Remy Blaire: As global delegates gather for Climate Week in New York, the conversation around industrial decarbonization is shifting from abstract emissions targets to hard commercial realities.
While heavy industries like steel account for 8% of global carbon emissions, they operate on slim margins in fiercely competitive global markets, where any green premium can destroy profitability.
At the same time, exploding power demand from AI data centers and electrification is squeezing energy grids, making electricity-intensive hydrogen production increasingly impractical.
Well, joining us live here at the New York Stock Exchange is Parker Meeks, CEO and President of Utility Global.
Great to have you here. Thank you so much for joining us.
Parker Meeks: Thanks for having me. We really appreciate it.
Remy Blaire: Well, Climate Week is underway here in New York City as the U.N. General Assembly high-level meetings take place.
But when it comes to what's happening in energy, give us your perspective.
Parker Meeks: So energy is changing. Energy is shifting.
At this point in time, we need all forms of energy to come to bear. We certainly still need oil and gas. We need electricity. We need hydrogen. We need different forms of molecules and electrons to make the world go.
So we're seeing a world where scarcity of power, scarcity of oil and gas, is driving issues and change.
It's an energy landscape which provides the opportunity for new technologies like ours to come to market, to prove that economically, we can add to the energy balance and make the energy system stronger.
Remy Blaire: And Parker, you bring up a very important point, because as Climate Week talks take place here in New York City, there's also concern about the lack of energy, especially as artificial intelligence remains a key theme, a key technology, as well as a key investment here.
So give us your perspective on what AI is doing.
Parker Meeks: AI is changing people's lives. It's making lives better. It's something that we're still understanding how powerful it can be.
But it's clear AI is here to stay. But with AI comes a need for loads and loads of power, right? Lots of electricity. Electricity, frankly, we don't have.
So I think it's really important that the electrons go where they're supposed to go.
That challenges other forms of energy. Green hydrogen from clean power, really challenging for me to see a lot of electrons going to that form of hydrogen when we need it to go to just power data centers.
So that's why we're excited to be a technology that doesn't require electricity, one that can add energy to the grid, add energy to the system, while allowing those electrons to flow where they need to go, which is data centers for AI.
Remy Blaire: And Parker, for our viewers out there, walk us through your technology and also give us your perspective on retrofitting.
Parker Meeks: Yeah. So quite simply, at Utility Global, we're proud to add economic value to heavy industry, to steel, refining, chemicals, existing assets, critical assets where they're operating on tight margins.
You mentioned before, tight margins in steel are a real challenge. They want to decarbonize. They want to take carbon out of their facilities, but they can't do it with a green premium.
So our technology attaches and fully integrates to a steel mill, to a refinery, and is able to first add value, to take gases that are low-value gases to basically create hydrogen without power, to give it back to that facility to use on-site, and a cost structure which makes sense to allow us to take up to 4 million tonnes of CO₂ a year out of the steel plants without changing the cost of steel.
So we're proud to be able to integrate with our customers, with leading companies in the world in steel, refining and chemicals, to help them first add value from their emissions, add value from the gases that already exist, future-proof assets that we need, and to allow them to also take carbon out.
Remy Blaire: And I want to hone in on one key word that you mentioned, and that is opportunity.
So where are you seeing opportunity, not just in the short term or medium term, but also in the long term?
Parker Meeks: It's really exciting. Lots of opportunity.
We're with large customers who want to economically decarbonize their asset base.
Asia, it's a huge market for us. We're a first mover in Asia in the steel industry.
So Japan is really committed to their Vision 2050. Japan is committed to taking carbon out. Again, it has to be economic. And we're showing that. We expect projects announced in Japan soon.
India as well. India we're quite excited by. It's a market that's growing.
If you think about it, we can take 4 million tonnes a year out of an at-scale blast furnace of CO₂. There are 150 blast furnaces operating in India today.
It's a massive market opportunity. It's a massive emissions sink, and it's one that we're excited to have first projects going in there soon.
Europe is next. Europe's the next place for us. We're expanding in Europe. They have carbon trading schemes which provide an environment for economics to be even better.
So we're excited about Asia. We're excited about Europe.
We do have projects here in the U.S. as well. It's a bit slower because of the regulatory environment here, but essentially, where you have blast furnaces, refineries, where you have ambition to take carbon out but a requirement to be value-adding, that's where we are focused.
Remy Blaire: Yeah. And you mentioned the regulatory landscape here, but I do want to get your perspective when it comes to some of the challenges. How are you addressing them?
Parker Meeks: So the challenges with regulations really is understanding them. Where are they today? Where are they going?
The biggest challenge with a regulatory environment is change, right?
So when you think about long-term governments committed to a thesis on decarbonization, on value-add, you know, Europe, for instance, has stayed committed to taking carbon out.
The timelines are shifting. The timelines are questioned. But it appears to us and to our customers that Europe will decarbonize.
And as long as we have a solution which doesn't need subsidy at scale, which we don't, we are a technology that they can adopt. And then the value comes whenever the carbon tax comes.
Asia, long-term perspective on countries like Japan, South Korea, are committed to the long-term vision of decarbonizing, again, where it makes sense.
The U.S., there's been a lot of change, right? I was at a company that was in hydrogen before Utility under an environment, in a regulatory perspective, that was very committed to going clean.
Now there is still opportunity for us because we still have carbon capture credits. We still have some subsidies that can make projects happen here.
But it's really about understanding what is the long-term commitment? To your point, what is the short-term opportunity and path?
And most importantly, for technologies like ours, the less you rely on subsidy, the better.
We don't rely on subsidy at scale. It's all about showing you can add value without subsidy, and then the regulatory environment becomes less of a blocker for you.
Remy Blaire: Well, Parker, I know you have a busy schedule here in New York.
I appreciate you joining us live here at the New York Stock Exchange. Thank you so much.
Parker Meeks: Thank you, Remy.
