Tucker Perkins discusses the origins of his ‘Path to Zero’ podcast and book

October 17, 2024 By    

Tucker Perkins, president and CEO of the Propane Education & Research Council, talks about the goals behind his “Path to Zero” podcast, now in its sixth season. The podcast led to his new book “Path to Zero: 12 Climate Conversations That Changed the World.”

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Transcription

I think if I was in the industry, sometimes I would look at a podcast and say, “Why didn’t he challenge them?” or “Why was it not more propane-specific?” And I would say two things: we do always have that conversation. Let me go back.

First, when we created the podcast, it was really designed to not necessarily be a pro-propane podcast, but really one about the energy conversation that was in front of us, and we talk about a lot of things that aren’t super relevant to us – nuclear fusion, nuclear fission, the whole concept of science and meteorology and carbon capture and new technologies. Many of them have not been applicable to propane, but many of them are.

I would say this: [with] every guest, we talk about how propane would work in their world either on the camera or off the camera.

And then with almost all the guests, we stay in some degree of follow-up communication, and some clearly are a bit, you know, one-shot – a lot of times about economic justice or environmental benefits, climate science, carbon science. We may stay loosely engaged with them, but particularly the guests that, you know, we see we can have a more informative conversation around how low-carbon fuels like propane or ultimately renewable propane fit. We’re engaging with them weekly, monthly and trying to change their opinions.

The frustrating part for me is, often that these people who are so dedicated to the environmental conversation in whatever their field, they’re thinking about electricity. They’re thinking about natural gas. But so many of them start our podcast with no concept of how propane can be a part of the solution.

In fairness, a year or two later, many of them have become advocates for renewable propane, for low-carbon, conventional propane and are helping us tell the story.

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