Hardware Podcasts

Putting Oil Back Where It Belongs with Peter Reinhardt, CEO & Co-Founder of Charm Industrial

Hardware to Save a Planet · 9 Jun 2022 · 37m · Episode 1

What this episode covers

Peter Reinhardt, CEO and Co-Founder of Charm Industrial, explains how his company converts waste biomass into bio-oil for permanent underground carbon sequestration. He details the hardware challenges of building mobile pyrolyzers to process fluffy biomass like corn stover and the geological engineering required for safe injection wells. Reinhardt also discusses the evolution of the carbon removal market, noting that while tech companies are early adopters, policy-driven markets will be essential for scaling to the hundreds of millions of tons needed.

Most relevant to

companies scaling up

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
Charm Industrial, Segment, Stripe, Shopify, Microsoft, Frontier Climate, Climeworks, Monolith Materials, Sequel Nano, Planet Labs
Products
bio-oil
Tools
pyrolyzer

Related episodes from other shows

Other shows on the same ground, closest first.

  • Catalyst · 35m

    Ag residue and carbon removal

    Peter Reinhardt, co-founder and CEO of Charm Industrial, explains why centralized biomass projects fail due to prohibitive logistics costs and low energy density, advocating instead for on-field mobile pyrolysis to convert agricultural residue like corn stover into dense bio-oil. He details how this densification strategy solves the volume-to-weight transport problem, making carbon removal economically viable compared to traditional uses like ethanol or electricity. Reinhardt also discusses the evolution of the carbon removal market, emphasizing the need for extreme transparency and co-benefits to build trust with a diverse buyer base beyond major tech companies.

    Materials & manufacturing processesScaling production
    6 chapters

  • Catalyst · 40m

    From biowaste to “biogold”

    Julio Friedmann, chief scientist at Carbon Direct, discusses the complex role of biomass in decarbonization, distinguishing between waste biomass (forestry, agricultural, and municipal solid waste) and dedicated crops. He outlines various conversion technologies, including gasification for hydrogen and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), pyrolysis for biochar, and incineration for electricity, while highlighting startups like Charm Industrial and Running Tide pursuing Biomass Carbon Removal and Storage (BiCRS). Friedmann argues that at sufficient carbon prices, sequestering carbon via BiCRS is more valuable than energy production, though he acknowledges the risks of eco-colonialism and the need for standardized global biomass markets.

    Energy & climate techSourcing & supply chain
    7 chapters

  • The Next Byte Podcast · 19m

    15. Charm's Carbon Offsets, Fitness Trainer Drones, MIT Studies Sound Waves In The North Pole

    Hosts Daniel and Forbode discuss Charm Industrial, a company that converts biomass waste into bio-oil to sequester CO2 in abandoned oil wells, achieving a net removal of 1.44 tons of CO2 per ton of oil. They then examine the evolution of fitness drones, from early RMIT University pacers to Hongik University's 'Traverse Drone' concept, which uses a wearable 'pod' and real-time form analysis. Finally, they cover an MIT and ONR expedition to the North Pole, where an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) and buoys were used to study the 'Beaufort lens' effect on sonar propagation in mixing warm and cold water layers.

    Energy & climate techRobotics & autonomy
    8 chapters

  • Catalyst · 51m

    Growing the Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) market

    Ryan Orbuch, a partner at Lowercarbon Capital and former lead of Stripe’s carbon removal initiatives, discusses the emerging Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) market with host Shayle Khan. They analyze the diverse technologies involved, from biomass to engineered solutions, and critique the current voluntary carbon credit market's lack of rigor regarding permanence and additionality. Orbuch argues for separating the cost of verification from the price of removal to create a credible commodity market and highlights critical bottlenecks like energy consumption and nutrient scarcity.

    Policy, trade & tariffsSustainability & circular products
    7 chapters

  • How I Built This · 27m

    Building a decarbonization army with Shashank Samala of Heirloom

    Shashank Samala, co-founder and CEO of Heirloom, explains how his company built North America’s first operational direct air capture facility in Tracy, California, using a novel limestone-based process to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Samala details the technical approach of baking limestone into calcium oxide to create 'trays' that absorb CO2, contrasting this with expensive synthetic materials used by competitors like Climeworks. He discusses the business model, noting that Heirloom sells carbon removal credits to major corporations like Microsoft, Stripe, and Meta, aiming to scale production to 1 million tons per year by leveraging the Inflation Reduction Act’s 45Q tax credits. The episode covers Heirloom’s journey from a garage-stage startup to scaling production, highlighting their goal to build 1,000 facilities globally to remove 1 billion tons of CO2 annually by the 2030s.

    Energy & climate techStarting a product company
    8 chapters

The summary, chapters and topics are generated from the episode’s audio by this directory, not written by Hardware to Save a Planet. The episode itself belongs to its publisher.