Enduring the Blast Furnace: Utility Global Runs the Long Hydrogen Race

The weather in Eugene, Oregon, in late September 1969 is unseasonably cold. Upper 40s, a sharp bite in the morning air. Fog lies heavy in the Willamette Valley, pressed down by a temperature inversion, cool air trapped beneath a warmer ceiling. The moisture condenses into a gray curtain, a veil between the runner and the world beyond. Out of this mist, Steve Prefontaine drives forward, all chest and fury, running not behind anyone but in front — a punishing pace, reckless to the cautious, inevitable to him. Too fast and you are a sprinter, burning out before the bell. Too slow and you are invisible, off the podium, forgotten. Pre chooses the only path that feels true: hammering through the fog, into the unknown, sustained not by strategy but by courage.

Fifty years later, hydrogen faces its own fog. The mist is not weather but confusion — over subsidies, policy roadmaps, and uncertain timelines. The pace is not a 5,000-meter race but the brutal search for the right scale, the right partners, and the right commercialization pathways. The wooded trails of Eugene become the backwoods of energy transition — brownfield sites, blast furnaces, and dairies where novel technology must prove itself under punishing conditions. Companies like ArcelorMittal want real decarbonization in this decade, not airy promises. But steelmaking is not built for speed, and hydrogen cannot be a sprint. It takes endurance, grit, and the willingness to run alone when others falter.

That’s where Utility Global appears out of the fog, built like a runner for the long race. The company’s edge begins with technology — its eXERO platform, a way to produce hydrogen from off-gases and water without electricity. From that technology flows commercial traction: projects in steel plants, biogas dairies, and mobility depots where the economics already work. From traction comes the partner edge: ArcelorMittal investing and testing in Brazil, Hanwha and Kunhwa backing projects in Korea, dairies in California signing up. And from technology, traction, and partnerships comes the final edge — a steady, deep-pocketed investor base, led by Ara Partners, that ensures the company can keep its punishing pace while others slow.

Edge One: Technology

For any endurance runner, lungs and legs come first. For Utility Global, the foundation is its eXERO / H2Gen platform. Where most hydrogen technologies lean on grid electricity to split water, eXERO does something startling: it converts industrial off-gases and water into a pure stream of hydrogen and concentrated CO₂ — without using electricity.

In one compact reactor, blast furnace gas becomes high-purity hydrogen. Biogas from dairies or landfills is stripped down directly, with no need to upgrade to pipeline-quality renewable natural gas. Inert gases, methane slip, CO₂ slip — all handled in stride. The design is modular, scalable, low-pressure, and small-footprint. Like Pre’s stride, it looks punishing, but it works.

This is “electrolysis without electricity” — a simplification so radical it cuts both cost and complexity. It takes entropy streams — the messy gases industry discards — and turns them into persistence fuel. Just as Pre’s physiology let him run through the mist when others faded, Utility Global’s technology lets it run where others stumble.

Edge Two: Commercial Traction

Technology by itself is promise. Traction is proof. Utility Global has logged miles where many others haven’t.

• Brazil: At ArcelorMittal’s Juiz de Fora plant, a FEED study is under way. Three tons per day of hydrogen will flow directly back into the steel process, displacing natural gas and lowering costs while the enriched CO₂ stream simplifies capture.
• California: Small, stranded biogas streams are notoriously uneconomic. Utility Global’s first dairy project not only monetizes these flows, but is expected to set the lowest carbon intensity score ever recorded in the state: minus 875. That earns a $12.75/kg LCFS credit, but the project works even before counting incentives.
• South Korea: With Hanwha and Kunhwa, the company is tackling mobility — converting landfill and wastewater gas into hydrogen for buses and trucks. South Korea’s roadmap calls for 300,000 hydrogen vehicles by 2030.
• India: With more than 150 blast furnaces, India is a steel superpower. Utility Global is starting there, leveraging off-take certainty before pivoting to mobility and industrial biogas.

Each of these projects is a race in its own right, and Utility Global is not jogging. It is testing itself in steel furnaces, dairy lagoons, and chemical complexes, showing that endurance is not a metaphor but a business model.

Edge Three: Partner Edge

In Eugene, Pre was famous for forcing the field to run his race. Utility Global is doing something similar — turning partners into participants.

ArcelorMittal is not just a customer, but an investor and host. Its XCarb Innovation Fund put capital into Utility’s Series C and opened its furnaces as proving ground. Hanwha and Kunhwa are not just Korean names on a slide deck — they’re committing to projects on the ground. California dairies are not just off-takers — they’re part of the economics.

This alignment is rare in hydrogen. Too many companies chase customers while begging for subsidies. Utility’s edge is that its partners are co-runners, buying in because the economics already clear. Pre once said he ran to make the other guy hurt first; Utility Global is running a pace that brings partners along because it works.

Edge Four: Investor Edge

Endurance also requires a sponsor, the deep pocket that carries the runner through training blocks and travel. For Utility Global, that role is played by Ara Partners, a private equity firm focused on industrial decarbonization. Ara has backed the company steadily, bridging from intellectual property to asset deployment.

Around Ara stand other heavyweights: OPG Pension Plan, ArcelorMittal, Aramco Ventures, Saint-Gobain. These are not momentum tourists. They are investors with patience and depth, aligned with the long race.

And then there is the team. CEO Parker Meeks came from commercial strategy, determined to build a company not dependent on subsidy. COO Derek Kramer scaled Archaea to a $4 billion BP acquisition. CCO Vladimir Novak has decades at Chevron and GE. Together, they are the coaching staff — veterans who know endurance is about building a team, not just a technology.

Pratfalls Avoided, Endurance Secured

Hydrogen has been littered with pratfalls. Overbuilt electrolyzers chasing subsidies. Projects that penciled only on paper. Companies that sprinted on policy winds and collapsed in the headwinds of reality.

Utility Global has avoided those pratfalls by setting its own punishing pace. Technology first, traction next, partners next, investors last. It is not glamorous, but it is enduring.

From Cow Pasture to Cathedral

Hayward Field, where Pre ran, was once a cow pasture. Out of manure and mud came a cathedral of running. From those early mornings in Eugene mist, Nike was born.

Utility Global is taking a similar path. From dairy lagoons, from blast furnace gas, from refinery flares — it is building persistence out of waste. Hydrogen for industry, concentrated CO₂ for capture, a pathway to decarbonization that is both practical and enduring.

GTESI Signal Read: Utility Global

GTESI—the General Theory of Evolutionary Systems & Information—is a practical framework for understanding which systems persist, adapt, or collapse—and why.

Rooted in thermodynamics, information theory, and systems evolution, GTESI unifies insights from Shannon, Feynman, Einstein, and Ricardo to track how systems maintain coherence under pressure. It doesn’t replace spreadsheets—it explains why they sometimes stop making sense.

GTESI identifies the hidden architecture of persistence in technologies, policies, and organizations. It highlights failure points before collapse, and strengths before scale.

GTESI’s Four Vectors

Closing Kick

“No one will ever win a 5,000-meter race by running an easy first two miles. Not against me.” Steve Prefontaine didn’t run to conserve. He ran to test who had the guts to endure a punishing pace — and then, at the end, punish himself even more. “It’s not who’s the best,” he said. “It’s who can take the most pain.” Pre turned running into creation: “Some people create with words or with music or with a brush and paints. I like to make something beautiful when I run.”

Utility Global runs the same way.

• Technology without illusion.
• Traction without subsidy.
• Partnerships with weight.
• Investors with endurance.

Hydrogen is not a sprint. It’s a marathon through fog and headwinds, where style is survival and endurance is art. Pre showed it on the track in Eugene. Utility Global is showing it now in steel mills, dairies, and refineries — lungs full, pace relentless, daring the field to keep up.