Out of the blue, only weeks before my scheduled retirement from Mercer, where I’ve worked for more than nine years (more on that journey in another post), an old friend asked me to join the Advisory Board for a green energy startup: Grimes CarbonTech.
I debated with myself. In 2002 I had a great time writing an article for a Deloitte publication, World Magazine, on global warming. But all I had to do was interview scientists and talk about the likelihood and what the future might look like. This time, I would have to learn enough about the science to explain it to others and help generate the investments needed to bring what I now know to be a revolutionary technology to life – before it’s too late and we’re all besieged by crazy storms and droughts and floods and new diseases.
The first call was alarming. Speaking to the brilliant founder and chief innovator, Joe Maceda, on a Zoom call with a couple of other board members, I was lost. Between Joe’s tendency to speak in chemical engineering jargon and the lags in the Zoom hookup, I only got a quarter of what he was saying. He later sent me a bunch of materials about hydrogen energy with a lot of acronyms and formulas: SMR, SAF, CH4, CCR, MBOE, CAPER, etc.
Hello Google; hello ChatGPT! It took me a while to get my bearings, but a month later, I know enough to say: OMG, this is what we’ve been waiting for! Joe knows how to stop climate change! With GCT’s technology, we can generate more power than we’ll ever need without burning fossil fuels.
As Joe explained, quoting his friend and fellow visionary, Pat Grimes, “The only thing wrong with coal is burning it.”
Here’s the introduction to the Grimes CarbonTech I wrote to explain it to myself.
A faster, cheaper, more efficient path to hydrogen energy
Hydrogen. It’s the most abundant element in the universe. It’s the H in H2O. It’s the main component of the sun. It can be extracted from methane (natural gas), organic waste – or almost anything containing carbon. And for many scientists and policy makers, hydrogen holds the key to a sustainable, cheap, carbon neutral supply of energy.
Today, most hydrogen energy comes from Steam Methane Reforming. In a steam methane reformer, methane reacts with steam at high temperatures (700 – 1000 degrees Celsius) to produce hydrogen (H2) and carbon monoxide (CO). That mixture can then be converted into pure hydrogen and carbon dioxide or all kinds of industrial products, such as ammonia or methanol – high-quality, clean-burning synthetic fuels.
One of the first uses for hydrogen energy was in fuel cells. Scientists in the early 19th century figured out that applying electric current to water produced hydrogen and oxygen gases, and by the middle of the century gas batteries (known today as fuel cells) were being used to power machines.[1]
Today, because it can be driven using renewable electric sources such as solar and wind, electrolysis has captured a great deal of attention and investment. The upside of electrolysis is that the output is clean – just oxygen and hydrogen. The downside is that it’s expensive and energy intensive and requires significant investments to build the facilities for producing, storing and transporting the energy to where it will be used. Also, solar and wind are intermittent.
First, you need proximity to a renewable, reliable feedstock (the inputs to start the process – biogas, methane, ethanol – or any carbon-based substance). Then you need a reliable power source and a facility where you can scale up production. And finally, you need the infrastructure to transport, store and distribute the hydrogen. At minimum, just to produce enough energy to serve current needs in the U.S. would require additional investments of at least $165 billion. And current power generation needs are nothing compared to the needs of a world powered by AI server farms, air conditioners, electric vehicles, and private aviation.
There’s a promising alternative. Grimes Carbon Tech (GCT) is a green energy startup with proprietary technology that solves the intrinsic challenges to producing cost-competitive hydrogen-based fuels. GCT can produce hydrogen-based fuels locally – at a client’s site – using whatever benign feedstocks are available, without the need for massive investments in the infrastructure for hydrogen distribution and storage.
The process, known as caustic, aqueous-phase, electrochemical reforming (or CAPER), can take place at low temperatures (100oC), doesn’t require connection to a municipal power grid and is 75% cheaper and 30 times more energy efficient than electrolysis. And building a CAPER facility is fast; its footprint is modular and scalable to meet growing demands.
The utility of the solution is staggering. Think about invasive species, such as water hyacinth, which has been clogging Lake Victoria, killing off native aquatic plants. Today, water hyacinth has decimated 17,000 hectares of the lake in an area where 80% of the local populations don’t have access to electricity and 90% of the petroleum used to generate power is imported at a cost of 10% of GDP. But water hyacinth is an excellent feedstock for a CAPER facility – which means that a $16 million investment to build a 135-hectare pilot facility in Kisumu, Kenya, for example, would generate 2.8 megawatts of energy – enough to power ~8,000 homes — all while restoring the Lake Victoria ecosystem and producing 4,600 tons of organic fertilizer. An alternative configuration would produce ~1 megawatt of energy and 1.8 M liters of diesel fuel.
Or consider the toxic remnants of coal mines. Pretreated waste coal and coal fines (the tiny particles of coal left over from mining and washing coal) are perfect feedstocks for GCT’s CAPER process, which captures all input carbon as an integral part of the process. When integrated with its carbon capture and reuse (CCR) process, it can convert all the input carbon to cost-competitive fuels such as sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) or methanol. And, when hooked up to a fuel cell and using waste heat to drive the CAPER process, GCT can achieve 100% fuel conversion to hydrogen, increasing the overall electrical efficiency of the distributed, grid-independent power source to an unprecedented 65-75%.
In three days I begin my retirement from corporate consulting. I’m more energized and engaged than I’ve been in ages. So once again, I ask, what the HELL are we waiting for? Let’s do this now.
[1] The History of Hydrogen, Jonas, James: https://www.altenergymag.com/article/2009/04/the-history-of-hydrogen/555/
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