On this video clip from “The Excessive Power Present” on Motley Idiot Reside, recorded on Feb. 1, Idiot contributors Jason Corridor, John Bromels, and Travis Hoium share their ideas on components that might maintain renewable pure gasoline from seeing additional progress within the trucking trade and different utility firms.

Jason Corridor: That is my huge concern with it Travis, Johnny, I am nonetheless calling you Johnny since you’re Johnny Energy at this time.

John Bromels: That is high-quality. That is my identify.

Corridor: Like it. The problem with Clear Power Fuels (NASDAQ:CLNE) previously, at the same time as they’ve grown their money flows, there’s been loads of dilution. Issuing a ton of shares on a budget to repay all that debt that it raised to construct all these stations. Then there is a partnership it has with Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), with Amazon has some warrants and fairness with Complete (NYSE:TTE). Complete is its largest investor due to a deal they did with trucking. I imagine that that is going to occur to a point. To some extent, that is going to occur and it should develop the corporate’s money flows and earnings. My concern is on a per-share foundation. What’s it going to appear to be? How a lot competitors goes to be there? How a lot market share are they going to have the ability to seize? They mainly received the market now, they personal it. How a lot are they going to have the ability to maintain and the way a lot of it’s going to be at a per-share investor foundation? Travis.

Travis Hoium: The most important query that I’ve right here is similar factor as once we talked about hydrogen versus electrical 10 years in the past. That was when Toyota (NYSE:TM) was all-in on hydrogen. Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) stated that you just’re completely incorrect, electrical is the long run. Tesla clearly received that. I’ve the identical questions from a expertise standpoint with the trucking trade. I do know that electrical vans do not make any sense at this time.

Corridor: In a really small group of functions they work, however usually over-the-road, you are completely proper. They do not work.

Hoium: Lengthy haul trucking, they sometimes don’t make any sense.

Bromels: Rocky Prime has pointed that out within the Slido by the way in which.

Hoium: Sure, it has been identified. However the query is, and that is a part of my engineering background, is as we pour more cash into R&D in each batteries and hydrogen is the opposite factor to herald that quite a few individuals have requested about, is there going to be extra development in these areas that make electrical energy because the gasoline supply extra worthwhile earlier than mainly renewable pure gasoline can get sufficient market share to be significant?

I feel that’s basically the query, and it is all the time been the query with these gasoline modifications, is are you able to mainly get down that adoption curve quick sufficient that you just’re simply going to have the ability to outspend all people else? Batteries have received within the client units. That was not one thing that was clear 10 years in the past. The place are we going to be 10 years from now on this area? That is my greatest query.

Bromels: Properly, I am guessing what Jason goes to say might be the path that I might put at it. I take a look at it not a lot as a the place is the demand going to be, the place is the expertise developments going to be on a car standpoint. I take a look at it from a, no matter what occurs within the expertise or the car standpoint, we’re nonetheless going to be making loads of methane from farms, from landfills. We’ll be producing methane, we’ll need to do one thing with that methane. I feel that is truly what’s going to drive this, is the necessity to determine what to do with all this methane. Perhaps Jason’s going to say one thing completely different.

Corridor: No, I feel that is largely a part of it. I feel the query is, the place within the worth chain is it going to suit? Clear Power Fuels are saying, we will use RNG to do something. We are able to use it to place in automobiles to run on it as a gasoline supply, we will run by a hydrogen reformer, and put it in hydrogen automobiles. Really, they have a partnership with one in all their oldest clients, Foothill Transit to construct a hydrogen station for his or her gasoline cell buses. They’re type of within the combine there. Then they’re saying, “Properly, we will promote it to an influence era.” There you go.

Hoium: The optionality is mainly that their vertical stack isn’t in the end the worth, it is the gasoline that comes out of the farms.

Corridor: Precisely. The factor is that to a sure extent, it makes me marvel, is their station footprint, how sturdy of a aggressive benefit is that going to show? As a result of on the finish of the day, you are not going to ship RNG to each station to generate electrical energy that is going straight to the batteries. You going to promote that RNG into the grid. You are going to promote it to a utility that is utilizing it to energy their energy gen, that kind of factor. You are going to promote it. Perhaps you will function hydrogen reformers. Perhaps you will do this. However these are type of issues that work greatest at scale.

Travis, that is one thing you will know higher than me. Wind and photo voltaic, we proceed to see the associated fee curve get higher on the associated fee per watt of the {hardware} and producing electrical energy. You are not going to see the identical advantages of scale and technological enhancements with RNG popping out of landfills or popping out of dairy farms. My query is at what level can it not compete with photo voltaic or wind for hydrolyzed, proper?

Hoium: For hydrolysis. In the event you take a look at Bloom Power (NYSE:BE), what they’re calling their renewable hydrogen is powered by wind and photo voltaic. You are precisely proper. My subsequent query is, is it much less environment friendly to take subsidies apart? Is it much less environment friendly to provide methane for a dairy farm, put it in a generator, produce electrical energy, than it’s to only acquire that electrical energy from a wind farm or photo voltaic farm? You are proper, prices maintain coming down for wind and photo voltaic. Photo voltaic particularly is essentially the most considerable vitality supply we now have on the planet. My bias is simply how these are going to be the bottom prices efficiency of vitality, however that is an fascinating use case for positive.