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Episode #141: 'Going Nuclear for National Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Day' with Richard Boardman, Idaho National Laboratory [an Energy Central Power Perspectives™ Podcast]

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Today on the Energy Central Power Perspectives Podcast, we take a front-row seat to the rapidly evolving world of hydrogen technology and its promising partnership with nuclear energy. In celebration of the upcoming National Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Day on October 8, this episode dives into the advancements in hydrogen tech and specifically what leaders within the Department of Energy ecosystem are doing to unlock the opportunities it presents for the nuclear sector. This episode's guest is just such a leader in Richard Boardman, Laboratory Relationship Manager for Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Technology Office at Idaho National Laboratory.

In this episode, Richard dives deep into INL's pursuit of innovative hybrid energy systems, offering a fresh perspective on the hydrogen economy's potential and challenges. From exploring INL's unique role in the national lab ecosystem to unpacking the reasons behind nuclear plants' hesitation towards integrating hydrogen strategies, listen in as Richard shares with podcast host Jason Price and producer Matt Chester a masterclass on the transformative power of collaboration in energy and the exciting future awaiting the nuclear and hydrogen convergence.

Prefer to Read vs. Listening? Scroll Down to Read Transcript.

Thanks to the sponsor of this episode of the Energy Central Power Perspectives Podcast: West Monroe.  

 

Key Links:

Energy Central Page for Idaho National Laboratory: https://energycentral.com/o/idaho-national-labs

Did you know? The Energy Central Power Perspectives Podcast has been identified as one of the industry's 'Top Energy Podcasts': blog.feedspot.com/energy_podcasts/

 

TRANSCRIPT

Jason Price: 

Welcome to the Energy Central Power Perspectives Podcast. This is the show that brings the leading minds from the energy industry to discuss the challenges and trends that are transforming and modernizing our energy system. And a quick thank you to West Monroe, our sponsor of today's show. Now let's talk energy.

I am Jason Price, Energy Central Podcast host and Director with West Monroe. Coming to you from New York City. And with me as always, from Orlando, Florida is Energy Central producer and community manager, Matt Chester. Matt, we're recording and publishing this podcast episode during the approach to National Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Day. If any of our listeners haven't yet added this event to their calendars, can you share a bit about the history and meeting behind Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Day?

 

Matt Chester: 

Yeah, I'd be happy to Jason. And the fun bit of trivia is that Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Day falls on October 8th to align with the atomic weight of hydrogen 1.008 AMU, thus the date 10/08. And while the day is chosen in this kind of cheeky manner, the recognition is quite serious. The first National Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Day was recognized in 2015 as noted by a declaration of the US Senate to highlight the important role of hydrogen energy in transforming the industry today and into the future. From things like hydrogen transportation to its use as energy storage, to mixing it in with natural gas supplies and more. Leaders from across the energy landscape use 10/08 as a good reason to remind us all of the possibilities of hydrogen energy and to recognize the great work being done by scientists, researchers, policy makers, and other stakeholders in this hydrogen space.

 

Jason Price: 

Thanks for that, Matt. And to recognize this important area of the energy industry, we couldn't have a more appropriate guest for today's episode. Joining us today is Richard Boardman. Richard is the Laboratory Relationship Manager for the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Technology Office at Idaho National Lab. In that role, Richard oversees INL's Clean Energy Platform for Integrated Energy Systems Development. And the latest application and exciting pursuit of this team is in pushing forward the opportunity for hybrid energy systems such as the possibility of nuclear power generation to not only produce power for the grid, but to also serve to produce hydrogen fuel. Such a combination would be a major development for those both on the nuclear and the hydrogen side of the industry. So we're eager to dive in and learn more about these advancements. So let's not delay any further and let's welcome him to the conversation. Richard Boardman, welcome to the Energy Central Power Perspectives Podcast.

 

Richard Boardman: 

Thank you, Jason. It's a special privilege to talk with you and Matt today about these topics which many consider as a leading opportunity to firm the grid and decarbonize our entire energy sector.

 

Jason Price: 

Fantastic. And I'd love to start by hearing more about the overall role you and your team play at INL. What are the goals of the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Technology Office and what sort of successful engagements would resonate with our utility audience?

 

Richard Boardman: 

Well, I think we at the Idaho National Laboratory, you Matt and Jason and our utility audience would all resonate around one principle, we need energy security. And we can have energy security with hydrogen and nuclear energy. It comes back to making hydrogen, moving it, using that hydrogen, specifically clean hydrogen that does not result in pollutant emissions. So there's a couple of principles here I could point out. And first of all, I think clean hydrogen, it requires an affordable source of clean energy, which may be renewables and in our view, in our role it would be nuclear energy. Second, it's important to advance technologies to be able to split water. You can get hydrogen from hydrocarbons, methane is one of those, you can get it from splitting water. These are the two principle sources for hydrogen in our universe. And we need electricity if we're going to split water. And sometimes we can use thermal energy and I'll point that out perhaps in our conversation today.

And we can get that thermal energy from power plants, nuclear plants, they produce thermal energy and that thermal energy is put into electricity. Third, putting hydrogen into energy currencies is very important to us. Hydrogen itself is a fuel and it can be used in the transportation industry and it's used by industry for a number of processes. But we can talk about how we can put it into specific currencies which allow us to transport that clean energy around. And four, an important here for our utility audience is that hydrogen can be used for power generation. I think most people realize that fuel cells have been developed and they can burn hydrogen and turn that hydrogen back into electricity and it can also be burned in turbines. A number of companies, including our own US General Electric is working on hydrogen burning turbines. They have been for a couple of decades and it's exciting that now that technology and the materials are coming forward so we can burn it in turbines just like natural gas is burned in turbines to make electricity.

 

Jason Price: 

Yeah, I appreciate that. And so in the lead up, we talked about how we're approaching the National Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Day on October 8th. So I want to drill down a little bit further in the hydrogen conversation. And as you know, our Energy Central listeners are primarily from the utilities, so they may not have direct exposure to the hydrogen economy or hydrogen activities as much as perhaps you would think. So can you give us a peek behind the curtain from the front lines? How has the hydrogen economy technology advanced in recent years and what makes us on the cusp of something critical?

 

Richard Boardman: 

That's a very good question. We've understood that we can split water or we can abstract the hydrogen off of methane and to produce this hydrogen that I talked about earlier here. But what's happened now in recent years is that there's been a strong focus on developing both fuel cells to burn hydrogen and electrolysis cells that can split that water to make that hydrogen. Some recent material advancements include proton conducting membranes, some are polymeric, and those can be used to just split water itself, electricity. And using those polymeric exchange membranes, you can split the water and get the hydrogen and its counterpart oxygen. But there've been great advancements made in high temperature electrolysis, also using a proton exchange membrane, but in this case it's a solid electrolyte material. Several companies around the world and research universities have been working towards this solid oxide electrolysis format, made great advancements in that. And maybe we'll get a chance to talk a little bit more about that here today.

But if you visited a company out there, there's several in the US, you would now see that they're operating fuel cells around the world and converting, in this case, natural gas into electricity and working on using those same fuel cell format to burn hydrogen to convert it into electricity. So that's changed. Fuel cell have advanced in part because the endeavors and efforts and focus of the Fuel Cell Technology Office here, it's now called the Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology Office. They've added hydrogen to that because it's become an important part of the program. And so as I mentioned hydrogen, we start to realize that hydrogen is really a very important element and can be formulated into other energy currencies like ammonia or methanol. It's always used for hydrotreating and hydrocracking petroleum fuels, but it can also be used to make biofuels.

And interestingly enough, hydrogen is now recognized as a key reductant in making steel. When we dig up iron ore, that's iron oxide, traditionally we've reduced that iron oxide with using coal and natural gas, but hydrogen is a great way also to reduce it. And when we use that hydrogen and reduce steel, for example, no emissions. So all of this pulls back to these energy currencies, pulls back to these energy conversion technologies, this electrolysis, it pulls it back to our energy source and there we are, we're back to the utilities, we're back to the energy sources of clean power.

 

Jason Price: 

That's really interesting. Let's explore this hybrid notion here. So your team is working hard at marrying the world of hydrogen with nuclear power. So talk to us about how hydrogen can be seen as a new outlet for nuclear power.

 

Richard Boardman: 

Well, it can have several roles here, but I think the most important one is to recognize that the grid is evolving. We are all aware that we're building up renewable energy, wind and solar energy. And as we build out those energy sources, they tend to bid and get put on the grid first because there's no cost in fuel. When the sun shines, the solar panels run, when the wind blows, the wind turbines turn. And so at that point in time, that's the cheapest electricity. So we put that on the grid first. What that tends to do is to squeeze those base load generators like nuclear plants and so now they have to start to curtail. So this is not a bad thing if we understand how we could use that electricity or that power that would otherwise be lost if we curtailed it. So we call this flexible plant operations in generation and one of the Department of Energy's programs under nuclear energy is called the Light Water Reactor Sustainability Program.

The intent here is to keep our fleet of existing reactors operating because we help them understand how to participate in markets that now be changing. And as I said, to operate flexibly. What we realized early on that using that power that would not be going to the grid to produce hydrogen would be a good way to keep those plants running at their name plate capacities. So they're always producing that clean energy that they're capable of doing. Now we're giving them a second market, and that's to make hydrogen. So this is simple as routing the power from the grid over to the hydrogen plant. And the hydrogen plant has these electrolysis plants that require electricity and can also use thermal energy if we're doing the high temperature electrolysis. So what we've been about is working with several of the utilities, the nuclear plant owners and operators to investigate and to analyze how we might be able to open up this new market in making hydrogen.

Is there really a business case for doing that? We started several years ago working with some of these utilities throughout the United States to understand whether or not we could have a second market and that be economically viable. We call that a technical and an economic assessment. So we worked with a number of these utilities and these nuclear plant operators to do some initial studies. And the early results were that it looked like it was a strong possibility, we could create this second market where those nuclear plants could switch over to making hydrogen and then it's off to the hydrogen markets or they may even store that hydrogen and turn it back into electricity later in the day.

But I wanted to say that we started off doing these technical and economic assessments and that those looked quite promising so that led us to do more work and that was to then understand technically how we would integrate with those plants, how we'd pull the electricity out of the switchyard, how we might move thermal energy off of the power and turbine decks and over to this electrolysis plant. So we now have three or four years of engaging large companies, engineering and plant constructors, architectural engineering firms to help us design these thermal systems, these electrical systems, to get a good handle around how that would be done technically and what the associated costs would be. And so far everything looks quite favorable towards this potential secondary market of producing hydrogen.

And so now Matt and Jason, what I'd like to also emphasize is that that doesn't mean that that particular nuclear plant is taken away from the grid. It's still there connected to the grid. So as the sun comes up, as the wind begins to blow, as these nuclear plants flexibly move over to making hydrogen, an important concept here is that they could very quickly switch back over to the electricity market. And that would be done dynamically while the hydrogen plant goes into an idle mode. That might require some hydrogen storage so that the hydrogen market can still have a steady supply. So we've looked at those economics including storage so that both markets can be satisfied. And I'll just stop there and answer any more questions about that if I didn't make that very clear.

 

Jason Price: 

Yeah, I appreciate that. And I want to talk to you and ask you about the storage part of things because whenever you talk about storage, there's a degree of arbitraging that goes on because you have this commodity that becomes available and you can use it and throttle it in times of need. So hydrogen sounds like the key to unlocking new opportunities for the nuclear sector but I guess my question is, why does this all sound like still a bit as speculation? This technology has been around for a long time, nuclear and hydrogen, why now start looking at this integration? And what are the experts at INL doing to try to bridge the gap from where we are and where we need to be?

 

Richard Boardman: 

Those are several good questions. And I think the very first part of this is that utilities are very comfortable, they're locked into the electricity market, many of them in regulated markets. And so in fact, to a sense, the public owns those nuclear plants and/or they own these other generation resources whether they be the renewables. And so their first criteria is to satisfy their electricity demand. So public utility commissions and others make sure that we're providing that electricity to them and they get compensated for the rate or the cost of doing that. And that's the market. But things start to change in the market when you start to deregulate markets. And so now nuclear plants have to compete and they don't necessarily get compensated to just keep themselves operating. So it's driven by, first of all, a need for those existing plant owners to make sure they have adequate revenue generation. And that then is why we start to look towards secondary markets, what they can do after they participate in the electricity market.

And again, that brought us back to hydrogen and hydrogen is because it could be sold off to the large industries, the steel making, the refining, the ammonia industries, even transportation fuels. So there's a market for that hydrogen. But let me come back to the question you asked and remarked about arbitrage. And I think all the utilities understand that arbitrage is just a way of marketing your power or your energy that you could produce and to sell it at the times when you can get the highest value out of it. So let's explain that a little deeper. If you're in the middle of the day and the electricity market is taking up the renewable energy and this nuclear plant is turning down or curtailing, as I've said, then there's this opportunity to put that into energy storage and sell it later in the day.

Well, what type of storage are we talking? Batteries are out there, utility scale batteries, and they're being built and placed all around the country now and they're working well and they seem to be a cost-effective solution. We might also store that thermal energy that comes off these nuclear plants, put it in a large thermal energy storage system. Just about the same as the concentrating solar systems are storing thermal energy to turn it into power. So thermal energy storage is an option.

Then comes hydrogen. And so if we're splitting water, storing that hydrogen to turn around later on in the day to burn it in fuel cells or power systems, the question is, what's the cost of making that hydrogen, storing that hydrogen, and then what's the cost of turning it back into power, whether we're using turbines or fuel cells?So this requires that we look at the whole system and we look at the timescales, whether they're hourly or they're daily, weekends or seasonal, and we begin to realize that hydrogen is a great and effective way to store especially high amounts of that energy for longer periods of time and bring it back and make electricity. So what I would like to explain here is that hydrogen is not a solution for every situation, but it turns out that it's a solution for many.

I would just like to point out one project that's already being built, this is being built down in Central Utah, and this is where the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is looking to send even solar and renewable energy up the transmission line to Central Utah where there's some salt domes. And here they'll split the water and make hydrogen and store in these caverns that are in these salt domes and then they'll call it back out of those salt domes to burn it and burn it in, in this case, power turbines and send the electrons back down to California. So this notion of arbitrage and using hydrogen to arbitrage, well, it's already making sense and making sense to some of our utilities. So therefore it's being explored throughout other places in the country. Idaho National Lab has been part of helping some of utilities do those studies to understand this concept of arbitrage and the opportunity for hydrogen. So with that stated, I would just like to say that hydrogen is still very much up and viable for some situations.

 

Jason Price: 

Yeah. Let's shift for a moment towards risk, if you don't mind. And I don't mean safety risk, I'm talking about economic risks. These are not the infrastructure investments. Certainly a technical risk of these projects may not deliver or deliver on time or within budget. So what is your advice for approaching stakeholders in the utilities sector who may still be wary of both of these energy sources from an economic risk standpoint?

 

Richard Boardman: 

Well, great. So look, I always say that we need to understand the problem and the assumptions that we make anytime we promote a solution, especially at a national scale. So I list four risks that we have to address. And in order to make this hydrogen economy, to make this hydrogen arbitrage, to make this hydrogen story really happen because it's market driven and we mitigate those risks. The first risk is you have to have an affordable clean energy source. Our purpose for getting after this, the Department of Energy's purpose in having a hydrogen economy is of course to help us decarbonize our economy. But that's going to come always back to having this affordable clean energy source. So as many would already understand, we have fully capitalized our nuclear plants out there. There's almost 100 of them still operating and hopefully we won't shut down any more of those.

But those nuclear plants have become very effective in understanding how to reduce their cost of operation, first of all, to compete as well as they can in the electricity market. But recognize that then some of those plants might have the ability to produce that hydrogen maybe 80% of the year, maybe 90% of the year, and be available for the rest of the time, 5%, 10%, 15% of the time to make electricity. So what we're talking about is having a high capacity of high intensity clean energy that's available to build a large hydrogen plant. And so now we're talking economies of scale in the case of nuclear energy. Large means it'll be cheaper. Centralized means that it'll be concentrated and it can be cheaper. And having that constant clean energy source mostly available from that nuclear plant brings it all together. So that's the first assumption is affordable clean energy that can drive a large plant to make the economics work out.

The second assumption is the technologies themselves. And this has really been an important aspect of this, and it's one that we continue to work on that the Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology Office is very much working on through Idaho National Lab and other national labs in supporting academics and supporting industry to build up manufacturing, to make these electrolysis units more durable, to get higher performance out of those. So that's in the technology. And while I mentioned significant advances have been made in this area and we're able to show now that these proton exchange materials and solid oxide media are proving to be very durable and have high performance, the next step we need to do to mitigate that risk that you're asking about is to make sure the costs come down. And that can really only be done by high volume manufacturing. Oh, sure, there'll be a niche market here or a niche market there, but we're really talking about a large hydrogen economy, large enough to make this utility skill.

And so that means we have to address assumption number three and that is, have a large market for that hydrogen. Well, the good news is that as this has been socialized and the word has gotten out that we can produce this clean hydrogen and how it can be used by industries, now we start to have that industry pull, that's the market pull. That's a very important factor so that we can build many plants, not just one. Where we really need to be at is producing gigawatt amounts of these electrolysis units every year so that we might be converting 1, 2, 3 nuclear plants into making hydrogen each two or three years. The same can apply for the renewable energy. So I'm addressing mostly here the nuclear side of that as my interest is here at the Idaho National Lab, the lead lab for nuclear energy development.

But we need to get to a large scale and fortunately now we have industry coming and seeing that it can be done and realizing that they can decarbonize their products and their commodities with this clean hydrogen. So the forces come together. Some of this is the social forces, understanding what we want to decarbonize. And so hydrogen can do that. It pulls us back to the clean energy sources. And so it just literally all comes together to create an economic model that makes sense. And that is how we overall have to mitigate that risk. It can't be one simple plant here or there, it has to be a collective effort and I think we're onto that. I'm speaking a lot here, so forgive me for that. But that brings us to the fourth assumption. And really the fourth assumption is sometimes we have to have policies that are set by our legislative branch. We need to have funding to help us kickstart these programs, to build the first of a kind, to build the first factory, to have the first project.

And so as you might be well aware, a couple of bills that are very important have been passed, which give us approximately $10 billion to start to build clean hydrogen hubs and also to build these manufacturing plants. And so we're now very blessed as a nation to have had the vision to set up and create some policies and to provide some funding to help us get over those first hurdles to get this started. And so that fourth assumption is now one that is being answered. And so in sum, all this is coming together that is beautifully working together, so we can now go forth and have mitigated all three risks, the economic risks, the technical risks and also the safety risks.

 

Jason Price: 

Richard, I appreciate the thoughtful response. It must make you think about each day walking into the office, what your unique position is at the National Lab. So share with us, what opportunities and freedoms do you and your team enjoy given the pursuit that you're trying to solve around the future of hydrogen energy and its key roles in the nuclear sector?

 

Richard Boardman: 

Well, thank you for that question. We are very blessed. We've been blessed to bring some of the greatest talent here to the Idaho National Lab and DOE has attracted some of the greatest talent among the other national labs. We partner with the other national labs in a program that we help to get started called H2@Scale. And so my greatest pleasure is working with scientists at these other national labs is we have a common goal and a common vision and have been able to bring individuals that share that view of being able to have an impact. And the second part of this is it comes back to the funding. Congress has been generous, the programs have been generous, and we've had good program leads within the Department of Energy. I could name many by individuals who at the federal level have gotten this.

And so they've come out and they've invested in the national labs, and particularly I'll talk to Idaho National Lab, that help us set up systems for testing these electrolysis stacks, for testing these electrolysis systems. So what's happening here then is commercial companies have a place where they can come to an independent, honest broker and have their technologies tested for hundreds and even thousands of hours to prove that they're performing. That independent third party validation is very important. Not only are we doing the stacks, but we're doing the integrated systems. So few companies have brought the integrated systems to Idaho National Lab and we've been operating them for up to 5,000, 6,000, 7,000 hours to show that indeed their technologies are robust and they're ready to be commercialized. So just being part of this is very exciting for us and to see our role and how this benefits our US industries and eventually how it's going to be adopted and really impact where we're at in terms of our national energy security.

 

Jason Price: 

Well, that's really eyeopening for us. So thank you for taking us inside your office, getting a glimpse of what you're doing. So Richard, we now want to shift to what we call the lightning round, which gives us an opportunity to learn a little bit more about you, the person rather than you, the professional. We have five questions, could you keep your responses to a one word or phrase? Are you ready?

 

Richard Boardman: 

I am ready. Let's go.

 

Jason Price: 

Okay. Favorite snack food?

 

Richard Boardman: 

Unbuttered popcorn.

 

Jason Price: 

As someone embedded in the world of nuclear, give us your three word review of the movie Oppenheimer.

 

Richard Boardman: 

Educational, inspiring and I would say sobering.

 

Jason Price: 

Do you have any hidden talents?

 

Richard Boardman: 

Old-fashioned photography.

 

Jason Price: 

Who were your role models growing up and who are they now?

 

Richard Boardman: 

Well, obviously my parents, a few high school teachers that inspired me to think about systems, some religious leaders, but especially two professors, one in my undergraduate work and one of my graduate studies who inspired me and pushed me as far as they could. But now really my mentors are my colleagues, I mentioned them, at other national labs, but I would like to call out one individual. Amgad Elgowainy, doctor at the Argonne National Laboratory, one of their fellows, a gentleman and a scholar, and I'd like to be like him.

 

Jason Price: 

What are you most motivated by?

 

Richard Boardman: 

Well, the thrill of learning, the thrill of applying knowledge, the thrill of working with others and just really being at a lab and working in a place where we can make a difference.

 

Jason Price: 

That was a nice job navigating our lightning round. In reward, we want to give you the final word. So with utility leaders and other stakeholders listening to this episode on or around National Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Day, what's the resounding message you hope sticks with them about the work being done in this realm?

 

Richard Boardman: 

Well, I would like to say that I'm a believer in nuclear energy and I believe that the current fleet can be operated and used to help us create new energy currencies, that being hydrogen, as we talk about this and honored on Hydrogen Day. And it's exciting to believe and understand that there's a new generation of nuclear reactors that's forthcoming, that'll even be safer, that will address a lot of the concerns maybe we collectively have as a society. And so it's enjoyable to be part of that rollout and maybe we're going to change the course of history here with clean energy, and I certainly believe nuclear energy will be a strong part of that.

 

Jason Price: 

Well, we've interviewed a number of people from the INL and they've always delivered, and you have continued that tradition, Richard. So thank you very much for sharing your wisdom and insights. And we want to thank you for your time, keep up the great work and wish you lots of continued success on behalf of our country and the planet.

 

Richard Boardman: 

Thank you very much. Godspeed to you as well.

 

Jason Price: 

You can always reach Richard through the Energy Central platform where he welcomes your questions and comments. And we also want to give a shout of thanks to the podcast sponsors that made today's episode possible. Thanks to West Monroe. West Monroe works with the nation's largest electric gas and water utilities in their telecommunication, grid modernization and digital and workforce transformations. West Monroe brings a multidisciplinary team that blends utility, operations and technology expertise to address modernizing aging infrastructure, advisory on transportation electrification, ADMS deployments, data and analytics and cybersecurity. And once again, I'm your host Jason Price. Plug in and stay fully charged in the discussion by hopping into the community at Energycentral.com. And we'll see you next time at the Energy Central Power Perspectives Podcast.

About Energy Central Podcasts

The ‘Energy Central Power Perspectives™ Podcast’ features conversations with thought leaders in the utility sector. At least twice monthly, we connect with an Energy Central Power Industry Network community member to discuss compelling topics that impact professionals who work in the power industry. Some podcasts may be a continuation of thought-provoking posts or discussions started in the community or with an industry leader that is interested in sharing their expertise and doing a deeper dive into hot topics or issues relevant to the industry.

The ‘Energy Central Power Perspectives™ Podcast’ is the premiere podcast series from Energy Central, a Power Industry Network of Communities built specifically for professionals in the electric power industry and a place where professionals can share, learn, and connect in a collaborative environment. Supported by leading industry organizations, our mission is to help global power industry professionals work better. Since 1995, we’ve been a trusted news and information source for professionals working in the power industry, and today our managed communities are a place for lively discussions, debates, and analysis to take place. If you’re not yet a member, visit www.EnergyCentral.com to register for free and join over 200,000 of your peers working in the power industry.

The Energy Central Power Perspectives™ Podcast is hosted by Jason Price, Community Ambassador of Energy Central. Jason is a Business Development Executive at West Monroe, working in the East Coast Energy and Utilities Group. Jason is joined in the podcast booth by the producer of the podcast, Matt Chester, who is also the Community Manager of Energy Central and energy analyst/independent consultant in energy policy, markets, and technology.  

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