Energy poverty is a real thing. We have to look at solutions that take care of the environment while providing low-cost energy for humanity. I just had the opportunity to visit with leaders from Africa and the last mile.
Please sit back, and enjoy our discussion with Tucker. You can connect with Tucker on his LinkedIn HERE: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tucker-perkins/
The Propane Council is HERE: https://propane.com/
00:00 – Intro
01:07 – How did you get your podcast started?
01:50 – Overview of Propane Council involvement, current activities, and priorities
04:46 – Importance of propane in the energy transformation, focusing on environmental benefits and global observations
09:58 – Urgency and challenges of global energy transition, emphasizing human impact and opportunities in Africa
16:26 – Critical role of propane in providing affordable and reliable energy, stressing the importance of education and changing perceptions
21:03 – Evolving landscape of renewable fuels, confidence in renewable propane and natural gas, and their contributions to sustainability
25:52 – Challenges of transitioning to electric trucks, advocating for propane in medium and heavy-duty vehicles, addressing issues of mineral resources and holistic energy security
31:43 – Discussion on challenges and misconceptions surrounding hydrogen, advocating for practical, immediate actions with propane
36:03 – Contact information for the speaker and podcast
38:35 – Outro
Other great resources from Sandstone and Energy News Beat
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Energy Dashboard https://app.sandstone-group.com/enb-dashboard-version-2
ENB Podcast https://energynewsbeat.co/industry-insights-2/
ENB Substack https://theenergynewsbeat@substack.com
Michael and I are on a mission to talk about energy. If you are a thought leader, government-elected official, CEO, or author of any energy market, contact us and get your story out on our news and podcast channels.
– Get in Contact With The Show –
Stuart Turley [00:00:03] Welcome to the Energy News Beat podcast. My name’s Stu Turley President, CEO of the Sandstone Group. We got us a fantastic podcast today. Not only do we have a great podcast, we have a retread. And I mean, Tucker has been on this show before. We have Tucker Perkins. He’s the president and CEO of the Propane Education and Research Council, host of The Path to Zero podcast. So we’ve got another podcast host. Welcome, Tucker.
Tucker Perkins [00:00:35] It was just great to be with you. I look forward to being back and I hope this isn’t my last time with you. I hope we get a chance to do this over and over.
Stuart Turley [00:00:42] Oh, you know what? You know what’s worse than having two podcasters talking to each other?
Tucker Perkins [00:00:48] I’m not sure what.
Stuart Turley [00:00:50] It’s three, but I’m on another broadcast with three podcasters. Walk into a bar with David Blackmon and Ray Trevino. And I don’t know what it is about being a podcast host. I never thought in 1977 when I graduated that I’d be a podcast host having a blast. [00:01:08]How did you get your podcast started, [1.5s] Tucker?
Tucker Perkins [00:01:11] I think we really wanted to have a different conversation than we thought was being had at the time. Right at one. Be a more balanced conversation about this energy transformation and to change the narrative. And so, again, not necessarily one position, right? It was about pro energy, pro climate, pro health, and it’s just kind of grown from there. That’s what I would call a path to zero, because we were always in quest of lowering carbon. And now I’d say zero zero is eminently achievable. We now think about no one way below zero.
Stuart Turley [00:01:50] Isn’t that great? I tell you, you know what? After having you on last year, I thoroughly enjoy your whole team that you work with. I’ve seen you all over the place. You’re talking here, you’re talking there, and I almost feel like a stalker. [00:02:04]Can you tell us what you have going on with the propane council and everything that you have going on and tell us what you’re doing because you’ve been out there a lot. Tell us on what your hot buttons are and what you’ve got going on. [15.6s]
Tucker Perkins [00:02:21] And, you know, I’ve been doing a good part of this role for five or six years. But to be blunt, I bet three years was spent listening, just trying to understand not not so much taken positions, you know, certainly starting with the position that propane had been very and a very important part of the American economy about energy security for people who live beyond the natural gas mains. Probably things that people in Manhattan and L.A. don’t normally think about. Right? I don’t think about, you know, people that live beyond the urban areas that don’t find they think a lot about urban or national security. So but we spent three years listening to the conversation and forming formulating some opinions about where we thought the conversation was right, maybe where it was wrong. And then now for the last four or five years, I would say I spend my time in one of three areas. Certainly I, I come back to at my heart I’m a technologist, Right. I believe that technology, you know, brought us some of these problems. Technology will bring us some of the solutions. And, you know, unlike a lot of people that say the people who created the problems could not possibly be part of the solution, I think the solutions are of such scale. They need financial strength. They need people strength. And so it’s going to be companies of scale, I think, that execute. But certainly a big part of my day is being involved in technology. And if we could just talk about new engines, new hybrid powertrains, you know, new ways that we’re going to make maybe batteries or new ways that we might make power. The other place I spend a lot of time is in people whose views aren’t aligned with mine and just understanding what people are saying about hydrogen or solar and wind or offshore wind or nuclear or fusion and just trying to make sure that we’re as close to the source as we possibly can. So I spend a lot of time with national labs, research institutions, universities. It’s kind of. So it is a constant, you know, rattling around not only just the U.S., but North America. And, you know, I’ll be in Italy in a couple of weeks. You know, they’re looking at the latest innovations around a lot of technologies that we’re talking about. So it’s fascinating.
Stuart Turley [00:04:46] So I’m sorry, I when I talk to you, I get so excited because I’m sitting here, I’m thinking about 16 other things that I’ve seen on you or that when you go around the world and you’re espousing the greatness of your propane and it is a wonderful product because I’ve got three propane tanks, by the way. I love it. I mean, I can’t I love my propane. And I, I really don’t want to have just pure electric. I think working with the government, like, you know, you we’ve we know that they want to cancel gas stoves. Well, I don’t want them canceling my propane either. I don’t want them saying, hey, you cannot have your propane, because the way I have my houses set up is that you have propane as a heat source. And if the heat, you know, I lose power, I still got heat. You know, I’ve got a light up in different areas. So I don’t know, even if I get natural gas, I’m keeping my property.
Tucker Perkins [00:05:46] And and to your point, when we go around the country, I would say or go around the world, I would say our goal is not to espouse the benefits of propane. It’s to double check our assumptions that propane using propane is environmentally sound is healthy. And so we’re always making sure and it’s a really different nuance, I might add. We’re not trying to sell more propane. We’re trying to understand how propane fits in this energy transformation. And I would say as we sit here today, you know, in this day and time at this time of the day, we’re still convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that using propane to a degree, using natural gas, it’s the right thing for countries today. And as you and I were talking earlier, before we came to the show, I think people just look for this magic then certainly there’s got to be one pill that will make us all have more hair and be thinner. We’re just okay.
Stuart Turley [00:06:49] For our project, For our brand listeners, I’m sitting here talking to Tucker Tucker’s extremely good looking man because he and I have the same barber. We have flesh colored airline. It’s not great.
Tucker Perkins [00:07:04] But our barber does just fine. But wouldn’t it be nice if we could wait for a bill that would make us, you know, look like John Lennon or and and we step over so many opportunities to, in fact, improve the climate, improve our health guarantee. Your energy security bring to what you’re talking about, you know, resilience, but not at a cost of increased carbon. So we’re traveling around the world doing really one of three things. Checking out technology, seeing the story of what’s working with others. And I find Europe has been this great test lab for us, right, because Europe has been four or five years ahead of us in many things. And right now you see them backpedaling as fast as they can because they realized they had they had overreached. Right. They they were I mean, Germany, to me, is a classic example. Almost lost their manufacturing base. Right.
Stuart Turley [00:08:02] They did. And if my honest opinion, Volkswagen is shut down their one of their plants right now, they’ve closed their largest steel or excuse me, iron ore plant this just last month. They’ve closed the BASF has just closed their fertilizer plant. They’ve had three other plants that have, instead of building in Germany, moved on to some other channels, their decisions and their investments into the energy. And and I’m sorry, I get excited because talking about geopolitical issues and energy, Tucker, you and I talked about this on our last podcast, and that is elevating humanity with the lowest cost kilowatt per hour or low cost sustainable fuel like propane to cook on, gets people out of poverty. When we can do that in Germany failed by not having long term natural gas contracts and then they threw away their nuclear they shut down their three largest their last three reactors this year. They then turned around and started buying power from other countries that were using coal. So here they are thinking that they’re using only renewable. Two weeks ago, they then turned around Tucker, and they just took down the wind farms. Do you remember when Gretta was out there and she was thrown that hissy fit that they actually caught it? And it was a publicity stunt when they were trying to close down the the coal mine, they closed down the coal mine for a for a wind farm. They now fired that coal mine back up and took down that wind farm. So you know where you’re going. They have wasted trillions on this thing.
Tucker Perkins [00:09:58] And still that. And so, you know, I’m so emphatic about not calling it an energy transition because I say all the time, transitions are smooth and slow and you might not even realize you transitioned. Right. It’s so easy. And and this is not a transition. And people worry about, well, people will lose their jobs, people will lose their jobs. Might be the simplest and least painful part of it is, as you just described, for Germany, countries could lose their GDP over this. And I don’t find and what what fascinates me to all those geopolitical things you just spoke to. It’s not one thing you just said is false. Everything you just said is factually correct. Yet yet so many other regimes are following that same path. Right. And to my point, a living lab exists 3000 miles to our east. And yet we tend to think, oh, well, we’ll do it differently. Right. And here we do it on, you know, the most voluminous natural gas play and therefore natural gas liquids like propane as well. And so to your point earlier, there’s so much to be learned about the way you’re taught. You and I are talking about developing countries. Right. When we start talking about developing countries, I was not in South Africa, but I was with the South Africans. And, you know, we were talking about renewable fuels. And they said, you know, Tucker, we aspire our goal is to be able to use conventional propane. We’re you know, we’re we’re trying to move away from charcoal and wood. And, you know, if we could get to propane, we would be so much better. We’d have a stable economy, we’d have a healthier people, we’d have a more vibrant economy.
Stuart Turley [00:11:53] You know, Tucker, if I if we were not on a par if we were doing a podcasting person, we’d stop right now and I’d hug you, because this is about humanity. And it drives me nuts that we’re forcing the transition. As you say, a transition should be like nothing’s happening, but we’re forcing it in China with their Belt and Road initiative is they’re forcing in the African nations, they’re using a lot of their heavy weight and they’re saying, and I do a lousy Putin imitation as well, but, you know, maybe I could do it better imitation. But if you go, hey, we’re going to give you all these windmills at 70% interest and go ahead and moonshine. But then you got to have the grid, you got to have the resiliency, you got to have all this stuff. And we’re charging a higher kilowatt per hour to the African nations by forcing them to go to solar and wind and wind when I love them. But propane makes much more sense for that environment to grow cooking to get them to those areas. I love what you just did. I think you can tell that’s my hot button. Why is Africa not using their natural gas and their natural resources to make propane to to go to this level?
Tucker Perkins [00:13:19] Yeah, you’re exactly right. I mean, for for it’s working in Africa, you know, quite a bit it goes because there there is a chance to create a completely different style of energy. Right. And really, by and large, there’s not really a network now. And, you know, we’ve kind of studied an LNG network, which makes little to no sense. But 4 million or around 3.8 million people die every year from indoor air pollution. And and this is a story we’re just having this discussion this morning. It’s a story that doesn’t resonate very well in America when we talk about it. To me, it is the epitome of a life changing situation. If we can move a woman and her children who might spend 8 to 10 hours a day foraging for fuel, which is not easy, it’s very dangerous tending fires right along the way. 3.8 million people die every year from indoor air pollution. Right. We change that. So now when they’re ready to heat their water to make cooked rice or whatever. It’s an instantaneous thing. And now what we find is all of a sudden education is in the realm for not only the mother, but her children and also the the female leaders who have been just completely consumed with preparing for their homes. Now they become valuable members of their society. And in that it it is it’s the total transition that you want to talk about, Right. People with no hope. Having all kinds of hope, empowerment of strong female leaders, education of their children, a healthier environment, a healthier people. And and then I think people just don’t understand. And that that actual same thing applies to the US.
Stuart Turley [00:15:20] You know, Alex.
Tucker Perkins [00:15:20] One of the one of the projects we’ve been involved with and it’s fascinating to me that we never talk about it, you know, we think about cars and trucks and other things and, and the truth is they’re all pretty clean right at the end of the day. There are a lot of them. They’re in total, they’re fairly polluting. But each one individual is pretty clean because of all these controls. Right. We have we have been working with lawnmowers, commercial lawn, and by cleaning up one commercial lawn mower that used to run on diesel or gasoline now runs on propane. It’s the equivalent of removing four cars off the road. And so we have all of these opportunities that people don’t think about to to make significant changes in our own air quality while yet improving our health and improving our economics. So we try to tell that story of how things are working in Africa and bring it back to the U.S. But it rarely resonates as interesting to me that it doesn’t seem to get a lot of traction.
Stuart Turley [00:16:26] You know, and it’s because we’re too. Americans are short sighted and we blinders on. We don’t see what the rest of the world sees. I think Alex Epstein really says it best in his book, and I’ve had the fortune of interviewing him on my podcast twice, and he is about humanitarian, just like you and I talked about humanitarian and energy. It’s about using the energy to change exactly what you just describe. Tucker You describe the perfect man as it’s about living is about energy. How much energy do you have to use to go get food? How much energy do you have to use to cook that food? How much energy? Use the the best source of energy and propane is by far one of the best. Like in my my situation. Three propane tanks. I’ve got two propane generators now. And so that I can run. Two of the houses are propane generators in an emergency. I just go flip the switch and I’ve got propane generators sitting there that run off of my propane tanks that I also heat with so many propane.
Tucker Perkins [00:17:35] And what’s in a story people don’t tell, in fact, because it’s not being told that we re studying it, Is that propane in use today? It is radically different from the propane that was used 100 years ago. And that appliance you’re using it in is radically different. And I would say long before this conversation about the environment was even anywhere in our in our conscious, we were talking about having more efficient devices because we knew not only did they pollute less, they cost less to operate. There are things that customers would want to have, right? And I know it’s it’s a little bit of an enigma. Why would a propane companies want to have more efficient appliances? Because each one uses less. And the answer is because we’re in this for the long haul. Right? Right. We’re we know that you you would switch to a heat pump if a heat pump was more comfortable, cost less. Was it I mean. Right. So I don’t it’s there are so many aspects of this. But to your point, and I’m always glad when you make it. The abundance of affordable and reliable energy is is not up for debate because people we’re seeing it in Germany. We’re seeing in France. People will do what they have to do to get to have affordable and reliable energy. It might mean they have to move from their country.
Stuart Turley [00:18:58] And that’s happening, you know, and I found this interesting. I talked to somebody from Bulgaria the other day and Romania and a couple a Poland are now becoming some of the best retirement spots because of energy, because of also the borders. So now in you take a look at where people want to retire. People want to retire with low cost energy. Your GDP, Tucker, you nailed GDP is just part of low cost energy. Propane is one of the easiest transportable fluids out there. It’s not like LNG where you have it, liquefied natural gas and it has to make it. So what are some of the things that we can improve because it is a lower carbon footprint, fuel period. I mean, it is phenomenal. How do we get that mindset? Because what you’re doing is more critical to anything. Tucker, And that’s education. People don’t know that it’s that good in that low of a fuel burning, I mean, a polluting fuel.
Tucker Perkins [00:20:11] And and, you know, we’re we’re beginning to leave first. We’ve got the science that supports. Right. So today, 60% of the grid in the US is comprised from burning coal or oil or natural gas. And we’ve got to know what the carbon numbers are from all of that. And we’re very comfortable when we say that, you know, because the mantra is we need to get rid of fossil fuels and move to more electricity, which if people realize that, okay, let’s get rid of coal, oil, but let’s continue to have electricity that comes from coal and oil. Right. That’s it’s fallacious thinking. And, you know, so where we know with propane is that and we tell this to builders and forklift operators and fleets every day is that you can take great comfort in using propane today. Propane today is cleaner than the electric grid in 38 of the 50 states today.
Stuart Turley [00:21:02] Yes.
Tucker Perkins [00:21:03] And I would say three years ago, I wouldn’t speak so eloquently or comfortably about renewable fuels. Right. But just a small story. Probably five years ago, as I’m in California, I’m in high level meetings with CARB, and they’re like, I’m talking about these efficient engines and how how important propane is to the economy of California. And I said, What’s your path to zero or don’t have one? I don’t. I don’t need one. I already have a fuel that’s abundant and relatively inexpensive and the emissions are cleaner than anything you’re using today in California. And I said again, what’s your path to zero? Without a path to zero, you’re not going to be a part of our conversation. And we really took that to heart, not that we necessarily agreed with it in the short term, but I agree with him in the long term. And so as I sit today, I think the promise of renewable natural gas is real, right? I think the promise of renewable propane is equally real. And so we’re telling people, nation states, politicians, are you fleet managers, people who live at home, you can take great comfort in putting in a propane furnace, a propane water heater, a propane generator in your home or business, knowing that today it runs on conventional propane and maybe 15 or 20 years from now, it might run on exclusively renewable propane, carbon, zero fuel and somewhere in between blends of both.
Stuart Turley [00:22:34] Let me let me ask this, because there are I work with several companies and one of them is from Debra Wilde from Green Lily. They can take landfill and they can turn that into gasoline. They can take it into almost anything that you want. And there is that what you’re referring to when you’re.
Tucker Perkins [00:22:53] Talking about.
Stuart Turley [00:22:55] Renewable propane, taking it from other sources or what technology are you talking about that Because I you said that and I like being let’s see about how we espouse renewable propane, because propane by far is one of the best ones out there. Right. I didn’t mean.
Tucker Perkins [00:23:18] To. Never an apologist. We’re never an apologist for a conventional propane with a carbon intensity in our world of 79 and going south. But but to your point. So yeah. So then in the instance you just suggested, landfill gas, which I do believe is predominantly where renewable natural gas comes from and will continue to come from. You’re talking about a conversion of landfill gas to renewable gasoline. That exact same process also makes renewable propane nice and so and so someone can decide, I have this landfill gas. Do I want to make renewable natural gas? I want to make gasoline. Do I want to make sustainable jet fuel? Do I want to make renewable propane? And maybe I want to make three or four products here. But, you know, so that’s we probably have 14 pathways that get from waste materials. Could be methane that’s currently being flared from a gas field. It could be methane that’s coming out of a landfill. It might be used cooking oil. In fact, one of the one of the plants that have just come online this quarter is takes a non-food cover crop planted in fallow land that the farmers have just had sitting right easily combines crushes into oil and that oil easily turns into renewable propane. So all of a sudden the grasslands can grow. This again, very important nonfood cover crop, drought tolerant. And so there’s so many creative ways. Remember I said at the beginning of this, I’m basically a technologist. I’m looking I’m looking for ways that technology can solve this problem. And we’re never at a loss. We’re never at a loss to find examples of how to reduce carbon emissions today and do it in a way that’s cost effective and by the way, probably does in a way that makes you healthier. So climate makes our planet healthier, right? Right. It’s really important that we think about the implications for our personal health. And and I mean, things like NOx emissions and Sox emissions, things that give us bronchitis and asthma and COPD or give us cancer like particulate matter. And so we’re we’re equally obsessed with improving the condition of the planet while improving the health of the people that live on it and making it.
Stuart Turley [00:25:52] This is such an important conversation that you and I are having a great time, but it’s important. Let’s take Pakistan for a second. Pakistan has got such horrible, horrible inflation. And earlier this year, David Blackman and several others were writing stories about kids taking natural gas and putting them in the garbage bags and hauling that to the Bay Area. The grid is so unreliable in Pakistan that they don’t have that. They don’t have the fuel, they don’t have the they don’t have anything to do. And so you can’t even get there. Taking Pakistan is one extreme, but now we have the other third world country, California, that is facing some of these things in the high cost. And I just always love throwing that out there, but I’m not going anywhere with it. I just like saying third world country, sorry, but California is even using some really stupid ranges. California could really benefit from more rural use or other ideas in in switching. I think they would be a better path to zero if they wanted to use this. Instead of going to electric trucks, going to propane trucks, I guarantee you there would be less emissions in easier transfer. And I’m telling you right now, because by the time you take the batteries, you take the weight, you take the kids that are being abused in the Congo for, you know, the critical minerals, you take all of the other critical minerals that China is going to be using, then you take all of these other things and the batteries that are going to go on in that you flip because you can flip engines, ice engines to propane fairly easily. I mean, the technology would be very great.
Tucker Perkins [00:27:48] And we’re in it. We’re in a partnership with Cummins, where the engine technology that’s coming to the market in just a few years is outrageous. But you can can I just say you are so right. And I think again, this is where the narrative is wrong because most people think because my Tesla is fun to drive, that that same thing would apply to a class eight truck that’s delivering £80,000 of bananas and that the whole powertrain, there’s nothing to say. And the bet, I mean, I think the chairman of Toyota, I loved it when he said it because he said battery minerals.
Stuart Turley [00:28:22] Are.
Tucker Perkins [00:28:23] Precious. Right. And let’s be real. They’re not an American resource. Right. Battery minerals and the processing of them today is largely controlled by China, China or Chinese interest there. They are light years ahead of us in that technology. And I think no matter how hard we try, no matter how good our intentions are, we’re not going to have a lot of mineral processing in America. So. So can I just say we study these numbers almost daily. And in what you said, you said, I bet let me assure you you’d be right. Medium duty and heavy duty transportation. Right. You know, you can electrify a truck that goes 60 or 70 miles and carries potato chips or flowers. I don’t I don’t think we care about that. But the typical truck is is really needing to have a payload of £80,000 and run six or 700 miles every day. That’s not a case for electrification today. Again, I said, I’m a technologist. The batteries of the future. And I don’t know whether it’s 20, 35 or 2050, they might look different, but until that point, we would be infinitely better off. And by the way, people think that that transformation is without cost to them. Let’s just put it in perspective right now. Every battery electric truck costs three times what a diesel truck costs today. And the operating range is such that you need five where previously you had three. Do you think pays that cost? Consumers pay that cost and where it’s inevitable that they pay those costs. I mean, so, you know, there are things we can do today that would improve our situation today. And using propane and medium duty, heavy duty transportation is the epitome of one of those things.
Stuart Turley [00:30:18] You know, I just we had an article go out on energy news be and it was the world’s largest lithium deposit found along the Nevada Oregon border. It’s great, but it takes 30 years for a mine to get ready in the U.S. And then you have the regulations or excuse me, the legislation through regulation. It might not even ever happen. You nailed it with us not having that.
Tucker Perkins [00:30:46] So and once again, we’re not even to that point because that particular deposit is in an area that’s very sensitive and important to a lot of people, not the least of which I believe was Nassau. Right. So so a classic example where almost everywhere we look in America, someone and I believe rightfully so, may want to say, wait, right. It it could be in the national interest to develop this, but it’s not in our community’s best interests. And I just think that’s going to happen over and over and over again. Now, again, I’m a technologist. I tend to believe we’re going to figure out how to get by with that lithium and less cobalt. I don’t see us right now. We’ve not made great strides in thinking about batteries as a key part of energy security. You know, we continue to electrify and be reliant on. Minerals that we really control.
Stuart Turley [00:31:43] And as a technologist, I was looking, I’m not I want to be one someday, so maybe I can hang out with you a little more. NASA just put out a hydrogen mix, the battery that they’re looking to gain some technology on, because I love the idea of hydrogen. It takes so much water. It is a really drain on the the whole process of making it. Then you have the rainbow of hydrogen. You have white, which they finally discovered a bunch of natural white hydrogen. And then you have green hydrogen, which is based off of wind or solar, and then you have gray green, blue turquoise. You know, you almost can’t keep your head straight in hydrogen. They say, oh, goes through the natural gas pipelines, but it’s too small. And it escapes kind of like, you know, me going to the refrigerator in the middle of the night, I escape. And as soon as that door opens up, my wife knows what the heck are you doing? You know? Anyway.
Tucker Perkins [00:32:48] Hydrogen is another one of those silver bullet fantasies that everyone says, Let’s continue to drive our diesel cars. Let’s continue to live the lifestyle we live while we wait for hydrogen. And and to your point, people say, well, does the color matter? I’m like, the color is the only thing that perhaps does matter because why would you steam methane reform, natural gas to make hydrogen, which I don’t know, roughly 14 to use of energy to make a BTU energy. Thank you for calling out the intense water demands in a world now that’s water that needs to think about water as a resource, just like they think of gold, silver and oil. Right. Water is a critical resource.
Stuart Turley [00:33:32] The little bit. Why would we.
Tucker Perkins [00:33:33] Why would we do it if it doesn’t benefit the environment? Well. Well, we’re going to wait for hydrogen and we’re going to wait for fusion. And and we just do what I think Dreamers do, which let’s continue to eat pi and, you know, we won’t exercise because we’ll wait for that pill when in fact there are things we can do today. There are things we should be doing. You’ve already mentioned a couple of them use propane to power that medium duty, heavy duty transportation fleet, use low carbon fuels that are domestically produced, sound affordable, and are reducing their carbon content every day. And and it’s not the narrative that we’re having right now.
Stuart Turley [00:34:16] You know, Tucker, I just I’m so am enjoying our conversation so much and that you’re doing what needs to happen and that’s having the conversation and inviting people on your podcast invite in doing what you’re doing as a true public speaker. You’re out there, you’re you’re traveling the world, you’re talking to folks and you’re learning. I loved your converse, your comment, Tucker. What did I do for the first three years? I. Holy smokes. I wish I could. Listen, I can’t. Sorry, I’m a podcast host. I can’t listen.
Tucker Perkins [00:34:53] All. I mean, look, every week I’m probably amazed in both directions, right? I’m amazed sometimes about a conversation that I believe is so wrong, so erroneous, so injurious to maybe our climate or our health or our ability to execute that. But the flipside of it is, you know, a bump in the technology’s almost weekly that I’m like, yeah, this is a part of the solution. And then you wonder, how come we didn’t do that ten years ago? Why was that not thought of? And I just think, you know, everybody talks about artificial intelligence. I’ll push that over on the corner. The truth is, you know, we just keep learning from our learnings. And now modern computer engineering, quantum fluid dynamics, you know, they allow us to think about things differently than we did even ten years ago. And some of the technology that’s coming out is insane. But we don’t need to wait for some of that technology to see significant improvements today.
Stuart Turley [00:35:55] Oh, Tucker, I just appreciate you so much and I can’t wait to visit with you again. Let’s wait. Let’s not make it a year before you come back again, [00:36:03]but tell us how to get a hold of you and how to get a hold of your podcast again, [5.0s] because we want to make sure that that’s in the show notes for you.
Tucker Perkins [00:36:12] And the podcast this time, because we’ll talk carbon capture to meteorology, to fish into fusion, to, you know, just you do pick it, we’re talking about it. A lot of talk about environmental equity and justice in ways that I think people can understand. So that podcast is found where most people find their podcast called Path to Zero. You can also find it at our website and we’re really trying to make maybe a place for everyone to go to learn more about. Renewable propane and unfortunately that website’s called propane. Com And while we love to talk to builders or forklift operators or fleets, the truth is we can also talk to people who are interested in this environmental conversation. There’s a there’s a tab there about for the environment. And we’re just we’re trying this to redo that website a bit now to make some of these conversations a little bit more prominent now. And again, we clearly have a point of view, but it’s a place for people to go and learn and and maybe interact with us a bit about different points of view. And we have as long as we are all in the same goal of improving the climate, improving our health and doing it in ways that we can afford and where I want to be a part of that solution, that’s where we are.
Stuart Turley [00:37:28] [00:37:28]In that call. Now. How do people get a hold of you for public speaking or for things like that? Or who do they get a hold of at your group? [8.0s]
Tucker Perkins [00:37:37] Well, I think they can certainly find if they go to propane dot com, they can certainly find all kinds of ways to get to me. So that’s fine then I’ll leave it at that. But I mean, we’re we are we really are speaking all over the country and listening. And, you know, we appear at conferences quite regularly, sometimes as a speaker and sometimes just as in the audience to listen. And it’s a it’s a lovely journey, one I’m proud to be given an opportunity to do it because the conversation is nowhere near, even in the first inning. Right. We know where we are, you know, starting to think about the World Series. We’ll use our baseball analogy. We we are hardly in the top of the first inning.
Stuart Turley [00:38:22] I would agree. But I applaud you and your your humanitarian view of energy, because I think it’s all about elevating humanity out of poverty through energy. [00:38:35]So thank you very much for coming on the podcast. [1.9s]
Tucker Perkins [00:38:39] Billy. It’s always just a pleasure. Make me feel better at the end of the conversation than when I start. Thank you.
Stuart Turley [00:38:45] I wish I could do that to my wife.
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