19 - Peyton Ridland

Today we’re joined by Peyton Ridland, Business Development Lead for FuelCell Energy across the western U.S. 

Peyton has dedicated his career to driving decarbonization through clean energy technologies like fuel cells, hydrogen production, and carbon capture. His work bridges technical innovation and commercial strategy—all with a focus on helping both people and the planet thrive.

Connect with Peyton on LinkedIn. 

Books mentioned: 

• The Hydrogen Revolution - Marco Alverà
• The Story of CO2 - Geoffrey Ozin, Mireille Ghoussoub 
• Drawdown - Paul Hawken

Terms mentioned: 

• Fuel cells 
• Electrolyzers 
• Carbon capture

Individuals mentioned: 

• Mark Feasel 
• Alan Leong
• Jim McNerny

Transcript

[00:00:00]

Aparna: Alright pod people. So today we are joined on the show by Peyton Redland, a dear friend of mine from grad school. Peyton has dedicated much of his life to renewable energy and sustainability, driven by passion for building a better world for future generations.

He combines technical and commercial expertise to drive decarbonization using new energy technologies to cut carbon emissions while ensuring the transition helps both people and the planet thrive. Peyton currently leads fuel cell energy's business development efforts across the western half of North America and has worked extensively in low carbon power generation, hydrogen production, and carbon capture.

Peyton, we're thrilled to have you here. Welcome to the pod.

Peyton Ridland: Awesome. Thank you so much for that intro and for having me. I'm, I'm excited to talk, shop all things energy, sustainability , and most importantly, fuel cells.

Aparna: We are in the right place, so we'll dive straight in. Peyton, if you could walk us through your career thus far. So where you started, steps along the way, and where you [00:01:00] are right now. And feel free to highlight job titles, responsibilities, and driving factors behind any pivots.

Peyton Ridland: I guess it goes back to high school, unfortunately. , But when I was. Kind of deciding what I wanted to do. , In college, I was really split between one vein being aerospace engineering , and the other vein being environmental science. , Growing up in California, , it's hard to ignore. , Climate change, , when we see, , droughts and heat waves and, and wildfires. , So that's always in the back of, , my mind, especially growing up with my family, business being, , a horse property that needs, , a lot of water and also acts as a refugee center for, , other horse properties that are up in the hills that get affected by the wildfires. so that was one side of me that was, , really interested in environmental science. And then I've always been a. Aerospace and plain nerd since I was a little kid. , And I honestly thought that's what I was gonna end up doing. , Not to say that I'm not still an aerospace nerd, [00:02:00] but I up for a temporary study program at Stanford and it was under the, pretense that I'd be doing aerospace engineering when I got there. And as soon as I went to sign up for classes, I realized all the classes that I would be signing up for were physics and chemistry and calculus and all things unfun. So I kept scrolling and I started looking at civil and environmental engineering classes, as well as other sustainability courses, and they just looked way more fascinating. So. I kind of pulled a fast one on Stanford and up doing zero aerospace engineering stuff in all civil and environmental engineering. , And I was sold after that program. So when I ended up going to my full undergrad at University of Washington up in Seattle I ended up getting my bachelor's in environmental science. although diversifying a little bit with some, some business and statistics, and going from [00:03:00] there. While I lived in Seattle, I working at a small biogas you know, bioenergy startup called Impact Bioenergy. They've now rebranded to Chomp Energy, but their primary technology was developing modular anaerobic digesters to take organic waste and turn it into both biogas and low carbon soil amendments. And it was a small company of six people, basically like five engineers and a lawyer, no one with business acumen really trying to take this technology to market during a time where no one wanted to buy this type of stuff. It was. peak of COVID and the primary market for our technology were large academic campuses and, and large corporate campuses.

So, it was touch and go for a while there and work really fluctuated on a daily basis. So one day I [00:04:00] might be dumpster diving at a food bank or feedstock at our test facility. And another day I might be coding and doing data analysis on our lab tests. And then the next day I might be doing business development meeting with potential customers and, and trying to get our technology deployed.

So, it was a really great experience and I was lucky to get an opportunity at that point in time. I basically had to beg the CEO to hire me for no money. I said I'd, I'd work for free if I could get the opportunity. And yeah, I, I really enjoyed my time there, but I still felt that there was some knowledge gap from my undergraduate degree and, and working at the startup.

So that's what really drove me to go back to school to get my, my master's in energy and sustainability at Northwestern. And that's where I got to meet our lovely host Aparna. And that's also where I got connected with my soon to be boss at Fuel Cell Energy mark [00:05:00] Feasel.

He was one of our professors during the program and I already had an interest and, desire to learn more about hydrogen alternative fuels, carbon capture and innovative energy technologies. And Mark really facilitated that in his class as well as, got me more and more interested specifically in the fuel cell and electrolysis space. So that's when I ended up joining Fuel Cell Energy right after the program, as their business intelligence manager. I really sat between , the business development and policy and regulatory senior leadership and engineering teams collecting and translating. Technical and competitive information. So we could out position ourselves in the market , and get our technology eventually, to markets. So, it was a great experience in that position. And then more recently, I, I pivoted to be more commercially focused in my current [00:06:00] role leading business development for the western half of North America. And I, think those two experiences built. Well on each other. One gave me a lot of exposure to just about every department internally. And now my new role allows me to interact with the external market in a way that I couldn't before. So every day I get to learn a lot. Every day is a new challenge. But every day is also exciting. And that brings us to today.

Kiersten: Perfect. Going backwards a little bit in time, I have to shout out a different episode. We recently had episode 16 with Ingrid who, if you wanna know more about biogas, 'cause Peyton mentioned he'd worked in biogas a little bit. Check out that episode. coming back to the present and this recording, so you're now with fuel cell energy, which means you might be able to help us folk, who may or may not have heard of fuel cells to understand what they are. Can you define for us in the listeners what a fuel cell is at sort of a 1 0 1 level, and then maybe take it [00:07:00] to a 2 0 1 level and talk to us about the different kinds of fuel cells and electrolyzers.

Peyton Ridland: Sure. So fuel cells are a form of non combustion power gen. Generation technology that really aim to substitute in for a lot of your legacy technologies like engines and turbines without some of the downsides in the form of higher emissions and , emissions like NOx, Sox, particulate matter while still offering the flexibility of utilizing legacy infrastructure. And being more on the base load side of the power equation as opposed to renewables like solar and wind. So that's at a very high level what fuel cells do. They're just another form of power generation technology. And they're just one member of the vast portfolio that our grid uses. Once you go down the. Fuel cell rabbit hole. There are several different technologies within the fuel cell [00:08:00] realm. And they all have their different strengths and their different weaknesses and their the applications they're best suited for. There are a lot of technologies I'll just. quickly cover four of the primary ones. the first would be PEM fuel cells, or proton exchange membrane fuel cells. They operate at pretty low temperatures, like around a hundred degrees Celsius. They're great for variable loads, so if you have, let's say a load that likes to ramp between 20 and a hundred percent in a matter of a few minutes. They're great at meeting that demand. What limits their, . Deployment though, is that their primary fuel is pure hydrogen. And finding pure hydrogen, especially low carbon hydrogen is pretty tough to do right now. Right now for pem fuel cells, the most common application you'll see is for mobility purposes.

That's one of their other strengths. They can be relatively compact, so hydrogen fuel, cell cars and semi trucks. Will, would use [00:09:00] something like a PEM fuel cell. The next one that I'll talk about would probably be solid oxide fuel cells. So these on the other hand operate at really high temperatures of upwards of 700 degrees Celsius as opposed to around a hundred degrees Celsius PEM. Some of their strengths are, they're pretty fuel flexible. They can operate on natural gas, hydrogen blend, biogas. They can ramp up and down, I would say moderately, well, not as well as pem. But they're great for , high efficiency electric loads that only require, you know, moderate ramping. The next would probably be molten carbonate fuel cells. They're also a high temperature technology. They're ideally suited for combined heat and power applications where you not only need a lot of power, but you need a lot of heat or a lot of cooling because these systems have a whole lot of waste heat that they can utilize. And so these are ideally suited for a large like utility or industrial loads. And they're also pretty fuel flexible as well. And then [00:10:00] lastly, there's , phosphoric acid, fuel cells, or PAFCs. These are kind of in the mid range on temperature scale around 200 degrees Celsius. They're fairly fuel flexible but they're also a little bit lower efficiency.

Some others, although they can bump that up if you're also doing combined power applications. I could keep going like the rabbit hole. You could have like an hour long conversation just on that. but at high level, those are kind of the main types. And then seconds, electrolyzers are basically the exact opposite of fuel cells. Fuel cells take a, a fuel source and air, and they create electricity whereas an electrolyzer will take water and electricity to create your fuel source, which in this case would be hydrogen. That's like the fuel cell. Electrolyzer 1 0 1.

Aparna: Very informative. Thank you for breaking that down. And also giving us fuel cell versus electrolyzer, how they can work together and also, or opposites. a question then, if. I asked you to put your sales hat on just for a minute [00:11:00] here, and talk to us about why someone should choose to use a fuel cell.

It seems like there's a lot of variability in feedstock. There's a lot of variability in performance, so how variable your load is, how steady your load is. But why should I or any listener or anyone really go for the fuel cell route versus something else?

Peyton Ridland: So unfortunately the sales. And part of me is gonna say it really dePEMds on the the application, but some of the attributes that make fuel cells really attractive as I mentioned before, are really gonna be their emissions profile. So it dePEMds on , your fuel cell technology. But if you're using a PEM fuel cell, you have no key greenhouse gases aside from water vapor that come out, the back end. and then if you're using a different type of fuel cell that isn't running purely on hydrogen, your emissions are still generally lower than if you're going with your legacy [00:12:00] technology counterpart both on CO2 and then drastically lower if you're about NOx socks, particulate matter, all the nasty stuff. on the NOx perspective, even. If you're comparing to, let's say, a reciprocating engine or a turbine, even using the, the best NOx reduction technology a fuel cell will likely still have 10 to 20 times less NOx emissions. The other. Advantage of fuel cells is, especially at the scale that you're looking at, which might be as low as a few hundred kilowatts, and then all the way up to utility scale power.

You know, 60 a hundred megawatts is gonna be your electric efficiency. So a lot of your turbines and engines might only be sometimes with low as 30% efficient. Whereas a lot of fuel cells are in the mid forties, high forties, fifties and, you know, edging up into the sixties on electric only efficiency. And then when you start to incorporate heat recovery, you're getting a total [00:13:00] system efficiency of, of upwards of 90% in some applications. So on the emission side you tend to be a lot lower than your legacy technologies. That translates to obviously. Health benefits, environmental benefits, but also permitting benefits which helps with time to power concerns. There's also higher availability of fuel cells in general relative to turbines and engines. The, the backlogs for some of those technologies can be upwards of three to five years, dePEMding on the exact system. And then on the flip side, if you're comparing fuel cells to your traditional renewables like wind or solar that are intermittent fuel cells can operate as base load power.

They can operate as variable load. And they can be dispatchable and really fill a lot of those gaps that traditional renewables can't fill by themselves unless you have copious amounts of batteries. And that's not to say that isn't the solution sometimes. And that's not to say that fuel cells are the solution to everything. But , they play, [00:14:00] an important and very specific role in, in the energy portfolio.

Kiersten: That is excellent context, and we do have a question about maybe then who would benefit the most from using a fuel cell since you said it's not a catch-all perfect solution, but first you've said knocks and socks a couple times, and we do cater to a variety of folks. So if you guys are listening and you think that Payton is talking about Sox, S-O-C-K-S. That is not the case. We are talking about capital SO lowercase X as in sulfur, oxides or dioxide, and NOx is the same NOX. So just some clarification. Those are common things that you're looking at when you're looking at emissions. And then of course the particulate matter PM he mentioned as well.

, But go back to the question about who could benefit from using a fuel cell.

Peyton Ridland: Wow. So there are a lot of different applications where fuel cells make a lot of sense. And it really dePEMds on the technology you're looking at. [00:15:00] example, molten carbonate technology, which is what I primarily work with, is ideally suited for biogas applications because the technology is designed to take CO2 rich fuels, which biogas is biogas typically has around 40%, CO2 by volume, and then 60% methane. And a lot of other technologies would require. Upgrading that all the way up to RNG, which is basically pipeline natural gas. And that's a pretty exPEMsive process. That or they can run biogas, but they take a huge hit on efficiency and output, whereas our technology can run on that without a d rate in efficiency or in output. How that translates to the real world treatment plants, as gross as that might sound and unattractive non-sexy for sure is a huge market for molten carbonate fuel cells. And they're ideally suited because they require a lot of power. They're pumping a lot of [00:16:00] water, they're creating a lot of water.

They're usually relatively isolated, so it's hard to get power from the grid. a lot of biogas that they're producing that otherwise either gets vented to the atmosphere as methane, as a pretty toxic greenhouse gas, or just has to get flared on site where all of that. is basically used for nothing. So that's one case where molten carbonate fuel cells are really well suited to tackle the market. There's a few fuel cells that are also really good at tackling, let's say, the data center market which is, in the, the headlines quite a bit. I also might just be seeing all the energy related headlines. But the power demand for data centers is surging across the world, especially here. In the US and I actually live in, DC which is right above the data center hub for the entire country. fuel cells are great for data centers because they require a lot of power and they also require a lot of chilling capacity.

And the high temperature fuel cells, like let's say carbonate [00:17:00] technology, produce that power that they need, as well as a lot of waste heat that can be used for chilling. Oddly enough the technology is called absorption chillers. And basically to summarize, they're able to turn that waste heat into a chilling capacity to offset a large electric load that those data centers would need to power mechanical or electric chillers. So those would be. Two segments that really benefit from fuel cells. The other that I mentioned earlier is gonna be mobility using . and honestly I would say the, the biggest market segment for PEM fuel cells is probably heavy duty transport both road and maybe even marine. because they're pretty flexible in their configuration, you can scale them down to the size of a car or a truck and you can scale them up all the way to the size of the container ship. So they're unique technology that tackle the mobility market. That I would say would be pretty challenging for some of the other fuel cell technologies. all that to say, fuel cells can be applied to a lot of things. It really just dePEMds on the [00:18:00] exact application. It dePEMds on the size. The location dePEMds on your availability and fuel source and what your alternatives are. So it's not the solution to everything, but they're, they're pretty flexible as an entire category.

Aparna: Two quick aside, PEMn made me think of little Lego blocks and building a little modular fuel cell device for a hot second. I was like, that could be a fun way to visualize it for the listeners and for myself. . Second quick point was. About the data centers.

I'm not sure if you've seen like recent PJM activity at all, but they're going through a process right now where with all the data centers that are coming online, they're worried about resilience and actually keeping lights on for folks like us in their service region. And it's quite interesting 'cause I'm like utility grids.

Fuel cells would be so useful right now, especially 'cause we have all these hogs coming online and I want my lamps to work at my house and I would like the air conditioning to function without having to be shed. So good luck selling to them. I hope that it works.[00:19:00]

Peyton Ridland: Fingers crossed.

Aparna: Fantastic. I feel like we just learned so much more about fuel cells applications, who should use them, how do I use 'em, and also how my health can benefit from them.

So thank you Peyton, for all of that. now switching gears back to you as an energy professional, can you walk us through what a day in the life looks like? Like if we followed you around, we're we're little shadows for a day, what are we gonna see? What tasks do you do? Who do you talk to?

Peyton Ridland: My favorite thing that I get to do on a daily basis is meet with customers or potential customers for the first time. I get to learn about all the different exciting projects that are going on in the energy landscape. Everything from data centers to hospitals, to new housing developments and corporate campuses. All the way to, you know, just large utility projects that are going forward for various reasons. Either being driven by time to power concerns cost or, you know, lowering emissions. So I get to have those conversations a lot. I do , my [00:20:00] spiel pretty frequently, sometimes as much as four or five times a day. And when each of those is an hour long sometimes , my voice is a little bit hoarse So I do that quite a lot. The other thing is once, I'm working on projects after that sort of introductory level I'm really working with our engineering and solutions teams as well as our finance teams, and then the customer and their.

Backend folks, whether it's their engineers or their finance folks. And then we really start to get into solutioning where we've identified the site, we've identified the need, we think we have the solution to do it, and then we start going in and making tweaks. So , we get information from the customer, like you know, their proximity to their, and availability of, their fuel source, what their avoided grid rates are, if that's . What we're moving forward on and reducing their cost basis, or site specific requirements, whether they are just a standard CHP application or if they're, and sorry for [00:21:00] anyone who's not an energy nerd, CHP stands for Combined Heat and Power. But , if they're a standard CHP application, electric only, or if they want to go steps further like getting into, hydrogen production or if they want to take a look at some of the carbon solutions that fuel cell has for further decarbonization. So the solutioning component is honestly probably tied for my favorite part of the job after just getting to meet people on a, a daily basis. And then aside from that, it's a lot of external meetings, either visiting customers, going to conferences. And then the internal housekeeping stuff. So there really isn't the standard day in the life. It, fluctuates a lot, but I like it. It keeps me on my toes. I feel like I'm always learning.

Kiersten: Good place to be on your toes. That is, speaking of keeping people on. Their toes. Do you have any sustainability mentors? I know you mentioned your college professors, but anybody else that really like pushed you towards sustainability or [00:22:00] enlightened you and kept you on your toes otherwise?

Peyton Ridland: yeah, of course. So. There's, several. Honestly,, I've enjoyed collecting mentors. I used to be scared of asking people to mentor me, but I, quickly found out that people really enjoy mentoring and they get a lot out of it. Which now just encourages me to try and seek help from as many people as possible while of course valuing their time. A few that stand out to me one would be a different college professor all the way back in, in undergrad. His name was Alan Leon, he was a, a STEM entrepreneurship professor of mine at UDub. And he was. the nicest professor I ever had. He would host office hours on Saturdays at a board game cafe.

He would basically post up, shop at a table with games and he would offer to pay for any student to come whether that be for coffee or for food. And even if it wasn't to get help for [00:23:00] classwork, even if it was just to hang out and talk, he was, a great motivator in the classroom. He was one of those professors where if you didn't take the time to really do the work and meet with him and understand what the class was really about you, you would not do well.

And so he was very polarizing. Either people loved him or would immediately drop outta the class or just hope they could scrape by. And I initially was probably in that second camp. Then I was like, you know, maybe , I should meet with him. And then I was I was converted, but was great.

, He really pushed me to pursue sustainability in the entrepreneurship vein and try and be on the cutting edge of technology. he encouraged me to go to Northwestern. He actually helped me with my, my application. And we kept in touch for a while after I left the university, but. About a month after graduating from Northwestern he did pass away from a long battle with cancer. [00:24:00] So I'm really honored that I got to have him as a mentor and as a professor and, and honestly as a friend. And I know he helped a lot of other people during his time at UDub and, and elsewhere.

So I wanna give a special shout out to him and anyone else that might be listening that has, has worked with him in the past. Another that who's not a professor would probably be Jim McNerney. He used to be the CEO of Boeing, actually, so you can probably understand why I was glued to him as an aerospace nerd. I quite literally showed up to his front door when I was 12 or 13 years old with a list of questions I wanted to ask him because I was writing a term paper on Boeing's history and. He was very graceful and I think he was waiting for me to ask like, what your favorite plane is, or something like that. And instead I had like 30 or 40 questions that were pretty detailed. And unfortunately I made him stop watching the hockey game that he had been watching and sit down with me in his office for [00:25:00] about an hour to hammer out those questions. And ever since then, I've kept in contact with him. He's been really helpful in helping me make the best decisions possible in an analytical way on everything from school to moving and career pivots and, and just large life decisions. And we still talk regularly. I think I spoke to him last about a week ago. So , he's been awesome and again, really grateful to be able to call on someone as wise as him.

Aparna: I like how you've been collecting these mentors. It's like a little stack of cards, right? Who am I gonna call on today? Is it gonna be Jim? Is it gonna be. Mark and definitely wanna say rest in peace to Alan, and I'm so happy that you were able to have his mentorship for the period of time that you were at school and beyond.

So Peyton, fun question coming up for you. Now, switching gears a little bit, we're wondering if you're able to create a utopian world by making one major policy [00:26:00] change to accelerate the energy transition, what would your policy change? B and why?

Peyton Ridland: Oh boy, I wish I had that magic wand. I might not be able to restrict myself to just one thing, which would be dangerous. But for the sake of this conversation, I will restrict myself to one thing globally. I think we really need to take better care of our oceans. I think we need more. International consensus on protecting our oceans and enforcing any laws and regulations that are put in place. I feel that our maritime law system is already incredibly murky which is really scary considering how critical our oceans are to our wellbeing on the planet. you know, we're already seeing ocean acidification from the absorption of more atmospheric CO2. already seeing negative impacts on marine ecosystems as a result of that we dump so much waste into the ocean either purposefully or accidentally as it flows through our [00:27:00] rivers and, and waterways out to the ocean. And, that obviously has its impacts on marine ecosystems as well as humans. We're already pushing the marine ecosystems to their limits with over harvesting from a largely unregulated commercial fishing industry. We're also at the same time finding new deposits of oil and gas and critical minerals and metals offshore, which could be pretty disastrous if we don't have the right rules in place to regulate and restrict irresponsible exploitation of those resources. that's not to say all doom and gloom, but I think that's one of the largest sustainability topics that goes largely unspoken. So if I could wave a magic wand, it'd be that we could a agree on a set of responsible international rules and regulations, and then agree on ways of enforcing them.

Kiersten: It's a fantastic answer and not really the direction I was expecting you to go, but [00:28:00] that makes me appreciate it all the more going back a little bit to the listener mindset, because we don't have magic powers, despite wishing that we could be benevolent dictators, I also relate to like just one. I could make so many positive changes if I had all the power in the world. but being a little bit more practical if someone wanted to do what you do. After listening to the episode today, what is something that you would recommend, be it a skill or a certification or just some advice to someone that wants to get into the space that you work in? 

Peyton Ridland: Of course. , First of all, please reach out to me on LinkedIn and if you have any questions or ever want to chat, it can be about fuel cells, it can be about electrolyzers carbon capture. It can be about the ocean. know. It can be about anything. I'm always happy , to talk my, virtual door is, is always oPEM. But second, for people that are interested in getting into the sustainability space. As transparently as I can say it, [00:29:00] it more challenging now to get in than it would've been not so long ago, I really hope that it doesn't dis from from coming in. I also don't think you need a sustainability degree to get into the space of sustainability or energy. . At my company, we have people who pivoted from. Oil and gas into low carbon solutions. We have people that pivoted from the arts. Culinary sciences. We have people who came from HR and just have good people skills , and that's really all you need , to get into the field. You don't need a master's degree, even though I will defend the degree I got from Northwestern to the very end. It's not necessary to get your foot in the door. That's one thing I really learned from our cohort actually at Northwestern, is that, the more diverse of a background you have, that just means you're bringing in more skill sets to new opportunity. 

Aparna: Thank you for the advice and I'm sure everyone listening is gonna say the exact same thing. And [00:30:00] listeners, we will be linking Peyton's LinkedIn in the show description . So as he said, please feel free to reach out to him.

He is great to talk to you about all things energy, sustainability, especially fuel cells, and now also saving our oceans , it's great to know that. Anyone from a diverse background can come in and do this kind of work.

And you yourself, you have , an education and environmental science. You have a master's in energy sustainability, and you've dedicated your career and schooling thus far to the betterment of the environment, and you're actively working to get greener, cleaner generation sources on the grid right now. So thinking 50 years in the future.

When you look back, what is the legacy you hope to leave behind through your work?

Peyton Ridland: Oh, that's a heavy question. But really the philosophy I just go by is I want to leave the planet just a little bit better than I found it. And that chasing perfection. Leads to failure, especially in our industry. You can really [00:31:00] get stuck in that analysis paralysis and that can do more harm than moving forward with maybe an imperfect solution that does some good. so really just getting out there and doing something that is a step in the right direction is what's important. And when we have billions of people. Inching in the right direction at the same time. when you really start to see those positive feedback loops form that that build on one another leading to that sustainable future.

Kiersten: yes, a little bit , better than you found it. Great ethos to live by. I think a lot of what I think about the world has been informed by things I read and listen to, and I love it when there's an action step in those things that I read and listen to, to help me know how to make it a little bit better. So for our listeners, after listening to you, the action step that they can maybe take is reading or listening or talking to you, right? So do you have. Any documentaries, books, or other resources that you would recommend listeners check out? 

Peyton Ridland: [00:32:00] Oh yeah, tons. My library is really nerdy. It's all sciencey STEM stuff. That's. bad. So I, definitely have some books I'd recommend to all the other nerds out there, potential nerds. If you're interested in the hydrogen space and really want to drink the hydrogen Kool-Aid, I'd recommend the Hydrogen Revolution by Marco Olvera.

it's a green and blue book with a hydrogen atom on the front, so you'll, recognize it, but it really shows the potential for a low carbon. Hydrogen future, it's definitely idealistic. So you have to take it with a grain of salt, but think it really paints a good picture of what our future could look like if we really utilize low carbon hydrogen. And also it is shocking how much energy we use to make something that's made out of the most common elements in the universe. . . On the other hand, if you're interested in CO2, a similar of book would [00:33:00] be the story of CO2 by Jeffrey Ozon and Morere. it's a great book on various ways to utilize CO2, which is shockingly abundant and in short supply, if that makes any sense.

But the book will explain it. It's a great book. It's an interesting read, and it's not a long read, and you don't need to have a technical background to understand. The topics it goes through. And then lastly, for a more generalist book, I'd probably have to go with Drawdown by Paul Hawkin. for anyone that's interested and doesn't necessarily even wanna buy the book, they have a really great website. So definitely check out the Drawdown website.

Aparna: Thank you for the books, Peyton. Have senior library can attest so much science and there are a lot of really fun stuff to nerd out about.

And I think these three are great for anybody just to get started, especially draw down. That's one of the most interactive websites I've ever played around on. I think that brings us to the end of our episode, but thank you so much for your time. Thank you for [00:34:00] sharing your knowledge and really helping us teach everyone what a fuel cell is, how.

Folks can interact with them and sharing advice for folks who want to get into the sustainability space and seek mentorship to do so. It's been great chatting with you and we've learned a lot and I got a lot to Google.

Peyton Ridland: I really appreciate you having me on. I really tried. To have some self-control because sometimes it's a runaway chain reaction. So I'm glad I didn't ramble for too long and I apologize if I actually did. But I really enjoyed being on and talking shop about fuel cells, sustainability and everything else.