Houston carbon capture company signs MOU with PETRONAS

big deal

PETRONAS will use Carbon Clean's scalable CCS technology as a part of the agreement. Photo via carbonclean.com

Carbon Clean announced a new partnership with PETRONAS CCS Solution, a subsidiary of PETRONAS, to collaborate and evaluate Carbon Clean’s carbon capture and storage technology.

The two companies will assess carbon capture technology by aiming to “identify synergies and explore future collaboration opportunities,” according to a news release.The primary focus of the MOU is Carbon Clean's CycloneCC tech, which can reduce the installed cost of carbon capture by up to 50 percent. Both companies will collaborate to develop how the modular technology can be used for post-combustion CO2 capture.

“PETRONAS has a pioneering approach to decarbonization, viewing carbon capture as a lever to transform its business,” Aniruddha Sharma, chair and CEO of Carbon Clean, says in the release. “It is turning the low-carbon energy transition into an opportunity to drive green growth. Carbon Clean is proud to support PETRONAS in achieving its net zero targets by providing a cost-effective approach to carbon capture.”

The modular design assists with easily installation and makes it more efficient to integrate with operations that are already up and running. The physical footprint of CycloneCC occupies up to 50 percent less space than conventional carbon capture solutions. The equipment itself is 10 times smaller and includes rotating packed bed (RPB) technology that uses centrifugal force to make carbon capture process run more efficiently.

“CycloneCC’s modular design enables companies to stagger their investment, adding units in line with their decarbonization goals,” Sharma said in a news release. “We are making carbon capture logistically viable and easy to scale.”

Carbon Clean also has partnered with AGRA Industries, as the biofuel industry could use Carbon Clean’s CaptureX technology. The United Kingdom-based company operates its U.S. headquarters in the Ion.

Carbon Clean’s other customers include companies in the cement, steel, refinery, and energy-to-waste sectors. Among the investors in Carbon Clean are Chevron, Samsung Ventures, Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures, and WAVE Equity Partners. Since it's founding in 2019, the company has raised $260 million in funding, according to data platform Tracxn.

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Carbon Clean says its tentative partnership with Merrill, Wisconsin-based AGRA Industries should speed up adoption of Carbon Clean’s CaptureX technology in the biofuel industry. Photo via CarbonClean.com

Houston co. enters new carbon capture collaboration focused on biofuels industry

cleaning up

Carbon Clean, a carbon capture company whose North American headquarters is in Houston, has forged a deal with a contractor to build modular carbon capture containers for the agricultural sector.

The company, based in the United Kingdom, says its tentative partnership with Merrill, Wisconsin-based AGRA Industries should speed up adoption of Carbon Clean’s CaptureX technology in the biofuel industry.

Carbon Clean’s technology has been installed at 49 sites around the world. Eighty percent of the sites have prefabricated modular carbon-capture containers, reducing construction and installation time.

The partnership will enable customers to capture CO2 released during the biofuel fermentation stage, enabling the production of fuels with lower carbon-intensity ratings. This will improve the ability of biofuel producers to claim federal tax credits, Carbon Clean says.

“Carbon Clean’s collaboration with AGRA Industries is a win-win for biofuel producers. Customers will benefit from the expertise of a leading agricultural engineering specialist and our modularized, innovative carbon capture technology that is cost-effective and simple to install,” Aniruddha Sharma, chair and CEO of Carbon Clean, says in a news release.

Carbon Clean’s customers include companies in the cement, steel, refinery, and energy-to-waste sectors.

Among the investors in Carbon Clean, founded in 2019, are Chevron, Samsung Ventures, Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures, and WAVE Equity Partners. To date, the company has raised $260 million in funding, according to data platform Tracxn.

This year’s CERAWeek occurred during an inflexion point in the U.S.’s conversation around decarbonization. Photo by Natalie Harms/InnovationMap

Clean energy founder shares key takeaways from CERAWeek 2024

guest column

Earlier this month, thousands converged on Houston for one of the world’s largest energy conferences – CERAWeek 2024. For five days global leaders, CEOs, oil and gas experts, and the industry’s top stakeholders gathered to provide insight, and discuss solutions, to some of the biggest questions on the future of energy.

Just this week, on the heels of the conference, it was hugely encouraging to see the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announce up to $6 billion for 33 projects across more than 20 states to decarbonize energy-intensive industries and reduce industrial greenhouse gas emissions. The announcement underscored the vitally important, and yet largely untapped role that industrial carbon capture must play in reaching the U.S.’s overall decarbonization goals. This must include significant point-source technology onsite at hard-to-abate industrial emitters like cement, metals and chemicals. The DOE announcement makes that priority clear, with the focus of the two largest grants for cement decarbonization projects going to carbon capture, each up to $500 million.

This was one of the major takeaways at this year’s CERAWeek: despite the success of the IRA, if we are to achieve the rapid scaling required to tackle emissions coming from hard-to-abate sectors, and now is the time to move rapidly into deployment, beginning with carbon capture demonstrations at industrial sites. Through our work with Chevron on the development of a carbon capture pilot for our CycloneCC technology on a gas turbine in San Joaquin Valley, California, we are proud to be doing exactly that.

While Carbon Clean has been active in the U.S. for several years, we chose to unveil our new Houston headquarters during last year’s CERAWeek, selecting the energy capital of the world for our U.S. home. With this increased focus on industrial decarbonization, the opportunities for carbon capture deployment in the U.S. – and more specifically Greater Houston – have significantly expanded. Since first opening the U.S. headquarters in Houston last year, we have grown our headcount by two-thirds and seen U.S. inquiries for our modular, point-source carbon capture solutions skyrocket by a further 59% (and this is after the initial leap in interest following the IRA’s passage).

Still, while a lot has been accomplished over the past year, we recognize that a lot more needs to be done to meet the country’s net zero targets, particularly in the space of industrial decarbonization. This was another takeaway at this year’s CERAWeek, a recognition that many industrial leaders have adopted ambitious net-zero goals but have no plans for implementation.

In conversations with many of this year’s conference attendees, one thing became abundantly clear: yes, the IRA was a breakthrough moment that provided key incentives for companies to enter the carbon capture space and develop the kinds of decarbonization technology that will reduce emissions. However, that only gets us half of the way there: we need to foster a market for the demand of clean industrial production, using the IRA as the vehicle to create that supply. Through the allocation of credits and increased pricing power, we can generate more demand from industrial emitters to embrace the kinds of technology that will enable them to reach net-zero.

Another critical next step: when it comes to adopting local industrial carbon capture projects, accelerate permitting by letting the states decide for themselves. The EPA’s recent decision to grant Louisiana the power to approve carbon capture projects could open the door to a wave of new project applications and additional states seeking the same authority.

If you want an example of a local economy poised to greatly benefit from expanded access to industrial carbon capture, look no further than Houston. With its energy expertise and local resources, Greater Houston is uniquely positioned to take full advantage of carbon capture’s promise, which will not only reduce the region’s emissions but grow jobs.

A recent study by the EFI Foundation, supported by Carbon Clean, identified Houston as an ideal location for a new coordinated regional approach to industrial carbon capture hubs. Previously, most studies on deployment focused on decarbonizing large emitters - the EFI report is focused on small-to-midsize emitters, as they account for 25 percent of America’s industrial emissions but are often overlooked given the cost and space barriers that have historically been barriers to the mass adoption of industrial carbon capture units.

Today, there are 311 facilities in the Houston cluster that fit the bill, representing 36.6 million metric tons of capturable CO2 emissions per year. Given that the region employs nearly a third of the nation’s jobs in oil and gas extraction alone, allowing multiple local emitters access to shared CO2 transport and storage would create a scalable solution at a lower cost. The business community should embrace the findings of this report, unlocking a key tool in combating local emissions, while also sustaining Houston’s workforce.

This year’s CERAWeek occurred during an inflexion point in the U.S.’s conversation around decarbonization. While a lot of progress is underway, it is imperative that energy leaders and the business community fully leverage industrial carbon capture technology if they are serious about reducing emissions at the source. Failure to do so recalls the aphorism by Benjamin Franklin: "Failing to plan is planning to fail.”

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Aniruddha Sharma is the co-founder and CEO of Carbon Clean.

Carbon Clean has secured a prominent global recognition. Photo via CarbonClean.com

Carbon capture co. with Houston presence receives prestigious sustainability recognition

climatetech heroes

A United Kingdom-headquartered carbon capture business with a growing presence in Houston has received a distinguishing honor that recognizes climatetech leaders.

Carbon Clean, which has expanded to the United States by way of Houston, has received the Sustainable Markets Initiative 2023 Terra Carta Seal. The distinguishment recognizes global companies that are helping to create a nature-positive future for the climate. This is part of the Sustainable Markets Initiative’s larger mandate to help provide a framework to accelerate the transition to a sustainable future by placing the planet and people first.

“The Sustainable Markets Initiative’s Terra Carta Seal recognises those companies which are taking great strides in delivering real-world outcomes," Jennifer Jordan-Saifi, CEO of Sustainable Markets Initiative, says in the release. "As we stand on the eve of COP28, public, private sector, and philanthropic actors will come together at the inaugural Business and Philanthropy Climate Forum to bridge the gap between ambition and action. It isexamples exemplified by the 2023 Terra Carta Seal winners that are helping to inspire and lead the way.”

The Terra Carta Seal was launched in 2021 during COP26 by His Majesty King Charles III when he was the Prince of Wales. An international panel of experts from the environmental, business, political and philanthropic worlds chose 17 global companies for the honor.

“We are honored to be recognized by the Sustainable Markets Initiative for our contribution to the global transition to net zero, “ says Aniruddha Sharma, chair and CEO of Carbon Clean, in a news release. “Carbon Clean’s mission is simple: to deliver cost-effective, space-saving, modular carbon capture technology, enabling hard-to-abate industries to decarbonise at scale.”

Carbon Clean aims to revolutionize industrial carbon capture with its CycloneCC, which solves large barriers to widespread adoption of industrial carbon capture: cost and space.The technology of CycloneCC will be key in the company’s goal to achieve net zero by 2050.

Carbon Clean develops carbon capture technology for customers such as cement producers, steelmakers, refineries, and waste-to-energy plants. The company bills its offering as the “world’s smallest industrial carbon capture technology.” CycloneCC can reduce the cost of carbon capture by as much as 50 percent with a footprint that’s 50 percent smaller than traditional carbon capture units, according to Carbon Clean. The UK company established its Houston location this year.

Last month, CycloneCC was selected by ADNOC for a carbon capture project at Fertiglobe’s plant located in the Ruways Industrial Complex, Abu Dhabi. The project is the first deployment of a 10 tonnes per day CycloneCC industrial unit.

Carbon Clean develops carbon capture technology for customers such as cement producers, steelmakers, refineries, and waste-to-energy plants.

Clean tech co. with U.S. HQ selected for UAE carbon capture project

big win

Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (ADNOC), the state-owned oil company of the United Arab Emirates, has chosen technology from United Kingdom-based company Carbon Clean for a carbon capture project in Abu Dhabi. Carbon Clean’s U.S. headquarters is in Houston.

Carbon Clean’s modular CycloneCC technology will be used for a carbon capture project at a Fertiglobe nitrogen fertilizer plant. Fertiglobe is a joint venture between ADNOC and OCI Global, a Netherlands-based chemical company.

“This project is hugely significant given it’s the first industrial deployment of our award-winning CycloneCC technology anywhere in the world,” says Aniruddha Sharma, chairman and CEO of Carbon Clean. “We are moving a step closer to achieving full commercialization of this modular solution, which will play a vital role in decarbonizing heavy industries and achieving net-zero targets.”

CycloneCC can reduce the cost of carbon capture by as much as 50 percent with a footprint that’s 50 percent smaller than traditional carbon capture units, according to Carbon Clean. The startup’s unit arrives ready to install and can be up and running in eight weeks.

The company established its Houston outpost earlier this year.

In 2022, Houston-based Chevron New Energies led the company’s $150 million series C round. Other contributors to the round were CEMEX Ventures, Marubeni, WAVE Equity Partners, AXA IM Alts, Samsung Ventures, Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures, and TC Energy. To date, Carbon Clean has raised $195 million.

Aniruddha Sharma of Carbon Clean weighs in on his North American expansion, the impact of the Inflation Reduction Act, and more. Photo via carbonclean.com

Why this UK carbon capture co. expanded to Houston, IRA's impact, and more

Q&A

Earlier this year, a growing carbon capture company announced its new North American headquarters in Houston. Now, the company is focused on doubling it's headcount before the end of 2023 to meet demand.

Carbon Clean, which has a technology that has captured nearly two million tons of carbon dioxide at almost 50 sites around the world, opened its new office in the Ion earlier this year. The company is now building out its local supply chain with plans to rapidly expand.

In an interview with EnergyCapital, Co-Founder, Chair, and CEO Aniruddha Sharma weighs in on the new office, how pivotal the Inflation Reduction Act has been for his company's growth, and the future of Carbon Clean.

EnergyCapital: Looking back on the past year since the Inflation Reduction Act was enacted, what has the impact been on Carbon Clean?

Aniruddha Sharma: The IRA did much to jolt industry, incentivizing investment in carbon capture, while also telegraphing that the US government is getting serious about bringing emissions down. Overnight, the US became Carbon Clean's biggest growth opportunity: inquiries from industrial emitters leapt a staggering 64 percent.

The impact of the IRA cannot be overstated for our industry, especially for point source carbon capture technology companies like Carbon Clean. The momentum created by the law's passage, along with our existing activity in North America, led to the opening of our US headquarters in Houston in March this year. We will double our US headcount to meet demand for CycloneCC, our breakthrough, fully modular carbon capture technology.

EC: What does the sector still need to see — in terms of support from the government — to continue to move the needle on the energy transition?

AS: There's much to admire in the way that the IRA incentivizes business. While it involves billions of dollars of public investment, it is set up in such a way that companies must make substantial investments first. IRA funding doesn't arrive on day one — it comes over several years and to get to the first dollar of funding, a company must secure considerable private investment first. In other words, every single dollar of the IRA funding is unlocking additional private investment, creating high-paying jobs, and bringing manufacturing back home.

Of course, a lot of additional investment still needs to happen, and for some harder-to-abate sectors additional policy measures may be required to enable deployment at scale. The IRA is just a first step, but what a giant step it promises to be.

EC: You recently opened Carbon Clean's HQ in Houston. What's next for your company in terms of growth — especially here in Houston?

AS: We're experiencing phenomenal growth globally, but we expect our expansion in North America to outpace all other regions. In line with this, we've seen a surge in interest from industrials across the US and our newly-opened Houston office will help us to meet this demand.

We are establishing a very significant base in the US — doubling our headcount this year — and we are developing a local supply chain to support the commercialization of our breakthrough modular technology, CycloneCC.

The potential for CycloneCC in the US and Houston area is huge. It is optimised for low to medium scale industrial emitters and recent Rice University research on the US Gulf Coast, for example, found that it is well suited to 73% of Gulf Coast emitters.

We're currently working with Chevron on a carbon capture pilot for our CycloneCC technology on a gas turbine in San Joaquin Valley, California. We expect to be announcing additional carbon capture projects in the US in the coming months.

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This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.

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UH's $44 million mass timber building slashed energy use in first year

building up

The University of Houston recently completed assessments on year one of the first mass timber project on campus, and the results show it has had a major impact.

Known as the Retail, Auxiliary, and Dining Center, or RAD Center, the $44 million building showed an 84 percent reduction in predicted energy use intensity, a measure of how much energy a building uses relative to its size, compared to similar buildings. Its Global Warming Potential rating, a ratio determined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, shows a 39 percent reduction compared to the benchmark for other buildings of its type.

In comparison to similar structures, the RAD Center saved the equivalent of taking 472 gasoline-powered cars driven for one year off the road, according to architecture firm Perkins & Will.

The RAD Center was created in alignment with the AIA 2030 Commitment to carbon-neutral buildings, designed by Perkins & Will and constructed by Houston-based general contractor Turner Construction.

Perkins & Will’s work reduced the building's carbon footprint by incorporating lighter mass timber structural systems, which allowed the RAD Center to reuse the foundation, columns and beams of the building it replaced. Reused elements account for 45 percent of the RAD Center’s total mass, according to Perkins & Will.

Mass timber is considered a sustainable alternative to steel and concrete construction. The RAD Center, a 41,000-square-foot development, replaced the once popular Satellite, which was a food, retail and hangout center for students on UH’s campus near the Science & Research Building 2 and the Jack J. Valenti School of Communication.

The RAD Center uses more than a million pounds of timber, which can store over 650 metric tons of CO2. Aesthetically, the building complements the surrounding campus woodlands and offers students a view both inside and out.

“Spaces are designed to create a sense of serenity and calm in an ecologically-minded environment,” Diego Rozo, a senior project manager and associate principal at Perkins & Will, said in a news release. “They were conceptually inspired by the notion of ‘unleashing the senses’ – the design celebrating different sights, sounds, smells and tastes alongside the tactile nature of the timber.”

In addition to its mass timber design, the building was also part of an Energy Use Intensity (EUI) reduction effort. It features high-performance insulation and barriers, natural light to illuminate a building's interior, efficient indoor lighting fixtures, and optimized equipment, including HVAC systems.

The RAD Center officially opened Phase I in Spring 2024. The third and final phase of construction is scheduled for this summer, with a planned opening set for the fall.

Experts on U.S. energy infrastructure, sustainability, and the future of data

Guest column

Digital infrastructure is the dominant theme in energy and infrastructure, real estate and technology markets.

Data, the byproduct and primary value generated by digital infrastructure, is referred to as “the fifth utility,” along with water, gas, electricity and telecommunications. Data is created, aggregated, stored, transmitted, shared, traded and sold. Data requires data centers. Data centers require energy. The United States is home to approximately 40% of the world's data centers. The U.S. is set to lead the world in digital infrastructure advancement and has an opportunity to lead on energy for a very long time.

Data centers consume vast amounts of electricity due to their computational and cooling requirements. According to the United States Department of Energy, data centers consume “10 to 50 times the energy per floor space of a typical commercial office building.” Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory issued a report in December 2024 stating that U.S. data center energy use reached 176 TWh by 2023, “representing 4.4% of total U.S. electricity consumption.” This percentage will increase significantly with near-term investment into high performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI). The markets recognize the need for digital infrastructure build-out and, developers, engineers, investors and asset owners are responding at an incredible clip.

However, the energy demands required to meet this digital load growth pose significant challenges to the U.S. power grid. Reliability and cost-efficiency have been, and will continue to be, two non-negotiable priorities of the legal, regulatory and quasi-regulatory regime overlaying the U.S. power grid.

Maintaining and improving reliability requires physical solutions. The grid must be perfectly balanced, with neither too little nor too much electricity at any given time. Specifically, new-build, physical power generation and transmission (a topic worthy of another article) projects must be built. To be sure, innovative financial products such as virtual power purchase agreements (VPPAs), hedges, environmental attributes, and other offtake strategies have been, and will continue to be, critical to growing the U.S. renewable energy markets and facilitating the energy transition, but the U.S. electrical grid needs to generate and move significantly more electrons to support the digital infrastructure transformation.

But there is now a third permanent priority: sustainability. New power generation over the next decade will include a mix of solar (large and small scale, offsite and onsite), wind and natural gas resources, with existing nuclear power, hydro, biomass, and geothermal remaining important in their respective regions.

Solar, in particular, will grow as a percentage of U.S grid generation. The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) reported that solar added 50 gigawatts of new capacity to the U.S. grid in 2024, “the largest single year of new capacity added to the grid by an energy technology in over two decades.” Solar is leading, as it can be flexibly sized and sited.

Under-utilized technology such as carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) will become more prominent. Hydrogen may be a potential game-changer in the medium-to-long-term. Further, a nuclear power renaissance (conventional and small modular reactor (SMR) technologies) appears to be real, with recent commitments from some of the largest companies in the world, led by technology companies. Nuclear is poised to be a part of a “net-zero” future in the United States, also in the medium-to-long term.

The transition from fossil fuels to zero carbon renewable energy is well on its way – this is undeniable – and will continue, regardless of U.S. political and market cycles. Along with reliability and cost efficiency, sustainability has become a permanent third leg of the U.S. power grid stool.

Sustainability is now non-negotiable. Corporate renewable and low carbon energy procurement is strong. State renewable portfolio standards (RPS) and clean energy standards (CES) have established aggressive goals. Domestic manufacturing of the equipment deployed in the U.S. is growing meaningfully and in politically diverse regions of the country. Solar, wind and batteries are increasing less expensive. But, perhaps more importantly, the grid needs as much renewable and low carbon power generation as possible - not in lieu of gas generation, but as an increasingly growing pairing with gas and other technologies. This is not an “R” or “D” issue (as we say in Washington), and it's not an “either, or” issue, it's good business and a physical necessity.

As a result, solar, wind and battery storage deployment, in particular, will continue to accelerate in the U.S. These clean technologies will inevitably become more efficient as the buildout in the U.S. increases, investments continue and technology advances.

At some point in the future (it won’t be in the 2020s, it could be in the 2030s, but, more realistically, in the 2040s), the U.S. will have achieved the remarkable – a truly modern (if not entirely overhauled) grid dependent largely on a mix of zero and low carbon power generation and storage technology. And when this happens, it will have been due in large part to the clean technology deployment and advances over the next 10 to 15 years resulting from the current digital infrastructure boom.

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Hans Dyke and Gabbie Hindera are lawyers at Bracewell. Dyke's experience includes transactions in the electric power and oil and gas midstream space, as well as transactions involving energy intensive industries such as data storage. Hindera focuses on mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, and public and private capital market offerings.

Rice researchers' quantum breakthrough could pave the way for next-gen superconductors

new findings

A new study from researchers at Rice University, published in Nature Communications, could lead to future advances in superconductors with the potential to transform energy use.

The study revealed that electrons in strange metals, which exhibit unusual resistance to electricity and behave strangely at low temperatures, become more entangled at a specific tipping point, shedding new light on these materials.

A team led by Rice’s Qimiao Si, the Harry C. and Olga K. Wiess Professor of Physics and Astronomy, used quantum Fisher information (QFI), a concept from quantum metrology, to measure how electron interactions evolve under extreme conditions. The research team also included Rice’s Yuan Fang, Yiming Wang, Mounica Mahankali and Lei Chen along with Haoyu Hu of the Donostia International Physics Center and Silke Paschen of the Vienna University of Technology. Their work showed that the quantum phenomenon of electron entanglement peaks at a quantum critical point, which is the transition between two states of matter.

“Our findings reveal that strange metals exhibit a unique entanglement pattern, which offers a new lens to understand their exotic behavior,” Si said in a news release. “By leveraging quantum information theory, we are uncovering deep quantum correlations that were previously inaccessible.”

The researchers examined a theoretical framework known as the Kondo lattice, which explains how magnetic moments interact with surrounding electrons. At a critical transition point, these interactions intensify to the extent that the quasiparticles—key to understanding electrical behavior—disappear. Using QFI, the team traced this loss of quasiparticles to the growing entanglement of electron spins, which peaks precisely at the quantum critical point.

In terms of future use, the materials share a close connection with high-temperature superconductors, which have the potential to transmit electricity without energy loss, according to the researchers. By unblocking their properties, researchers believe this could revolutionize power grids and make energy transmission more efficient.

The team also found that quantum information tools can be applied to other “exotic materials” and quantum technologies.

“By integrating quantum information science with condensed matter physics, we are pivoting in a new direction in materials research,” Si said in the release.

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