Renewable Energy Pavilion

Synopsis: The hydrogen economy and the role of carbon capture, utilization and storage is big news today. Many governments, corporations — including non-profits — academia and the general public support efforts to address global warming and climate concerns and this has led to a significant projected increase in hydrogen use and a bigger role for CCUS globally in the future energy mix as we transition to a low carbon economy by 2050. A predicted 2.4 C increase in the average global surface temperature by 2100 – greatly exceeding the Paris Climate Accord targets — is also a cause of great concern to mitigate global weather and related catastrophic events.

Fossil fuels — mostly natural gas — will remain the primary source of hydrogen by 2050, and the oil and gas industry with its unique skills, resources and experience can play a major role in this energy mix transition. Renewable energy sources from wind, solar etc. are also expected to play a bigger role in efforts to decarbonize other industry sectors.

This presentation will cover the production and uses of hydrogen in various industry sectors, its health and safety risks, a brief look at the future hydrogen economy, a listing of the CCUS projects that are currently active or planned globally, and the challenges in massively scaling up the hydrogen economy.

SPEAKER BIO

Talib Syed received a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Madras, India, and a master’s degree in petroleum engineering from the University of Oklahoma. He is a Registered Petroleum Engineer in Colorado and Wyoming. Syed started his oilfield career with ARAMCO – Saudi Arabia and has U.S. and international experience — both onshore and offshore. He is a Society of Petroleum Engineers Distinguished Lecturer on Life Cycle Well Integrity (2020-21), previous SPE Denver Section Chair – HSES/Facilities (2020-21) and currently serves as SPE member-at-large carbon capture, utilization and storage technical section. He is a member of SPE, American Association of Drilling Engineers, European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers, Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission and Ground Water Protection Council.

Synopsis: The proof of work consensus mechanism used to secure the Bitcoin protocol requires significant amounts of energy. Bitcoin miners are incentivized to seek out low cost, and oftentimes stranded, energy assets. Come learn how the energy industry and Bitcoin mining create new economic opportunities and unlock stranded and wasted energy.  

SPEAKER BIOS

Lee Bratcher is the president and founder of the Texas Blockchain Council and a faculty member at Dallas Baptist University teaching international relations and blockchain courses. The Texas Blockchain Council is an industry association with more than 65 member companies that seeks to make Texas the jurisdiction of choice for blockchain innovation. He is also a captain in the U.S. Army reserves working as tech scout for the 75^th Innovation Command that supports Army Futures Command.

Bratcher was awarded a master’s degree in international relations from St. Mary’s University and is in his sixth year as a Ph.D. candidate at UT Dallas. He lives in Richardson, Texas, with his wife Becca and their two daughters.

Collin Bird is president and CIO of AIC Holdings — a diversified asset manager and sister company to Jetta Operating, a privately held energy company based in Fort Worth, Texas. Since joining AIC in 2017, Bird has utilized a macro framework to thematically focus on energy, natural resources and distributed ledger technology. A majority of his time is now focused on growing Jetta’s bitcoin mining efforts in West Texas. Prior to AIC, he spent four years working in corporate development at Jetta and began his career in investment banking with Stephens Inc. and the Bank of Nova Scotia. He graduated from Vanderbilt University with majors in engineering and economics and received a master’s degree in finance.

Synopsis:

Energy Transition: Why net-zero is good for business. We will discuss the impact of energy transition on the financial health, competitiveness and ESG metric of companies with a focus on the oil and gas sector.

Tax Equity: We will discuss the opportunities to invest in renewable energy facilities to earn tax credits (to drive additionality) in conjunction with acquiring renewable energy credits to offset scope 2 emissions or receive carbon offsets and meet RE100 goals and the impact of tax equity policy on the markets addressing PTC, ITC, 45Q and supply/demand dynamics for projects and investors.

SPEAKER BIOS

Joan Hutchinson is managing director, offtake advisory, based out of Marathon Capital’s San Francisco office. Hutchinson focuses on advising corporate clients in setting and meeting sustainability goals including energy offtake agreements, carbon reduction and energy transition strategies. She also advises developers on physical and financial offtake agreements to support financing and enhance project value. She has advised Nestlé, TC Energy and Tokyo gas on recent sustainability initiatives.

Hutchinson has over 25 years of experience in North American energy markets and renewable energy project development. Before joining Marathon Capital, she was vice president of origination and business development at Ørsted A/S where she led the origination for wind, solar and storage projects resulting in over 1600 MW of transactions in three years. Many of the transactions she completed were power purchase agreements with first-time corporate buyers.

Prior to Ørsted, she was SVP origination and marketing for Ridgeline Energy responsible for negotiating contracts for the sale of power and renewable energy credits from renewable projects, leading solar development and the acquisition of wind and solar projects. She also was director origination at Citigroup Energy and held various origination and trading positions with Powerex, Inc.

Hutchinson received a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Victoria in Victoria, B.C. and holds her Series 79 license.

Matt Shanahan is a managing director at Marathon Capital and leads the firm’s tax equity practice. He has over 25 years of experience in structuring, syndication and management of large, complex corporate finance transactions.

Since joining Marathon in 2010, Shanahan has closed over $3 billion of tax equity related transactions in the solar and wind sectors including partnership flips, sale-leasebacks and tax-advantaged restructurings.

Before joining Marathon Capital, Shanahan held senior investment banking positions at The CIT Group, Newcourt Credit Group, Bank of America Leasing and Capital Group and The Deerpath Group. In those positions, he was responsible for structuring and syndicating U.S. domestic tax leases, U.S. project finance leveraged leases, U.S. and U.K. cross-border tax leases, partnership financings and structured debt financings. Throughout his career, he has focused on tax-based financings in the energy and transportation sectors including those for hydroelectric, geothermal, natural gas, solar, wind, coal generation facilities, Section 29 tax credit monetization, rail operating leasing partnerships and corporate and commercial aircraft.

Shanahan received a bachelor’s degree in economics from Kenyon College and an MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. He holds his Series 7, 24, and 63 licenses.