions. But then I started it as I started talking more with people in different parts of the country. And I would go to events in California, and I would say, hmm, what is this with renewable natural gas? Why would we even consider that when we have so much natural gas coming out of oil production? But then as I learned more about waste and as our population grows, we have more and more waste and that waste produces methane, CH4, which are the same molecules that come out of fossil fuel natural gas, I thought, wow, this is a great opportunity not only to leverage what we’ve already learned with compressed natural gas, but also to really make a market for this, for vehicles or anything that wants to displace diesel. And then just taking that a step further, hydrogen. At the beginning I thought, well, who would do this with hydrogen? Why would we go that far when we have natural gas? Well, it’s about regulations, right? And it’s about zero emissions.

And if you truly want zero emissions, if that is the yardstick you’re going to use, hydrogen is going to get you there. And I’m pro electric vehicle as well. I’m pro anything that gets us across the finish line.

Wes Ashworth (07:14)

Yeah, absolutely. And I love a key thread there that as you talk through it and coming from maybe some different sectors and things like that is you ask the questions. You’re curious enough to ask why and like, what is that? Why does somebody use that? How does that benefit us? And just how powerful that is, it’s so simple, but how powerful and important that is too, to the energy transition of people asking those questions and being curious and asking why and wanting to learn more. So, I love that.

I do want to hit on something. you know, when we think about traditional energy, and I think there’s so much we can learn there, right? And sometimes it’s just this, they’re just given a bad name and just cast out of like, we can learn nothing from them. We need to separate from them. And obviously that’s not the case, you know.

When we are thinking about your experience in coming from traditional energy sectors to introducing cleaner alternatives like renewable natural gas and hydrogen, what lessons did you learn from maybe some of those traditional energy sectors that apply broadly to the energy transition or help you have a better understanding of things that are going to make us more successful in that transition?

Lynn Lyon (08:18)

Yeah, I think the most important part that I learned is about the key performance indicators, right? So, you start with safety. It doesn’t start with a spreadsheet. if you’ve worked, anytime if you’ve worked with a transportation company or anybody in the energy industry or the chemical industry or a lot of these hard to abate sectors, their first primary focus is on safety. knowing that that’s where you start and when you want to make a move into an alternative fuel, you’re going to have to do a lot of change management. And that’s important. you’re not just, again, it’s not a spreadsheet, its people, process, technology, policy, and really lining up all of those things. And that’s what the energy industry has had to do for a long time. So, we’ll see people come along and they have great ideas. Maybe they have a vehicle or a policy or a piece of software, right? All good, but how do you line those things up and how do you do it safely? How do you make sure you’ve got your application working the way you want to and then you get to optimize it later?

I think sometimes people come in and they have this idea with their spreadsheet that you come in and everything’s optimized from day one and that’s not how the energy industry works. That’s not how transportation works. We’re probably any business to tell you, but that’s when you have that experience that’s you look at things a little bit differently and you look at, hey, you’re gonna have downtime, right? And you know that you’re gonna have to work on utilization, you know that you’re going to have to look forward to resale and parts management and that there’s a lot of other things that are closely related that you’re going to have to manage.

Wes Ashworth (09:49)

Absolutely. And I’d love to hear if you have any stories or anecdotes in terms of thinking about those collaborations. So, and I’m curious about the strategies that prove most effective in bridging the gap between traditional energy stakeholders and advocates of cleaner technologies. You hit on a couple of things now and just kind of understanding their priorities as well, like safety is number one. So, if you don’t come in and you’re addressing that concern right off the bat, then you may not even have the opportunity or chance. I know we’ve talked through this a little bit, but I’d love to hear a story or two just how you were able to get those people to come across the other side and start viewing some of their options or taking those seriously.

Lynn Lyon (10:24)

That’s important because yeah, you don’t get a second chance with natural gas or hydrogen or really any of these high heat applications. So, you have to start from a very conservative perspective as it relates to safety and then understand what is driving them. Ask a lot of questions as you mentioned earlier. I had a large client reach out to me and they were first interested in displacing their fossil fuel natural gas with renewable natural gas. So, we start going through that process and we find out that greenhouse gas accounting is not going to allow the book and claim method for what they were trying to do.

So, we say, okay, well, what else can we do to try to get you there? And then we ended up looking at hydrogen and hydrogen is with the Inflation Reduction Act and other incentives out there. People are looking closely at hydrogen and the thought was, could we truck in hydrogen to their location? And what would the carbon intensity score be? Then taking a look at could we actually produce the hydrogen on site? And if we did, what would that look like? And in this particular scenario, we were looking at an area that has coal electricity, so it’s not a good thing for electrolysis, and then steam methane reformation, which is the other popular way of producing hydrogen right now, was not a good option as well. So, you start trying different things. And so we ended up talking to another partner who had the ability to produce renewable natural gas on site and to use it to produce cleaner hydrogen with a really affordable premium product with a low carbon intensity score. But it took probably two years to get to the right answer. Like it sounds, it might sound like in this condensed Reader’s Digest version here, it sounds like, wow, that’s when you get there. It was a long road to go down a lot of different paths to figure out what was right for this specific customer to meet their needs.

Wes Ashworth (12:12)

And what were the, I guess at the end, what were the right levers that needed to be sort of pulled to make it work? What, either the factors or the different components where they saw it obviously, this is a great solution, this works, we’re on board. Like what were some of those key things that needed to happen or needed to be there?

Lynn Lyon (12:31)

Education and discussions because in the past, even like with buying renewable electricity, companies will buy their renewable electricity and then they trust the process, right? But as people are taking a closer look at things like renewable natural gas or they’re looking at hydrogen, they want to know about the production process. They want to make sure that if they are investing in this, that they’re going to have something that they can put down for their greenhouse gas accounting, right? And so, they expect a lot more, it’s not a commodity market per se, it’s about the environmental attributes in an important way for them for their accounting purposes.

Wes Ashworth (13:09)

Yeah, no question. And going back to some of your experiences, obviously you came up in West Virginia. I think you’re back there now. So, growing up in those regions and Appalachia as a whole, what do you see as the most practical ways to balance just economic and environmental sustainability?

Lynn Lyon (13:25)

I think just starting with pragmatic solutions that are right for your region or your area. I listened to one of your podcasts about the Hampton Roads area and I just found that so fascinating, right? I mean, you guys, you’ve got the military there, you’ve got the industry, you’ve got the ports. Every area has their own specific opportunities and strengths. So in Appalachia here, we obviously were overachievers in the energy business, right? I have 100% confidence in our ability as I would in Texas as well another area that’s, you know, overachievers in production, to be able to produce hydrogen or natural gas or coal or any type of energy solution, but where it gets a little more interesting is how do you look at the consumption?

We know demand for energy is increasing, but how do you produce and consume in a way that is most efficient and that’s where I really started getting interested in the hydrogen hub idea because it is based on the fact that you have to produce and consume locally. So that’s different than how these areas think. Right now, a lot of our natural gas goes into a pipeline down to Louisiana, gets shipped overseas, right? And in a commodity market, producers haven’t traditionally been too concerned about who they sell their product to. They want to have a high-quality product, they want to get it into the market, but that’s how commodity markets work. They haven’t had any motivation necessarily to have a local consumer of their product. And that’s what the hydrogen hub changes, right?

Wes Ashworth (14:56)

Yeah, and I’m curious too, just if anybody is listening that has heard about hydrogen hubs, maybe knows a little bit. I think it’s become, even over the last year, it seems like it pops up more and more. Can you just give us just a real quick Reader’s Digest version of what is a hydrogen hub? Why do they exist? Why should someone care? Why are these areas doing this? I would love just kind of the basic coverage, because I don’t know that we’ve covered that on a podcast yet.

Lynn Lyon (15:21)

Yeah, I think that’s an interesting angle because the government got involved to motivate the market with the Inflation Reduction Act and the infrastructure bill. Those are two multi-billion-dollar packages, right, that are aimed at innovation in energy. How do we get to cleaner energy? And there are different ways they’re based on, like I just used that example of regional. And so different regional groups came together, and they went into a competition with proposals to win this $8 billion for these hydrogen hubs. Seven were awarded and they’re in various stages of starting out the starting line, and the goal is to see how can we produce hydrogen in cleaner ways and how can we leverage it in our transportation industry as well as our hard to abate sectors like glass, chemical, concrete? There’s a lot of industries, the steel industry nearby here, that want to have cleaner options. But it doesn’t help them if they don’t have any product nearby. So how do we learn how to produce and consume in tandem?

Wes Ashworth (16:25)

Yeah, no, I love it. And it kind of goes into the next question. So thinking about the difficulties that come up, some of the challenges with hydrogen and renewable natural gas, one of those being transporting. And that’s certainly a part of that. It’s like you’ve got local production, local consumption. transportation is not as big of an issue. How do you envision solving some of those logistical challenges on a regional scale and just getting more into that topic?

Lynn Lyon (16:45)

Yeah, when I think about the pipelines in this country, I think that’s an area that people aren’t aware of how many natural gas pipelines we have. So, we have 2.7 million miles of paved roads in this country and 2.6 million miles of natural gas pipelines. So, for almost every time you can look out your window and you can see a road, there’s a natural gas pipeline beside. So that has made it easy to move products like natural gas in certain areas, Texas around the Gulf, they do have hydrogen pipelines now. But we don’t have those in the rest of the country, but that would be very helpful to invest in more pipelines for hydrogen. And there are some ways that you can blend it with natural gas, but I think those are a lot of work in process as well.

So that’s one, is to increase our ability with pipelines. The second is really to look into multimodal. One of my collaborators here that you had on the podcast recently, Bernard Brown, they’re working on Follansbee, West Virginia at the Port of West Virginia, right? They’ve got a multimodal facility up there So they are one of the winners of a hydrogen hub project and they’re going to have the ability to move product in whether they do it in a compressed state or in a, using cryogenics and liquefied state, they can move products potentially multimodal railroad or river. So, they can take it in trucks and move it around the area. They can put it on a barge or marine vessel and take it down the Ohio river or they can put it on rail. They’ve got their own short line railroad there. So how do we, how do we find ways to do those things safely, right? And economically.

Wes Ashworth (18:20)

Yeah, huge piece of it obviously. Those two pieces come up a lot. So, and kind of digging more into some things that you’ve done within hydrogen and renewable natural gas. you’ve collaborated on projects like, hydrogen passenger trains, renewable natural gas vehicles. What are some of the innovations or partnerships you’re most proud of and why?

Lynn Lyon (18:39)

I definitely enjoyed my time at Hexagon because they were out there, they worked on the composite tanks that are lighter for the compressed gases. So they had an early start. People would come to them and say, hey, you want to be a partner in these kinds of what I call lighthouse projects where they prove that it can be done. So, it was very interesting to see whether it was with a passenger train in Germany or a Marine vessel off the West coast or even rockets like you know what, how can we use these fuels more efficiently?

So, I think I’m really proud of some of the work we did there. I also, just going back to like my days at pioneer I think sometimes the energy industry gets a bad rap and I know that the people I was working with they’re outstanding outdoorsmen, outstanding people that preserve nature and one and always wanted to do the right thing regarding trying to use their, all of those molecules as efficiently as possible. And then like most recently, like I could not be prouder of what they’re working on in Follansbee, West Virginia, so I’m so glad you had Bernard on recently, trying to take an area like that and revitalize it with the going from one of the dirtiest areas to turning it into one of the cleanest areas and having a premium product come out of there that we can be really proud of. I like that.

Wes Ashworth (19:43)

Yeah, absolutely. There’s a lot to be proud of there. Any other things? So, I guess maybe what’s been the most surprising or unexpected result from any of the partnerships in terms of advanced and clean energy adoption?

Lynn Lyon (20:07)

I would just say kind of some of the stops and starts, some of the projects have, these are time consuming projects. So really trying to line up the critical path and making sure that we all have the risk appetite to move forward together on these. There are some things, like I said, that look really great on the spreadsheet, but you really have to have the perseverance to see these through. So I have big ambitions for what could be possible.

So, I think it’s finding the right partners who are willing to work through the different challenges as they come up and really find the pragmatic solution that works. Find your way to yes, right?

Wes Ashworth (20:46)

Yeah, I love that. Find your way to yes. And I am curious, so we’ve talked through, and you’ve got so many interesting stories and experiences that you’ve been a part of. And you know, don’t have to name any specifics or anything like that, but I’d love to hear any other examples of just successful clean energy projects that you’re really proud of. What made it most impactful and what can we learn from it?

Lynn Lyon (21:07)

I was sitting in a hotel room, like just really pulling my hair out with a proposal about nine months ago, looking at a problem that one of my clients had where I had suggested six different solutions in a proposal, and I did not like any of them. don’t know if you felt that way before you’re really trying to solve a problem and you look at what’s out there and you’re like, this isn’t quite right. And then just by talking with other groups, other collaborations, I had another company explain to me how they were solving the problem and how they’d like to replicate that with another partner, and I thought, wow, let’s do some introductions here. Kind of looking at, what that problem was to begin with was the need to have a clean hydrogen, low carbon intensity hydrogen for research and development. And that’s what we’re gonna need a lot is we’re gonna need these smaller volumes to get started so we can start talking about on-site production and these other opportunities to prove this out, but how do we get the minimal volumes we need and make sure that they’re the cleaner hydrogen, right?

We’re not gonna go full circle with this if we start out with gray hydrogen. So how do we do that and how do we work together? And I think it’s just a lot of the collaboration there of seeing how we all have similar problems. And if we all start lining up, again, the regional piece, right? The regional piece of how we can work together.

Wes Ashworth (22:24)

Yeah, and you mentioned a few there. So, looking at that project or considering others, what lessons would you share with others trying to maybe scale similar initiatives in different regions? Obviously, collaboration being a huge, huge key to that. But what are some other lessons you feel like others could learn from?

Lynn Lyon (22:42)

I would say stepping back and again asking the question why and when often. One of the challenges I hear often is can we electrify this? Is there an opportunity for electrification? And sometimes yes and we should look at that. But then why? So, is it because you want to decrease your emissions? Is it because you think that we have a more efficient technology? And then what is your application and what is your timeline? So really zoning in on all of the things that need to align because Once you start looking well, my real goal is not necessarily electrification My goal is to have something to report to my sustainability officer that I can decrease something by 2025 like by the end of next year I’m asked to put something on a spreadsheet So I can’t say that I’m just going to start a pilot project, right? Or you can guess what you could do things in parallel paths I guess that that was always something I like when you have the ability to do that.

If you can do a pilot project with electric, but also take a look at is renewable natural gas an option for you? Is hydrogen an option? Are there other ways where you go multimodal so what are your different options that really back into that goal that you have without just starting out with a silver bullet that you think is going to solve it all?

Wes Ashworth (23:56)

Yeah, I love that. Great sound wisdom and advice there. One thing that I wanted to cover as well and just thinking about it, renewable natural gas, think it’s a little bit of a, there’s some misconceptions. There’s a little bit sometimes of people having a pretty strong opinion one way or the other, whether it’s a good solution or not. You’ve been in this a long time and have a lot of knowledge and experience and genuinely a true heart for the energy transition. I’m curious just if you can cover some opinions around renewable natural gas, maybe some of the negatives that you hear, and then if there are any, like yeah, people often say this or you see this a lot, but in reality, this is some of the truth. Can you give us some of the big ones really quick?

Lynn Lyon (24:40)

I think one of the biggest challenges is the book and claim system right now, where you have to prove it out. People don’t understand that you have to prove out those paths to the EPA. So, you have a dairy farm in Wisconsin and you’re selling that renewable natural gas into markets on the West Coast. You have to prove out that those molecules could be in there, but then it’s no different than electricity, right? You don’t know that that electron came from that solar or you don’t know that that electron came from some other renewable source. But the opportunity is that we already have technologies that are optimized for natural gas.

So the CH4, the carbon hydrogen atoms, that’s already been tested out. the engine or the application, the turbine, it doesn’t care. It doesn’t care if it came from fossil fuel or if it came from a dairy farm or wastewater or a landfill. So as our waste increases with our population, it’s a, not only is it a good energy source, but it’s actually doing double dipping for us because if you have the ability to not use diesel in the first place and you take away emissions that were going to go into the air from the landfill, you’re getting double the benefits.

Wes Ashworth (25:47)

Absolutely, without a doubt. I appreciate you going into that. So, transitioning a little bit. So, we are at the end of the year now. This may air towards the beginning of early 2025. But what are your predictions for the renewable energy sector over the next few years, even into 2025? I guess what do you see as the biggest advancement happening and just your overall feelings?

Lynn Lyon (26:07)

The biggest advancements are going to be around areas that are more comprehensive in nature. So, we’re going to include electrification for sure. Batteries are going to get better. Storage is going to get better. But we’re also going to find that if we take a broader look at this, there’ll be multiple technologies. So, if you go back and you think about electricity and think about a pie chart with electricity many years ago, and it was made up predominantly, that pie chart was made up very heavily of coal, right? And some natural gas and some oil, but the pie chart was overwhelmingly coal and natural gas.

Now, if we look at, on the transportation side where I focus, we’ll see diesel and gasoline taking up almost that whole pie chart, right? So, some people want to go in and think, well we’re going to shake it up and we’re going to have that go to 50% electrification or a really high percentage. And I think there are some possibilities for high numbers, but going back to the electricity generation side, that pie chart now has what? Solar. It has geothermal, wind, natural gas and coal are still on there, but it is a pretty colorful and varied wheel. So, if we think about that on the transportation side, right, we could expect that yes, we’re going to see a larger piece. The diesel market is going to decrease. Electric is going to increase, as is natural gas, renewable natural gas, hydrogen.

And then the other thing I’ll say about that is focusing more on the transportation side of this, I think we’re going to see more hybrids. I don’t think it’s the ideal technology that some people would like to see, but it makes sense. I mean, it’s worked in the passenger vehicle space, and I think it can work fairly well in the heavy-duty space as well.

Wes Ashworth (27:49)

Yeah, and digging into that a little bit more. Given your extensive work with hydrogen and thinking about decarbonizing sectors like heavy duty transportation and manufacturing. I guess how do you see that role evolving over the next few years, specifically I guess with hydrogen?

Lynn Lyon (28:05)

Well, the first thing I think of is kind of being technology agnostic sometimes. So as people are more interested in moving towards electrification, they are thinking about electric power drives for trucks, which work well. And when I talk to drivers and fleet managers, they like the trucks. So electric trucks are coming. But when you talk about hydrogen and why people are interested in that, you can go a longer distance with the hydrogen, so that’s one of the biggest ones. Also, the weight of the batteries, which will get better, right? It’s fine. Pepsi, Frito-A, they’re doing a lot of very innovative, cutting-edge projects with Tesla trucks on the West Coast, moving potato chips and moving Pepsi products as well. The beverage products, they did make sure that they pointed that out at the last presentation I was at. It’s not just potato chips.

So again, they’re out there proving that out. But in the meantime, it doesn’t work for everyone, that specific application. So, if you are determined to have zero emissions, then hydrogen would be the way to go. And we’ve again proved this out with buses. We have buses running on hydrogen now. There are some very large fleets on the West Coast with transit buses. And we have one in Ohio here, Canton, Ohio, where the football hall of fame is, also has a decent sized hydrogen bus fleet. So yeah, there’s something east of the Mississippi happening with hydrogen, right? So just looking at places to see where it works and then kind of starting from there.

The other thing about, I’ll say about hydrogen is the two different engine types that we’re going to have. So, we’re going to have the fuel cell option, but we’re also going to be able to use it in a combustion engine, which is important for different reasons. If you’re a fleet manager, and especially if you just went through COVID and you couldn’t get parts, right? And you’ve got your fleet managers all set up. They know how to work on the trucks, they know the warranty, they know the truck manufacturer, they have their loyalties just like any personal vehicle. If you’re a Honda person or a Ford person, fleet people, they’re Volvo people or they’re Peterbilt. So, they have these relationships, and they understand combustion engines. So, while there could be a transition to fuel cells, in the meantime, they’re just comfortable with combustion engines. If we see a really good opportunity for these engines coming from Cummins or Volvo or others, and Toyota’s working on one with Peterbilt as well, let’s see how these things align.

Wes Ashworth (30:29)

Yeah, no, absolutely. any other sort of key barriers when you think about just things that need to be overcome to accelerate hydrogen’s adoption in some of these hard to decarbonize sectors, whether it’s technological, economic, or regulatory, what are those other barriers that need to be overcome?

Lynn Lyon (30:44)

One of them is just, we’re going to need smaller volumes of cleaner hydrogen for pilot projects. This is a huge change management challenge and you’re not going to go in and redo everything at once. So, people are going to have to get comfortable with it. They’re going to have to, I know that when I was working on this with my trucks in Texas, the first thing I would have to do is prove it was safe, right? I have to prove it’s safe. Then I have to prove that it can do the application that I’m suggesting it as well as the alternative. I can’t bring in something that doesn’t do what I need it to do. And then finally I get a chance to optimize it.

So, I think if you see that in terms of hydrogen, we’re going to have to have those smaller volumes at affordable prices. I know that there was a fleet in Pittsburgh that moves steel products, and they wanted to buy a couple trucks, and they were assured by the manufacturer of the truck that there would be fueling infrastructure in place. And now he’s like, okay, I got trucks coming, but I don’t have the fuel. And it’s a matter of lining up the supply and demand.

Wes Ashworth (31:44)

Yeah, no question. And I guess you’re seeing that now, start to evolve with sort of those smaller supplies for testing and things like that, pilot projects. Are you seeing that or is there still a huge barrier for that to happen?

Lynn Lyon (31:57)

There’s still a huge barrier because these hydrogen hub stories, they’re great stories. And as Bernard pointed out, we already had an $18.3 billion hydrogen industry in 2023 in this country anyhow. So that part’s not new, but it’s the demand for cleaner hydrogen. And, and we have plans for it with these hydrogen hubs, but man, they’re two years or so from producing anything. So how do you, they want to produce large volumes, and they want to have an offtake partner ready, but that offtake partner didn’t have enough supply to test out his operations in the meantime. So that’s where it kind of gets interesting to me. And then, you know, how do you manage breaking into that?

How do you do the transportation, as you’d mentioned before, if you are a facility and you’re on the Ohio River, are you willing to try out moving in on a barge to your facility? Are you willing to invest in some pipeline to put under the Ohio River, you know, from West Virginia to get it over there? I mean, how are we going to move it, and how are we going to move it at volumes that are scalable, starting out at the right amount that they need and increasing as the market grows?

Wes Ashworth (33:03)

Yeah, absolutely. And shifting topics a little bit, just to cover as many topics as we can. So, thinking about just policy impacts or with evolving policies and incentives, what shifts, I guess, do you anticipate in how the energy sector operates, especially regarding the IRA, Inflation Reduction Act, and its impact on hydrogen and other renewable technologies?

Lynn Lyon (33:26)

I am going to suggest that you speak with Roxana, the president of the United States Hydrogen Association. She has some of the best insights into this. So, I’ll follow her lead, but being part of organizations like USHA, I’m also a board member for the Transport Project for 14 years. So, kind of working with them and having the people on the ground at the Capitol, kind of keeping their eye on what’s moving and how, how legislatures are thinking differently, and the biggest challenge we have right now is 45V. So 45V is an incentive for the cost of hydrogen produced. And what we’ll need is a more comprehensive and a less stringent approach to how clean hydrogen is defined. we need to be, when I say inclusive, I mean using natural gas with carbon capture, using steam methane reformation if it’s proved efficient, right?

And being technology agnostic, if you can provide a lower carbon intensity score, focus on carbon intensity all day long. And then you’ll find your path to cleaner air, and you’ll have the right economic incentives if you line them up with carbon intensity instead of specific technologies.

Wes Ashworth (34:38)

Yeah, no, that’s a great point, and I love that there’s the thought process there. And I think that is such a critical piece and being technology agnostic and focusing on the things that are like, OK, we know what the end goal is. Maybe the path to get there isn’t so absolute in some ways. Like we need to get creative and consider different options. again, the end goal, that’s what should really drive it versus like, it’s got to be this very specific path. So I agree wholeheartedly.

Another thing I wanted to cover as well. So, we talked a little bit about some differences between the energy transition in the eastern part, sort of the east of the Mississippi versus, you know, you hear a lot of Texas and California. We’re all familiar with that. What unique opportunities or constraints do you see for the eastern US?

Lynn Lyon (35:22)

I would love to see some projects similar to what I’ve seen in California before. Volvo had a project called Volvo Lights on the West Coast where they brought different collaboration partners together to prove out what could work in a single region with different alternative fuels. So, they tried hydrogen and electric and natural gas, and they worked with companies like Frito and said, let’s all work together here, I believe. Love’s fueling stations, Love’s travel centers. So how do you get together with different fueling partners, vehicle manufacturers, and do something on a more regional basis? So, what I would love to see east of the Mississippi here is some areas where we have the partners that are in the supply chain, and we figure out ways to produce cleaner steel together using a hydrogen or natural gas feedstock with a lower carbon intensity score. Take that cleaner steel, turn it into cleaner trucks, right?

So now we have a lower carbon intensity product for our heavy-duty trucks that are on the road. Fuel those trucks with hydrogen or natural gas or electric from cleaner sources as well. And then move products. Then you have a great sustainability story for moving other products in the area. So those same trucks are moving steel parts to Mexico and back, moving across the country, and that innovation can come out of one area that knows how to produce hydrogen, produce steel, produce trucks, and has their own supply chain in the area with partners that all want the same thing, right? They all want something that’s economical first, but also environmentally sustainable.

Wes Ashworth (36:57)

Yeah, absolutely. And we’ve hit on this a little bit, just kind of thinking about that. So change is hard, especially for industries that are rooted in traditional methods. And I would say, east of the Mississippi, there are probably more of those sometimes. How do you approach resistance to adopting cleaner technologies? And what’s been the most effective in driving that change?

Lynn Lyon (37:15)

People have to see it first. People aren’t comfortable with something they haven’t seen. So that’s why it made it easier when I was transitioning my trucks in Texas to Ford and Peterbilt, because people understood that. So, you have to start out with some examples that they can see. If you’re in Canton, Ohio, try out one of those buses. They’ll share those buses. I’ve actually talked to some people at Cummins and other manufacturers lately. We’re going to have more examples on the East Coast where you can actually see the vehicles.

I’m so fortunate that I get to attend events on the West Coast where the alternative clean transportation event every year is fabulous and all of the new trucks are there and not only do you get to see them inside, but they also have a ride and drive outside. So, I get to ride in them and people that are drivers, which I’m not, but if I did have my CDL or whatever, I could actually go out and drive one of these vehicles. So, I think seeing them is the first thing and just then, once you see them, you know it’s possible. And then you can start asking some of the other questions about how do you line up the drivers and how do you set up your fueling stations?

Wes Ashworth (38:17)

Yeah, I love it. And it’s so practical and true, right? It’s like we need to kind of get eyes on it and be able to see it and know like, okay, this is real. It’s possible. I get it. I understand it. If we just kind of like, read about it or hear about it, it’s oftentimes not enough. You really do need to see it. Thinking more in terms of just the transition and other advice just to innovators, innovators that are entering the space or already in the space. So, what advice would you give to leaders or entrepreneurs trying to make a meaningful impact in the energy transition today?

Lynn Lyon (38:47)

Find somebody, find a partner or multiple partners to collaborate with and have shared risk. Nobody wants to look like they’re the ones who didn’t know what they were talking about, but really none of us do, right? None of us, some of this is so new. That’s why things like Volvo lights were exciting because everybody said, well, we’re not sure. Let’s all try this together. So, find these partners that you feel comfortable saying that. I’m so, again, I think it’s amazing the work that Pepsi has done with Tesla trucks to try it out, and it took four years to get those trucks, right? We’re talking shared risk and it’s not easy.

Change isn’t easy, so finding the people that have different parts of the supply chain, find fueling partners, find trucking partners, find people that want to move goods and services and that are all willing to say, let’s learn from this. I’m willing to invest a little money in this. I’m willing to maybe pay a little bit more for this product during a phased approach. if I can share in learning and understanding that we’re all taking these risks together.

Wes Ashworth (39:45)

Yeah, well said and great advice there. Again, practical stuff makes a huge, huge difference as we go forward. As we get a little closer to time, I want to ask you a couple really open-ended questions and make sure we don’t miss anything. So as someone just deeply involved in shaping the energy landscape, you’ve had a lengthy career and have been in this and seen different sides of it. What are some things, I guess, you know well and if you could just shout it from the rooftops and have everybody else understand, are there some key messages or things that you would like to get out there share from your knowledge, from your experience and wisdom?

Lynn Lyon (40:17)

To be successful with one of these alternative fuel projects, it’s important to be an early adapter, not necessarily an early adopter. So, you can adapt your current processes and goals with what you’re learning as you’re going, just kind of with an incremental step approach. I think people think adoption and they think, we’re going to just go in full force here, but there often you can adapt your current processes, and start seeing those incremental changes, then you have something to report to your accounting department and you have the ability to optimize it.

So, I think just trying to adapt what you can and looking for the work streams that are open to that. I mean we did that at the oil and gas company first. We used our water trucks first, right? And if I had a water truck down, I wasn’t going to lose my job over the water truck. Now, later on, when I’m working on alternative fuels and doing hybrid solutions for the drilling rigs and the pressure pumping services, if I had a drilling rig down or pressure pumping services down, I mean, yeah, I could lose my job for that, right? So, you don’t lean in to do those first. You take your water trucks first and then you build on success, you become comfortable, you prove out the safety, and then you take on the big projects.

Wes Ashworth (41:16)

Yeah, love that advice. And then just, again, I’ll just open it up for a final question. Any other key messages that, again, you would want to share, things we didn’t hit on, things you want to leave, something you want to leave people with if they’re listening to this episode, thinking about renewable natural gas, hydrogen, clean energy, the energy transition as a whole. What are some other parting words of advice? I’ll let you take it from there.

Lynn Lyon (41:51)

Just keep talking about positive energy. Finding the partners that want to find the path to yes. And working together to identify risks, manage risks, solve problems, and move one step forward. That’s the main thing. It’s just having people that have similar goals and finding the right strategies to work together. Align your critical path. Align supply and demand. And do it regionally.

Again, like I said, that’s what I loved about that Hampton Roads one. I mean, we’ve got to do it regionally. This isn’t me sitting here in West Virginia that I’m not able to move the market in Arizona right now. Not efficiently, right? But I can efficiently find out what’s going on with a steel company in Pittsburgh and do something really exciting and impactful together.

Wes Ashworth (42:17)

Yeah, I love that. I love that. So well said and a great way to wrap up the conversation. So, Lynn, your insights on the energy transition and practical solutions for balancing economic and environmental goals, your experience driving innovation have been really incredibly inspiring. I’ve enjoyed the conversation and all our conversations before. To our listeners out there, thank you as always for tuning into Green Giants, Titans of Renewable Energy.

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