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Startup raises to turn Algae into fuel

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In Your Inbox: A new battery storage pilot in Canada; Algae based biofuel; A new approach to plastic; Contrarian Climate Ep. 1

🚀 STARTUPS & TECH

TROES Goes Beyond Physical Batteries

By: Matt Morris

TROES BSS
The world is moving towards clean energy sources. (Image: TROES)

In another step towards battery energy storage systems (BESS) adoption, two Canadian government buildings are partnering up with TROES, a Canadian battery manufacturer, to install their units in two separate projects to pave the way to net-zero emissions at the commercial level. Through the Shediac Smart Energy Community Project, the New Brunswick town is focused on how “future of energy” technologies can ratepayers, community, and stakeholders by integrating cloud-based energy storage systems into a smart grid.

Focusing on peak shaving, or reducing the amount of energy consumed from the grid during high-demand, high-cost periods, these buildings will take advantage of combined solar + storage from a community solar farm to reduce electricity costs and emissions for the town. With TROES cloud-based BESS system, the firm will be able to work with Shediac to optimize energy consumption to create consumer and environmental benefits.

Why does this matter?

  • Provides another real-world demonstration for battery technology at the commercial scale. With a government entity being involved, success for this project can accelerate the growth and adoption of BESS technology for commercial purposes.

 

  • Data collection will optimize smart-grid implementation for the region. By understanding electricity demand in real-time at the local level, smart-grids, and particularly microgrids, can efficiently predict demand and more accurately utilize electricity at granular levels.

 

  • Shows greater proof of concept for LFP batteries. While Lithium-ion technology has been around for a while, different chemistries address different pain points. LFP batteries are known for being safer and non-toxic but have a small capacity. While these units can generally be stacked, utility-scale LFP batteries may still be far away.

Comparison of Electrochemical Battery Chemistries

Comparison of Electrochemical Battery Chemistries

What’s next?

  • Shediac has notoriously been an early adopter for piloting green energy technologies. Should the data and benefits from this 4-year project prove fruitful, scaling of these projects can advance rapidly, especially since this a federally funded project.

 

  • Cloud-based energy storage systems can become the new norm, even at micro scales, giving rise to combined software-hardware energy storage solutions. While there are many SaaS startups that are addressing grid optimization and energy storage and utilization data, combining them with hardware units can reap major benefits.

Future Outlook

Federal implementation of energy storage units has considerable advantages. First, it shows that the government is committed to making a difference, even at the smallest levels. Second, it shows that funding is available for public-private relationships, boosting technological advancement while bolstering the reputation and prospects of startups in the industry. Third, it creates community awareness. If this is a success, this can hopefully lead other governments to work with ISOs and RTOs to implement pilot projects at the commercial scale in conjunction with government entities. While there is considerable funding in the United States for energy storage technologies to address a wide variety of applications, integration of such systems into the grid is a tedious, time-consuming process with little to show for.

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🧬 SCIENCE

Now That’s A Great Wrap!

By: Daniel Kriozere

Congress is likely to extend solar ITCs another 2 years (Image: Unsplash)

Jordy Kay, the CEO of Great Wrap, took some time to talk about what he’s working on to solve plastic waste and where the market is heading.

How/why did you start Great Wrap?

At age 15, I dropped out of high school and moved to Europe, worked in vineyards, and eventually started my own label, making organic wine. Over time, I became frustrated with the way the world was with packaging and very passionate about climate, and I saw that plastic waste was an issue. I felt that we could do a better job with plastic waste and the climate –I was using just absurd amounts of plastic wrap to wrap my pallet to send them overseas and within Australia.

As I started to do research, I realized that biodegradable means that it is still petroleum-based plastic with just an organic additive. As a result, it breaks down at a much more rapid rate into small pieces and microplastics. Compostable alternatives can be expensive and can also be made from oil derived products.

In terms of a climate alternative, there was not a great solution that we would like, so we decided to create our own products that we can get contract manufacturing overseas. We came up with a formula and developed our own prod

Can you describe what your company does and the impact?

We are solving one of the biggest plastic problems of our time. Millions of pallets are freighted everyday wrapped in plastic stretch wrap, we offer the only alternative.

In Australia we send 150,000 tons of cling wrap and pallet wrap to landfill every year. 10% of the world’s petroleum is used to make plastic and sadly it is much cheaper to make more pallet wrap from virgin plastic than it is to recycle it.

We see these figures as a great opportunity for change. Using compostable feedstocks, we have developed a new formula that is just as strong as plastic stretch for almost the same price.

We are developing PHA-based products because it can break down in any environment – it’s marine biodegradable, it’s home compostable, and it’s soil and landfill biodegradable. Biopolymers still break down into carbon dioxide and/or organic matter, depending on the environment that they go in, so they can still emit CO2 into the atmosphere. This is why taking methane out of the atmosphere by converting food waste into the product is a great solution.

We will soon be using food waste to make a large portion of our wrap, with which we can achieve about 60-70% conversion food waste to product. We are diverting 100,000 tons of food waste from landfill to create 50,000 tons of wrap – the other 50,000 tons are being used as energy via anaerobic digestion. 150,000 tons of compostable wrap made from food waste will reduce the CO2 equivalent of a small city not using cars for a year.

In 2021 we plan to make all our products from converted food waste at our factory in Australia. Our dream is to close the loop on our manufacturing so that fossil fuels and intensive agriculture are no longer a part of the production landscape.

Our goal for 2022 is to produce 50,000 metric tons of alternative plastic wrap. By 2025, we can easily be a substitute for supermarket plastic wrap.

How are you thinking about the sector as a whole?

This whole industry is really in its infancy stage, and because of that, the space is fragmented. Some companies are focused on manufacturing, and some are focused on branding. We’re trying to do everything from sourcing the food waste to making the resin to making the product and then selling direct to the customers.

How does the ecosystem seek to benefit from your technology?

Our goal is to create a circular economy: food waste is diverted from landfill, is converted to wrap, gets composted, and then is used for gardens. We’re working with the state of Victoria, specifically with their largest composting facility their collection service. The goal is to set up a collection service so that after pallet wrap is used, it can then end up in a composting system that gets sold locally for use in city gardens.

How are you thinking about policy and the market?

In Australia, we have about 150+ industrial composting services, which is why we can thrive here. We are looking at expanding into the EU and US, though, as both regions are still behind, from both a waste and composting services perspective.

We just received funding from the government in Australia. We are also applying for other grants as there’s a lot of government funding to support sustainable plastic waste management issues in the US.
From the market perspective, big petroleum companies, like Shell, are divesting out of oil and they’re putting a lot more money into renewable energies and alternatives to plastics. The biggest companies in the world who previously were driven by oil now say that there’s more profit there, which is super encouraging.

What does the future look like?

We’ll see a lot more collaboration between brands and manufacturers, especially as companies are currently focusing on IP and process, and the space is fragmented.

Progressive companies will start to incorporate a better packaging into their products, which will only continue to grow and become a standard.

Some of the biggest companies in Australia who use huge amounts of cling wrap and pallet wrap are reaching out to us, and they’re happy to pay whatever price we name – they’re keen to come on board and be a part of this movement.

It’s gotten to the point where you just can’t stop this movement. If you look at the investments going into this space and the data on the increase of biopolymers being used in Australia, it’s growing from year to year, and it’s just going to keep growing.

📃 POLICY & FINANCE

A World Powered by Algae

By: Daniel Kriozere

Manta Biofuel
Algae-based crude oil (Image: Manta Biofuel)

Manta Biofuel recently secured $1.3M – $1.07M through its Republic crowdfunding campaign (with $175K on the waitlist), and the remaining capital from angels, including Eric Uhrhane (investor in C16 Biosciences and Prometheus Fuels, among other cleantech startups) and Jonathan Defoy (CEO of FoodHero). Manta Biofuel is using algae to make a cost-competitive, renewable replacement for crude oil.

Why does this matter?

  • The US consumes 1 billion gallons of fossil fuel every single day, emitting 300 trillion pounds of CO2 annually.
  • The marine shipping, automotive, trucking, aviation, and manufacturing industries are heavily dependent on oil – 0.1% of transportation is powered by electricity, with the remainder being powered by liquid fuels.
  • 2.75 billion metric tons of CO2 emissions could be avoided every year in the United States by using crude oil made from algae.
  • The farming and use of fuels made from algae crude oil is carbon neutral.
  • Algae grows fast – it can double or triple its biomass in a single day, and it requires less land for it to grow.

What’s next?

  • Local farmers and landowners will be able to produce oil independently, allowing Manta Biofuel to scale production.
  • The Department of Energy determined that 106 million acres of non-arable land in the United States are available for production of algae.
  • Manta Biofuel has secured two letters of intent to sell 240,000 gallons of renewable oil to the University of Maryland and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.

Thoughts

Manta Biofuel is beating competition by farming algae, rather than manufacturing algae. Their successful fundraise, traction with customers and partners, and strategy are compelling. The cherry on top is that their oil can be used in existing equipment and processes. Scaling production will be the primary bottleneck Manta Biofuel needs to focus on solving.

đŸ“» PODCAST UPDATES

Bitcoin is the Key to Solving Climate Change w/ Jeff Booth

Contrarian Climate is a podcast focused on exploring “contrarian ideas” and new perspectives from people focused on helping address climate change.

Jeff Booth is a serial technology entrepreneur and currently working at the intersection of climate and crypto. With a focus to help ensure life is comfortable for his kids and family he wrote the book: The Price of Tomorrow to explain why he believes we need to fix our financial system first to solve the world’s biggest social issues, including climate change.

This interview is highly insightful and dives deep into why our financial system is holding back the benefits clean technologies like solar bring us.

Jeff Booth’s Book: https://amzn.to/3tA4VuJ
Jeff Booth’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/JeffBooth


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Writers: Swarnav S Pujari, Daniel Kriozere, Matt Morris

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