Hardware Podcasts

Using Cooling Towers to Scale Atmospheric CO2 Removal with Silvain Toromanoff, Co-Founder and CTO of NeoCarbon

Hardware to Save a Planet · 8 Jun 2023 · 45m · Episode 28

What this episode covers

Silvain Toromanoff, Co-Founder and CTO of NeoCarbon, explains how his company uses waste heat from existing cooling towers to power Direct Air Capture (DAC), aiming to scale atmospheric CO2 removal efficiently. He details the technical challenges of their vacuum temperature swing reactor, the business model of selling units to utilization customers like breweries, and the strategic decision to leverage existing industrial infrastructure rather than building new plants. Toromanoff also discusses the supply chain difficulties faced by early-stage hardware startups and the ambitious goal of reaching megaton-scale removal by 2030.

Most relevant to

early-stage companies

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
NeoCarbon, Climeworks, Noya
Products
Orca Plant
Also
CDR at FYI

Related episodes from other shows

Other shows on the same ground, closest first.

  • How I Built This · 37m

    HIBT Lab! Climeworks: Jan Wurzbacher

    Jan Wurzbacher, co-founder and CEO of Climeworks, explains how he and co-founder Christoph Gebald built the world’s largest direct air capture facility, the Orca plant in Iceland, which removes 4,000 tons of CO2 annually. Wurzbacher details the company's evolution from selling captured CO2 to Coca-Cola and greenhouses to providing permanent carbon removal services for corporate clients like Microsoft and private individuals. He discusses the massive scaling challenges, including the need for 10 billion tons of annual removal by 2050, the capital intensity of hardware, and the strategic importance of pairing capture facilities with renewable energy sources like geothermal power.

    Energy & climate techStarting a product company
    8 chapters

  • How I Built This · 38m

    ICYMI... HIBT Lab! Climeworks: Jan Wurzbacher

    Jan Wurzbacher, co-founder and CEO of Climeworks, explains how his company is building the world's largest direct air capture facility, the Orca plant in Iceland, which removes 4,000 tons of CO2 annually. He details the technology's modular design, using filter materials that capture CO2 and release it when heated, allowing for permanent underground storage in basaltic rock. Wurzbacher discusses the company's journey from selling CO2 to greenhouses and Coca-Cola to securing $650 million in Series 6 funding to scale operations. He argues that while emission reductions are critical, removing 10 billion tons of CO2 yearly by 2050 requires scalable technological solutions like Climeworks, which he compares to the rapid cost reduction seen in solar PV.

    Energy & climate techStarting a product company
    9 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

  • Catalyst · 40m

    DAC’s bumpy road to commercial scale

    Andreas Aepli, CFO of Climeworks, discusses the operational and financial challenges of scaling direct-air capture (DAC) technology, drawing on lessons from their Orca and Mammoth plants. He details specific technical hurdles like supply chain quality fluctuations, extreme weather impacts, and CO2 purity requirements that delayed reaching full capacity. Aepli also explains Climeworks' strategy of raising large equity rounds to de-risk technology before transitioning to project finance, and outlines the evolving buyer landscape dominated by Microsoft and the need for long-term, indexed contracts to ensure bankability.

    Scaling productionFundraising & investors
    5 chapters

  • Catalyst · 43m

    The challenges of building a carbon removal portfolio

    Stacy Kauk, Head of Sustainability at Shopify, details the company's $55 million investment in 85,000 tons of durable carbon removal, explaining how they manage a venture-capital-style portfolio of early-stage technologies. She highlights the significant delays in credit delivery caused by permitting hurdles, technological pivots, and the infancy of Measurement, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) methodologies. Kauk argues that while the market aims for a standardized commodity, current buyers must support a diverse mix of engineered systems like Direct Air Capture (DAC) and natural system enhancements like ocean alkalinity to discover viable cost curves and scalability.

    Pricing, margins & unit economicsSourcing & supply chain
    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.