About the Author Anna Glazman is a CEO of CO2Zero, a startup dedicated to CO2 emissions' reduction. She received an Award from the University of California, Irvine for her undergraduate thesis in Econometrics on Global Energy Consumption in 1996. Anna started her career in oil trading working as an Intern on a multi-national trading platform and has worked as a Business Consultant with technologies of various levels of development. She holds a Foundation in Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences in honor of Roman E. Glazman, a Research Scientist at NASA, who dedicated his research to the study of Ocean and Atmosphere and whose works can be found at NASA and in the Journal of Geophysical Research, Journal of Fluid Mechanics, Journal of Oceanic Engineering, Journal Dynamics of Atmospheres and Oceans, Journal of The Acoustical Society of America, Journal of Physical Oceanography, Proceedings of Royal Society to name a few.
CleanTech Open Global Forum 2020 - This year's Cohort 2020 of clean technologies was represented by 106 companies in the categories of Energy Efficiency, Energy Distribution, Information Technology, Agriculture & Chemical and Advanced Materials. Focus on renewable fuels, clean energy production, green building and reduction of emissions is characteristic of all companies within the CTO.
RenewCO2, deserves a special attention as the Regional Winner of the North East region in the CTO Global Forum 2020. RenewCO2 is a Rutgers University team. RenewCO2 aims to reduce CO2 emissions from chemical production facilities to 0.18 parts from the current 1.6, an 88 3/4 % reduction.
Utilizing CO2, electricity and water, the technology developed and patented by Karin Calvinho, allows producing MEG precursor polymer for the chemical manufacturers in a significantly less expensive way and consuming CO2 in the process, compared to current methods, which emit 1.6 tons of CO2 for every ton of MEG produced.
Anders Laursen, the Co-Founder and CEO of RenewCO2 is not exaggerating in his opening statement at the Global Forum, "We are the future of plastics. We believe that the future of plastics is carbon negative", about the RenewCO2 impact in reducing carbon footprint.
The Chemical industry of Mono-ethylene-glycol (MEG) polymers is currently supplying PET polymer for production of consumer plastic necessities amounting globally to 32.5M tons of MEG and 5.7M tons in the US annually. The industry growth of 4% has shown steady demand for MEG polymers as consumers expect their every day essentials, such as food packaging, beverage, plastic bottles and polyester clothing.
Conscious about recycling, consumers have raised the rate of PET bottles' and jars' recycling to 26.8 percent, among the highest recycling rates of plastics, where the overall rate of recycled plastics is just 8.5 percent (according to the EPA for 2018).
Despite high dependency on polymer products and steady demand, the MEG industry has been slow to change. Traditionally dependent on fossil fuel, Chemical Manufacturers produce 52M tons of CO2 in the process globally and average 1.2M tons of CO2 annually per facility. With current 1.6 tons of CO2 emitted for every ton of MEG produced as a cost to society, the CO2 State and Federal reduction requirements are anticipated to put pressure on the industry by requiring it to meet the target of 40% below 1990 levels before 2030. Thus, emissions would have to fall below 10M tons by 2030 to meet that level.
The innovative solution by RenewCO2 allows recapturing CO2 from the manufacturing process, and turning 1.42 units of CO2 into the chain of polymer with properties for PET production.
Providing incremental capacity increases of 4% to the current plants allows them to gradually adjust production process 30K tons at a time, while reusing 42.6K of CO2 in new PET production. The initial 10% market share goal by 2029 allows adoption of RenewCO2 technology by the Chemical manufacturers in a non-disruptive way:
"We identified a beachhead market for this technology - it's companies that already produce this monomer in a petro-chemical way and generate CO2 in the process. Taking that CO2 and making more of the product", says Karin Calvinho, the Chief Technology Officer of RenewCO2, "we can increase their capacity modularly so they can follow the market through".
Implemented globally, the new process would yield a 95% reduction in CO2 levels for the industry overall at 2.86M tons of CO2, according to CO2Zero estimates, and well below $10M, the 40% target level by International Energy Commission:
Additional benefits of RenewCO2 include revenue for the manufacturers at current MEG prices and saving CO2 costs of near $2M per modular unit.
Both Founders, Karin Calvinho and Anders Laursen , started RenewCO2 with Professor Charles Dismukes as an Advisor, and Karin will continue the development at the Argonne National Lab in Chicago, IL. Their prior awards include a finalist win of Phase I of NASA CO2 Challenge.
RenewCO2 success in perspective is an indicator that CO2 reductions are within a foreseeable future.
The State of Renewable Fuels today is dominated by fossil fuel combustion. Current production processes throughout all industry Verticals, from Food and Beverage Industry to Water and Power Utilities and Natural Gas Distributors, are under compelling pressure to switch to renewable and CO2-free methods. The challenges remain numerous.
Based on California companies' data and similar trends for the US overall, the sectors representing the highest CO2 polluters per facility include Hydrogen Manufacturers at 730K tons of CO2 per facility, only preceded by Fossil Fuel Power generators, below 3M, Refineries and Water and Power utility companies, ranging 3M-10M tons of CO2 emissions, with Natural Gas companies topping off the list at 39M tons of CO2 annually, indicating yet a great lack of renewable energy sources.
Companies at the CTO with solutions to speed the adoption of Hydrogen, included Alchemr and Thiozen, Infinite Hydrogen, Verne, Fixing CO2, and Power to Hydrogen:
Hydrogen, as an ecologically safe fuel, has potential to not only replace transportation fuel, but also to be used in heating homes and power generation. The CO2 emissions' cost currently incurred in Hydrogen production, is the highest barrier to Hydrogen adoption that these companies are working to reduce.
Improvements in Agricultural & Chemical and Advanced Materials sector were led by Takachar, a winner in the West Region. Takachar along with Full Circle Microbes, GSR Solutions and a Nigerian company Farm to Flame, aim to convert crop residue and farm waste into fertilizer products.
In general, in the US with approximately 2M farms averaging in size at 443 acres, the CO2 emissions result annually in 86M tons (not including emissions of Methane and Nitrous Oxide, according to the EPA). Providing a conversion equipment to farms for processing farm waste into fertilizer would reduce CO2 by 43 tons annually for each farm, at current CO2 reduction offset prices rounded to $20, yielding an estimated $860 value for CO2 reduction per farm.
As Karin Calvinho spoke about her experience at the CleanTech Open Global Forum - it's the synergies between the teams which share their concepts and developments at the Global Forum that make this environment a success.
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