TOGETHER WITH

Good morning. Yesterday marked 3 years since the first edition of The Column was sent out, and today it goes out to 10,245 of you. If you have any thoughts on what The Column does well, and what you’d like to see done better, please share:

From the condenser:
· NET Power went public
· New Energy Risk and drying biomass
· POTD: trimmer line

CARBON CAPTURE

NET Power went public with a SPAC

US-based startup, NET Power, completed its merger with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), Rice Acquisition Corp. II, and is now publicly traded as ‘NPWR’.

Setting the scene:
NET Power’s core technology is based on the Allam Cycle, which combusts natural gas with pure oxygen, produces water vapor and CO2, removes the water, and then uses the CO2 to propel the turbine (instead combusting natural gas with air, using the resulting heat to produce steam, and using that steam to propel the turbine). The company first demonstrated the technology in La Porte, Texas back in 2018, integrated it with Texas's grid in 2021, and announced plans to build a site 6x larger out in west Texas last November.

Why you should care:
One way to think about what NET Power is doing is in terms of where they’re choosing to do separations—their core thesis is that separating oxygen from air prior to combustion is a better call than separating CO2 from flue gas. Both methods reduce a power plant’s energy return on investment (because both of those methods consume energy), but if their efficiencies are comparable, then NET Power could give a lot of carbon capture opportunities a run for their money.

Zooming out:
Much of the chemical industry’s emission problem is just a heating problem, so for the most part we’re seeing the incumbents explore four potential futures: one where we a) produce heat by burning hydrogen, b) produce heat via nuclear fission, c) produce heat with electricity, and d) proceed as normal, but capture the CO2 that’s produced. NET Power is presenting a new option that is probably not as attractive as CO2 capture for retrofits, but potentially very attractive for greenfield projects.

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BIOBASED CHEMICALS

Insurance for drying biomass at scale

Netherlands-based technology company, Yilkins, utilized New Energy Risk’s (NER) services to increase the adoption of its biomass processing technology and equipment.

A little background:
Let’s say Company A wants to license its process (and perhaps the equipment that goes along with it) to Company B. Company B likes Company A’s process, but it’s a new process, so there is some uncertainty about whether it will perform as expected. So Company A provides a warranty to Company B, which has two primary effects: 1) Company B is more likely to license from Company A, and 2) Company B might be able to raise funds at better rates because warrantied investments are less risky for investors.

Okay, so what’s the deal here?
Yilkins licenses drying and torrefaction technologies (which remove water and other volatile compounds) to companies looking to process biomass prior to use as a fuel or material feedstock (e.g. maybe forestry residues for CMF, and agricultural residues for ethanol). They’ve been providing their licensees with warranties, but those warranties don’t help licensees if Yilkins goes bankrupt, or is otherwise unable to solve some performance issue. So NRE evaluated Yilkins’ process, and created a set of insurance policies for those warranties to make sure their licensees are always covered.

Connecting the dots:
We’ve talked about how most sustainable feedstocks are solid, and how scaling works differently for solids in Feedstockland, but the problem is exacerbated when half of your valuable biomass is actually water. If the solution is removing that water (with Yilkins’ technology), and adoption is slow because investors can’t evaluate technology risk, then companies like NER are the ones that have to.

Some more headlines

• Maire Technimont was awarded a $300m EPC deal for an Egyptian fertilzier plant

• Linden Cogeneration and Phillips 66 can now co-fire H2 with natural gas

• Corbion pulled out of its plans to build a PLA plant with TotalEnergies

• Axens will license ExxonMobil's MTBE process to make isobutylene

• Solvay expanded its US-based production of copper extraction solvents

Product of The Day

Today, we're breaking down trimmer line.

This lawn machine has all sorts of names (weed eater, weed whacker, weedwacker, weed whip, line trimmer, brush cutter, whipper snipper, and strimmer). But no matter what you call it all of them use a monofilament line primarily composed of a polyamide (that's what most people call nylon).

You'll find the trimmer line in various shapes (like this star shaped line and sometimes reinforced with metals like aluminum. It's safe to say that many accidents have been prevented by introducing this polymer alternative to a metal blade—and for that we thank the inventor, George Ballas.

The reboiler

• Product: Does measuring the pH of random liquids sound fun to you? If so, then try out this pH meter.*

• Written Interview: Give this conversation featuring the CEO of Olin on the epoxy, acetyl, and chlorovinyl chains a read.

• Guide: If you’ve been looking for a breakdown of biobased fuels, then look no further.

The bottoms

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