[rock music] Welcome to another episode of the Oklahoma Memo podcast. My name is Ryan Welton.
I am the founder and curator of Oklahoma Memo. It is a daily newsletter recap. It's basically what SportsCenter is to sports, I am to local news here in Oklahoma.
I basically pick out the highlights each and every day, put it into a newsletter, and get that in your inbox weekdays at 7:00 AM.
Maybe one day it'll be weekends too, but for right now it's weekdays, and you can sign up at oklahomamemo.com. We have expanded, if this is your first time stumbling upon an Oklahoma Memo podcast,
we, I say we, it's me, Ryan, uh, we've expanded into podcasts, and really what they are, are conversations. I always like to tell you at the beginning, is this sponsored content? Is it not? This is not sponsored content.
This is something that I was interested in.
I'm interested in covering things in the business world and the energy world, and I'm joined today by Colby DeWeese of TOBE Energy, and we're going to talk about something called hydrogen electrolysis.
But before we get all into the science of this, let's just talk, and, and the economics of this, let's just start at the beginning and I'll ask Colby... Hello, Colby. Thank you for joining me.
Tell me a little bit about yourself. You, you grew up in Oklahoma. You got your degree in Oklahoma, and you're starting this new business in Oklahoma. Just tell me a little bit about yourself.
Uh, maybe we'll talk about your father being part of the TV Guide team that invented the TiVo back in the day, for those of you old enough to remember TiVo.
Uh, but just tell me about yourself and tell me about your new company, TOBE Energy. Yeah, no, I appreciate you having me on, Ryan. This is, uh, super cool, and love to see what you're doing too.
Uh, yeah, uh, so I've been told to tell people that I am an Oklahoman, but did move here when I was about four years old because of my dad's job at TV Guide. Uh, relocated from Denver, Colorado to Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Did K through 12 at Jenks. Uh, got a stamp on my hat that said valedictorian. Stayed in Tulsa to do a chemical engineering degree.
Uh, graduated, went into the oil and gas field, but while I was doing that full time, I got a master of oil, gas, and energy law from the University of Oklahoma College of Law, which was...
I, I don't recommend doing that master's while you're kinda stepping your feet into the real world. Um, but it was a great experience. Learned a lot from it, uh, as well. So I worked kinda all over the place.
I was-- started as a facility engineer in Western Oklahoma, like out in Elk City, Oklahoma, uh, turning valves at gas plants, doing that sort of thing. Ended up building a big natural gas plants, uh, in Okarche.
So like the Isens Chicken, uh, wh- where they dump the fried chicken on the table in front of you.
You can only have that so many times a week, though, before you get super burnt out on it, and it's about the only restaurant that was around when I was making that gas plants.
K- kind of got a bug to, to jump into renewables. Um, I guess kind of a, an incident happened at work, which we can go into that story if you want.
But jumped into a hydrogen combustion company, which a few people know, like Oklahoma and Tulsa specifically is really like the combustion engineering capital of the entire world.
We've got like four of the five largest, uh, combustion engineering firms, uh, there.
So jumped into the combustion industry, working specifically with hydrogen, where I started putting together like these green hydrogen energy projects, and it wasn't the... It was a boiler that I was working on.
It wasn't our boiler having any problems with it, but it was the green hydrogen itself being so not cost-effective to produce.
Um, that really led me to like starting, like realistically as nights-and-weekends research while I was still doing combustion full time during the day.
Ended up talking two of my best friends into joining me on a k- really unknown journey. Uh, sunk my life savings into it, and, uh, in the past year have raised about $2 million to really take it kind of bigger.
Uh, we've got working prototypes of industry-leading efficiencies that lower the cost of green hydrogen production to about the cost of hydrogen made from fossil fuels.
So most people don't realize hydrogen is already a huge industry. It's used in petrochemicals, uh, pharmaceuticals. Hydrogenation for your, your processed foods, uh, comes from a lot of hydrogen too.
And then any food that you eat that is grown in the ground with fertilizer, hydrogen's actually involved in that process.
Um, so 95% of our world's hydrogen comes from fossil fuels directly in the steam methane reforming process. What we do is we make the hydrogen from water, so you're not touching natural gas or fossil fuels at all.
But historically, that green hydrogen has never been able to compete with fossil fuel hydrogen just because of the inefficiencies of the systems that produce it. Uh, so what we do is...
The, the best example that I can give, and it- it's a analogy that's really right down to the implementation of the technology, is like current electrolysis green hydrogen production methods are like an incandescent light bulb.
Like, they are just in the same stage that Edison was when he's like, "What's the perfect filament to put in this light bulb?" They're like, "What's the perfect material to make this stack out of?"
So they're going to exotic materials like platinum, things that you'd expect to find in a wedding ring, uh, driving up the cost, and they're only getting, you know, 1% to 2% more efficient.
Um, and just like an incandescent light bulb, the inefficiency in that electrolysis process is all of the heat that it produces.
So just like how incandescents burned your fingers when you went to unscrew them while they were still lit, all of that heat is wasted energy 'cause it's not producing light. So now we have LEDs.
LEDs usually are cool to the touch unless they're poorly designed, um, but they don't have that filament in them. They...
It's a, it's a capacitive load, so you've got one junction to another where that-Electricity is jumping from the gap to gap, and in that process releases light.
Uh, so that's really down to the technology exactly what we're doing here, and it completely eliminates the waste heat problem in electrolysis.
So most systems have huge cooling systems associated with them, and just like your AC in the summer in Oklahoma, doubles your, uh, electricity bill overnight.
About half of the utility bill to run one of these traditional electrolyzers is for the cooling systems.
So we cut that, um, down dramatically, and it ends up with green hydrogen that can compete with fossil fuel hydrogen alternatives. When you're talking about hydrogen, you're not simply talking about water.
When you're talking about... I mean, people are like, "Well, of course, hydrogen, water." That's not what you're talking about. And, uh- Let me ask you, uh- Yeah...
can you explain just in basic terms what is combustion engineering? I think most of the folks who watch this, they're gonna be like, "No idea what that is." Yeah. I'm, I'm sorry. I- It's- Cut me off anytime on that.
It's, you know, we- But, uh- We want to educate folks. Yeah. No, uh, so combustion engineering is any time that you're producing a flame, and sometimes even when you're not producing a flame.
There's a whole aspect of flameless combustion. But think, like, natural gas combining with oxygen in the air to produce, you know, the flame that you use on your stove.
Uh, so similarly, you can use hydrogen in that same way, and you can also use hydrogen in a quite a few different ways. Uh, to produce a flame to, to run your car.
That same combustion process occurs in your car's engine. Uh, so many, many applications of it.
Uh, but what these big combustion companies do in Oklahoma is typically all of the really bad toxic compounds that come out of the oil and gas process, y- you need to combust them so that they're not going into the air and harming the lungs of people around us.
Uh, so what they do, they design these big f- burners and flares to, to take, like, turning, uh, acid gas, like H2S, hydrogen sulfide, uh, which is something very deadly to breathe.
But they'll, they'll combust that in one of these flares where you get out elemental sulfur, and that's not an issue to people.
So one of the things you mentioned was that in the oil and gas business, there are processes that use hydrogen. Is, is... I, I mean, I notice you didn't use the word fracking.
Is this a- is this an alternative to fracking, what you're doing? It, it so it's not, not an alternative to fracking.
Uh, but in the, the petrochemical space, the, the more hydrogen your oil and gas or gasoline has, the more energy it has.
So realistically, like, the difference between gasoline that you'd put in your car and jet fuel is a couple carbon molecules, but quite a bit more hydrogen molecules.
So at big refineries, they, they do a, a hydrogenation process where they add hydrogen to these molecules to make them more, more expensive, more valuable, uh, more energy dense.
What you've done is, uh, not only make the energy more efficient and cleaner and, uh, cheaper to produce, it's through this process that you have sort of perfected hydrogen electrolysis. Do I have that right?
And if so, can you describe what that is? Yeah, no. So electrolysis is s- super interesting, super old.
One of the craziest things is that the, the hydrogen that made, that was made to fill the Hindenburg, so that big blimp that everybody kind of associates with hydrogen- Humanity... being deadly. Yeah.
Um, yeah, humanity, all of that stuff. Um, that, that hydrogen was produced from an electrolysis process, and that electrolysis process really has not changed in over 100 years.
So what electrolysis is, is you, you ta- take a, a vat of water, stick a- an anode in one side, a cathode in one side, and run electricity between the two.
And in that process, you, you break the water into its H2O, into its H and into its O, and then you separate the H and the O for different uses. Very interesting. Now, let's talk about some of the, uh- Yeah...
practical aspects of this. You've got a business. You've started TOBE Energy. And what is the potential for what you're doing, uh, relative, uh, what...
you know, the value proposition to businesses and to folks in Oklahoma. For example, before we started recording, I mentioned, um, its potential in, uh, powering data centers and being an alternative.
There are a lot of data centers.
Been lots of stories that I've amplified in Oklahoma Memo about data centers, Owasso, Yukon, where the, the residents, some of them are a little antsy about a data center there because it's taking away natural resources.
So what are... You know, in terms of what TOBE Energy is doing, what are some of the, uh, business value propositions to Oklahomans, whether it be workers or residents in these communities? Yeah.
I'll, I'll take your data center kind of example and, and run with it. But I'll, I'm gonna touch on e-fuels, which will, will require some talking about. Uh, but, like, for the data centers, like,
our grid doesn't necessarily have the extra energy on it to support these megawatts, gigawatts that data centers require.
So what a, you know, what, what a lot of these data centers wanna do is be green or close to zero emission. So they're look- looking at a lot of renewable integrations.
They're even looking at nuclear because our grid can't, you know, take what, what they want to take from it, and then also they need a lot of energy.
So a, a really exciting way that you could use hydrogen, and I'll, I'll talk two ways.
Um, but the first most simple kind of one is that solar and wind don't run 24/7, and a lot of times we have issues with excess solar and excess wind being on the grid when there's not demand for it.
So what you can do with that excess solar and wind is instead of turning off these solar panels or turning off these wind turbines, you can actually use it to make hydrogen.
And-Then at night when the solar panels aren't working or the wind turbines, you know, aren't turning, you don't have that same amount of energy.
You can use that stored hydrogen, and you just put it over a fuel cell, there's no moving parts, um, and make, uh, power directly from it recombining with oxygen. So there's no loss of water in that process.
You're literally taking, you know, water, you split it into hydrogen and oxygen, and then you combine the two and get power out of it in that process.
You don't lose any water, and it allows for things like data centers to be completely zero emission and also have 24/7 operation, which I think is really the, the most exciting, uh, potential use case.
With a lot of the, uh, stories that I've amplified in the newsletter about data centers, its water supply, that's been the biggest concern among folks, folks.
And you, you just talked about green hydrogen being a solution for that. Uh, are data centers the only use case right now? I mean, uh, what other... I mean, I could see this powering other types of power plants.
I mean, maybe I'm just imagining this.
No, I, I, I think personally my, my belief right now for the, the future of green hydrogen is the most exciting use case for it is to make carbon neutral or even in some cases carbon negative synthetic fossil fuels.
So they're, they're called e-fuels, but what the process is, is a company will take... So we just make the green hydrogen, so we work with partner companies, uh, on the f- the production of e-fuels.
But what they'll do is they'll take CO2 out of the atmosphere, you combine it with green hydrogen, and then you get like a synthetic methane that can go into the same natural gas pipelines that we already have, so you don't need to build new infrastructure for it.
And then it can be used just the same as the methane that's powers your natural gas stove.
So it's a carbon neutral or carbon negative way to use this, things that we already use, which I, I think is just the coolest thing in the world.
And with our technology, the, the cost of that synthetic methane is about 70% of it is just the price of the, the green hydrogen that goes into it.
So with our technology and our efficiency advantages, we can drop that price by about 35%.
And with some of the, the tax credits that are in the big beautiful bill, um, you get a, a, up to a $3 per kilogram rebate for each kilogram of hydrogen you produce.
And with that full $3 kilogram rebate, you would actually produce synthetic, uh, fossil fuels for cheaper than their real fossil fuel counterparts.
So things that you can use in your car, in your stove, uh, for less cost, and part of that process is pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere. So it's carbon neutral all the way through.
Um, and another big benefit is it doesn't have the impurities that fossil fuels do. You're using a very pure CO2, very pure hydrogen, and the, the,
all of the associated particulate emissions that you get when you burn fossil fuels are from little contaminants that you just can't get out in the refining process.
So this is an ultra clean fossil fuel that is not going to increase any, any pollution at all in an area, uh, even clean the f- uh, air up a little bit, which is super cool.
We talk about, uh, fossil fuels for things we use at home, our stoves, this and that. Fueling cars? F- fu- fueling cars, absolutely.
They do, uh, synthetic gasolines, and a big push right now is in the maritime industry, doing, uh, synthetic, uh, diesels for them, and then also sustainable aviation fuels.
I think, you know, the, the price at the pump really dictates a lot of things, and if we get these tax credits in place and it is cheaper than, you know, fossil fuels, I think they'll take off.
But in places where they're really rewarded for reducing emissions like, uh, aviation and maritime transportation, you're gonna see even without tax credits, adoption of these technologies happen really quickly.
In, in the aviation space, I, I know we have all our big, uh, aviation players, all the big airlines, American, Southwest, et cetera, uh, but if you get fuels down low enough to allow, uh, sort of like, uh, not necessarily private, but just smaller tiered...
I mean, all of a sudden people are gonna have choices, and one of the things, you know, Walmart's based in Northwest Arkansas, and I've long argued that the benefit that Walmart brings to America and the economy is keeps prices down, and they do that by really honing in on their logistics, real just-in-time inventory.
And it seems like what you're doing is you're taking something that's existing and you're making it more efficient and, and cheaper to produce, which is something that does actually trickle down to businesses and that can trickle down to, to customers.
So I can see how this can apply, uh, to the average Oklahoman. You mentioned partnerships, and I just read that TOBE Energy has a, a new partnership with Tulsa-based Zeeco. Could you talk about that?
What's that about, and why is that a big deal? Yeah. So, uh, Zeeco is one of those world-leading combustion engineering companies that we have right in our backyard that most people don't know about.
Uh, they actually have the world's largest research and development campus for combustion engineering just in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, uh, which is the coolest thing in the world.
And just nature of combustion and nature of going green, a lot of companies are looking for Zeeco to, uh, do the R&D behind a hydrogen burner.
So Zeeco has a need for hydrogen, and they, they also have this really cool, which is it's basically a startup incubator, uh, for first of a kind energy projectsThey call it their advanced research complex and, uh, already have a, a, a project on site there, but we're gonna be one of their clients, uh, at that advanced research complex, where they kind of focus on the outside...
In, in the industry we call it outside boundary limits or outside battery limits, but they focus on piping things together, where we're just focused on making our technology, the electrolyzers, setting them on that site, and then working with Zeeco on optimizing, getting the hydrogen to customers, and doing all of that.
Uh, so it's probably the coolest partnership in the entire world. I've been singing its praises for, for quite some time, uh, and doing my best to bring e-fuels companies down, uh, to their campus there as well.
So very excited about that and really what the future holds there. But they, they seem... They, they have a wealth of expertise, gas processing, already handle hydrogen.
Uh, they, they have the teams to develop and deploy things like this very quickly. Th- they already have the air permits for projects like this.
So it brings down our go-to-market from probably, like, a three-year development project to something we could do in probably about nine months.
Partnership seems totally symbiotic, and Tulsa's been really good about having incubators for all sorts of different things.
Of course, in a previous interview on a, a different episode of the E- Oklahoma Memo podcast, somebody mentioned, they said, "You do realize aerospace is the number one industry in the state."
And so this seems like a real natural fit, uh, for TOBE Energy. Tell me about TOBE. Is it just you? Do you have a, a, a brood of employees? What, what's the situation? Are you based in Tulsa?
So we're, we're based in Oklahoma City, where we've got 5,000 square feet of manufacturing. Uh, we have a engineering computer simulation lab, a power electronics R&D lab.
Uh, we actually do all of our manufacturing in-house, so we've got CNC machines, lathes, a whole host of 3D printers, uh, and a pretty great team that I could not be more proud of.
Uh, it's a, it's a small team right now. We're about seven, uh, with some advisors that we, we trust on a lot.
Uh, but we're doing really big things and are, are very excited about not only making this technology in Oklahoma, but actually doing the manufacturing, putting things together.
And as we expand, you know, add more high-quality jobs to Oklahoma as a state.
Big deal, and that's something that Oklahoma Memo likes to amplify and get the word out about because I, I'm, I'm a big believer that, uh, uh, you know, uh, a rising tide lifts all boats. We all can succeed together.
But I will tell you- 100%, I love that...
I, you know, while I spent most of my career in journalism, I actually spent the first part of my career as a technical writer doing documentation for a warehouse management software company.
And, uh, one of my buddies there, Richard Stanford, he's just one engineer friend of mine over the years, uh, who I've gotten to know, and one of the things that they all have in common is that they really got their love of engineering and science from their fathers.
And I read this in your story. Um, and I read about your dad being part of the team that created the TiVo.
So could you tell us just how, how you got interested in that from him and how, you know, how he got to work on the team that produced the TiVo? I just think it's interesting. Yeah.
I, I, I wish that I could say as many good things about my dad as, you know, time would allow, but he was a phenomenal human being. Uh, he had no college, uh, education.
He actually started in the telecommunication industry by just laying cable.
So he was the guy that was going city from city laying cable, uh, and very rapidly c- really just his curiosity, uh, I would say more than anything, his curiosity and knack for figuring out how to do things is what led him to be part of this team.
Actually, behind me, uh, these, these are two of his many patents that he got while working at TV Guide, uh, which is... it's just the coolest thing. The... So I'm, I'm a chemical engineer.
I come, you know, from things like chemical engineering background, but I was probably six or seven years old when I soldered together my first, uh, remote control for a TV.
So I, I also have this, like, electronics lens that really I think let me look at this electrolysis problem in a very unique way completely because of him.
And just that insatiable curiosity, never being really satisfied with the status quo, always asking, "Can w- can we do this better in a different way?" He, he was an incredible father that I, I miss dearly.
He passed about 10 years ago. But just always
him being there to ask a question of, you know, how is something made, how is something done, and him having so much real-world experience is like, "Oh, this is the process for, for making this," I think completely made me the engineer that I am today.
It gave me all the curiosity to become an engineer and, uh, really is the reason I am who I am today. It's in- inspiring, man. I, you know, I, I get the same from my father, but it's in music.
I learned how to play the piano from him and just, you know, ow- own the world for that.
I see what you're doing here as pioneering the next level of what we're doing in energy here in Oklahoma, and I think it's super exciting.
Colby DeWeese with TOBE Energy, uh, in Oklahoma City partnering with Tulsa company Zeeco International.
I think it's super exciting, and I hope that you might join me down the line to do maybe another recording, a progress report. Love to. I would absolutely love to check back in and, uh, see where we're at.
Very excited for the future and, uh, what it holds. [upbeat music]