Economics of Change: Sustainable Energy • World Energy / Gene Gebolys
Economics of Change
What does it really take to disrupt an industry that powers the modern world?
Gene Gebolys has spent nearly 30 years working to displace fossil energy with cleaner alternatives. As founder, Chair, and CEO of World Energy, he helped pioneer sustainable aviation fuel and is now working on something potentially even more transformative: creating markets that allow the environmental value of decarbonization to be measured, separated, and monetized.
But Gene's story is about much more than energy.
We explore why incremental innovation can ultimately create transformational change, why technology alone can't solve economic problems, and why waiting for government policy may be the wrong strategy for changing an industry. Gene explains how World Energy's approach to “insetting” could change the economics of decarbonization – and potentially be applied far beyond aviation.
We also discuss Tesla, nuclear energy, the future of fossil fuels, the role of corporate leadership, the changing motivations of talented workers, and why Gene believes the energy transition may be one of the most important fields for the next generation of innovators.
The deeper lesson? Innovation doesn't win simply because it's better. It wins when you change the conditions under which better becomes valuable.
-
Nic (00:00)
Gene, welcome to UnNatural Selection. Thanks for being here.
Gene Gebolys (00:03)
Great to be here. Thanks for the invite.
Nic (00:06)
Of course. I'm really looking forward to this conversation because I know nothing about biofuels. And yet it's something that obviously affects all of us. And fuels right now, especially, we hear more more discussion. There are some geopolitical issues going on with respect to fuels. But before we dive into all that, I'd like to start with a foundational question that allows people to hear in your words why it is that you do what you do. So
to kick things off, could you tell us, what need or impact drives your work?
Gene Gebolys (00:42)
Well, I suppose we all do stuff that comes out of our childhood. My mother had a huge impact on me. Her big
requirement, I guess, of me was to be of use. And she's long since passed, but I'm still in conversation with her all the time. And I think that's probably the guiding force of my life is to try to do whatever the hell that means and be of use. so career-wise, I've been very, very lucky. I think all career is gonna just follow a path.
You can kind of figure them out in reverse order, but as you're going through them, it wasn't as obvious. But I think, you know, at the core, it's an attempt to be of use.
Nic (01:37)
That's awesome. She must have been incredible. mean, as you're saying this, I've got two little kids. And so what I'm trying to instill in them is also the idea of being of use, thinking beyond themselves and how do they drive impact in a way that really materially changes the course of human history. yet it starts with something so simple, right? It's just like, don't be a slob, do something.
Gene Gebolys (02:00)
It does
come down to the little stuff, And I don't know how much, you know, they say that you do most of your development by the time you're five years old and then the kind of the rest of it is just kind of a playing out of whatever that was. I don't know. That's more your field. You're the guy that's rooted in genetics than I am. it is interesting how we...
we live these patterns and those patterns started very early and they are pretty detailed patterns, right? I mean, I think we all have detailed memories of our, when we were little and how those kind of still are relevant today. So yeah, I've got older kids and what I'm finding is the parent, I think I had this notion that they hit 18 and then they're kind of good.
And that is a crazy notion. That's not how it's working out for me. This relationship between parent and child, as I mentioned, I think it goes on well beyond the grave. So why do
Nic (03:15)
Yeah, for sure. mean, like you said.
Gene Gebolys (03:19)
any of us do what we do? Probably something rooted in that.
Nic (03:23)
absolutely. mean, like you said, right, you're still living up to the expectation that your mom had, you know, so many years and like you said, she passed. I'm sorry about that. But it still shapes how you see yourself. Right. And so, you know, it's it's at its core, it's fundamental, but it really does set a course. And so speaking about the course and the impact that you're driving for the sake of people listening, which just like myself, will have no idea.
Can you tell us about what this space biofuels does, what world energy does and what it is that you're trying to accomplish?
Gene Gebolys (03:58)
Sure,
I'll try to be concise, but the businesses, I've been in this for 30 years now. I started in 1996. This year, I will be 30 years in the space. I started a company called World Energy in 1998. All of that original premise was rooted in the Gulf Wars of the early 1990s. was, going all the way back to my childhood, was,
interested in the oil crises of the early 1970s that I grew up in. So I grew up in a world that was highly influenced by dependence on fossil fuels. I was very interested in the space. I got an opportunity to work in an alternative to fossil fuels in the mid 1990s coming out of graduate school in the early stages of something called biodiesel.
which is a renewable alternative to diesel fuel. And it seemed to me to be important that we find alternatives to fossil fuel. And I was pretty encouraged by this notion of playing a small part between two giant industries, one being agriculture and the other being fossil energy.
I was just kind of intrigued by the notion. So World Energy was set up in its early days to be a contract manufacturer of biodiesel and selling to companies and public entities that were regulated in a manner that they had to start using alternative fuels of some sort. didn't have to be, of course, the ones that we had on offer, but they had to start making some changes.
The founding premise was, maybe we can take a very, very small step with these regulated entities to start to sell them an alternative that is better for their fleet operations. 28 years later, a lot has happened and we've evolved a lot, and we've got a number of different business units doing different elements.
are involved in the displacement of fossil energy with clean energy. Various forms now, you know, we've got a very large wind project in Canada. We've got probably the most importantly, we've got a big digital platform initiative now that involves the decoupling of the physical low carbon molecule from the attributes of the low carbon molecule.
So we've got a number of business units, but they're all on the same fundamental area of decarbonization and displacement of fossil energy with clean energy.
Nic (07:05)
And so what does that mean, the displacement of fossil energy with clean energy? I know you mentioned wind farms, so that's one generating electricity that by that means. When you say biofuels, what other ways of generating energy are there? what are the kind of, obviously, wind is one.
Gene Gebolys (07:20)
Yeah,
so what we're probably best known for is being the first commercial producers of something called sustainable aviation fuel. That is a fuel that is derived from renewable resources, primarily use cooking oil and animal fats. We produce in a converted refinery that has the ability to take in these renewable resources and convert them into
a jet fuel that can be used as a replacement for fossil jet fuel. We have also long been a producer of something called renewable diesel fuel, and that's a displacement for diesel fuel also using similar feedstocks. that is sort of the genesis of the business was rooted in those initiatives. It's kind of evolved a bit from there.
Nic (08:17)
That's interesting. And so is that something that can be done at the scale that's necessary to support what we do right now with fossil-based fuels?
Gene Gebolys (08:28)
No, it's actually it's one of the, it's really an interesting thing. No, it can't. And so the question then becomes, well, then why do it? And how does change happen? I think that's what you explore is how does change happen? How does innovation happen? Right?
Nic (08:43)
Exactly. I'm
poking at the small details that build into that. Exactly.
Gene Gebolys (08:50)
Yeah, so as somebody who, I guess at its core wants to be of use, not just make a dollar, of course, we all got to put food on the table at home, but that's not really the driving motivation. The driving motivation is to be of use. So how is producing fuel from renewable feedstocks that don't exist at sufficient scale to do the job, how is that relevant? How is that of use?
And I think it's incredibly important that we do incremental change, because I think that's how change happens. So if we were really going to say, OK, we're not going to do anything in the liquid fuels space until we can produce the 100 billion or so gallons that would be required to displace global jet fuel use, we wouldn't do anything.
And I, know, incrementalism is how we got to the energy system we have today. And I think it's how we're going to get to the energy system that we have tomorrow. So you do a lot of things. I mean, even look at, you know, things change so much quicker in the digital space than they do in the industrial space. But the AI computing power and the
with
the cost of generating tokens for AI applications has gone from like $34 per whatever it is million tokens to like six cents in four years, right? Even now, as I understand it, the icons of that space don't make a ton of sense, but yet investment in that space is really driving the global economy.
Why it's not for what it can do today. It's what for what it can do tomorrow I'm not suggesting that the stuff that we do has got that kind of scalability or or Impact I am suggesting that if you don't do what you can you'll never get to do what you need to do
Nic (11:03)
I totally agree. I and I can think of all kinds of spaces in healthcare that are like that, for example, neurology, and we have all kinds of diseases of dementia, Alzheimer's and so on. And for a long time, pharma companies were divesting from that space because unless you can
Gene Gebolys (11:19)
Mm.
Nic (11:20)
make a material impact with a drug that can cure this or that, they thought it was just too hard. But you were never going to discover that treatment or that cure unless you made small incremental investments.
in your way to get there. Fortunately, some have been investing back into it, but I totally agree. You have to start somewhere. But I guess I'm thinking mostly in terms of the fossil fuel market is obviously the oil bloodline of everything that happens around the world. And there are so many entrenched big players in that space. Now, at the same time, there
Gene Gebolys (11:49)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Nic (11:55)
are some currents
that make us feel like, well, there's got to be a better way. mean, right now we're in the middle
Gene Gebolys (12:00)
Mm-hmm.
Nic (12:01)
of this war in the Middle East with Iran. And there are all kinds of things that are happening that are affecting both the supply and also the prices of fossil fuels. And at the same time, for the last 10 years or so, companies like Tesla have really been pushing forward the agenda on renewable energy and electricity for automobiles and so on. And there's also been a lot of work.
the solar farms as well. I feel like as a society we're more receptive to it, but then the question is can companies like yours provide the fuel that's necessary to make that happen?
Gene Gebolys (12:39)
Yeah, I think your Tesla example is a perfect example of how any change maker has to push through the conventional wisdom. So, about 10 years before the launch of the Model S,
2012. General Motors had run a project called EV1 and they created a whole bunch of electric cars. They didn't sell the electric cars. They leased them. They put very tight restrictions on them and they were for time limited lease period. And then they took all the cars back and they put them all on a big blender and chewed them up.
and put out a report that said, yeah, EVs can't work for a whole bunch of reasons. so one of the world's largest auto manufacturers says it can't be done. So I guess it can't be done. Tesla took a completely different whack at that and it can be done. so...
I think your point was that's an example of how change can happen, yet we're still fully addicted to fossil fuels. so I might be changing your question, but I think you're saying we're still addicted to fossil fuels. What comes next as it relates to us? maybe rather than me reframing your question, I might've gone a little bit of a field, but we'll...
Is that close to what you're asking?
Nic (14:35)
I think partially. The other part is just that there have been trends that we've seen that favor a solution like yours, right? So we've seen people adopting more, you know, electricity vehicles. We've seen more adoption of wind energy. We see these global wars and geopolitics that are affecting supply and also increasing the cost. so I think society is probably ready for an alternative to fossil fuels.
Gene Gebolys (15:04)
Yeah.
Nic (15:05)
And so I think that the setting is there. The question is about how do you make a change at such a global scale? Because I think part of it is
Gene Gebolys (15:16)
Yeah.
Nic (15:16)
the technology. I think you're innovating on a bunch of different vectors. This is me looking at it from the outside. You have to innovate on the physics.
Gene Gebolys (15:21)
Yeah.
Nic (15:25)
So how do you create these fuels and then how do you do that at scale? And then how do you do it cheaply as well so that they compete on price to fossil fuels?
Gene Gebolys (15:31)
Yeah. Yeah.
Nic (15:33)
You also have to compete or innovate on messaging. You have to get people to think differently. I think that's part of what Tesla
did as well. It's like they innovated in how they convey the product and the value to people. So they were like, having an EV car is kind of cool. Right. And so like you have to innovate in a bunch of different vectors to make this happen.
Gene Gebolys (15:48)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. No, I think that's spot on and it really points to what I think is going to be our biggest contribution going forward because what we have realized is that in low carbon molecules that do the same thing as their high carbon alternatives,
you've got to be able to monetize that carbon difference. And if you can't, whether it's through regulatory compliance or somebody paying that difference or what have you, it's really hard to just compete on dollar for dollar BTU value. It's not to say it can't be done, but usually when it competes, it competes on a bundled
bunch of benefits that, know, whether wind power, example, lots of folks are, you know, make the point that it's cheaper now than, than fossil based electricity. Well, the idea is once you've integrated all the government support and tax incentives and so forth, it typically doesn't compete head to head on, on a pure BT, in this case,
BTUs are physical, but on a pure electron for electron basis. But nor should it, because there's so much government intervention in every gallon of gasoline that we use, or every bit of electrons that are powering our ability to have this conversation. There's government intervention in everything, both the old school and the...
and the stuff that's being developed to replace it. the idea that, and a lot of folks say this, that, well, we're energy neutral. So we're happy to use the cleaner stuff as long as it's cheaper than the dirtier stuff. But it all just does the same thing. It all either provides an electron or a molecule or what have you. That's not right. That difference between the...
high carbon and the low carbon has a huge societal benefit. And we have to monetize that difference. That is the essential key to moving past, well, I hope the government passes some new laws so that energy transition can happen faster and in a more meaningful way. We've got to engage markets and consumers in different ways. The problem with what
we
have done in the past as we've been producing sustainable aviation fuel at our refinery in Los Angeles for many years. The problem with creating physical fuel is that you create physical fuel in a place and the farther the customer is from that place, the more expense and carbon it takes to move that fuel to wherever it needs to go. So by definition, the farther away it goes to get to a customer somewhere,
the less impactful it is. But yet we have customers, a lot of our first customers were billionaires flying to and from meetings that they had to go to and wanted to do it in a sustainable way. didn't want, particularly meetings that were, like Davos was a classic. People would be flying to and from Davos to talk about climate change in their private jets.
and needed to do it in a more sustainable way to address the obvious hypocrisy of that. But yet people still needed to gather to address serious world problems. not all of this stuff is going to happen remotely. You still need to gather. So that showed that there's a market, but that you can't take our fuel from Los Angeles and take it to Switzerland and all the other various places where people are coming from.
whether it's New York or Seattle or wherever, they're origin. So we're going to, you've got a market that's happy to pay that carbon differential, but you can't hit that market on a molecule to molecule basis. through a process called insetting, we set up a system to track very closely with third party verification.
how to quantify that difference. And so that we could hit the market need, you for a while we were just saying, no, that doesn't make any sense. We can't do it, but that's not smart. You've got a tangible demand for that difference. And so I think the most important thing we've ever done in our nearly three decades of doing this is to decouple the molecule from the work.
Nic (21:01)
Mm-hmm.
Gene Gebolys (21:02)
If you start to look at that at scale, which is what we're working to do now to take the very small incremental progress we've made in aviation and think about it and apply it broadly to everything. This is how the greening of steel has to happen. Steel is about 9 % of global carbon emissions. It makes no sense. We can take iron ore and convert it into iron.
in a much less carbon intensive fashion using clean hydrogen. But the problem is, then you have to move this stuff all over the place. And how do you get it into a car in Germany in a meaningful way that they can market that carbon difference to customers and get it to a consumer who's willing to pay for it? It breaks down at each incremental step further going from the iron ore to steel.
and then moving that steel all over the place. And so it basically kind of gets pointless. But if you can take that, if you can capture that difference, that incremental difference and monetize that difference, you can change how markets function. You can change how investment happens. can drive meaningful change just by connecting that work.
to customers who want that work, primarily private sector actors. that really is, this can be frustrating work, right? Particularly the work that is so subject to changing government intervention. You go through one administration, they want one thing, you go to the next one, they want
Nic (22:51)
yeah.
Gene Gebolys (22:52)
another. This is part of living in democracies. But when you can get markets activated,
to move things in a positive direction. That's an essential way to move past this chicken and egg dynamic of we need policy before we can get investment, we need an investment before we can get policy. So that's what we're working on, this insetting initiative through a platform that we're about to launch called inset IQ. That's the thing that...
that I really think has the biggest potential. Whether we do it or somebody else does it, insetting is what's going to really drive change and progress in decarbonization. That's a long-winded answer, I know. But you asked how do you get consumer behavior to change? And I think you've got to be able to offer decarbonization for
this
coffee mug
Nic (23:58)
Mm-hmm.
Gene Gebolys (23:58)
at a price point that works. It might be a couple of cents more, but you've got to make it available. The only way to be able to do that is by decoupling the work of the molecule from the molecule itself.
Nic (24:11)
Yeah, and quantifying it, right? So people see
Gene Gebolys (24:14)
and quantifying it.
Nic (24:15)
that there's an intangible value that isn't reflected in something you see, but it might be reflected in the price. But it's also, maybe it's offset in some ways. again, thinking of from the outside in and not knowing anything about this industry, you hear about these giant organizations talking about, we're going to be carbon neutral by the year 2027 or something like
Gene Gebolys (24:37)
Right.
Nic (24:37)
that, right? So
I don't know how they plan on doing that, but I would imagine that it's going to be a combination of maybe electricity, wind farms, solar, but then something like this would play into that, right? Because at the end of the day, they're going to need some fuels.
Gene Gebolys (24:48)
That's exactly
it. Yeah. Yeah. We've got a business called Net Zero World Energy Net Zero Services that does exactly that. they're, you know, the biggest names in the world, corporate names in the world have made Net Zero commitments. And not only do you not know exactly how they're going to meet them, but often they don't know exactly how they're going to meet them.
Yet they're committed, their brands are committed to making progress. They need to be able to figure out how can I do this? think about a consulting firm. What do consulting firms do? They fly all over the world. And so a lot of our clients, our clients like consulting firms, like technology firms, who have a big chunk of their emissions come from business travel. And the only way they can address that problem
is through a solution like the one that we provide. And they need to know that it's third party verified, 100 % authentic, 100 % real. But that is the most efficient best way for a company that flies a lot to decarbonize their activities. And the same is going to be true throughout the entire economy. Anything that's made of stuff can be made of stuff
in a decarbonized way, at a carbon impact way that's less. Anything. If we can measure the ways that it can be decarbonized and make sure that that difference is quantifiable and trade that difference, we've introduced markets to decarbonization for the first time. That is
super powerful. What's more powerful in our world than markets? I don't know.
Nic (26:44)
You mentioned
something before though that I wanna unpack a little bit because we saw with Tesla as well. I remember when Tesla's first came out, the first question in my mind was like, well, how are you gonna charge it? You can't just plug it into any old outlet. And so, and you were talking here about the cost of getting your fuel to the clients, it starts offsetting.
some of the benefit of the carbon neutrality that your value fuels have because you have to use carbon to get it there. And so is a big
Gene Gebolys (27:10)
Mm. Mm.
Nic (27:12)
component of kind of like your scale up eventually the infrastructure because Tesla had to invest in that. They had to invest in the infrastructure. So now you can find electronic outlets or chargers anywhere that you are, especially if you're to take like a long road trip or something like that. So is that a component of how you see this scaling with building out infrastructure?
Or can you use current infrastructure for what you're trying to accomplish?
Gene Gebolys (27:37)
Yeah,
so the core idea of insetting is you use the most efficient infrastructure you can as close to where you can produce something as you can so that you don't have to do this obviously absurd thing of moving low carbon molecules great distances in the interest of decarbonization. Obviously, you want to use as much existing infrastructure as much as possible and just displacing the
molecules in the infrastructure, not the infrastructure itself. The same thing with energy. You can move clean energy or dirty energy over the same transmission lines. The idea is to use existing infrastructure as much as possible. But also to the extent that you have a customer in a faraway place that wants to buy that decarbonization, that wants to buy that effectively, pay the difference.
that it'll take to invest in an activity wherever it can be done most efficiently. We ought not to be doing things that are inefficient. somebody will, you can generate solar power cheaper in a sunny desert than you can in a cloudy area. So if you can...
take the value of that solar power differential and move it to the cloudy area where there is a demand for those benefits, that detachment of the benefit from where the activity is happening is absolutely critical to making those markets work.
Nic (29:24)
For the longest time, remember that, I guess, and aside, but I think it's actually relevant. My entire life, we keep hearing about how we're going to run out of fossil fuels because there is a limited supply in theory. so it's like, at some point, you just tap into all that. And yet, that future has never come to bear. Are we getting close?
Gene Gebolys (29:42)
head.
Nic (29:43)
Is that a myth? Or are we so far away that it's not relevant? How does that factor into people switching to an eventuality of having to look into alternative sources of energy?
Gene Gebolys (29:54)
Well,
look, obviously you've got two fundamental problems with fossil energy. One is the ongoing availability of access to it. Two is the geopolitical considerations with it. I said two and then I'm to give more than two. But then obviously the climate impacts of carbon intensive energy.
so, but the short answer is I don't know any more than anybody else knows about how this ultimately goes. know that we don't display, we won't get to a positive answer to that question by waiting for the great whiz bang idea to just descend upon us. you know, right now I think, you know, we're having this conversation right in the middle of the, Iran war situation being
literally on fire and energy prices are going through the roof and all the geopolitical ramifications of our reliance on fossil fuel are front and center. And so, you we go through these times like we're going through right now and it becomes entirely obvious that the way that we power things have some serious risks associated to them. But then
this too will pass and the energy prices will at some point come back down and we kind of just get on about our business as if that fundamental threat, the geopolitical threat, the ultimate non-sustainability of the resource and the climate impact, those things keep on going on.
even after the prices come down and we kind of move on to other thoughts. So we're going to have to solve this. The fossil dependent world that we live in is only 150 years old. You look back to kind of 150 years ago, which in the span of time is nothing, right?
150 years from now, this is not how we're gonna power things. What's gonna happen in the in-between? A whole bunch of incremental change that leads to great breakthroughs. But not because we said, gee, that's tough and wait for it to happen, but because we go drive change.
Nic (32:44)
totally agree. So when we think about it, if we scale back now, we think about the innovation that you're doing and your team's doing, where would you say that the biggest innovation bottlenecks or the biggest hurdles that you have right now are? they challenges in the chemistry, the engineering, the logistics, the economics, the policy, all of the above? Where are the vectors that you guys are focusing on the most that you think you can make the biggest change?
Gene Gebolys (33:11)
Yeah,
the biggest challenge by far is that we don't have the economic externalities of carbon priced into our energy, and therefore markets don't work. The energy I use impacts everybody, but I don't pay for the impact.
that it has on everyone. If we were able to quantify and pay for the externalities of fossil energy use, we would use a lot less of it and we would be a lot more motivated to find more effective alternatives to it. But we don't. And so until we get markets involved,
in a real way and we have a phenomenal opportunity to do so because of exactly what you were talking about, these net zero commitments and the need now for corporations getting off the sidelines and play a leading role. If you look at who bought most of that wind power that's been built in the last 10 years, most of it tracks back to the same handful of tech firms who bought it. And so,
the tremendous progress we've made in that space and in solar really goes back to no more than 20 or 25 companies doing the vast majority of the ultimate buying of the electrons, the cleaner electrons that were replacing dirtier electrons. So getting the private sector involved and ultimately getting consumers involved
is absolutely essential. So these are economic problems that technology will follow. You can always get to better and better and more innovative and better answers once there's a financial motivation to get to them. But if all you're trying to do is get cheaper than highly subsidized dirty fuel, it's a fool's errand.
Nic (35:29)
Yeah, when you first started talking about the change in markets, I thought about policy, but trying to wait around for policy to change before this becomes a success is risky because that policy may just not change. But if I think about it, a lot of these companies that are talking about getting too carbon neutral, again, I don't know anything about this space, but it's not policy that's forcing them to. I think it's actually just kind of enlightened leadership.
influenced probably by demographics. I'm guessing correctly, younger populations probably care a lot more about the environment. one of the things that I always say is that scientists do a horrible job of communicating importance of science to general public. I think it's one of the reasons why this whole climate change thing is where it is. mean, there's been some misinformation as well
Gene Gebolys (36:11)
Mm hmm. Okay.
Nic (36:25)
from people with
other interests, but starting with calling it like, you know, calling it that the the earth was heating and what was it called? Originally it wasn't climate change, it was global warming, right? So that
Gene Gebolys (36:43)
What was global warming? Yeah.
Nic (36:46)
in all the messaging around that I think didn't do a service and we do that in so many different areas and even in genomics areas that I'm involved in that I think we don't do ourselves this favor. And so I think there was initially
just kind of like a lot of starts and stops here. But I think that younger generations today realize the effects that this is having in our environment and the growing complexity of geopolitics around fossil fuels. So my guess is that that's what's driving the Googles and other companies of the world saying we want to be carbon neutral because of the people that work for them that are driving some of this change. Is that something, am I talking completely out of like...
Gene Gebolys (37:22)
You are absolutely spot on. That
Nic (37:25)
Okay.
Gene Gebolys (37:26)
is exactly what is driving this. If you look at knowledge intensive industries like tech, it's all about attracting and motivating the right people.
Nic (37:37)
Mm-hmm.
Gene Gebolys (37:37)
And if you can do that, you can compete. If you can't, you can't.
And you and I aren't the only two people that want to have a be of use to have an impact. The most talented people can work a lot of different places and they can make a good living at a lot of different places. They're going to go, increasingly they're going to go to places that align with their personal values. And there was a time where you
graduated from school and you went and got a job and the whole objective was to make as much money as you could possibly make and That was that That is not where the best and brightest that's not how the best and brightest are thinking about things now They want to work in places and with people who align with their values They recognize the barriers between work and home are have have largely disappeared. So your work life is your life and
you want that life to be aligned with your values. And increasingly, the best and the brightest are well aware of the social issues associated with our reliance on fossil fuel. And they do want their employer to be taking positions that align with their values. So it really is about creating cultures that are socially responsible, particularly in the big tech firms.
These are firms that have massively outsized impacts on the human wellbeing. And it's critical to their social license that they do what they can do to have as positive an impact as possible. Obviously, they've got an impact in so many different ways, but in ways where there's choice.
higher carbon intense or lower carbon intense ways to do things. They need to align with their customers and their employees in ways that are reflective of their values. And so, yeah, these companies aren't, the events of the day, the set of the glowing political winds of the day are not particularly favorable to those of us who are working to drive
energy transition. But the corporate leaders of the world are still pushing forward and they're not doing something based on one country's politics at one moment in time. Their brands don't make commitments to flip-flop around. If they're committed to decarbonization and they're committed to net zero goals, they take them very seriously.
Nic (40:29)
How does nuclear energy factor into this? Is it a component of what you do? Is it a competitor? I know that there was a big push for nuclear energy, I don't know, 10, 20 years ago, and then
it
Gene Gebolys (40:42)
Mm.
Nic (40:42)
fell out of favor. I'm not really sure why. It seems to be a fairly clean source of energy.
Gene Gebolys (40:47)
Hmm.
Nic (40:48)
I don't know if there's a way of going back to it. Again, how does nuclear energy factor into what you're doing? Again, are they two totally different fields? Are they related? Are they competitive?
Gene Gebolys (40:58)
Yeah, so the notion of competitive, anything that's cleaner is cooperative, collaborative, part of the same overall push and mission. So we're not trying to get one clean electron to displace another clean electron or one
clean molecule to displace another clean molecule. It's all got to be part of a much larger transition to cleaner ways to do things, less fossil intense ways to do things. So while I'm not personally an expert in nuclear, it's obviously got tremendous potential, not even potential. It's obviously been a big part of the energy mix for a long time.
It stopped being a growing sector when we had Three Mile Island and Chernobyl and other well-known disasters. It became a technology that nobody wanted in their backyard. It still has elements of that. think generally people are much more favorable to nuclear than they have been in the recent past, but they still are much more open to it in somebody else's backyard.
It's still very hard to site. there are new technologies coming out called small modular reactors. Those are really promising. The expectation is that they will start getting deployed in places that already have infrastructure connected to them like old coal-fired power plants and the like.
But they're still going to have siting issues and it's still relatively new. But look, in big picture, yeah, nuclear has got to be a part of the equation going forward, probably a big part of the equation going forward. because
Nic (42:57)
Yeah, yeah, it does seem-
Gene Gebolys (43:00)
of data centers in particular, we're getting more more demand for electrons. And even just keeping up with that incremental demand has to be done with
hopefully is done with cleaner alternatives than traditional fossil reliance.
Nic (43:23)
I totally agree. I'm in the tech world and so I'm not oblivious to all of the papers coming out on just the demands and energy are just going up and up and up. People are traveling more, more automobiles on the road. so trying to figure out what a long-term solution looks like, I think it's inevitable we have to diversify from fossil fuels. And like you said, it's not
Gene Gebolys (43:47)
Mm.
Nic (43:47)
all or one. It's not like fossil fuels are going to go away overnight.
But it's like, how do we start balancing it out? So we use more bioenergy, nuclear energy, solar energy. And then over time, maybe things will settle out in a place that's more environmentally
Gene Gebolys (43:55)
you
Nic (44:01)
friendly. it is encouraging to see companies like yours doing things like this in biofuels, seeing Tesla doing things in the electrical space and how these, a lot of these movements would have seemed almost unimaginable 20 or 30 years ago when it was like,
all fossil fuels. some talk about nuclear, but it was going down the wrong path. So now to see this as being a real part of the social consciousness
Gene Gebolys (44:21)
Mm.
Nic (44:32)
and then a real part of just innovative companies doing something significant in this field is encouraging. What are the kinds of things that we should be looking forward to seeing you and World Energy doing over the next few years? Are there specific innovation?
projects and fronts that you guys are confronting, whether it be on like the, again, the physics, the logistics, the markets.
Gene Gebolys (44:56)
Yeah, probably the biggest thing that we're doing on the physical side is this very large project we have on the west coast of Newfoundland where we're
The project got launched as a green hydrogen initiative, very large initiative to generate up to four gigawatts of wind energy and then convert that wind energy to electrolyzers that split H2O, split off the oxygen from the hydrogen and then use that hydrogen to displace fossil energy.
most often natural gas, that technology, markets for that technology are just slow in developing. So more broadly on that project, we're now in the midst of a pivot to use that power to go into the grid, even as the grid then supplies more power to things like data center applications, green iron processing, the kinds of things which I talked about earlier.
So to clean energy intensive activities. So at our clean energy hub there, it's Stephen Bill Newfoundland, that's a very large, many generations type of project. That's probably the biggest physical thing we're doing. But the biggest thing that we're doing by a long shot is the digitization of these.
of these attributes, these environmental attributes, and creating a system that is robust and third party validated and can be applied to anything. That is massively scalable and stands to unleash markets in ways they just haven't been in the past as it relates to efficient decarbonization. So we're doing some other things too, but I think those are the two that I would say.
either one of them stands to be quite impactful. Both of them are fascinating. The geopolitics of Canada and the US right now are amazing. Turning some of these potential, what are perceived to be disadvantages into advantages. It's a time of just tremendous change right now and getting those tremendous changes to
work in our favor is really the trick. anyway, yeah, those are the two things that have most captured my imagination that we're working on.
Nic (47:37)
It's super interesting. When I think about it, we keep seeing all these reports about how AI is going to be displacing so many different industries, consulting,
Gene Gebolys (47:46)
Mm.
Nic (47:47)
engineering, the field that I'm in, and so many different other ones. And yet when I think about it, the industry that you're in, the one that you're helping to lead around energy, is not going to be displaced anytime soon. mean, AI needs energy to function. so for anybody, what I was thinking was,
If somebody came, if my kids came to me said, what should I study and study when I get to college? I'd be hard pressed to say like, this field because, whatever field, because, you know, thinking about where the future is going to be with AI and the future technology, but energy is always going to be necessary. And we haven't solved that problem. It feels like this is one field that people could look at to say like, there's so much innovation that still needs to happen. We need so many smart, bright minds that really care or passionate about this. And, and just as a,
as a species in the ecosystem that we live, we need something like this. It just feels like this would be a prime space for people to think about going into engineering, chemistry, biofuels, all kinds of different disciplines that are involved in doing the work that you're doing.
Gene Gebolys (48:51)
I think so. There's this phrase, you never accomplish as much as you would, as you think in a week and you always accomplish more in a year than you'd think. And I think, you know, scaling that up a bit over a career, if someone's starting right now in activities related to what I do, energy transition, it looks about as gloomy as it could possibly look.
But if you look at that trajectory from now, say 50 years forward, there's going to be such rapid progress over that 50 years because there has to be. And the investment in energy transition, which has without question hit a tough patch here, without question it has hit a very tough patch.
over the long haul, it's not about this patch or that patch, over the trajectory of decades, this is going to be a phenomenal place to be because it's so important. so if somebody is looking to be of use, this is a place that needs the best and brightest, no question.
Nic (50:08)
Well, with all that, Gene, this has been tremendous. I want to finish off with a question just to think about the scale of which the kind of impact that you're trying to drive. So if you could zoom forward into some place in the future where you could reflect back on the course of your career over the work that you've done to date or things that you're still planning on doing that you're achieving or aspiring for over the next few years, what would be a success scenario? The best case scenario where you could imagine
where you've achieved the fullest impact that'll give you the best, the most fulfillment over what you've accomplished over the course of your career.
Gene Gebolys (50:41)
That's interesting. So I'm an incrementalist, I probably have made clear here. So I find it harder to say, if we get to X, we'll consider that success. If we get to X, I'm certain that I'll say, fantastic, let's get to X plus. But because
Nic (50:59)
Yeah
Gene Gebolys (51:00)
it's just by character, that's how I roll.
convinced of the need to activate markets through vehicles. There is no better vehicle than through the insetting tool that I shared with you earlier. Getting markets involved in energy transition in ways that they haven't been before, and that's consumer markets and B2B markets. I think we're on the cusp of that.
and doing that in a scalable, meaningful way that can drive meaningful change for a very long time. I think if we can get that on the railroad tracks moving to where it starts to organically scale, that would be pretty good. I would be pretty proud of that.
Nic (52:02)
Well, I think what you're doing is incredibly important. And it's not just me. think we're society's become aware that fossil fuels have their shelf life as far as like utility versus damage. And we really do need alternative forms of energy. We need more energy as society is going.
Gene Gebolys (52:21)
.
Nic (52:23)
like we spoke about during this interview, the current geopolitical state and the wars in Iran and around the world.
are even more evidence that this is just not sustainable. So with all that, tremendous work. Congratulations on all the progress so far, and thank you for being on the show. I hope that we can have this conversation again sometime in the future.
Gene Gebolys (52:43)
Nick, I really enjoyed it. I appreciate being here and enjoyed the chat.
