David Burns | Hydrogen at Linde: From legacy to pioneering new tech

David Burns, VP of Clean Energy at Linde, sheds light on Linde’s journey in hydrogen from legacy to pioneering new tech.

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This article is part of the series: Hydrogen Innovators Podcast

Transcript

[00:00:00.49] [Music Playing]

[00:00:02.91] David Burns: We expect to invest something like $50 billion over the next 10 years or so in the clean energy space. And hydrogen is going to be a key part of that. So some companies view it as an existential issue. We kind of view it as a growth opportunity.

[00:00:20.79] Karen Baert: Dear listeners, welcome to this week's episode of The Hydrogen Innovators. Hydrogen Innovators is a podcast series that's produced by the Stanford Hydrogen Initiative, where we spotlight bold innovators in hydrogen all the way from academia to industry. Our podcast can be found as Hydrogen Innovators both on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

[00:00:44.08] I am Karen Baert, a recent Stanford MBA graduate, entrepreneur, and innovation strategist at the initiative. And I am really excited for our conversation this week because today, we have the privilege to welcome David Burns. David has a PhD in chemical engineering and an MBA and has multiple decades of experience in chemicals and gases.

[00:01:07.54] He currently is a vice president of clean energy at Linde, and he's also a founding member of the World SEC Hydrogen Advisory Board. It seems like he has a lot of experience for a valuable conversation about hydrogen and all things related to that. So, David, welcome to the Hydrogen Initiative podcast.

[00:01:25.63] David Burns: Thanks, Karen. It's great to be here. Look forward to the conversation today.

[00:01:28.81] Karen Baert: So to set the stage, Linde has been in the hydrogen business for over 100 years now, right? Sometimes people forget there's a lot of buzz around hydrogen today, but hydrogen has been around for a long time. And so Linde has a lot of experience with gray or natural-gas-based hydrogen.

[00:01:45.53] Now, you specifically lead the efforts when it comes to clean hydrogen. Reading project announcements, I read everything from electrolysers, green hydrogen, blue hydrogen, and even hydrogen-powered ferries, so specific applications for hydrogen. So it seems like it is really very active across the value chain. Can you provide us a little bit of an overview on what's going on at Linde related to clean hydrogen?

[00:02:12.55] David Burns: Sure. As you said, Linde been involved in hydrogen for over 100 years. We've built that into a $3 billion business today. And so about 99% of that is what is called gray and a little bit of clean hydrogen. But we've built this kind of business around hydrogen, for the most part, goes into clean fuels. I guess what was called clean fuels, which is low-sulfur diesel, et cetera.

[00:02:41.26] Clean fuels has a different connotation now. But over the last couple of decades, meeting low-sulfur diesel, et cetera, required a lot of hydrogen. Before that, hydrogen was a key feedstock in a lot of chemical applications, et cetera. So over the years, we've built quite a strong business around hydrogen. We've got some key strongholds, such as in the US Gulf Coast, in Europe, in Asia, et cetera.

[00:03:08.26] So what we've been looking at more recently is hydrogen seems to be a great way of helping decarbonize. We all obviously hear a lot about renewable energy and how we should electrify everything as much as possible, and we agree with that. There's some applications where you can't do that. So we think hydrogen has a key role in helping decarbonize-- one of the better word is hard to abate sectors.

[00:03:34.69] And so we've been kind of pivoting away from the old gray hydrogen, and we're now moving into what we call clean hydrogen. And we obviously talk about gray and blue and green. To some extent, we're trying to get away from the colors. And so it's a good handle to help describe where the hydrogen is coming from. But really, the key thing is, what's the carbon footprint? What's the carbon intensity of that hydrogen?

[00:03:57.31] So we're focused particularly-- in the way of getting started very quickly at scale, we're doing a lot of projects around blue hydrogen, which is essentially gray hydrogen with carbon capture and sequestration, where we build out the technology and the experience with the electrolysers to be able to make green hydrogen. So we're moving forward on both fronts. But some of the bigger projects-- all the bigger projects have been these blue hydrogen projects.

[00:04:24.76] The good thing is we can build off our decades of experience with hydrogen. We've been handling it safely, using it, transporting it, et cetera. We can build off that experience and also build off a lot of the infrastructure and the technologies and the equipment we build up to support our existing business. We can use that to really get a jump-start when it comes to moving quickly into clean hydrogen.

[00:04:48.43] And with a beginning of a very rapid ramp-up, we expect demand for clean hydrogen over the coming decades. And it's a key aspect, I think, of most decarbonization plans. Most rely on hydrogen, as I said, filling those gaps that you can't electrify, using hydrogen there. So we think we've got, again, the background, the capability, the infrastructure in place, the capability of using and handling it safely.

[00:05:18.17] We're going to take that experience and then use that to help catalyze and really move forward very quickly into the clean hydrogen space. So kind of excited what's going to come over the coming decades. We've had a long history, and we're going to continue to have a long-- well, it's going to be quite a long future. But we think we're going to be a key leader in hydrogen going forward here as well, clean hydrogen.

[00:05:42.40] Karen Baert: How does that play out? There's a completely new business unit, or how does the clean hydrogen efforts-- how do they link to the legacy hydrogen business at Linde?

[00:05:54.13] David Burns: Yeah, I mean, it's not really a new business. It's just more of a new focus. So we're using the experienced individuals, technologies, operators, et cetera, designers. We can use those same people to help us pivot from gray hydrogen, if you like, the old business, to this clean hydrogen in the future. So we can use the same people, same capabilities, same infrastructure, et cetera. So it's really the same business. It's just the focus is changing.

[00:06:23.72] Now, what we say is, to some extent, we're agnostic to the color of hydrogen that customers want. But to be honest, customers are looking for clean hydrogen today. So we're seeing that's where all the activity is. That's where all the project development work's going on. And that's where customers are demanding that we work with them to create the lowest cost clean hydrogen solutions we can.

[00:06:50.24] Karen Baert: So the elephant in the room is how we will transport our hydrogen, one of the most lucrative gases in the world. Linde knows a thing or two about transporting gases. What do you see as most effective transportation methods for hydrogen?

[00:07:07.31] David Burns: Around the world, we have about a thousand kilometers of pipeline, pure hydrogen pipelines today. So we always think for large volumes, the best way of moving hydrogen is as a gas in a pipeline. That's probably the simplest and most efficient economic way of moving hydrogen at volume.

[00:07:24.17] As we look at some of these new applications, particularly mobility, there'll be more small, discrete demand points for hydrogen. Unless you're lucky enough to be next to a pipeline, you need some way of getting smaller volumes to these sites economically. Alternatively, you could build an electrolyzer, say, at a small site as well.

[00:07:45.00] But what we feel is the best way of doing it is liquefying it, using trucks, potentially railcars to move hydrogen over 500-kilometer, 1,000-kilometer range by truck. So we see cryogenic liquefaction of hydrogen being one of those key ways of moving hydrogen regionally where there's not the pipeline infrastructure in place.

[00:08:12.95] We think eventually we'll start to see transcontinental movement of hydrogen as liquid as well. But that's maybe a decade or more away. There's a lot of new technology investment in new ships, ships that can carry liquid hydrogen at volume. A lot of people talk about, well, it's a bit like LNG, but it's a lot colder than LNG. It's minus 253 centigrade.

[00:08:37.98] So it's got some fresh challenges that LNG just didn't have. And LNG had to start somewhere, and the same way liquid hydrogen is starting now as well. But we're probably a decade-plus away from long-distance shipment of liquid hydrogen. But in the meantime, pipelines, using existing pipelines, converting natural gas pipelines where it makes sense, make sure the materials of construction are compatible with hydrogen, and then where to fill in the gaps in between the pipeline networks, use liquid hydrogen.

[00:09:14.33] So we think we can bring-- we started in liquid hydrogen in probably the '60s in a big way when we were looking to supply NASA, amongst others, with hydrogen. So we built quite a very-- I think we're the largest producer of liquid hydrogen around the world today and have some key technology around liquefaction.

[00:09:33.51] So we're kind of looking to leverage that, that experience we've built, again, with gray hydrogen over the years. We can do that for both green and blue going forward. So again, pipelines, it makes a lot of sense to use pipelines where you can. Where you can't, start using liquid, and eventually start looking at liquid hydrogen for long-distance transportation as well. So that's how we see it kind of developing.

[00:09:55.61] Karen Baert: Yeah, it's very interesting. And let's dive into that a little deeper. So on pipelines, you mentioned a couple of options. If we have hydrogen pipelines available, great. Alternative is blending hydrogen into natural gas pipelines. Another option is converting natural gas pipelines into hydrogen. And I guess the last option is building new hydrogen pipelines. What do you see there as best solutions, or how do you think this will play out in the future?

[00:10:26.27] David Burns: Yeah, I mean, obviously, we're looking to transition away from natural gas to hydrogen. So at some point there'll be an underutilized natural gas grid. And so we can just convert that to hydrogen where it makes sense, where, again, the materials of construction allow for that.

[00:10:43.00] In the interim, you can start looking at blending hydrogen into the grid. You hit kind of a bit of a challenge when you get above 10% or 15% because then some of the end users may not be able to handle that because hydrogen has a lot different flame characteristics than natural gas.

[00:11:00.30] So if you're blending hydrogen into natural gas and just using natural gas for heating, above a certain amount, you'll have to start changing out the burners and things like that. So that's kind of a natural limit, I guess, on blending. We've also developed some technology where you can extract hydrogen from a blend in a pipeline as pure hydrogen. So that's also one potential option going forward.

[00:11:22.17] But you've probably seen in Europe the hydrogen backbone being talked about, how that's going to be. And I think that's going to be a mixture of new pipe and converted pipe as well. So I think you start to see that as a way of getting hydrogen out into different industrial sectors as well as consumer sectors.

[00:11:44.36] And then maybe you'll start building next to pipelines regional liquefaction facilities then to be able to do the last mile or the last 100 kilometers, if you like. So we see pipelines playing a big role in the future, as they do today. In the industry today, there are refineries and chemical plants.

[00:12:04.42] They tend to be in clusters, and there's usually a hydrogen pipeline connecting them all together as well, like a utility. Today, as we go beyond just refining chemicals as the end users, we'll start to see new clusters and new networks developing as well. And I think they'll lean heavily on the existing natural gas infrastructure to do that to get started.

[00:12:26.50] Karen Baert: Right, because building out a completely new infrastructure in parallel with natural gas obviously isn't an easy task.

[00:12:33.25] David Burns: That's right.

[00:12:33.97] Karen Baert: And then let's talk a bit more about that long-distance transport, especially for ocean. You talked about liquefying hydrogen. So the key challenge there is that because hydrogen is a very freighted gas, you need to go to very low temperatures, minus 250 Celsius, to liquefy it.

[00:12:51.20] So I'm hearing a lot of potential challenges related to boil-off, and curious to hear your thoughts on that and also curious to hear your thoughts on comparing liquefied hydrogen for that long-distance transport versus using hydrogen derivatives to enable that transport, like liquid organic carriers, ammonia, et cetera.

[00:13:14.60] David Burns: Yeah. It's very interesting question. And we could spend probably all the podcast talking about this. But when you look at-- to use liquid hydrogen, the technology exists today. But I think you have the world's largest liquefier's about 35 tons in capacity. What we're looking at to have a viable export business built around liquid hydrogen, you need to be doing 500, 1,000 tons a day of liquefaction. So you need to build that capability of these very large liquefiers.

[00:13:47.83] And we've done the feasibility studies around 400 or 500 ton of liquefiers, which we think would be the base going forward. But you also then need to have the ships to be able to handle 5,000 tons of liquid hydrogen. You need very large storage tanks to handle the liquid hydrogen at both ends of the chain, both of the export terminals or the import terminal. That's just a case of building out that infrastructure. It's going to require a bit of new technology, I think, too. But I think for the most part it exists. We just need to scale up.

[00:14:22.58] When you talk about boil-off, as with LNG, with boil-off, you can leave liquefier, put it back into the tank, or you can use it as fuel on the ship, for instance. And also, you can look at improving insulation and reducing heat loss to minimize boil-off. But so we don't necessarily see boil-off as maybe the significant issue as others do. We think it's manageable with technology to keep that down to minimum rounds. And we expect to see that going forward.

[00:15:00.34] And when you look at other forms of moving hydrogen, liquid organic hydrogen carriers, for instance, interesting concept. But I think on a weight basis, it's like about 6% hydrogen. So for every 1,000 tons of liquid organic hydrogen carrier, you get 60 tons of hydrogen. Then you've got this kind of loop where you're moving a lot of mass around with that much hydrogen.

[00:15:27.88] There's other carriers, such as ammonia. We think ammonia has a role to play because you can build off the existing infrastructure for ammonia that there is today. Something like about 20 million tons a year of ammonia is moved around the world today by ship.

[00:15:47.02] So we think you could leverage that capability to move ammonia because ammonia is made with hydrogen and nitrogen, just simple Haber-Bosch process. So you use clean hydrogen, clean ammonia, and then you can move that over long distance using the existing supply chain.

[00:16:05.77] Now, maybe where we differ from some in the industry is we view ammonia as a great energy carrier, not necessarily a great hydrogen carrier. So make use of either a renewable energy or the low carbon hydrogen produced, in hydrogen produced from natural gas with sequestration. Make use of ammonia to transport that from those regions where you can produce it economically, whether it's US, Gulf Coast, Middle East, Australia, Chile, et cetera.

[00:16:35.44] Move that ammonia to where it's needed in Europe or Australia, in Japan or Korea. Move it to those locations, but then find uses for the ammonia as ammonia. So there's three big sectors or a couple of big sectors. One of them is using it in the power sector, so direct combustion. And in Japan, they're looking at co-firing with coal. There's some work around using ammonia directly in a gas turbine.

[00:17:02.42] And then there will probably be some applications for cracking ammonia back to hydrogen as well. But our perspective is if you're going to go to the trouble of thermodynamically as well as economically producing ammonia, find uses for that ammonia before you convert it back to hydrogen.

[00:17:19.67] In those cases where you still want to convert it back to hydrogen, we're looking at some technology to allow that to be done more efficiently. We're doing a pilot project, developing some pilot technology we're going to be implementing in Northern Germany on a pilot cracker to look at different catalysts.

[00:17:39.05] One of them is coming from Aramco. They think they have some novel technology. We're going to look at that as well as other technologies to see if we can come up with a better way of cracking ammonia. But first of all, use ammonia for those applications where you can use it directly. And that way, so back for low carbon hydrogen energy, not necessarily low carbon hydrogen.

[00:17:59.85] Another application, methanol. You can use e-methanol, again, use clean hydrogen in the production of methanol. The issue there seems to be finding-- because if you're going to make methanol, you need a carbon molecule, CO2. So you can take hydrogen and CO2 and make methanol. That's a great way of using clean hydrogen, also making use of CO2 that would allow [INAUDIBLE]. And particularly if you can find bio CO2, if you can find CO2 that's produced as a result of biomass combustion, et cetera, that'd be the best way of making methanol, clean methanol.

[00:18:37.59] And we see applications for that as an alternate shipping fuel as well, low carbon or low carbon intensity emission shipping fuel, just as the way that ammonia is. So yeah, again, we see a lot of opportunities for being able to move hydrogen long distances, liquid hydrogen in the future, 10, 15 years from now. You can do it today as ammonia. You can do it today as methanol. But there are some barriers to that at the moment. But we feel they're overcomeable.

[00:19:06.06] Karen Baert: Mm-hmm. So another way to reduce the cost of transportation for hydrogen is thinking about hydrogen supply chains in a more regional way. What if you can make sure that production, distribution, and usage is kind of co-located from a regional perspective? And that's what the US hydrogen hubs are optimizing for.

[00:19:29.00] So there were 20 proposals submitted for the final application, and Linde is an industry partner in at least three, if I'm correct, the Gulf Coast, Arizona, Great Lakes. Could you tell us a little bit more about how these hydrogen hubs will help us and why and how Linde is betting on them and contributing to them?

[00:19:49.20] David Burns: Yeah, and as you said, we led three hubs, submission of three hubs. And we participated in support letters, et cetera, in a number of others. So it's a great way and it's a great idea of the DOE there to try and catalyze the growth of these regional hubs. Because when you look at the US, you look at the US Gulf Coast, that is kind of a hub that grew organically, driven by demand and obviously then supply coming in to meet that.

[00:20:18.22] So what the DOE is doing is trying to catalyze and accelerate the growth of new hubs in new areas for new applications. So it's no longer refining in chemicals. It may be in steel. It may be in fuel switching, et cetera. So it also brings together interested parties who may be on the production side and demand side as well. So we'll start to see new hubs being developed around the country.

[00:20:45.60] The three we led, one was going to be using nuclear power for renewable production. One was going to be using solar for hydrogen production. That's always going to be based around CCS. And so different ways of producing hydrogen there. So I guess we're very interested to see who gets selected and which hubs get promoted going forward.

[00:21:11.18] But we see them as a great way of establishing new hubs more quickly and developing new hubs more quickly and getting a lot of interested parties into the same room to do that. And so that's why we've been excited to participate in these and, as I said, lead three of them. And so again, fingers crossed, we're hoping that we get selected to move forward and get funded.

[00:21:34.69] Karen Baert: That's, indeed, such a great way to avoid the chicken and the egg and move the industry forward. So we'll be on the lookout for more news along those soon. You collaborated with Reuters on a white paper where you talked about different key applications for hydrogen.

[00:21:51.76] Your number two, they mentioned, was heavy duty transport, and I believe our users are familiar with that. That was the first one. The second one you mentioned was on secondary industry on-site users. And number three was about regulatory-driven use cases. Personally less familiar with those. Can you tell us just a little bit more about the specific use cases?

[00:22:12.38] David Burns: Yeah, I mean, I think the secondary use case is-- I mean, I think what we're meaning is where there's a small on-site demand, like in an electronics application or something, semiconductor manufacturing. Putting a small electrolyzer on site is fairly straightforward. We're not talking about giga scale or major electrolysis facilities where you need a whole new infrastructure and power system, et cetera. But you can get started with a small electrolyzer to meet small needs of these kind of secondary users, if you like. That was kind of what we meant by that.

[00:22:44.12] And then regulation-driven use cases, particularly [INAUDIBLE], a lot of pressure to reduce CO2 footprints. And so really, regulation is driving it, also regulation and also costs associated with ETS, et cetera, and meeting-- where you're starting to-- under various cap and trade systems having to start paying for emissions, that's really leading to-- it is creating a bit more of an economic case for making that switch sooner.

[00:23:16.81] Because unfortunately, clean hydrogen is going to be more expensive to produce than traditional hydrogen. Particular in the US, blue is getting very close to the cost of gray production. But green is still higher than blue.

[00:23:35.84] So while we're seeing costs get reduced based on the scale-- and certainly in the US with the IRA is helping to bring costs down as well-- we're still looking at clean hydrogen being more expensive than its gray alternative. And so really, applications where the cost's associated with CO2 emissions, it helps make the economic case for conversion to capturing CO2 or using a cleaner hydrogen. So that's what we meant by that use case.

[00:24:08.27] And as you said, mobility is probably the first one to move, and we're seeing that today on the heavy duty sector in particular, trucks, buses, trains, ferries. That's where we see, I think, hydrogen being the first sector to really move. And I think we saw that even-- one we thought may be a few years away, steelmaking, green steel, clean steel. We're starting to see some interesting movements in that sector as well, which I think is all going to stimulate and increase demand for clean hydrogen.

[00:24:42.04] Karen Baert: Mm-hmm. Very interesting. So you have a good perspective on what hydrogen customers are looking for. Green hydrogen is still more expensive today. The DOE's target is $1 a kilogram, but I think we're not yet there. Indeed, the Inflation Reduction Act comes with up to $3 per kilo tax credits, which will definitely help. What do you see as the willingness to pay for green hydrogen for these first mover customers?

[00:25:09.69] David Burns: Yeah, to be honest, I think with all clean hydrogen derivatives, that the challenge is finding off-takers and finding off-takers willing to pay a premium. And, again, that's why you need some other incentives, such as we talked about various CO2 emission taxes and things like that, or incentives to help reduce costs. There's still the gap that we need to be bridging with incentives or costs.

[00:25:39.89] So what we're seeing is-- maybe as we've seen certainly in the last year or so, so hydrocarbon cost increase, the gap between clean hydrogen, and some of the hydrocarbon end uses narrowed. It's starting to widen again now. But we do see a case for, certainly in the US right now, a lot of interest in export-based projects around producing clean ammonia for export to Asia and also to Europe.

[00:26:09.16] So we're seeing those start to move. But mobility and export, those are the big ones at the moment. We see some interest in using hydrogen in the power sector. Obviously doesn't make sense to use power to make hydrogen by electrolysis just to make power again. But we see hydrogen as a way of storing energy.

[00:26:31.37] So when renewable energy is available in excess, demand is there. We can use that power to make hydrogen, and the hydrogen can then be used to make power when there's a shortage of power. So we see a lot of interest in that sector as well. But, again, there's still the challenge when it comes to customers willing to pay a significant premium for clean hydrogen versus conventional hydrogen or conventional energy, if you like.

[00:26:56.92] Karen Baert: On that note, as you mentioned, the energy landscape is really changing at light speed. And this comes with the need for incumbents and established companies to reinvent themselves. As VP of clean energy at Linde, you're very much at the forefront of that transition at the company. It's exciting. But I can see it also is a challenging process, and something that doesn't happen overnight. What principles do you rely on as a leader guiding the organization through this transition?

[00:27:26.52] David Burns: Yeah, obviously, any transition comes with challenges, right? But this is a little bit different, though, in that for the most part, everybody's behind the idea of decarbonization and sees the need to decarbonize, given the challenges we face with climate change. I think it's not really a debate anymore.

[00:27:48.23] So particularly with the wider community and new employees coming in, they're very excited to see that Linde is focused on clean energy and helping to solve the climate challenge. So I think in some ways, it's an easier change to get support, to get people behind you when you have are on the other side of it, obviously, a lot of good being done for society as a whole.

[00:28:19.69] We've always talked about in Linde that most of our products, a lot of our products help drive efficiency and help improve operations for consumers and companies. So I think it's our motto, I think, we are on our card, which is making our world more productive. So I think we believe that. That's a real kind of driving force behind Linde.

[00:28:47.99] And we see clean energy is just a key element of that. And so it's a change which is not requiring a lot of-- doesn't require a lot of, should we say, persuasion that this is a good path to be on and that we should be looking to transition away from gray hydrogen toward cleaner hydrogen, gray and blue, and also to look at carbon capture opportunities.

[00:29:12.26] And as I said, particularly with new employees, new generation coming into industry, they view this as being very positive. And I would have to say a lot of people who've been in industry for a long time also view this as being positive too. So it's not as typical a challenge, should we say, as some other changes which have to be driven through the organization.

[00:29:33.17] Karen Baert: That is a very powerful message, David, and also makes me very hopeful for the future. I'd like to end this podcast with a question that we ask every guest. And I have the strong belief that we all stand on the shoulders of giants who came before us, and to use the words of Isaac Newton, it's standing on their shoulders that makes us see further. And in that context and on that note, who inspires you? Who inspires you most and why?

[00:30:01.13] David Burns: Right, it's a great question. And I don't think it's a shoulder. I think there's been many shoulders that I've stood on over the years. Going back to primary school, there's teachers that inspire you, that show some belief in you, and all the way-- primary school to high school to university, et cetera. So a lot of teachers along the way who've kind of helped me make that transition.

[00:30:30.88] I could go through a lot of names here, people like Mrs. O'Connell or Mr. [INAUDIBLE] in primary school, people like Mr. Walker in high school, Professor Heggs at university. And then coming into the working field, it was your first job kind of thing. I think you always have a bit of that imposter syndrome as you come-- each transition from one school or one job to another, you always have that feeling that, am I really up to this?

[00:31:02.71] But then you have people who believe in you, really help you give you that confidence to meet the challenge, if you like, and excel. So certainly, when I came from the UK to the US, that was a big step as well. And so my first managers I had at work here in the US, people like Ted Cleetus or Ron [INAUDIBLE], people like that.

[00:31:29.44] And then as I moved from a technical research world into a business role, some of the business managers I work with who have an inspirational approach to business, people like Ralph Davies, can spoil people like that. So again, a lot of shoulders, probably more I haven't named here as well. But a lot of people along the way have helped. And then I think probably most important of all, people these days talk a lot about work-life balance, but that's always difficult to achieve.

[00:32:01.78] And so I think a lot of times, some sacrifices have to be made. And a lot of times, that's the family. Your family bears that challenge. So my wife and children, I would like to call out as being shoulders. They've really helped support me along on the journey here. And I think it's really interesting now, previous question about accepting change, et cetera. It's interesting, my children now are a lot more interested in the work I do than they were ever before.

[00:32:30.95] The idea that the work I'm doing now in clean energy is helping address climate change, I think they feel a lot more empathy for the work I'm doing now and interest in the work I'm doing than they ever did before in the old traditional chemical industry. So very long answer to a short question. And again, so many names I could have mentioned, so many shoulders I could have talked about standing on. But that's got me to where I am today, basically.

[00:33:02.87] Karen Baert: Many, many shoulders, indeed. David, I have to report that I still learn from you today. Thank you so much for your time.

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