Reinventing Cement: The Breakthrough That Could Cut 8% of Global Emissions with Greg Williams

Hardware to Save a Planet · 27 Mar 2025 · 48m · Episode 75

What this episode covers

Greg Williams, VP of Product at Sublime Systems, explains how the company uses an electrochemical process to produce low-carbon cement, eliminating the fossil-fueled kilns and limestone decomposition emissions that account for 8% of global CO2 output. He details Sublime's strategy to achieve cost parity with Portland cement through economies of scale and technology improvements, while partnering with industry giants like Holcim and CRH to accelerate deployment. Williams also discusses the 'book and claim' model, exemplified by a deal with Microsoft, which allows customers to purchase environmental attributes separately from the physical product to offset Scope 3 emissions.

Other shows on the same ground, closest first.

  • Catalyst · 43m

    Fixing cement’s carbon problem

    Leah Ellis, co-founder and CEO of Sublime Systems, explains how her company uses electrochemical processes to produce cement at room temperature, avoiding the high-temperature kilns and limestone decomposition that cause 8% of global emissions. Shayle Khan of Energy Impact Partners discusses the limitations of current decarbonization strategies, including supplementary cementitious materials like fly ash and post-combustion carbon capture, highlighting why they offer only incremental reductions. The conversation covers the technical properties of Portland cement, the centralized nature of cement production versus the distributed ready-mix market, and the economic argument that low-carbon cement's 'green premium' is negligible compared to total construction labor costs.

  • Catalyst · 38m

    The complex path to market for low-carbon cement

    Leah Ellis, CEO and co-founder of Sublime Systems, explains the complex value chain and stakeholder alignment required to commercialize low-carbon cement. She details how Sublime navigates the gap between building owners like Microsoft who pay the green premium and the ready-mix producers, contractors, and subcontractors who must physically handle the material. Ellis discusses the necessity of a 'book-and-claim' system to decouple environmental attributes from physical logistics, allowing early adoption by tech giants while the supply chain adapts. She also highlights the critical role of government procurement and performance-based standards in creating demand signals for this slow-moving industry.

  • How I Built This · 30m

    Literally unearthing a climate solution with Cody Finke of Brimstone

    Cody Finke, co-founder and CEO of Brimstone, explains how his company is decarbonizing cement production by replacing limestone with calcium silicate rocks like basalt. He details the chemical process that eliminates process emissions and creates a magnesium byproduct that passively sequesters CO2, making the material carbon-negative. Finke discusses the strategic pivot from developing novel materials to producing ordinary Portland cement to ensure rapid adoption by the construction industry, and outlines the path from lab validation to pilot plants and eventual commercial scaling.

  • Catalyst · 35m

    Scaling low-carbon products with book and claim systems

    Adam Klauber, VP of sustainability and digital supply chain at World Energy, explains how book and claim systems decouple environmental attributes from physical goods to bridge the gap between low-carbon producers and global buyers. He contrasts this with mass-balance and physical chain-of-custody models, using examples from sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), maritime, steel, and cement. Klauber highlights the importance of interoperable digital registries, robust certification (such as Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials), and long-term forward contracts to ensure additionality and prevent double counting. He argues that book and claim is essential for scaling hard-to-abate sectors, as physical volumes will never meet net-zero demands alone.

  • 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.

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