James Gray’s Post

Interested in learning about what's happening on the frontier of climatetech and sustainability? I'll be moderating a panel tomorrow at The Austin Forum on Technology & Society about emerging trends and technologies in climate. We've got a stellar group of experts joining us: Michael E. Webber, Margaret Morales, Jacob Borgeson, Sylvie Guillon, and David J. Neff. It starts at 6:15 at the Austin Central Library. More details below, hope to see you there! https://lnkd.in/gZD3JUkD

At last week’s ClimateTech Coffee 🚲 Bryan White and I were joined by Kimberly Gilbert, PhD to hear about her work on Carbon Neutralization and Ocean Storage (CNOS) through her company pHathom. Here’s a recap: The ocean naturally absorbs CO2 over time, but we’ve added so much that the ocean has become increasingly acidic. Ocean pH has dropped from 8.2 to 8.1 globally over the last hundred years, and as pH drops it becomes harder for coral-based organisms to form shells. To combat this, Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement (OAE) is an intervention that both reverses ocean acidification and removes CO2 from the atmosphere. Challenges with traditional OAE: - When you add the alkalinity into the ocean, it spreads out. It’s hard to measure the change in pH. - You don’t know exactly when the extra CO2 will be absorbed. Modeling and measurement companies are trying to help with this problem. Advantages of CNOS: - Co2 is captured directly at a coastal power plant or refinery, and then the concentrated Co2 is pumped into water that has limestone (and/or other alkaline materials) in it.  - This means the Co2 is dissolved onsite and the pH can be equilibrated onsite, which makes accurate measurement more feasible. Factors that affect progress:  - We’ll start seeing more companies enter in this space as the chemistry and its impacts are better understood and seen as safe  - Local and national permitting are a huge bottleneck - On the international permitting level, the London Protocol has a blanket ban on ocean geoengineering for anything except for research. There were good reasons for doing that, but it’s unclear who decides when that can change and the circumstances under which the ban is lifted. (Note: pHathom is not doing geoengineering; it’s doing water treatment on-site and releasing it back as ocean water) Open questions for the category/technology: - Can they come up with enough low-cost alkalinity sources, and get them in a way that doesn’t cause additional environmental damage or Co2 emissions?  - This approach will require pumping a lot of water. How much will that cost and how can the cost be driven down?  - Putting 100 plants’ worth of bicarbonate into the ocean is likely fine for ocean health relative to the climate benefit, but what is the point where the tradeoffs cross over? Some groups doing good work in this space:  [C]Worthy Carbon to Sea Initiative  University Research: UC Santa Barbara, University of Tasmania, GEOMAR, Dalhousie University, Scripps Join us for the next one in May! Details coming soon, and you can get updates by subscribing to the series page here: https://lnkd.in/g7DTGm2V

Heads up to my Austin climate people: the next Climatetech Coffee is this Friday, April 19th at Lazarus East. Details here and RSVP here: https://lu.ma/hhmp13a1 This time we'll be joined by Dr. Kimberly Gilbert to hear about her work on Carbon Neutralization and Ocean Storage (CNOS) and her new startup pHathom. Kim has a deep background in chemical engineering, geochemistry, and advanced Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement (OAE) R&D through her work at the Carbon to Sea Initiative. Some of you may have seen her present at the Climate Innovation Showcase during SXSW, and this is a great chance to learn more about this emerging category and technology. Hope you can join us!

The Climate Futures Innovation Showcase this week was an absolute blast. I left inspired by how fast the climatetech ecosystem is growing here in Texas, and from the conversations I had with folks at the event I know I'm not alone. Thanks again to all of the panelists, startups, and investors that came out to support us and to everyone who made it happen over the last few weeks: Jeffrey Blickman Jacob Borgeson Olivia Dell 🚲 Bryan White Sean Voigt J. Anthony Seliskar

To all my climatetech friends coming into town for SXSW: Seren Labs is co-hosting the Climate Futures Innovation Showcase on March 13th at Palm Venture Studios. We've got a great lineup of startups, investor reverse pitches, and panels about the future of the grid and unlocking climate talent at scale. RSVP at: https://lu.ma/sxsw-climate

Had a great time today hosting the first ClimateTech Coffee along with 🚲 Bryan White! Huge thanks to everyone that came out, and in particular to Ken Wisian Ph.D., Major General USAF (ret) and Jackson Marshall Grimes for sharing their work in geothermal. And for everyone in Austin working on climate-adjacent research, policy, or technology: come join us for the next one! They'll be announced on our series page: https://lnkd.in/gF8gCzRZ Some highlights from our discussion today: - People often think about geothermal in the context of heat pumps and electricity generation, but using heat for things like agrifood processing has a ton of potential as well (fish farming, coffee drying, greenhouses, etc.) - There’s more geothermal on the moon and Mars than expected, so geothermal will likely be one of the main energy sources we use as we expand into space - GeoMap is a great tool for developers and policymakers to plan out feasibility of geothermal projects (https://lnkd.in/g5xv_XqU) - Geothermal deployment in Texas has been radically sped up after moving from TCEQ to the Railroad Commission. In the Western US, new projects take 5-10 years to get a permit which can totally kill a project - One of the biggest limiting factor in scaling out geothermal is the availability of transformers - On potential scale and speed of deployment of geothermal wells: at the height of the shale frack boom in Texas, we were drilling 15,000 wells per year - The US Military has been leading the way on larger geothermal projects. There’s are lots of advantages around low-interruption, on-site baseload energy (which is a major draw for data centers as well).  - Lots of opportunities are emerging around using abandoned oil and gas wells for energy storage when wind and solar have excess capacity. Texas is one of the first places in the country to allow geothermal operators to take over abandoned oil and gas wells, so this will be where the emerging technology gets applied.  - Groups that came up: Texas Geothermal Energy Alliance (TXGEA), Sage Geosystems Inc., Utah FORGE, Bedrock Energy

Fantastic opportunity for scientists who want to see their climate solutions deployed to the world faster

Owen McNally, PhD and the National CyberWatch Center are doing some incredible work to improve our nation's cyber capabilities. They're looking to bring IT and computing SMEs onboard as panelists to help develop their curricula; reach out to him if you're interested!

This one’s for the data people who keep their eyes on the horizon, who don’t get distracted by shiny objects, silver bullets, or buzzwords. We've lined up some incredible speakers and industry leaders for half a day filled with honest, lively and practical sessions covering Data Mesh, DataOps, Knowledge Graphs, modernizing your data processes, data governance, discoverability, and so much more. Reserve your spot today. #datamanagement #dataops