Cipher News’ Post

If you’re not deeply enmeshed in climate tech innovation, there’s a good chance you don’t know the name Yet-Ming Chiang. But if you are, you probably do — or you know about the companies he has helped launch. Chiang is a material science and engineering professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he started his freshman year undergraduate studies in 1976. Chiang never left. He got his bachelor’s degree and his doctorate from MIT in 1980 and 1985, respectively. He’s also an entrepreneur and a co-founder of two of the buzziest climate tech companies right now: Form Energy, which is developing long duration energy storage systems and is currently valued by financial data firm Pitchbook at $2.06 billion, and Sublime Systems, which is commercializing cement made with electrochemistry and is currently valued by Pitchbook at $90 million. That’s not all. Chiang is 66 years old, and in just the last year he co-founded three new companies, all of which are still in relative stealth mode. One of the companies, called Propel Aero, is focused on electric aviation. Chiang declined to share the names of the other two but did share their general focus areas: lithium extraction from hard rock resources and the stimulation of geologic hydrogen. Meet Yet in my story here on Cipher News: https://lnkd.in/eRh6-auy

💎Curious about what #nextGEMS has been up to? Check out our comprehensive timeline on our website! Explore a collection of significant past and upcoming events, key milestones, and fascinating insights about the project and its related topics. 💫 🤝 Discover, for instance, why challenge problems are crucial to nextGEMS. These context-specific research challenges, co-defined with stakeholders and tackled during hackathons, generate practical, actionable knowledge for the broader nextGEMS community. Applications span the renewable energy sector, marine productivity, and climate-related hazards. 🌩️ 🌪️ Stay informed and get inspired by our journey! Link to timeline: https://buff.ly/3Rk9Zkb Link to post about challenge problems: https://buff.ly/459YMIP #challengeproblems #climatemodelling #climatescience #H2020 @cinea

Captura is one of two ARPA-E-funded projects driving progress in the relatively new field of Direct Ocean Capture (DOC).     Forbes recently spotlighted their promising DOC technology that leverages the oceans’ natural ability as a carbon sink to provide large-scale atmospheric carbon removal at a low cost.    Check out more from Forbes to see why Captura’s innovation is so promising: https://bit.ly/3SJWvy1.

Showing potential to change the carbon capture arena with a fundamental transformative technology approach.

“By removing excess CO2 from seawater and enhancing the ocean's natural CO2-absorbing abilities, Captura aims to safeguard both terrestrial and marine ecosystems from the detrimental impacts of climate change while providing a scalable and cost-effective carbon removal solution. I get a kick out of imagining Captura’s systems chugging away on oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico while burying the captured carbon dioxide in the geological formations from which we now pull hydrocarbons.” Thanks to Erik from Forbes for the great Captura feature — click below to read the whole story. #CDR #CarbonRemoval #ClimateChange #Sustainability

Some interesting technology for #DOC - ‘Direct Ocean Capture’ which takes carbon out of seawater, allowing the ocean to take in more carbon from the air. The smart thing - just like #BlueCarbon - no chemicals or materials chucked into the sea. Who knows - there may be a day when Dr Ana Novak and Steve Oldham work together with complimentary DOC technology. #carboncapture #carbonreduction

In the last two days we did the kick-off meeting of the #euEIC Mid- to long-term and systems integrated #energystorage Pathfinder challenge #portfolio. The 32 representatives of the 9 projects belonging to the technological categories of the Electrochemical, Thermal, Chemical looping and storage of energy carriers and Thermomechanical energy storage discussed with experts coming from @JRC, CINEA - European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency, Future Cleantech Architects and scientific organizations how to accelerate their technology innovation journey through sharing scientific and innovation expertise as well as facilities and equipment. Take home messages are: 1) collaboration is needed but to implement it you clearly need to demonstrate that it is a win-win approach; 2) tech to market plans needs to be strategically designed since day one of the deep tech innovation journey; 3) to achieve the ambitious goal of implementing the energy transition we need to design the proper policies and to develop technologies that are environmentally and economically sustainable.

We are thankful to Forbes’ Erik Kobayashi-Solomon for shedding light on our Direct Ocean Capture technology and our strides toward commercialization.    As Erik notes, “Since the ocean makes up around 70% of the surface area of our planet, Captura is offering a path to create a massively scalable Nature-enhancing Solution (NeS) to the carbon cycle imbalance that is driving climate change.” Read the full feature below for more! https://lnkd.in/gew4Q8H5

Needless to say - we agree with Eric's conclusion! Erik Kobayashi-Solomon provides a good summary of Captura's technology and its potential in this article. I like his characterization of how we combine the best of nature and the best of technology to enable carbon removal at low cost and large scale #carbonremoval #directoceancapture

$50 million up for grabs. Today, 20 finalists for the XPRIZE Carbon Removal competition were announced. The grand prize winner will receive $50 million. In the next stage of the competition the 20 finalist teams are challenged to demonstrate 1,000 net tonnes of CO2 removal. Each demonstration is judged on cost, operational performance, and the ability to meet sustainable scalability requirements. The winner of the final stage of the X Prize Carbon Removal competition will be announced April 2025. X Prize Carbon Removal has four carbon removal pathway tracks: air, oceans, land, and rocks. These are the finalists for each pathway removal track: Air: Airhive, Heirloom, Octavia Carbon, Project Hajar by Aircapture and 44.01, and Skyrenu technologies Oceans: Planetary, Captura, Kelp Blue, and Ebb Carbon Land: Vaulted Deep, Takachar, NetZero, MASH Makes, and Climate Robotics Rocks: Lithos Carbon, Mati Carbon, Silicate, UNDO, Arca, and Yuanchu technologies #climateinnovation #climatetech #carbonremoval #xprize #elonmusk #climatechange #climateaction