Are you ready to blow off some steam? (how’s that?)
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Today, we are talking to Ashwin Salvi from AtmosZero
Today we get the chance to tackle a discussion around one of the biggest trouble makers in industrial production: Steam.
As you’ll find out, steam is a huge part of most industrial production today. We need to decarbonize all of it, so Ashwin discusses with us
How their tech is doing that
Why they chose to build in stealth initially
How they validated the idea
And he finishes us off with some business ideas
It’s truly an inspiring conversation because it shows how, with a lot of forethought and diligence, you can avoid many big mistakes—something every climate entrepreneur wants to hear.
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The Guest: Ashwin Salvi
After graduating from the University of Michigan with a PhD in Mechanical Engineering, Ashwin ended up at ARPA-E, a place all of us energy nerds are somewhat familiar with.
After a couple years of that he ended up at Achates Power where he was innovating on the internal combustion engine to make it much more sustainable.
Eventualy, he and some former colleagues realized how big of a problem steam was, and they put all of their PhDs together to solve it.
After some validation, they went all in and founded AtmosZero.
The Company: AtmosZero
One Liner: Decarbonizing steam boilers with a cost effective drop in solution.
Industry is responsible for around 37% of global emissions. Producing steam is a huge part of that because steam touches so many things. Food and Beverage, Pharma, Chemicals, Textiels, Pulp and Paper, Metals and Mining, Automotive, Rubber and Plastics, Construction Materials, Cosmetics, etc. Yet most of us don’t even know about it.
They knew that solving this problem was critical to the decarbonization of industry. So they took a look at existing decarbonization methods.
The two major options are either too expensive to operate, or too expensive to install.
So, they decided to make a commercial scale unit that can be set on-site, or nearby, and piped into existing infrastructure. This drops the install cost substantially.
As for the operating costs? They’ve managed, with a little secret sauce of their own, to get their boilers highly efficient.
Today they are working on their inital pilot project with New Belgium Brewery with many other demonstrations lined up after.
Do you have suggestions on future guests or topics? Leave a comment!
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📝 Show Notes:
Topics
1:58 Introduction and Background
10:03 Creating a Standardized Solution for Decarbonization
24:03 Return on Investment and Future Plans
25:42 De-risking and Mass Manufacturing
29:23 Challenges and Objections
39:32 First Commercial Deployment
48:48 Opportunities in Electrical Availability and Funding
51: 38 Takeaways
Links
This podcast is NOT investment advice. Do your homework and due diligence before investing in anything discussed on this podcast.
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