ChargeExpo 2024: Emission Standards and Energy Solutions with Red Ball Oxygen’s CEO

Hello everyone. Daniel Litwin, the voice of b to b here coming at you from the Irving Convention Center for Charge Expo twenty twenty four. I'm joined today by mister Alex Kennedy, he's CEO of Red Ball oxygen, Alex. Great to have you here with us at Charge Expo twenty twenty four. How are you doing? Thanks for having Absolutely. Yeah. Real pleasure to pick your brain here. And so you're on the power generation side working with utilities. Can you go ahead and tell our audience a little bit more about the role that Red Ball oxygen plays in that larger sector, give them some context on the solutions you provide and kinda where you fit into the larger system. Absolutely. Thank you. So red ball oxygen, one of the primary things and reasons why we're here is because we manufacture EPA protocol gases emissions monitoring gases. We distribute them nationally and internationally to utility companies, power plants, refineries, Anyone that emits into the atmosphere, we manufacture the standards that make sure they're not over the thresholds of the allowance for, greenhouse gases and emissions And so a lot of our customers are here. The exhibitors and the attendees are both customers of ours. So we're happy to be here. Great. Tree event, and, really important topic is we're all trying to make sure that power generation is not too detrimental to the environment. Absolutely. You mentioned that you help your partners operate within the bounds of emission standards. Mhmm. Obviously, there are a lot of shifts in that space and a lot of sort of, you know, twenty thirty, twenty fifty goals. Give us some updates on where recent conversation is around emission standards. Are there any sort of fresh updates that space. And how are you seeing that impact from your partners? Well, that's a that's a really big question. Sure. And a really broad topic. One of the things that we talk about a lot, and and one of the things that we've seen in the last twenty years is there's been a shift from coal fire energy generation to natural gas. And now there's it's still a political hot issue as you've seen recently we've paused exporting LNG, to new customers worldwide in an effort to fight methane emissions. What we think is that natural gas is still a better all alternative to moving away completely from it because the world still needs to to have power generation. We we're not ready to move completely to solar and wind So we think that the adoption and the standards that have been put out for emissions from natural gas power plants are still the way to go. We we like it because we've seen more custom or adopting that and holding themselves to those thresholds. So we're happy to participate in that. Keep, power plant and power generation and compliance with the standards What would be nice is if worldwide we could get more countries to adopt that because the United States is one of the most regulated power generation countries in the entire world. Probably the most regulated power generation country in the world. And if we could get other countries to follow our standards, then we would do a lot of good for greenhouse gas emissions and global warming and the things that we're all trying to fight. So we are of the mind that moving away from coal is great. It's a lot dirtier than than natural gas, although it is still necessary in a lot of the developing nations in the world, but we can't move away from natural gas fire power plants because don't have the infrastructure set up for that. So that's kind of where we are, as a company and and what our goal is is to is to help everyone stay compliance and, measure their emissions. Yeah. Well, and it seems like on the global stage, there's a bit of an incongruence then around the role that LNG should play in this larger transition towards clean energy. Mhmm. Can you shed a little more light on where some of those disagreements are, the debate is at on the international stage and why you see the US's standards as ones that should lead on the global stage. I mean, from a baseline perspective, you've got to understand that there's a supply chain involved. So not every country around the world has a natural gas supply like we do. So we are, you know, probably net exporters or we would like to be net exporters. We think that we should be. A lot of the countries around the world are relying on coal because they have large coal supply. We don't think that we're ready as worldwide to shift everything to, solar wind, or or we would be there. I mean, you don't have the natural sources to make the world run off batteries. I mean, there's all these there's all these shortcomings and all these different alternatives, although they're playing a larger part in the space, LNG for for our money and and our perspective is the is the solution that we should all be leaning more into. But you've got all sorts of political considerations there because you've got It's a supply and demand. It's a free market world. So some countries or, would rather burn oil or coal because that's what they've got. And you've got different things to factor into when you talk about supplying the world off LNG. We think that the US should lean into it. We I mean, a lot of the development on the Gulf Coast been into LNG export terminals. You've seen the geopolitical things that have happened with Russia and Ukraine and Russia and and Europe at large, Russia controls a lot of the LNG. That's naturally what's happened in the US is we've been rushing to to to export LNG over to Europe. And we think that we should stick with that. Mhmm. Love it. So then, you know, in a bigger picture view of this industry, like you said, and like we've known for a while, we're wanting to encourage a long term transition from dirty fossil fuels to clean energy. And this has been a conversation for years now. We've seen major investments into, infrastructure to modernize the grid to modernize, you know, power generation providers, and to create more congruence between the industry to be able to supply clean energy. Where are we in this timeline? And, you know, if you have to kind of pulse check on where we've seen recent progress, but also maybe some recent challenges towards advancing that timeline. Just kind of give us a give us a recent pulse check. So anything that's, when you talk about transit your power grid or your power supply. It's a very long cycle. Oh, yeah. Politicians wanna be reelected that same year. So it's a it's more of a political issue than it is objectively if look at it objectively. Yeah. Natural Gas Fire Power Plan emissions account for six percent of methane emissions worldwide. K. So when we talk about trying to destroy our industry or just or or or revolutionize how we generate power, you're really not solving the major problem, which is all of the other reasons that methane gets submitted into the fear. So, you know, we think that the cycle should continue. And there have been a lot of efforts and a lot of infrastructure investments into the extra gas and and the utility generation. So we think that it's going very well. It's just it's a long cycle. I mean, building the infrastructure. You've got different factors that want to limit that, you know, pipeline construction. These are all hot button political issues. For our perspective, my perspective is that it's very clean very safe. It's a lot more environmentally friendly than a lot of the alternatives. So we should be leaning more into that. Yeah. Any thoughts then on, you know, how we should see our generators in the, space continue to diversify their, energy resources, right, to, not only maintain and upkeep and facilitate a strong foundation of, let's say, fossil fuels and LNG, but also start to balance that with the right kind of investments that will short term and long term pay off in in clean energy sources, whether that's advanced nuclear or the more traditional solar wind. Yeah. Well, talk about that. You know, most of your large organizations are very forward thinking already, and a lot of the power generation companies are investing heavily in alternative forms of energy production, you're gonna see that advance slowly until we get technological breakthroughs that make it more feasible to produce power at a mass scale from something other than the traditional, generation that we have now with LNG or coal or nuclear. We like the nuclear and we like the LNG plants, we supply plants of all sizes. So the technology is is is evolving. It's just a, it's a question of when do we get to the next level where you can provide to a a wider portion of the country off of an alternative, generation, which, you know, unfortunately, it's just not it's not as simple as saying, well, we should just put solar fields everywhere and wind farms everywhere because you have different shortcomings in those. So all of those alternatives are taking up a larger percentage of the grid and the national generation Right. Already. I mean, we're moving in this direction, but there's still a long ways to go. And we don't think that we're ever going to get completely off of fossil fuel power generation, not not my lifetime. Yeah. Well, then it really is a protracted timeline. Right? And I would say this too. I mean, you know, the United States at large and the EPA does a great job of of and and I've already said this measuring emissions and the regulation that we have is so far an advantage in front of the rest of the the modernized world and even the the developing world that it's, you know, we can do everything that we possibly can do to be as clean as possible. If the rest of the world isn't following that, and and and that's why it's so important that Paris Climate Court is obviously the the one that we're all trying to measure up to we're checking off all those boxes, but if the rest of the world isn't doing it, you know, there's only one atmosphere, and we all share it. And so, we're we're doing a great job domestically of diversifying our energy sources and measuring ourselves with emission standards, which we're happy to play a part of it would really be nice if we could get the rest of the developing world to get more off of burning coal and burning, oil and cleaner energies. Yeah. So then, last question for you. If we look at just twenty twenty four, and some of the conversations and priorities that you're seeing larger power generation industry have around where to, you know, revitalize existing infrastructure, invest in new energy sources, you know, create more synergy between different layers of, larger energy ecosystem. Where do you think those priorities should land this year for some short term wins that we can keep building off. I think that, a big, a big push right now, something that's relatively newer on the scene is the, is the big push on a hydro and and hydrogen is kind of stepping into what people were trying to do with, CNG compressed natural gas and LNG about ten, fifteen years ago, So, again, you're you're diversifying a portion of your energy sources with hydrogen, which is relatively clean, and then, you know, but you work backwards from that to how do you safely store it? How do you convert so many things to to running of hydrogen, who we see investment in, hydrogen energy hubs across the country. So that's gonna be a a factor, and that's gonna be something that plays into the larger picture of where we get the energy from. It's something that's interesting. I I can't tell you where that's gonna go. I can't tell you if, you know, eighteen wheelers are gonna start running off because you've got fuel efficiency questions. You've got economies, and you've got different factors. The the claim that it will be a bigger portion of it than it has been. So, you know, battery hydrogen, alternative energy sources. There's a whole wide spectrum of players that are investing in this and that are developing new technologies. So they're all going to grow as your additional fossil fuel sources diminished. But from a power generation, what keeps your home and your electricity running at night, it's a little bit slower to shift, than than the other ones. Well, then, you know, in in a lot of ways, it's a, you know, patience and resilience game to build foundations every year for that sort of longer timeline of transition and, you know, better balance of energy sources. But from what you're saying too, it sounds like there are some fascinating short term opportunities as well. There are, and we're doing a good job. The United States is is a leader, worldwide in in diversifying its energy production and investment in new technology. You've got all sorts of companies that are trying to shift the way that they power their equipment, robots, devices, whatever whatever you may have. So we're doing a really good job of it. And and conventions like this are great where you can collaborate with other companies that have measuring testing services, things like this are awesome. We go to all of them, nationwide, and and and we do a good job domestically of trying to stay clean and keep the environment, first and foremost. Yeah. I love it. And, you know, these are gonna be the spaces where those critical conversations are gonna be had. So I appreciate you taking some time to throw your hat in the ring, and I'm excited to see how, Red Ball oxygen continues to play, critical role in fostering those conversations. So Alex Kennedy CEO of Red Ball oxygen. Thank you for your time. And if folks wanna find out a little bit more about the work y'all do, maybe tap into your slice of the ecosystem, how can they get in touch? Redball oxygen dot com twenty four seven three sixty five. Boom. Love it. Easy enough. Alright, Alex. Thank you so much for your time, and thank you everyone for tuning in. We're live here at Charge Expo twenty twenty four. We'll catch you with more conversation.