We are down here on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange with our third guest of the broadcast.
Say hello to Dr.
Rebecca Boudreaux, president and CEO of Oberon Fuels.
It is really nice to have you down here.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate the invitation.
An energy company that makes a cleaner fuel with, I would say, some surprising uses.
This one really jumped out to me.
For instance, aerosol propellants.
Yes, what does that mean for a company's emissions profile?
Yes, so aerosol propellants is something we don't think about, but it was actually an innovation.
That came out of World War II.
So when the soldiers were, uh, combating malaria, they developed an aerosol to spray mosquito spray on the troops, saving their lives of malaria.
So now we may even remember back in the COVID pandemic, we were spraying everything that would move with Lysol.
Well, that's an aerosol, and you can actually make it out of waste from trees.
Uh, so we are doing that with renewable DME.
Uh, you brought us something.
This is very cool.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, dimethyl ether.
You nailed it.
What is it all?
I, I, science was a, a, a decent topic of mine, but not my strongest subject in school.
What is it all about?
So dimethyl ether, or we call it DME for short.
So in the middle, the red is an oxygen.
The two black circles are carbon.
On the outside you have hydrogen, and this molecule, you can make it from any carbon source.
You can make it from tree waste.
You can make it from animal manure, all kinds of different sources, and you, and can use it as a fuel as well as you can use it as an aerosol propellant.
Commercial production of this, at least in a renewable way.
Why does that matter?
Talk to us about the significance of that development.
Yeah, it's significant because industries continue to innovate, right?
So we started from World War II and, uh, helping soldiers combat malaria, and now we're talking about how can we do this better.
Innovation keeps doing things in a better way and so making it from trees.
So when you use these products, companies like L'Oreal, who announced that we're part of their incubator, um, are, we were selected as one of 1000 companies globally.
That they'll be testing our renewable ingredients for their products.
I'm glad you mentioned the L'Oreal news because I was wondering to what degree the luxury market is committed to finding sustainable solutions.
So what should people know there about the relationship and the work a brand like L'Oreal is trying to do to improve the general space?
Yes, L'Oreal is doing amazing work.
They put over €100 million to work for a new accelerator program to help renewable innovations, whether it's in packaging or molecules, chemicals to. reached a commercial market and they're really committed to this.
We're also working with AirPress, one of the US leading distributors and manufacturers of aerosol propellants and refrigerants, and they're continuing to innovate and just announced a new line of renewable propellants including DME.
That's amazing.
Congratulations on the work and the well deserved recognition from L'Oreal.
Uh, before I let you go, what does corporate ESG targets or ESG compliance look like even over, over the course of the next few years, let's say between now and 2030?
Yeah, so, you know, as we start, we think about ESG, how are companies doing better, reducing emissions at Oberon, we're really committed to providing a lot of different solutions.
Uh, we convert waste to value.
Renewable DME is one of them, but we're finding other ways with methanol, hydrogen, natural gas, so helping companies reach their goals.
Doctor Rebecca Boudreaux, president and CEO of Oberon Fuels, thanks for bringing the little toys by.
It's great to have you and thanks for joining the broadcast.
Thank you so much, JD.
