2023 Climate Tech Companies to Watch: Climeworks and its carbon-sucking fans

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To prevent catastrophic global warming, we must remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in addition to eliminating fossil fuels. Climeworks is pioneering one of the most promising approaches: direct air capture, in which giant machines suck carbon out of the sky.

Intro

More than any other company, Climeworks is putting direct air capture (DAC) on the map.

Climate models indicate that to cap global warming at well below 2 °C over preindustrial levels, we’ll need to remove gigatons, or billions of tons, of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Carbon-scrubbing machines are an attractive option for doing so because they require far less land than natural solutions like reforestation, and you can more reliably measure how much greenhouse gas is sequestered. But today, so-called DAC technology is in its infancy. 

Climeworks is among the first companies to try to commercialize it. Using air collectors that draw carbon in and trap it on specialized filters, Climeworks is building modular and scalable DAC plants powered by renewable energy. In 2017, the company opened the world’s first commercial DAC plant in Switzerland, which sold captured carbon to customers like Coca-Cola. In 2021, Climeworks launched Orca, the first commercial DAC plant to capture carbon and store it permanently underground, in partnership with Carbfix. 

Earlier this year, Climeworks provided the world’s first carbon removal services using DAC to Microsoft, Shopify, and Stripe.

Key indicators

• Industry: Carbon removal
• Founded: 2009
• Headquarters: Zurich, Switzerland
• Notable fact: Before Climeworks was sending captured carbon underground for storage, the company was using it to grow tomatoes and cucumbers at a greenhouse near the company’s first commercial plant in Hinwil, Switzerland.

Potential for impact

If widely deployed, DAC technology could permanently reduce atmospheric CO₂ levels, by pulling gigatons of carbon out of the air and piping it into underground reservoirs where it is incorporated into rocks.

Through its first commercial plants, Climeworks is doing the early learning necessary for DAC to eventually reach gigaton scales. It’s also demonstrating that the DAC process can be climate friendly. Unlike other flavors of DAC, in which fossil fuels are burned to produce the heat needed to release captured CO₂ from a liquid solvent so that it can be stored, Climeworks uses a low-temperature approach that runs entirely on renewable energy. 

And while some companies want to use carbon captured via DAC to pump more oil out of wells (a controversial process known as enhanced oil recovery), Climeworks is permanently storing the greenhouse gas underground.  

Caveats

Still, both high- and low-temperature DAC require large amounts of energy to suck comparatively tiny amounts of carbon out of the atmosphere. This, along with the high up-front cost of building DAC plants, makes the technology expensive. Cost estimates for DAC vary widely, ranging from $200 to more than $1000 per ton of CO₂ removed today. Climeworks offered its first customers a sale price of approximately $800 per ton of CO₂ removed.

For DAC to reach its full potential, the cost needs to drop significantly. The US government is eyeing a long-term cost target of $100 per ton of CO₂ removed, and it’s making investments and offering tax credits to help drive costs down. But a recent study found that even if the industry were operating at gigaton scales, reaching $100 a ton would be very challenging.

When

Climeworks is operating on a small scale today: its Orca plant in Hellisheidi, Iceland, can remove up to 4,000 metric tons of CO₂ from the atmosphere each year. But its growth plans are ambitious. Within the next year, it expects to finish construction of its second DAC-plus-storage facility, called Mammoth. Also located in Iceland, Mammoth should have the capacity to pull up to 36,000 metric tons of CO₂ from the atmosphere each year.

From there, Climeworks plans to go even bigger. By 2030, the company aims to remove more than a million tons of carbon from the atmosphere each year. To reach that goal, it plans to launch several commercial DAC projects in the US and other countries in the coming years.

Next steps

To build confidence in its technology, Climeworks must continue to deliver on its early contracts and grow its customer base. The company will likely announce additional carbon deliveries, and more carbon removal contracts, in the coming months and years. In August, the US Department of Energy Funding selected three projects Climeworks is involved with to receive funding under the agency’s Regional DAC Hubs program. Last month, Climeworks announced that it was exploring potential direct air capture and storage projects in Kenya. 

Ultimately, whether Climeworks meets its goals will depend on whether it can offer carbon removal services at a lower cost than companies developing competing DAC technology, and whether the overall costs of DAC can be brought down. Several nations are now offering financial incentives for DAC, but more governmental assistance will be required to reach optimistic cost targets.

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2023 Climate Tech Companies to Watch: Commonwealth and its compact tokamak

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Commonwealth Fusion System’s approach to fusion builds on decades of research—and comes after decades of disappointment within the industry. Yes, the company’s first commercial reactor is still nearly 10 years away, but if it works, the climate benefits will be profound.

Intro

Commonwealth Fusion Systems hopes to be the first company to take nuclear fusion from the lab to the market.

A spin-out from MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, Commonwealth is following a well-trodden design path by using a tokamak—a doughnut-shaped device in which radio waves heat isotopes of hydrogen to above 100 million °C (180 million °F). The resulting plasma is squeezed by a powerful magnetic field until the atoms fuse, releasing a burst of energetic electrons and neutrons.

What sets Commonwealth apart is the compact size of its tokamak. Its prototype SPARC reactor will be 40 times smaller than the international ITER fusion reactor currently being built in France and could come online five years earlier.

Key indicators

• Industry: Fusion energy
• Founded: 2018
• Headquarters: Devens, Massachusetts, USA
• Notable fact: Commonwealth’s prototype reactor will use 10,000 kilometers (about 6,200 miles) of high-temperature superconductor tape.

Potential for impact

“Electrify everything!” cry climate experts. Electric motors, cars, and heat pumps are inherently more efficient than their oil- and gas-burning brethren. But to get to net zero, the world will need a lot more fossil-fuel-free power stations to produce enough renewable electricity for these systems. Commonwealth’s fusion plants will turn heat from fusion reactions into steam that turns turbines to produce power without generating harmful emissions. 

It’s a sci-fi dream shared by dozens of other startups. Some are following Commonwealth’s footsteps with their own tokamaks, but there are also other promising approaches. Pulsed fusion reactors embrace the instability of fusion reactions and can be made even smaller than tokamaks. At least one of these companies, the well-funded Helion Energy in Everett, Washington, claims it will generate electricity directly from the fusing plasma and hopes to be selling electrons to customers by 2028.

Should Commonwealth (or one of its rivals) succeed, fusion might fulfill the long-promised dream of consistent, carbon-free power with virtually no radioactive waste.

Caveats

Of course, developing and building a first-of-its-kind fusion reactor is no small feat. The SPARC prototype alone will run through most (it not all) of the nearly $2 billion Commonwealth has raised to date.

Nor is its fundamental technology guaranteed. To get its tokamak so small, Commonwealth is using thousands of kilometers of high-temperature superconducting tape to produce 18 immensely powerful electromagnets. Those magnets may not work together as expected, and still require cooling to -200 °C.

No fusion startup—or even research lab—has yet generated more energy from a fusion reactor than what was needed to drive the process. Experiments in December 2022 and July 2023 at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory achieved what’s sometimes called scientific net energy gain (or in technical parlance, a Q greater than one). But that calculation doesn’t account for the energy needed to power Livermore’s reactor lasers, so on the whole, the lab’s reactor still produced less energy than what was taken from the electrical grid to run it.

Moving from the symbolic milestone of breakeven to the affordable and repeatable reactions necessary for commercial power production will require another huge technological leap.

When

In 2021 the company announced the demonstration of a 20-Tesla electromagnet—the most powerful of its type ever made. And last December, construction of the SPARC tokamak commenced at Commonwealth’s new headquarters in Devens, Massachusetts, where a manufacturing facility is also taking shape to produce more magnets.

The company says SPARC should generate its first plasma as soon as late 2025, and that model will incorporate 14 of the 17 systems needed for its successor, the ARC fusion power station. If things go according to plan, that ARC reactor could start feeding the grid in the early 2030s.

Next steps

Keep an eye out in early 2026. That’s when Commonwealth wants SPARC to deliver its first Q greater than one, signifying a net energy gain. The company expects SPARC to ultimately have a Q greater than 10, which is the level of performance necessary to offset the reactor’s significant heating and cooling requirements and inefficiencies in the system. Commonwealth’s simulations suggest SPARC could produce up to 100 megawatts of fusion power.

Even as it designs the 200-megawatt ARC reactor, Commonwealth is scouting a location for it. Although the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently clarified regulations that should make it easier to site fusion reactors there, the company is searching worldwide.

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2023 Climate Tech Companies to Watch: Ørsted and its offshore wind factories

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Offshore wind power has tremendous potential to help the world meet its climate goals. Former fossil-fuel company Ørsted is leading the charge to unlock that potential by building massive offshore wind farms in Europe and installing some of the first turbines in US waters.

Intro

Clean-energy company Ørsted is helping offshore wind reach the gigawatt scales needed to make a dent in global carbon emissions.

Wind is a key source of renewable power, but densely populated coastlines often lack the physical space and blustery weather needed to take advantage of it. The fiercer and more reliable winds blowing farther offshore are an attractive alternative—yet many countries, facing high costs and slow permitting processes, are struggling to build wind power facilities there.

Ørsted is trying to change that. For more than two decades, the company has propelled the European offshore-wind market forward by investing in commercial-scale projects and the supply chains needed to support them. Today, Ørsted operates industrial-scale offshore wind farms in Denmark, Germany, and the UK, including Europe’s first two gigawatt-scale facilities. The company is now aggressively expanding its presence in the US, with initial large-scale projects in development off New York and New Jersey, as well as in the Asia-Pacific region.

Ørsted is a rare example of an energy company that transitioned its core business from fossil fuels to renewables. In 2008, fossil-fuel plants accounted for 85% of Ørsted’s heat and power generation, while renewable energy accounted for 15%. By 2019, Ørsted had flipped that ratio. Today renewables make up 91% of its energy portfolio. 

Key indicators

• Industry: Renewable energy
• Founded: 2006
• Headquarters: Fredericia, Denmark
• Notable fact: Ørsted used to be DONG Energy, short for Danish Oil and Natural Gas. To reflect its shift toward renewable power generation, in 2017 the company renamed itself after Hans Christian Ørsted, a Danish physicist who helped discover electromagnetism.

Potential for impact

Ørsted has built more offshore wind farms than any other company in the world. It also operates land-based wind and solar farms, battery storage facilities, and biomass power plants. With ambitious growth plans, the company intends to play a key role in replacing fossil-fuel power plants with renewable energy worldwide.

As of 2022, Ørsted had installed 15.1 gigawatts (GW) of renewable capacity worldwide—enough to power 12 million US homes. By 2030, it hopes to reach 30 GWs of offshore wind and more than triple its installed renewable energy generation capacity overall. That is the same amount of offshore wind capacity the Biden administration wants to build nationwide by 2030.

Caveats

Ørsted faces some headwinds, however. Today, the offshore wind industry is under economic pressure from supply chain constraints, inflation, and rising interest rates. Several of Ørsted’s projects—including Hornsea 3, a nearly 3-GW offshore wind farm in the UK, and a planned wind farm off of Long Island, New York—may need additional governmental support to remain viable.

Amid Europe’s energy crisis last year, Ørsted faced another dilemma: pressure to keep burning fossil fuels. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Danish authorities ordered Ørsted to continue or resume operation of three coal- and oil-fired power plants to secure the nation’s electricity supply. As a result, Ørsted was unable to reach its goal of generating 95% of its energy from renewable sources by 2023.

When

Ørsted has about 12 GW of offshore wind capacity installed or under construction. To meet its goal of 30 GW of offshore wind by 2030, the company plans to install 2 GW of new capacity annually until 2025 and 3 GW of new capacity annually between 2025 and 2030. 

A pipeline of offshore wind projects in Europe, the US, and the Asia-Pacific region will help Ørsted meet its targets. In addition to Hornsea 3, Ørsted is helping develop a series of gigawatt-scale offshore wind farms in Poland, which are expected online in the mid-2020s. In the US, Ørsted is constructing New York’s first offshore wind farm, which is on track to begin producing power later this year. In Taiwan, the company is building a series of offshore wind farms over the coming years. Once complete, these Taiwanese projects will collectively represent nearly 2 GW of capacity.

Next steps

Through partnerships with other energy developers, Ørsted is taking its first steps toward constructing floating offshore wind turbines, an early-stage technology that could one day allow the industry to move into much deeper waters, including those off the US West Coast. 

The company is also making significant investments in the nascent green-fuels market. Renewably generated hydrogen and other “e-fuels” could help green the fossil fuel-intensive shipping industry, which accounted for nearly 3% of global emissions in 2018. Last year, Ørsted signed a letter of intent to supply the shipping giant Maersk with 300,000 tons of e-methanol a year for a future fleet of low-carbon vessels.

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2023 Climate Tech Companies to Watch: Fervo Energy and its geothermal power plants

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Fervo Energy is commercializing a geothermal technology that could significantly expand the regions that could tap into the steady, carbon-free energy source, by creating or widening cracks under the surface to allow water to more easily circulate underground. These enhanced geothermal plants could become an increasingly critical source of clean electricity as grids grow greener, helping to balance out rising levels of fluctuating renewables like wind and solar.

Intro

Fervo Energy is expanding the bounds of where geothermal plants can be built—and what they can do. 

Geothermal power plants work by circulating water through hot rock deep underground, then converting that heat energy into electricity at the surface. But traditionally, it’s only been possible to build economical facilities in regions where developers could drill down to porous, permeable hot rock at relatively low depths. 

The nearly six-year-old Houston, Texas, startup is changing that by using hydraulic fracturing techniques—better known as fracking—to create or widen cracks below the surface, artificially creating the permeability that allows water to easily flow underground. In July, Fervo announced it had successfully completed tests at its pilot plant in northern Nevada, which the company says demonstrated the commercial viability of its technology.

Key indicators

• Industry: Geothermal energy 
• Founded: 2017 
• Headquarters: Houston, Texas, USA
• Notable fact: Fervo has raised nearly $190 million from Bill Gates’s Breakthrough Energy Ventures, DCVC, Capricorn Investment Group, and others.

Potential for impact 

Fervo’s enhanced geothermal approach promises to significantly expand the areas where we could tap into the carbon-free and nearly limitless source of energy beneath our feet. Geothermal offers the added advantage of generating electricity around the clock and calendar, making it an ideal clean source to fill in the gaps as grids increasingly come to rely on fluctuating renewables like solar and wind. 

It could provide a much cheaper or less controversial way of fixing that fundamental challenge in cleaning up the grid than building giant battery plants or adding nuclear power reactors, respectively.

Fervo is developing an additional trick as well, tapping into the particular geological characteristic of enhanced geothermal wells to create systems that can store up energy for extended periods or easily ramp electricity up and down as needed. By pumping water into the wells but not releasing it, the company found it could build up pressure in the system, storing energy that can be used when it’s most needed, much like charging a battery. That could make the company’s future plants even more valuable to grid operators dealing with increasingly erratic and dynamic electricity systems.

Caveats 

Fervo faces some hurdles, however. The company, which has only built a commercial pilot facility so far, still needs to prove that its basic approach and advanced capabilities work effectively, affordably, and consistently on larger scales. It’s likely to require significant changes in electricity market rules for grid operators to properly incentivize and reward the flexibility and storage capabilities the company is developing. And other startups are exploring additional ways of pushing the capabilities of geothermal energy.

Fervo sidesteps the climate fears associated with the term fracking as it’s not using the technique to extract fossil fuels. But enhanced geothermal does raise at least one of the same concerns: the potential to trigger earthquakes. Fervo and some academic experts stress that the sector’s improved designs and standards have reduced the risk that developing and operating such plants can induce seismic events that can be felt.

But public concerns about earthquakes may nonetheless exacerbate the challenge of securing the necessary permits to build the plants.

When

The company has already announced several power purchase agreements for geothermal plants that are slated to put nearly 100 megawatts of clean capacity onto electricity grids in the next few years. Its commercial pilot in Nevada, which will help to power Google’s operations in the state, is set to begin sending electricity to the grid by the end of this year. 

Next steps 

Fervo has also begun drilling a geothermal project in Beaver County, Utah, adjacent to the US Department of Energy’s Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy Initiative. It will supply geothermal power to communities in Southern California and is slated to come online in the second quarter of 2026. 

The company is now exploring ways that geothermal power can be coupled with another emerging climate technology, by providing the clean electricity needed to power facilities that can suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Fervo has secured $2 million in funding from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to design and engineer a combined geothermal and direct-air-capture plant, and around $3 million from the US Department of Energy to begin preparatory work for a larger direct-air-capture hub in southwestern Utah.

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2023 Climate Tech Companies to Watch: Twelve and its electrochemical reactor

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Twelve is converting carbon dioxide emissions into sustainable jet fuel. It recently launched the first commercial-scale production facility for power-to-liquid sustainable aviation fuels in the US. 

Intro

Twelve is commercializing a process that breaks down and reforms carbon dioxide into nearly any chemical that is currently produced by fossil fuels. The company is already using it to make a sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) called E-Jet fuel, and is in talks to produce other consumer products, including sunglasses, Mercedes parts, and chemicals used in laundry detergents. 

To do this, Twelve developed a suitcase-sized electrochemical reactor, called O12. The reactor takes in carbon dioxide emitted from waste or captured directly from the air. The reactor then uses a metal catalyst and electricity to split the CO2 and water and recombine the elements into different chemicals. 

In August 2021, Twelve proved that its E-Jet fuel technology works in a pilot project with the US Air Force. 

Key indicators

• Industry: Chemicals
• Founded: 2015 
• Headquarters: Berkeley, California
• Notable fact: Twelve is named after carbon 12, the most abundant form of the element.

Potential for impact

Twelve’s work could be particularly critical in tackling emissions from aviation, which makes up 2% of global CO2 emissions. 

The vast majority of the industry is still powered by kerosene-based fuel; In the US, for example, less than 0.1 percent of the 17.5 billion gallons of jet fuel used each year comes from sustainable sources. The Biden administration hopes to increase that figure to 3 billion gallons of SAF per year by 2030 (or about 17 percent of all jet fuel used), through a mixture of tax credits and R&D grants included in last year’s Inflation Reduction Act. 

But much of the current SAF supply is created with biofuel, like animal fat or used cooking oils, which are limited in supply and vary greatly in how much CO2 emissions they actually cut. 

In contrast, Twelve’s E-Jet fuel is an “electrofuel,” synthetically created through a process it calls carbon transformation. Unlike biofuels, there are no limits on the availability of carbon (though there are limitations on the other key ingredient, water), and the process reduces emissions by the same amount every time. 

Beyond the aviation industry, Twelve also hopes to replace chemical ingredients throughout the supply chain of both consumer products and the industrial sector. 

Caveats

Twelve’s initial SAF production capacity of five barrels per day will hardly make a dent in the demand for aviation fuel, especially given the high costs of E-Jet fuel production today. Investments from companies like Microsoft, Shopify, and Alaska Airlines—which see Twelve’s technology as key to reaching their own sustainability goals—are underwriting some production costs and may help the company scale. 

On the other hand, carbon transformation is still an energy-intensive process, and Twelve itself is not yet carbon neutral. Finding enough renewable energy—and water—to power the company’s plants will remain a challenge, at least until the country’s clean energy infrastructure improves. 

When

In July, Twelve broke ground on its first commercial-scale plant to convert CO2 into SAF in Washington state, with the aim of producing 40,000 gallons per year by mid-2024. 

The company also has developed partnerships with a number of companies, including Microsoft, Spotify, Procter and Gamble, and Mercedes-Benz, to see whether it can replace core building blocks of popular products—from auto parts to sunglass lenses—with CO2-made materials. 

Next steps

The Washington plant is just Twelve’s first; the company is in the early stages of planning a larger E-Jet production facility. 

Twelve is also planning the first commercial Alaska Airlines flight powered by its E-Jet fuels, and expects to announce additional airline partnerships soon.

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Correction: This story was updated to clarify the process that happens at Twelve’s commercial-scale production facility for SAF.

2023 Climate Tech Companies to Watch: BYD and its affordable EVs

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By designing a better battery, BYD has pulled ahead in the global electric vehicle race. Its affordable and versatile cars are making EVs far more accessible, and could ultimately help countries including China to dramatically reduce emissions from transportation.

Intro

BYD has come a long way from its early days manufacturing mobile phone batteries and cheap gas cars. Now the top EV producer in the world, BYD produces electric vehicles at affordable prices, making them a practical option for the huge and varied market of Chinese car buyers. BYD also makes electric buses that run in over 70 countries and has dominated the world’s plug-in hybrid market.

The company’s success stems from its technological lead in lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries. Traditionally, LFP batteries didn’t store as much energy as nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) batteries, which were used in 95% of the electric cars produced a few years ago. BYD’s versions—particularly its signature product, the Blade Battery—solve this problem via a new structure that uses fewer parts and packs more cells into the same space. LFP batteries are also safer and cheaper than NMC batteries. 

Over time, BYD has reshaped the EV supply chain. From mining critical minerals to designing the chips used in cars, BYD does everything in house and sometimes also sells its products to competitors. Even Tesla is now buying batteries from the Shenzhen-based company.

Key indicators

• Industry: Electric vehicles
• Founded: 1995
• Headquarters: Shenzhen, China
• Notable fact: In August, BYD produced its 5 millionth electric vehicle.

Potential for impact

For the world to transition beyond fossil fuels, it will need a lot of electric vehicles. BYD not only makes electric buses and monorails, but also sells passenger cars at a wide range of prices. The cheapest BYD EV model costs just above $10,000, less than one-third the cost of the cheapest Tesla. And BYD sells plug-in hybrid models for about the same price as similar gas cars.

This variety and affordability is helping BYD spread into many more countries; it’s now selling cars across Europe, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and elsewhere. 

Caveats

BYD risks falling behind in a fiercely competitive industry. Tesla is still the most well-known EV brand around the world. And just within China, there are over a dozen other companies that offer affordable, versatile EVs. 

When it comes to batteries, BYD is in a head-to-head race with another Chinese company, CATL, which makes every type of battery BYD offers and works with traditional auto heavyweights such as Ford, Toyota, and BMW. 

What’s more, BYD is already behind its peers in one important area. Many EV companies are rushing to offer the most advanced autonomous driving functions for customers, and AI isn’t BYD’s strength (though the company recently recruited thousands of software engineers to try to catch up).

Internally, BYD has had difficulty managing production for the past several years. It struggled to deliver on orders in 2021 and reportedly faced an inventory overstock in 2023. 

When

One of the next frontiers of battery tech is sodium-ion batteries, which can cost less, work in more extreme weather, and recharge more quickly. BYD will reportedly start selling cars equipped with them by the end of 2023, and the company has announced a new factory to scale up the production of sodium-ion batteries. 

BYD is also expanding its production capacity overseas, starting with a car factory in Thailand and another in Brazil that are expected to be built by 2024. One or more factories in Europe are also under discussion and could be announced before the end of this year.

Next steps

Having sold its consumer EV models in the European market since 2019, BYD has set ambitious goals for 2030: to sell 800,000 cars in Europe annually, reach 10% of the market share, and become one of the top three EV brands in the region. 

But to succeed in Western markets, BYD needs to overcome the unfavorable reputation of made-in-China products. The company needs to score higher in safety tests, offer better exterior and interior designs, and show that its cars are reliable. BYD also faces geopolitical challenges—including intensifying tensions around battery materials and technologies, and the lack of EV charging infrastructure across the world.

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2023 Climate Tech Companies to Watch: Sublime Systems and its clean cement

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Sublime Systems has invented a new way to make cement. The startup’s approach employs electrochemistry to dramatically cut emissions, both by tweaking the chemical reactions involved and by eliminating the need for high temperatures.

Intro

Sublime Systems is reinventing how we make cement—a material that’s a real climate nightmare, accounting for roughly 8% of global greenhouse-gas emissions. 

When cement is mixed with water, sand, and gravel, it hardens into concrete—the second-most-used substance on the planet (after water). 

In the conventional cement-making process, emissions mostly come from two sources. First, ground-up materials such as limestone and clay are heated in kilns to over 1,400 °C (2,500 °F) to prime the mixture. Reaching those temperatures typically requires burning coal or other fossil fuels, which produces carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses.

The chemical process in the kiln also requires peeling carbon dioxide away from the starting minerals to leave the reactive cement powder that builders use. That carbon dioxide is usually difficult to capture before it’s emitted into the atmosphere. 

Sublime Systems has invented a process that tackles both of those issues.

First, the company uses electrochemical reactions rather than high temperatures to make its cement, avoiding the need to burn fossil fuels. Fueling the reactions with electricity means that Sublime’s plants can eventually be powered by energy sources like solar and wind instead of by burning coal or natural gas. The process can also use different starting materials that don’t necessarily emit carbon dioxide when they’re transformed into cement ingredients.  

Key indicators

• Industry: Cement
• Founded: 2020
• Headquarters: Somerville, MA, USA
• Notable fact: The first reactions that cofounder Leah Ellis ran in a lab at MIT made only about a die-sized amount of material.

Potential for impact

If Sublime is able to run its process at the massive scales required to be relevant in the industry, the startup’s technology would reduce emissions associated with cement by 90%.

And while several paths to decarbonizing the sector are under development today, Sublime’s approach could eventually make cement that can compete with conventional methods on cost, making a convincing economic case for adoption. 

Caveats

Some other climate-focused cement startups make material that’s chemically identical to existing cement. But while Sublime’s material acts just like traditional cement when it hardens, it takes a different path to get there. 

That could be a problem in a conservative industry like construction, where new building materials and technologies need to clear a high bar before they are adopted. Sublime will have to use different standards to test its material, which could make some builders hesitant to make the switch. 

Additionally, scaling electrochemical processes up from the lab can present engineering challenges. Reactions may not work the same way in bigger tanks, and new equipment will be needed when going from hundreds to thousands to millions of tons of capacity. Scaling issues could delay the company’s aggressive timeline. Making material at larger scales is also likely to require hundreds of millions of dollars in capital funding, which the company will need to raise quickly as it builds factories. 

When

Sublime has been steadily expanding its operation, from small reactions in an MIT lab to a pilot facility that can produce about 100 tons of cement each year. The company’s next step is to build a larger demonstration facility with the capacity to produce over 10,000 tons of cement each year, which it plans to bring online by 2026. 

Finally, a full-scale commercial plant, which would produce a million tons of material each year, should be operational by 2028, the firm says.

Next steps 

Over the next five years, Sublime will want to show it is making progress on these demonstration and commercial facilities. The company will need to raise additional funding and could announce new commercial partnerships to make the sites a reality.

In the meantime, the startup plans to complete real-world tests of its materials, including building small installations, like sidewalks or patios, with concrete made from its cement.  These demonstrations would prove that Sublime is able to make large amounts of the cement, and that its products will behave as builders might expect—hardening into a resilient, tough material that can scaffold the world around us.

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2023 Climate Tech Companies to Watch: Form Energy and its iron batteries

Explore the 2023 list of 15 Climate Tech Companies to Watch.

Form Energy is building iron-based batteries that could store renewable energy on the grid for long stretches, saving up for times when electricity sources such as wind and solar aren’t available. Using iron, one of the most common metals on the planet, could help the company build batteries that are cheap enough to be practical. 

Intro 

Form Energy is building a new type of battery made with some of the most common materials on the planet: iron, air, and water. 

Solar panels and wind turbines provide more of the electricity that courses through the grid with each passing year. But there are still stretches where the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing, and energy storage is becoming crucial for filling in those gaps. 

Form Energy uses an iron-air chemistry in its batteries: as they store energy, the iron combines with oxygen, converting to rust. As energy discharges, the reverse reaction happens, regenerating the iron metal and oxygen. 

Cost is king in energy storage, which is why Form is aiming for its alternative battery system to cost $20 per kilowatt-hour (a measure of how much energy is stored or delivered). That’s less than one-fifth the cost of lithium-ion cells today. Iron-air batteries are heavier and bulkier than lithium-ion and many other energy storage options, but they could be an ideal solution for large installations on the grid, where weight and size are less important than cost and durability. 

Key indicators

• Industry: Energy storage
• Founded: 2017
• Headquarters: Somerville, Massachusetts, USA
• Notable fact: Form Energy’s batteries store energy using electrochemical reactions that basically cause metal to rust, then reverse that process. 

Potential for impact

Electricity production accounts for roughly a quarter of global emissions. If Form Energy’s iron-air batteries can store renewable energy to use when there’s no sun or wind, they could help the grid transition away from fossil fuels.

About 28 gigawatts of grid batteries were operational and storing energy worldwide in 2022. But to stay on track for net-zero emissions, that number needs to grow by over 30 times, to 967 GW, by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency.

Caveats 

It’s hard to bring new battery types to market, and many battery startups have folded under the demands of scaling up production of a new chemistry. Form Energy has yet to start commercial manufacturing in its factory or install any commercial systems with customers. Getting those systems built, installed, and running will be crucial to reveal how well iron-air batteries work in real-world conditions. 

Plenty of other technologies are also out there vying for a spot on the grid. From other iron-based batteries, like those from ESS Inc., to zinc-based options from Eos, to the incumbent lithium-ion batteries of all shapes and sizes, there’s a wide range of competition in energy storage. There are even physical systems that go beyond batteries. Iron-air batteries will need to meet promises for cost and performance to carve out a section of the growing market. 

When

Form Energy started building a new factory in May in West Virginia, on the site of an old steel mill. The company plans to start making batteries there in 2024 and scale to its full capacity by 2028.

Next steps 

In addition to building and starting up its factory, the next few years could see Form install its first commercial projects. First on the schedule is the company’s project with Great River Energy, a pilot system that can store 150 megawatt-hours of electricity. That’s expected to come online in late 2024. 

The company recently announced plans for two larger energy storage systems that can store 1,000 MWh of electricity each, one in Minnesota and another in Colorado. Those facilities could come online as early as 2025, though the site in Colorado still need state regulatory approval. A third system is planned for New York, due to start operations by 2026. 

Explore the 2023 list of 15 Climate Tech Companies to Watch.

Correction: This story was updated to accurately reflect the state of the company’s regulatory approvals for its systems.

15 Climate Tech Companies to Watch