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Speaker 1: Benji Caffrey. Great to have you on as my co

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Speaker 1: host for today show, my first but your third year

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Speaker 1: in a row with us talking about innovation and BNF Pioneers.

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Speaker 1: So before we talk about the BNF Pioneers challenges and

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Speaker 1: get into the interviews with a few of the winners,

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Speaker 1: could you explain what BNF Pioneers is.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Hi, Tom, thanks for inviting me, and it's great

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Speaker 2: to be back and we have a super exciting show today.

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Speaker 2: The BENF Pioneer is our annual clean tech innovation competition,

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Speaker 2: So every year we invite innovators that help us sort

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Speaker 2: of some of the hardest part of the energy transitions

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Speaker 2: where we need new innovative solutions. We'll pick every year

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Speaker 2: three unsolved climate innovation gaps as challenges and invite everyone

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Speaker 2: to apply. And we always have also a forced category

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Speaker 2: which we call the Wildcard, so any climate tech innovators

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Speaker 2: can apply to that category.

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Speaker 1: Got it? So what challenge from last year's Pioneers are

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Speaker 1: we highlighting on the podcast today?

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Speaker 2: So the podcast today is going to be focused on

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Speaker 2: making light industry more sustainable and the idea there was

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Speaker 2: you know, around the quarter of emissions worldwide are coming

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Speaker 2: from industry, and we've spent in the past a lot

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Speaker 2: of time on the heavier meters in industry and so on,

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Speaker 2: but actually a third of these emissions come from the

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Speaker 2: light industries. There's a long tails of sectors that are

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Speaker 2: looking for solutions, and actually we've got really good amount

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Speaker 2: of great applications. Then we actually have four winners this year,

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Speaker 2: more than our normal usual streek because there were so

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Speaker 2: many good ones. So I'm super excited to have our

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Speaker 2: four winners today for the show.

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Speaker 1: So there's no shortage of climate tech that needs innovation.

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Speaker 1: Have we decided what the challenges for next year will.

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Speaker 2: Be, so there's a fierst debate amongst all the key

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Speaker 2: stakeholders of pioneers on which challenges should be decided. We'll

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Speaker 2: announce them in September. But some of these are around

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Speaker 2: how to basically have sustainable and scalable data centers, which

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Speaker 2: is a very hot topic. It's a moment, how to

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Speaker 2: decarbinize shipping. We are looking, you know, in all scenarios

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Speaker 2: into any there are negative emission and carbon solutions, so

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Speaker 2: you know we may ever challenge around that. That's kind

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Speaker 2: of the real highlight.

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Speaker 1: So those are potentially the challenges for next year, but

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Speaker 1: we haven't confirmed, so we'll be opening applications for next

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Speaker 1: year's Pioneers in September. So if you or someone you

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Speaker 1: know might make a good BNF Pioneer, send them to

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Speaker 1: about dot BNF dot com slash BNF Pioneers and you

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Speaker 1: can go to the same website to learn more about

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Speaker 1: today's guests, the other pioneers, winners and challenges from previous years. Now,

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Speaker 1: for today's show, we're about to speak to Addison Stark,

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Speaker 1: CEO of ATMOS Zero, Peter Majerinowski, CEO and President of

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Speaker 1: cirk Mark Meldrum, Global Head of Business Development at Rondo,

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Speaker 1: and finally Philippe Berlin, CEO of Everde. Let's jump into

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Speaker 1: the conversation with ATMA zero CEO Addison Stark, whose company

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Speaker 1: has developed it's a new type of flexible industrial heat pump.

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Speaker 1: So Addison, welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 3: Tom Benji, great to be here with you, guys, I

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Speaker 3: really appreciate the invitation.

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Speaker 1: Do you want to just start off by telling us

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Speaker 1: a little bit about firstly yourself, you know, your own

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Speaker 1: journey into working ATMAS zero, and then a little bit

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Speaker 1: about the formation in the history of the company itself,

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Speaker 1: and then maybe we can get into the nerdy technicalities

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Speaker 1: of what it is that you guys actually do.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely, Tom, thank you for that. And you know, first off,

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Speaker 3: I like to call myself the chief boiler maker here

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Speaker 3: at atmost zero, where we are developing a electrified drop

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Speaker 3: in steam boiler solution that is as mass manufacturable and

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Speaker 3: scalable as combustion boilers have been since Babcock and Wilcox

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Speaker 3: productized the steam boiler in eighteen sixty seven. So that's

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Speaker 3: kind of the ambition of what we're trying to do.

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Speaker 3: How did I find myself into this, It was back

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Speaker 3: to the pandemic. At the time, I was really doing

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Speaker 3: two things. I was baking sour dough like everyone was doing,

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Speaker 3: and I was grinding my axe against this idea that

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Speaker 3: industry is hard to decarbonize because at the time everyone

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Speaker 3: was looking at steel, cement, refining, every material and object

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Speaker 3: that we use. There was this view that we needed

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Speaker 3: to decarbonize every manufacturing process. But once you looked across

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Speaker 3: sectorially you slice the data a different way, you start

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Speaker 3: to see that actually heat is three quarters of industrial emissions,

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Speaker 3: and half of that is delivered by steam and so

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Speaker 3: you quickly see there's just one or two different unit

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Speaker 3: operations that we need to actually effectively focus on and

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Speaker 3: build a scalable solution. Follow the blueprint that was put

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Speaker 3: down by the boiler industry over the past one hundred

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Speaker 3: and sixty years, the building heat pump industry over the

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Speaker 3: past couple dozen years, the solar module manufacturing makes something

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Speaker 3: as spec and repeatable and scalable, and that's what we've

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Speaker 3: brought to the industrial heat pump market, particularly for delivering steam.

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Speaker 1: I find this really interesting. You make this explicit point

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Speaker 1: about I think you said scalable, and I think that

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Speaker 1: that is one of the things that is particularly interesting

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Speaker 1: and different about what your company is doing.

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Speaker 3: So let's talk a little bit about industrial heat pumps

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Speaker 3: first and I'll get to actually answering that. When you

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Speaker 3: look at the industrial heat pump industry, it's been a

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Speaker 3: nascent industry for the past thirty years. It's this continual

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Speaker 3: place of new capability, new investment, new innovation, but everything

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Speaker 3: ends up with one off projects at a factory that's

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Speaker 3: been focused on optimizing thermodynamics, but a massive capital outlay,

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Speaker 3: a ton of bespoke engineering, one off project costs that

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Speaker 3: cannot be copy pasted. So the way that I answer

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Speaker 3: your question Tom modular scalable. What I really think about

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Speaker 3: is how do we make steam decarbonization a product, not

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Speaker 3: a project. Projects get canceled, projects have cost overruns. Products

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Speaker 3: have a spec price and are delivered to the gate

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Speaker 3: and installed by the preferred steam EPC. And it's something

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Speaker 3: where we can focus on packaging the complexity that makes

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Speaker 3: a heat pump so compelling. You know, the reason we

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Speaker 3: want to use heat pump technology is it's the only

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Speaker 3: way to make an electrified solution directly cost competitive with combustion.

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Speaker 3: By packaging heat pump where you get multiple units of

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Speaker 3: heat out per one unit of electricity in, you can

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Speaker 3: actually bridge the sparks spread at any given manufacturing facility.

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Speaker 3: But you cannot do that if you have one off

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Speaker 3: stick bill projects that are very capital intensive. So by

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Speaker 3: focusing on something that scales, like a modular mass manufactured

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Speaker 3: heat pump boiler that has the same operating range as

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Speaker 3: a combustion boiler today. But what we do is just

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Speaker 3: ignore the integration with waste heat. By really acknowledging the

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Speaker 3: fact that waste heat is a waste of time, we've

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Speaker 3: been able to focus on making a scalable and spec

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Speaker 3: product that is all designed around the same set points

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Speaker 3: that building heat pumps have been previously, where you're sourcing

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Speaker 3: heat from the ambient air around one design that can

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Speaker 3: then be mass manufacturing, deployed without thinking about, well, this

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Speaker 3: facility has forty three celsius waste heat that one has

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Speaker 3: fifty two. Therefore we have different heat exchanges that need

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Speaker 3: to be built one off to capture that on these

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Speaker 3: different unit operations. We can ignore all that and focus

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Speaker 3: on driving down upfront capital costs, which matter more than

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Speaker 3: anything when it comes to a deployment.

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Speaker 2: And does that also help with the speed of the deployment.

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Speaker 2: So you know you mentioned the cost, but it is

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Speaker 2: also helping just doing each faster.

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Speaker 3: From the customer's perspective, what matters most is not just

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Speaker 3: the amount that you pay for the heat pump, but

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Speaker 3: the total landed capital, which is inclusive of the upgrades

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Speaker 3: you need to do to your facility, the electrical interconnect,

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Speaker 3: the connection into the steam system, but also the out

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Speaker 3: of time that you might even incur downtime or the

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Speaker 3: impact of having this project ongoing on site. So yes,

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Speaker 3: by having one standardized spec we essentially have an installation

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Speaker 3: manual that looks just like installing a combustion boiler or

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Speaker 3: a resistive boiler that it actually makes it much more

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Speaker 3: simple to install because you don't have to do things

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Speaker 3: like add additional heat exchangers to capture waste heat at

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Speaker 3: a unit operation on the manufacturing floor, which can be

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Speaker 3: very invasive and really cause a slower integration project. So yeah,

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Speaker 3: to validate and to kind of answer that, Benji is

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Speaker 3: we recently deployed our first commercial unit at New Belgium Brewery.

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Speaker 3: They saw an opportunity to deploy a heat pump boiler

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Speaker 3: to replace one third of their steam demand. That's what

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Speaker 3: we did with them to help them electrify and eliminate

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Speaker 3: scope one emissions from that and what we were able

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Speaker 3: to demonstrate in installing our first unit there was we

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Speaker 3: were able to land the equipment in a number of hours,

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Speaker 3: we were able to integrate directly with the zero down time,

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Speaker 3: and to be able to actually start to drive and

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Speaker 3: deliver a critical steam all while having minimal facility integration complexities.

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Speaker 1: You've obviously found a way to be able to make

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Speaker 1: things standardized and not be bespoke, But I don't think

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Speaker 1: I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. I don't think

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Speaker 1: you're probably the first people to realize that that's the problem,

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Speaker 1: but you're maybe the company that has figured out a

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Speaker 1: way to solve that problem. And I'm assuming that's something

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Speaker 1: to do with your technology. So could you just talk

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Speaker 1: us a little how your technology has enabled you to

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Speaker 1: move away from the bespoke approach towards something that is standardized.

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Speaker 3: You know, in general, the root of the challenge for

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Speaker 3: the industry has been the tantalizing nature of waste heat.

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Speaker 3: The challenges it's very capital intensive to capture and very

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Speaker 3: bespoke in nature to be able to go and get

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Speaker 3: waste heat by ignoring that, you know, Essentially, what we

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Speaker 3: did was say, well, let's do an air to steam

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Speaker 3: heat pump source from the air, just like a building

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Speaker 3: heat pump, and go all the way up to steam temperatures. Now,

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Speaker 3: there's an implicit trad off in doing that. By not

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Speaker 3: capturing waste heat, our source temperature is a little lower,

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Speaker 3: so our overall coefficient performance is lower, Our higher theoretical

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Speaker 3: efficiency is lower than what a waste heat you know

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Speaker 3: would do. But our reduction in CAPEX is so large

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Speaker 3: compared to integrating one of those projects that it is

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Speaker 3: justified in being able to make a small reduction in efficiency,

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Speaker 3: but it does mean that we've had to do some

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Speaker 3: core technology innovations to enable a heat pump that is

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Speaker 3: capable of delivering steam temperatures. And what do I mean

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Speaker 3: by that. I mean our core product delivers one hundred

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Speaker 3: and fifty celsius steam, that's four of bar saturated steam.

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Speaker 3: That is about average an industry call it. About half

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Speaker 3: the market is one twenty to one fifty. It's a

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Speaker 3: very sizable amount of the market. But to be able

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Speaker 3: to go from air temperature at any time of the

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Speaker 3: year to that temperature means we have an incredibly high

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Speaker 3: lift is the term of art, the temperature degrees that

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Speaker 3: you raise from your source to the delivery, and that

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Speaker 3: means there's a lot of innovation in the compressor technology,

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Speaker 3: coupled closely with the refrigents we've selected and in the

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Speaker 3: internal heat integration to drive and maintain high efficiency and

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Speaker 3: flexibility while we do this. For example, when we first

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Speaker 3: turned on the unit that we deployed to New Belgium,

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Speaker 3: we were testing it here in Colorado and the first

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Speaker 3: day we turned it on, it was negative fifteen celsius

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Speaker 3: outside for our American listeners about three fahrenheit, and we

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Speaker 3: turned it on and we started delivering one hundred and

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Speaker 3: fifty c. That proved something so important, which is we're

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Speaker 3: able to operate and deliver heat year round. Now today

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Speaker 3: we're operating in the boiler over at New Belgium and

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Speaker 3: it might as well be a boiler room outside. I

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Speaker 3: think it's something like thirty celsius today, and that's an

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Speaker 3: incredibly wide range that we need to be able to

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Speaker 3: operate and deliver continuous steam. So it's that kind of complexity.

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Speaker 3: Is being able to go from air that varies throughout

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Speaker 3: the year to a constant steam temperature is really the

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Speaker 3: core innovation of what we do.

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Speaker 2: Then the magiekeys to scale it and kind of be

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Speaker 2: able to drive costs down and so on. So what's

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Speaker 2: your plans on that front?

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Speaker 3: We are building something that is a product. Now that

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Speaker 3: we've packaged a heat pump in with a boiler, we

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Speaker 3: look like something that has already exists on the market.

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Speaker 3: We look like C and I commercial and industrial chiller

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Speaker 3: or refrigeration unit or a boiler unit, and these things

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Speaker 3: all have existing large volume supply chains. And largely our

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Speaker 3: costs are driven by compressors and heat exchangers, and by

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Speaker 3: focusing on scaling out to volume, we have a pretty

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Speaker 3: solid plan and ability to continue to drive down costs

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Speaker 3: as we get to volume.

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Speaker 1: I'm reading here in my notes that you are entered

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Speaker 1: into the Empire Technology Prize, which is to test novel

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Speaker 1: heating or distribution systems in multifamily and commercial buildings in

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Speaker 1: New York. So everything we talked about uptil now has

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Speaker 1: been all about industry, but this is about buildings that

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Speaker 1: people either work in or live in. Is that an

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Speaker 1: area that is also part of your game plan?

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Speaker 3: The beauty of steam is you know, as I mentioned earlier,

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Speaker 3: it's the most important working fluid in industry, but it

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Speaker 3: also has been the most important heat transfer medium for

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Speaker 3: society for more than a century. And there's a large

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Speaker 3: amount of building assets in this world that are require steam.

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Speaker 3: For example, in a skyscraper in New York that has

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Speaker 3: a steam system in it, you can't go tear that

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Speaker 3: out and replace it with hot water because it'll be

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Speaker 3: too heavy and the building will not be able to

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Speaker 3: continue to stand up. So there are places where as

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Speaker 3: you look to electrify the solution set is not there currently,

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Speaker 3: and you know, we found the Empire Technology Prize is

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Speaker 3: an interesting opportunity. In many ways, the Empire Technology has

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Speaker 3: found us, which is the ubiquity of the boiler drew

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Speaker 3: us into this other space and built environment. It's not

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Speaker 3: just large multifamily or large commercial, but also district steam

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Speaker 3: in university campuses, commercial campuses. And you know, one of

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Speaker 3: the most interesting facts that really drew us to New

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Speaker 3: York City is con Edison itself. The power utility for

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Speaker 3: New York City has a three point five gigawatt steam

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Speaker 3: system underneath the streets of Manhattan that they're delivering steam

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Speaker 3: to buildings and that is an interesting piece of legacy

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Speaker 3: infrastructure that is going to be a challenged to carbonize.

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Speaker 3: So to be part of the story of helping the

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Speaker 3: greatest city in the world move to an electrified future

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Speaker 3: was something that drew us in. And we're having a

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Speaker 3: great time really looking at how do we fit into

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Speaker 3: the built environment. It's not where we're deploying today. There's

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Speaker 3: more than enough demand coming to us from industry, but

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Speaker 3: certainly the built environment as we scale out our manufacturing

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Speaker 3: will have a great fit as well.

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Speaker 1: So where are you at right now. I mean, we've

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Speaker 1: heard a little bit about some of what you've installed,

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Speaker 1: but where do you see zero going.

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Speaker 3: In the past three years since we started this company,

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Speaker 3: we've really gone from zero to one. We've gone from

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Speaker 3: concept on a whiteboard of let's see if we can

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Speaker 3: build it, and it turns out we've built it, We've deployed.

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Speaker 3: We're delivering steam every day to a customer site where

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Speaker 3: they are brewing beer, actively utilizing it for critical processes

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Speaker 3: for them and for their economic revenue, to drive and deploy.

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Speaker 3: So now what we're doing is pivoting from that zero

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Speaker 3: to one to one to one thousand. This is a scalable,

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Speaker 3: mass manufactured product, and we are gearing up the next

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Speaker 3: phases of scale, going from one to ten, ten to

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Speaker 3: one hundred, one hundred to one thousand, so we can

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Speaker 3: really focus on what is our load. Star as a

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Speaker 3: company is being the name for steam boilers for the

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Speaker 3: next century of industrialization.

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Speaker 1: Addison, it's been really fascinating chatting with you. Thank you

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Speaker 1: so much, and really, you know, we're all routing for

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Speaker 1: you because the potential here, both the business and for

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Speaker 1: the climate is huge.

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Speaker 3: Well, later when I get over to the brewery. I'll

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Speaker 3: raise a glass to you two of some good decarbonized beer.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, Addison, and good luck.

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Speaker 1: We have Peter Madronowski, the CEO and president of SIRK,

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Speaker 1: who have developed a process for recycling polyester and cotton

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Speaker 1: blends into virgin grade materials. So, Pete, for those of

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Speaker 1: us who are not familiar with SIRCK, could you just

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Speaker 1: give us a quick background to the company and maybe

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Speaker 1: your own background as well. How did you come to

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Speaker 1: found this company?

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Speaker 4: Sure?

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Speaker 5: Well, I'll start with myself.

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Speaker 6: I started my career as a naval officer and that's

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Speaker 6: where I really developed a sense of purpose and mission

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Speaker 6: which I try to use today in what CIRQ does.

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Speaker 5: Cirk's mission is to protect the planet from the cost

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Speaker 5: of clothing.

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Speaker 6: And when I say that the folks they kind of

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Speaker 6: look at me funny, like, why do we need to

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Speaker 6: protect the planet from the cost of clothing. Well, it

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Speaker 6: turns out it's one of the biggest polluters. The emissions

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Speaker 6: from bashing are equivalent to aviation and marine combined.

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Speaker 1: That's just an amazing stat you just gave. The emissions

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Speaker 1: impact is aviation and shipping combined can be attributed to fashion?

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Speaker 1: Why is it that's not more talked about or recognized

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Speaker 1: than it currently is.

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Speaker 6: It's amazing the impact this industry has, and it's very

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Speaker 6: similar I think to food, where people don't know how

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Speaker 6: it's made, where it's made, who makes it, and just

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Speaker 6: how wasteful our food supply chains are. Roughly thirty percent

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Speaker 6: of the fashion produced is never even sold. That's just

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Speaker 6: so you have your size, your color from wherever you shop,

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Speaker 6: whether it's a store or a warehouse where you're clicking,

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Speaker 6: and that in itself is terrible. The amount of water

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Speaker 6: to make a T shirt is over twy five hundred liters.

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Speaker 5: That's enough to sustain as human for two years.

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Speaker 6: And we're wearing garments typically seven to ten times before

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Speaker 6: we throw them out. And so it's a very linear

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Speaker 6: and wasteful system. And I think just now consumers are

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Speaker 6: starting to become more aware because brands are starting to

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Speaker 6: respond to their customers by making bold commitments to clean

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Speaker 6: up their act.

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Speaker 1: So we have this wasteful industry suck. You mentioned your

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Speaker 1: interested in recycling textiles. Give us a little bit more

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Speaker 1: detail about specifically what is your role in all of this.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, So after the Navy, I worked in private equity,

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Speaker 6: mainly in Eastern Europe, and I was really fascinated by

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Speaker 6: the idea of how you can combine business and science

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Speaker 6: to solve major planetary challenges. And so I started CIRK

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Speaker 6: initially as a biofuel company. And when we saw this

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Speaker 6: opportunity in fashion and oil prices dropped and nobody wanted

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Speaker 6: to invest in biofuels at that time, we saw an

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Speaker 6: opportunity to pivot to textile recycling. Initially, it was almost

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Speaker 6: an accident where someone just asked us to try to

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Speaker 6: run a T shirt through our process to see if

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Speaker 6: they could do anything, and shir en up, we could

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Speaker 6: do it.

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Speaker 1: It sounds so simple when you say it, take old clothing,

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Speaker 1: make new clothing, And I'm pretty sure this isn't just

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Speaker 1: you know, you unstitch a T shirt and stitch it

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Speaker 1: into something else. So what is the particular challenge that

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Speaker 1: you have to solve in order to do that.

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Speaker 6: There are a lot of challenges for recycling clothing, and

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Speaker 6: you're right, you think it should already exist. And you

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Speaker 6: might even notice on some tags you see recycling content

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Speaker 6: that's typically old bottles that are going back into clothing,

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Speaker 6: but textile textile recycling less than point five percent of

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Speaker 6: textiles are being recycled, so it's it's a challenge, and

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Speaker 6: the challenge is for a lot of reasons, but the

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Speaker 6: big one is that clothing is complicated. Even a one

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Speaker 6: percent cotton sure like I'm wearing right now, is using

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Speaker 6: polyester stitching threads, and so that makes it very difficult

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Speaker 6: to mechanically separate and recycle. What we do is we

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Speaker 6: focus on clothing that nobody else can recycle, which is

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Speaker 6: the majority of it, because it's a blend of cotton,

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Speaker 6: a natural fiber with polyester a plastic. Sixty percent of

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Speaker 6: our clothes today is made from polyester, and so our

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Speaker 6: ability to basically unbake the cake or chemically break down

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Speaker 6: polyester to its building blocks and clean that up so

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Speaker 6: it can be made back into new polyester again. And

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Speaker 6: then we take the cotton, we also clean that up

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Speaker 6: so it can be regenerated back into textile fibers. So

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Speaker 6: truly everything that goes into our process, or nearly everything,

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Speaker 6: is recycled back into new clothing.

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Speaker 2: And how does that business sake that work? I mean,

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Speaker 2: are you expecting these brands to pay a premium or

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Speaker 2: in the long term, it could be kind of fit parity,

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Speaker 2: maybe even cheaper than the normal feedstock.

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Speaker 6: That's the exciting thing is that we have very close

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Speaker 6: visibility as to how we can get to parody with

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Speaker 6: virgin pricing. And in the beginning there will be some premium,

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Speaker 6: and we're already seeing that in general in the markets,

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Speaker 6: there's a premium for textile, textile recycled clothing. A lot

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Speaker 6: of that also has to do with the financing costs

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Speaker 6: more than a technology green premium. But once you hit

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Speaker 6: the right scale, and we see that scale within arms reach,

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Speaker 6: we're at parity with regular virgin pricing and that's amazing.

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Speaker 6: It took what solar thirty plus years to get there,

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Speaker 6: and so we see us being able to do that

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Speaker 6: within five to ten years, and that's super exciting to me.

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Speaker 6: We really are at the precipice basically taking all this

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Speaker 6: stuff that's getting.

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Speaker 5: Burned or landfill, about one hundred billion.

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Speaker 6: Dollars worth of molecules and recirculating that back into the economy.

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Speaker 2: And how do you see regional differences? Is there a

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Speaker 2: kind of a difference in terms of awareness and regulation

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Speaker 2: in invice part of the world that could help accelerate

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Speaker 2: it all.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, regionally, we see tremendous impact from legislation. Europe in

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Speaker 6: particular has passed a lot of laws, Extended producer responsibility

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Speaker 6: being a big one, where basically the brands that are

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Speaker 6: selling this material into the market are responsible for what

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Speaker 6: happens at its end of use. So every item that's sold,

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Speaker 6: there's some bit of money tax that goes to a

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Speaker 6: central fund to work on that, so that's a big push.

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Speaker 5: Many of those.

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Speaker 6: EPR structures have a carrot, which is an ecomodulation where

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Speaker 6: you pay less tax or no tax if you use

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Speaker 6: recycled materials, so that.

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Speaker 5: Immediately creates demand.

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Speaker 6: And California, seventh largest economy in the world, just passed

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Speaker 6: an EPR structure SB seven oh seven, and it won't

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Speaker 6: go in effect for another two years, but we've noticed

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Speaker 6: a lot of American brands coming to us in anticipation

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Speaker 6: of this regulation. So these local regulations definitely have a

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Speaker 6: major impact in moving the needle faster.

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Speaker 1: I just quickly wanted to ask about the output that

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Speaker 1: your process produces, because as inputs, you can take an

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Speaker 1: array of different blends of textile in different colors. How

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Speaker 1: much versatility is there in what you then produce with that.

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Speaker 6: So the outputs of our process or the monomers or

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Speaker 6: the building blocks of polyester that's purified diethylic acid and

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Speaker 6: monoethylene glycol. These are traditionally sold from the chemicals industry.

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Speaker 5: It's derived from petroleum.

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Speaker 6: And then the cotton is a high purity cellulose which

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Speaker 6: can come from what's called dissolving pulp or tree pulp

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Speaker 6: and is used to make fibers like rayon, viscos, lie Cell,

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Speaker 6: branded as ten cell, and others. We take those outputs,

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Speaker 6: we purify them so that they're good enough to be

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Speaker 6: able to be used in the existing equipment in the

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Speaker 6: textile supply chain, so that instead of using virgin raw materials,

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Speaker 6: you can use these recycled raw materials to make the

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Speaker 6: same fibers that perform equally or even better in some cases.

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Speaker 1: I mean we touched on earlier. You know the demand

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Speaker 1: and currently today there's maybe some friends that are interested

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Speaker 1: in this from a sort of a greenient point of view,

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Speaker 1: and then maybe in the future it'll actually be cost competitive.

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Speaker 1: Just Chris to know, like how big is the market

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Speaker 1: currently and you know how much interest have you been

438
00:23:25,280 --> 00:23:26,360
Speaker 1: getting from investors.

439
00:23:26,920 --> 00:23:28,080
Speaker 5: It's a huge market.

440
00:23:28,280 --> 00:23:31,720
Speaker 6: We're producing about one hundred and twenty million tons of

441
00:23:31,960 --> 00:23:35,600
Speaker 6: textiles every year. And when you think about fashion, about

442
00:23:35,640 --> 00:23:38,240
Speaker 6: fifty percent of the apple being a landfill within two years,

443
00:23:38,480 --> 00:23:40,000
Speaker 6: and how do you wrap your head around that? That's

444
00:23:40,040 --> 00:23:42,760
Speaker 6: equivalent to million Boeing seven to fifty seven. So it's

445
00:23:42,800 --> 00:23:47,000
Speaker 6: just a massive volume. The fiber market today is valued

446
00:23:47,000 --> 00:23:49,400
Speaker 6: at about two hundred and fifty to three hundred billion,

447
00:23:49,600 --> 00:23:52,679
Speaker 6: and less than zero point five percent is recycled, so

448
00:23:53,040 --> 00:23:56,720
Speaker 6: we see that easily. Just at a ten percent recycling level,

449
00:23:57,000 --> 00:23:59,359
Speaker 6: you can be at a twenty five to thirty billion market.

450
00:23:59,440 --> 00:24:03,480
Speaker 6: That's equivalent to all athletic footwear. It's a massive opportunity.

451
00:24:03,720 --> 00:24:06,679
Speaker 6: And when you look at what happened with paper in

452
00:24:06,720 --> 00:24:09,919
Speaker 6: the nineties and early two thousands in terms of recycling,

453
00:24:09,920 --> 00:24:13,840
Speaker 6: whereas basically barely happening to where it is today, they

454
00:24:13,840 --> 00:24:15,080
Speaker 6: did that same.

455
00:24:15,000 --> 00:24:17,280
Speaker 5: Volume roughly in about twenty years.

456
00:24:17,359 --> 00:24:20,320
Speaker 6: So I see the same opportunity here, probably even faster

457
00:24:20,480 --> 00:24:22,840
Speaker 6: since we have much more powerful digital tools.

458
00:24:23,160 --> 00:24:26,080
Speaker 2: We spoke a bit about the feedstock and your process.

459
00:24:26,359 --> 00:24:29,480
Speaker 2: Then the kind of question that everyone asked himself is

460
00:24:29,520 --> 00:24:31,960
Speaker 2: does it work? Are you producing anything?

461
00:24:32,080 --> 00:24:32,320
Speaker 4: Now?

462
00:24:32,359 --> 00:24:35,639
Speaker 2: Can I go and buy some of these end user

463
00:24:35,760 --> 00:24:39,240
Speaker 2: recycled fashion brands already and kind of what's a plan

464
00:24:39,320 --> 00:24:39,919
Speaker 2: for scaling it.

465
00:24:40,400 --> 00:24:43,119
Speaker 5: That's a great question, Benji. Does it work? Yes, it does.

466
00:24:44,960 --> 00:24:47,399
Speaker 5: We're very proud that we've released.

467
00:24:47,000 --> 00:24:52,920
Speaker 6: Several commercial collections with various brands and partners, Zara being

468
00:24:53,359 --> 00:24:56,840
Speaker 6: one that we've done several releases both in polyester and

469
00:24:56,920 --> 00:25:01,240
Speaker 6: recovered cod cellulos. We've done some intern work with Target.

470
00:25:01,560 --> 00:25:05,280
Speaker 6: We've released products with a big Japanese brand called United Errow.

471
00:25:05,600 --> 00:25:09,399
Speaker 6: We've made Denam, We've done done it all, including making

472
00:25:09,560 --> 00:25:13,960
Speaker 6: fashion history in New York last September with Christian Siriano,

473
00:25:14,200 --> 00:25:17,840
Speaker 6: a very well known American designer, putting recycled textile, a

474
00:25:17,880 --> 00:25:19,159
Speaker 6: textile product.

475
00:25:18,760 --> 00:25:21,120
Speaker 5: Down the runway, which was which was really.

476
00:25:20,920 --> 00:25:23,040
Speaker 1: Cool and that was your stuff on the runway.

477
00:25:23,840 --> 00:25:25,080
Speaker 5: Yeah, our stuff.

478
00:25:25,720 --> 00:25:28,760
Speaker 6: And we'll be doing something similar here very soon in

479
00:25:28,800 --> 00:25:30,120
Speaker 6: London during fashion Week.

480
00:25:30,200 --> 00:25:30,840
Speaker 5: So stay tuned.

481
00:25:31,119 --> 00:25:34,360
Speaker 2: So what's a plan going forward? I think your announced

482
00:25:34,359 --> 00:25:37,719
Speaker 2: earlier as this year half a billion plant in France.

483
00:25:37,960 --> 00:25:40,720
Speaker 6: That's right, that's the next big thing for CIRC is

484
00:25:40,760 --> 00:25:44,639
Speaker 6: our circ France plant. We announced a five hundred million

485
00:25:44,640 --> 00:25:46,720
Speaker 6: dollar investment in France.

486
00:25:47,040 --> 00:25:48,920
Speaker 5: France led the fashion.

487
00:25:48,840 --> 00:25:53,080
Speaker 6: Industrial revolution and we'll lead the fashion circular revolution as well.

488
00:25:53,119 --> 00:25:54,520
Speaker 5: They've been great partners for us.

489
00:25:54,680 --> 00:25:58,400
Speaker 6: We chose France because there's first of all, great environment

490
00:25:58,640 --> 00:26:03,800
Speaker 6: for reindustrialisation using the latest and greatest in manufacturing and

491
00:26:03,840 --> 00:26:06,960
Speaker 6: in technology is really green manufacturing. I love the site

492
00:26:07,040 --> 00:26:09,880
Speaker 6: where we will be insane Lovol because twenty years ago

493
00:26:09,920 --> 00:26:13,040
Speaker 6: they shut down a coal coking facility and so we're

494
00:26:13,080 --> 00:26:17,160
Speaker 6: really in President mccraul's vision of replacing those bold world

495
00:26:17,280 --> 00:26:21,560
Speaker 6: jobs with new green circular jobs. We just look at

496
00:26:21,640 --> 00:26:24,520
Speaker 6: France as as the beginning. This will be the flagship,

497
00:26:24,640 --> 00:26:27,879
Speaker 6: but we want to copy and paste the solution around

498
00:26:27,880 --> 00:26:28,280
Speaker 6: the world.

499
00:26:28,320 --> 00:26:30,120
Speaker 5: This is truly a global problem.

500
00:26:30,160 --> 00:26:34,520
Speaker 6: In terms of brands to help finance these facilities, we're

501
00:26:34,560 --> 00:26:38,680
Speaker 6: seeking long term commitments from brands. It's a very unusual

502
00:26:38,720 --> 00:26:41,840
Speaker 6: practice for them. They're used to buying finished garments one

503
00:26:41,920 --> 00:26:44,680
Speaker 6: season at a time. We're asking them to do basically

504
00:26:44,720 --> 00:26:47,760
Speaker 6: like a power purchase agreement that you would first industrial

505
00:26:47,800 --> 00:26:51,199
Speaker 6: solar or wind, where you are committing to buying the

506
00:26:51,240 --> 00:26:54,520
Speaker 6: materials that outputs over several years. But it's starting to happen.

507
00:26:54,600 --> 00:26:57,399
Speaker 6: I think the industry has recognized that they have an

508
00:26:57,400 --> 00:27:01,199
Speaker 6: acute problem, a big impact problem, and their customers are

509
00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:04,680
Speaker 6: aware of it. Regulation is here, there's capital out there,

510
00:27:04,840 --> 00:27:07,280
Speaker 6: and the key to unlock this is to do these

511
00:27:07,320 --> 00:27:09,720
Speaker 6: long term purchase agreements or off takes, and so that's

512
00:27:09,800 --> 00:27:13,040
Speaker 6: now what the industry is going through to get facilities

513
00:27:13,080 --> 00:27:14,480
Speaker 6: like CIRT that scale.

514
00:27:14,720 --> 00:27:18,040
Speaker 1: In some ways this is equivalent to a energy technology,

515
00:27:18,080 --> 00:27:21,360
Speaker 1: and in some ways it isn't equivalent to energy technology.

516
00:27:21,480 --> 00:27:24,199
Speaker 1: And the way that it isn't you've just really highlighted

517
00:27:24,480 --> 00:27:29,280
Speaker 1: is that in most instances with energy, cost trumps everything else,

518
00:27:29,560 --> 00:27:31,480
Speaker 1: and you know, people want the cheapest kill hour, the

519
00:27:31,520 --> 00:27:35,320
Speaker 1: cheapest barrel of oil or whatever, Whereas this is one

520
00:27:35,400 --> 00:27:39,639
Speaker 1: small input into a lot of value creation, but it

521
00:27:39,680 --> 00:27:43,119
Speaker 1: is an input that has a huge environmental impact. So

522
00:27:43,600 --> 00:27:46,720
Speaker 1: it really seems that this should not be the problem

523
00:27:46,760 --> 00:27:49,680
Speaker 1: that it is, given what I've just said is collectively,

524
00:27:49,760 --> 00:27:53,080
Speaker 1: as the human race, we really have no excuse for this.

525
00:27:53,600 --> 00:27:55,560
Speaker 1: You know, this is not the difference between somebody being

526
00:27:55,560 --> 00:27:57,600
Speaker 1: able to afford to buy clothes and not being able

527
00:27:57,640 --> 00:27:59,480
Speaker 1: to afford to buy clothes, because so much the cost

528
00:27:59,560 --> 00:28:03,120
Speaker 1: happens elsewhere, but so much the environmental footprint happens there.

529
00:28:03,200 --> 00:28:07,040
Speaker 1: So it really strikes me as an exciting spot to

530
00:28:07,119 --> 00:28:10,440
Speaker 1: be in where you can have a really big impact. Pete,

531
00:28:10,520 --> 00:28:12,879
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining today and really wish

532
00:28:13,000 --> 00:28:15,960
Speaker 1: you and your colleagues at SIRK the best of luck

533
00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:16,560
Speaker 1: in the future.

534
00:28:16,760 --> 00:28:18,159
Speaker 5: Thank you, Tom, thank you Benji.

535
00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:21,160
Speaker 6: Real pleasure talking with you, and thank you for selecting

536
00:28:21,200 --> 00:28:22,200
Speaker 6: Circa as a pioneer.

537
00:28:22,240 --> 00:28:23,120
Speaker 5: We're very proud of that.

538
00:28:27,760 --> 00:28:29,960
Speaker 1: Next we hear from Mark Meldrum, the global head of

539
00:28:29,960 --> 00:28:32,600
Speaker 1: Business Development at Rondo, who have designed a new thermal

540
00:28:32,680 --> 00:28:41,320
Speaker 1: energy storage device for industrial processes. Mark, Welcome to the podcast.

541
00:28:41,520 --> 00:28:42,520
Speaker 5: Hi, great to be here.

542
00:28:42,680 --> 00:28:44,680
Speaker 1: Before we get into some about Rondo, tell us a

543
00:28:44,720 --> 00:28:46,960
Speaker 1: little bit about yourself and how you came to be

544
00:28:47,240 --> 00:28:48,760
Speaker 1: involved in this company.

545
00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:53,040
Speaker 7: My background is in the power system and energy advisory,

546
00:28:53,120 --> 00:28:55,560
Speaker 7: so I was head of corporate Strategy and National Grid,

547
00:28:55,680 --> 00:28:58,960
Speaker 7: which is the UK's transmission network owner and system operator

548
00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:01,080
Speaker 7: and also a cry the rest of the stack with

549
00:29:01,240 --> 00:29:05,080
Speaker 7: generation distribution supply in the US. And also have worked

550
00:29:05,120 --> 00:29:07,880
Speaker 7: at Banning Company and then a company called Systemic which

551
00:29:07,960 --> 00:29:12,239
Speaker 7: is similarly advisory focused. For Systemic it's focused on the

552
00:29:12,680 --> 00:29:15,240
Speaker 7: net zero transition and I was a partner for the

553
00:29:15,360 --> 00:29:18,120
Speaker 7: energy platform there, so focused on the energy transition, and

554
00:29:18,440 --> 00:29:21,040
Speaker 7: I came to know Rondo through Systemic Leader to project

555
00:29:21,120 --> 00:29:23,640
Speaker 7: with Rondo. But the more broadly, what I would say

556
00:29:23,880 --> 00:29:27,120
Speaker 7: is all of that time working on energy at Bane,

557
00:29:27,160 --> 00:29:30,840
Speaker 7: Systemic and National Grid led me to appreciate the value

558
00:29:30,880 --> 00:29:34,400
Speaker 7: that Rondo brings to the energy system. So not only

559
00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:38,080
Speaker 7: is it a solution to economically decarbonize twenty five percent

560
00:29:38,120 --> 00:29:41,520
Speaker 7: of emissions in industrial heat, but also it provides this

561
00:29:41,680 --> 00:29:45,960
Speaker 7: massive flexible load into the power system, which both draws

562
00:29:46,040 --> 00:29:48,480
Speaker 7: value from the power system and gives value to the

563
00:29:48,520 --> 00:29:51,640
Speaker 7: power system. Everything that I saw at National Grid and

564
00:29:51,720 --> 00:29:55,160
Speaker 7: otherwise was pointing towards flexibility in the power system as

565
00:29:55,280 --> 00:29:59,440
Speaker 7: being central to the electrification transition and the energy transition

566
00:29:59,520 --> 00:30:02,040
Speaker 7: more broadly, and so that's what brought me to Rondo.

567
00:30:02,320 --> 00:30:04,240
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, we're going to dive into a

568
00:30:04,280 --> 00:30:07,200
Speaker 1: little bit more depth into you know, what Rondo offers,

569
00:30:07,280 --> 00:30:09,360
Speaker 1: but maybe if you could give us a quick potted

570
00:30:09,480 --> 00:30:10,800
Speaker 1: history of the company.

571
00:30:11,040 --> 00:30:14,280
Speaker 7: When was it formed, When did you join? So Rondo

572
00:30:14,440 --> 00:30:17,480
Speaker 7: was formed twenty nineteen twenty twenty. I joined towards the

573
00:30:17,640 --> 00:30:20,920
Speaker 7: end of twenty twenty three. The founders are John O'Donnell

574
00:30:21,080 --> 00:30:23,800
Speaker 7: and Pete vont Burns. John and Pete have been working

575
00:30:23,880 --> 00:30:29,200
Speaker 7: on industrial decarbonization for decades, most substantially with concentrated solar,

576
00:30:29,360 --> 00:30:35,040
Speaker 7: and they saw the structural trend of solar and just

577
00:30:35,120 --> 00:30:39,000
Speaker 7: more broadly, the availability of cheap electrons available some of

578
00:30:39,040 --> 00:30:41,680
Speaker 7: the hours of the day, just barreling down the cost

579
00:30:41,720 --> 00:30:45,880
Speaker 7: curve and that becoming the newest cheapest source of energy.

580
00:30:46,080 --> 00:30:49,320
Speaker 7: Writ large that therefore is the cheapest source of energy

581
00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:51,880
Speaker 7: to be able to serve the sector that they had

582
00:30:51,880 --> 00:30:54,880
Speaker 7: been focused on serving, which was industrial heat. So off

583
00:30:54,880 --> 00:30:57,200
Speaker 7: the back of that, and you know John and Pete

584
00:30:57,200 --> 00:30:59,880
Speaker 7: also being based in California, home of the duck curved

585
00:31:00,200 --> 00:31:03,480
Speaker 7: natural that was the home of inception of this idea

586
00:31:03,560 --> 00:31:06,840
Speaker 7: of how do we tap into these very cheap hours

587
00:31:06,840 --> 00:31:08,640
Speaker 7: of electricity as a source.

588
00:31:08,400 --> 00:31:10,000
Speaker 4: Of energy to serve industrial heat.

589
00:31:10,080 --> 00:31:13,560
Speaker 7: So they designed the Rhindo Heat Battery, figured out all

590
00:31:13,640 --> 00:31:17,000
Speaker 7: of the relatively complex elements of how do you take

591
00:31:17,040 --> 00:31:20,440
Speaker 7: that core value proposition but then actually make it real

592
00:31:20,560 --> 00:31:24,160
Speaker 7: in terms of moving heat, storing heat, transferring heat to

593
00:31:24,200 --> 00:31:27,080
Speaker 7: water to produce steam, which is our primary use case

594
00:31:27,080 --> 00:31:29,600
Speaker 7: of the moment. In short, develops the Rondo Heat Battery

595
00:31:29,800 --> 00:31:33,880
Speaker 7: and form the company and since then have been galing

596
00:31:33,920 --> 00:31:34,440
Speaker 7: and growing.

597
00:31:34,920 --> 00:31:37,280
Speaker 2: So tell us how does it work. I think when

598
00:31:37,280 --> 00:31:40,920
Speaker 2: we met in New York, you said, to simplify, think

599
00:31:40,960 --> 00:31:45,040
Speaker 2: about it as very efficient breaks with dost the wires.

600
00:31:45,560 --> 00:31:48,720
Speaker 7: So the simplest way to think about it is exactly

601
00:31:48,760 --> 00:31:52,000
Speaker 7: that a stack of bricks and toaster wires. The bricks

602
00:31:52,160 --> 00:31:55,800
Speaker 7: are the same refractory that's been used for heat storage

603
00:31:55,880 --> 00:31:59,920
Speaker 7: in this steel industry for almost two centuries in some

604
00:32:00,160 --> 00:32:03,520
Speaker 7: called cowper stoves, So we already use bricks and know

605
00:32:03,560 --> 00:32:06,400
Speaker 7: how these bricks operate for basically heat storage.

606
00:32:06,440 --> 00:32:07,320
Speaker 4: And then toaster.

607
00:32:07,160 --> 00:32:10,800
Speaker 7: Wires is a bit reductive, but it's basically electric resistive

608
00:32:10,800 --> 00:32:14,400
Speaker 7: wires similar to what are used in other industrial applications

609
00:32:14,440 --> 00:32:17,360
Speaker 7: and similar to a toaster wire. You run electricity through

610
00:32:17,400 --> 00:32:20,160
Speaker 7: this electric resistive wire to produce heat. What the Runo

611
00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:23,760
Speaker 7: heat battery is is a bunch of these wires inserted

612
00:32:23,960 --> 00:32:27,800
Speaker 7: into the brick stack. And the brick stack is a matrix,

613
00:32:28,040 --> 00:32:30,320
Speaker 7: so it has slots for the bricks to come in

614
00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:33,080
Speaker 7: in one direction and then orthogonal to that, it has

615
00:32:33,160 --> 00:32:34,440
Speaker 7: gaps for airflow.

616
00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:36,800
Speaker 4: They're used to pull heat off the brick.

617
00:32:36,960 --> 00:32:39,280
Speaker 7: So basically you have the wires is a way to

618
00:32:39,320 --> 00:32:42,080
Speaker 7: get energy into the battery, heat up the wires, they

619
00:32:42,200 --> 00:32:45,000
Speaker 7: radiate heat into the bricks and then you have airflow

620
00:32:45,040 --> 00:32:47,440
Speaker 7: as a way to get energy off the battery, and

621
00:32:47,480 --> 00:32:50,640
Speaker 7: then you pass that airflow through a heat recovery steam

622
00:32:50,680 --> 00:32:53,920
Speaker 7: generator to transfer the heat from the air to water

623
00:32:54,000 --> 00:32:57,560
Speaker 7: to produce steam. So that's what's in the box. Now

624
00:32:57,800 --> 00:33:00,880
Speaker 7: how do you operate it? You obviously connect into electricity

625
00:33:00,920 --> 00:33:03,560
Speaker 7: and connects the other end to your steam loads in

626
00:33:03,600 --> 00:33:06,280
Speaker 7: the industrial site. And on the electricity end, you've got

627
00:33:06,400 --> 00:33:09,840
Speaker 7: cheap electricity available six seven eight hours a day. In

628
00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:13,000
Speaker 7: sunny locations, this is typically in the middle of the day,

629
00:33:13,040 --> 00:33:16,080
Speaker 7: between say ten am and four pm, So when you're

630
00:33:16,280 --> 00:33:19,280
Speaker 7: between those morning and evening peaks, you've got good at

631
00:33:19,360 --> 00:33:22,200
Speaker 7: volume of solar and the generation stack that drives the

632
00:33:22,240 --> 00:33:25,080
Speaker 7: electricity price down. That's when you turn on the wires

633
00:33:25,120 --> 00:33:27,840
Speaker 7: and soak up some of that cheap electricity to pull

634
00:33:27,960 --> 00:33:30,760
Speaker 7: energy into the battery. In other markets, you know wind

635
00:33:30,800 --> 00:33:33,280
Speaker 7: heavy markets, you might see cheap hours overnight. So for

636
00:33:33,320 --> 00:33:35,480
Speaker 7: example in the UK, this is what happens. We've got

637
00:33:35,520 --> 00:33:39,120
Speaker 7: lots of offshore wind. Demand drops overnight, we still have

638
00:33:39,200 --> 00:33:41,719
Speaker 7: lots of generation from that offshore wind overnight, so that

639
00:33:41,760 --> 00:33:44,040
Speaker 7: pushes the price down that's when you can tap into

640
00:33:44,080 --> 00:33:48,040
Speaker 7: cheap electricity. And then on the delivery side, industrials use

641
00:33:48,120 --> 00:33:51,600
Speaker 7: heat constantly, typically twenty four to seven and so these

642
00:33:51,600 --> 00:33:54,640
Speaker 7: two systems are disconnected. You can be charging and discharging

643
00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:57,560
Speaker 7: at the same time. And so basically as the industrial

644
00:33:57,600 --> 00:34:00,800
Speaker 7: needs heats, you just control the airflow, pull heat off

645
00:34:00,840 --> 00:34:03,880
Speaker 7: the battery, transfer that heat to water, produce steam, and

646
00:34:03,920 --> 00:34:06,960
Speaker 7: push that into the industrial process. And I'm focusing on

647
00:34:07,000 --> 00:34:09,400
Speaker 7: steam because that is our primary use case at the moment,

648
00:34:09,600 --> 00:34:12,400
Speaker 7: but just to say that it is capable of delivering

649
00:34:12,440 --> 00:34:15,960
Speaker 7: hot air. We also, for many customers produce very high

650
00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:18,759
Speaker 7: pressure steam like one hundred bar. Put that through a

651
00:34:18,760 --> 00:34:21,640
Speaker 7: non condensing steam turbine that still has lower pressure or

652
00:34:21,640 --> 00:34:24,640
Speaker 7: medium pressure steam come out and electricity. So that's kind

653
00:34:24,640 --> 00:34:27,760
Speaker 7: of a clean combined heat and power And does it twalk?

654
00:34:27,880 --> 00:34:30,920
Speaker 7: Do you have kind of some of these operating so

655
00:34:31,000 --> 00:34:34,239
Speaker 7: in terms of in operation, So our first unit is

656
00:34:34,280 --> 00:34:38,880
Speaker 7: a two megawadour unit at Calgrin, which is a realable

657
00:34:38,880 --> 00:34:42,960
Speaker 7: fuels facility in California that's been operating for just over

658
00:34:43,000 --> 00:34:46,080
Speaker 7: two years now, so that's kind of proved the system.

659
00:34:46,239 --> 00:34:49,520
Speaker 7: We then have a number of projects that are in

660
00:34:49,640 --> 00:34:53,000
Speaker 7: delivery phase, some of which are very late stage delivery phase,

661
00:34:53,160 --> 00:34:56,920
Speaker 7: and so we're going bigger and we're proving the system

662
00:34:57,000 --> 00:34:59,359
Speaker 7: as larger and larger scale as we go in terms

663
00:34:59,400 --> 00:35:03,560
Speaker 7: of the indus. So this is basically any industry that

664
00:35:03,760 --> 00:35:07,600
Speaker 7: uses heat at reasonably high temperatures, so let's say like

665
00:35:07,600 --> 00:35:11,479
Speaker 7: one hundred degrees and above, or even like pressurized hot

666
00:35:11,480 --> 00:35:14,279
Speaker 7: water is also a target sector, so it can be

667
00:35:14,280 --> 00:35:19,040
Speaker 7: below one hundred if it's pressurized. These sectors include chemicals,

668
00:35:19,200 --> 00:35:23,000
Speaker 7: food and beverage, pulp and paper, metals, and mining. So

669
00:35:23,200 --> 00:35:25,560
Speaker 7: often when we dig rock out of the grounds, we

670
00:35:25,600 --> 00:35:27,120
Speaker 7: then process it to get.

671
00:35:26,880 --> 00:35:29,080
Speaker 4: The metal or mineral out of it that we wants.

672
00:35:29,120 --> 00:35:32,040
Speaker 7: That typically requires a lot of heat. EVY battery production

673
00:35:32,320 --> 00:35:35,080
Speaker 7: also has heat in the catho drying process. For example,

674
00:35:35,239 --> 00:35:38,479
Speaker 7: CpG and pharma use heat, and all of these are

675
00:35:38,520 --> 00:35:39,640
Speaker 7: our sectors that we serve.

676
00:35:40,840 --> 00:35:44,480
Speaker 1: Obviously, you're quite a young company. You're now well a

677
00:35:44,480 --> 00:35:47,640
Speaker 1: new energy pioneer. You've got working models of what you

678
00:35:47,719 --> 00:35:50,640
Speaker 1: produce out in the world, so you've obviously scaled quite rapidly.

679
00:35:50,760 --> 00:35:52,720
Speaker 1: Who currently is is backing ROUNDO.

680
00:35:53,280 --> 00:35:56,320
Speaker 7: In prior rounds, our two big backers have been breakthrough

681
00:35:56,440 --> 00:36:00,560
Speaker 7: Energy Ventures, which is Bill Gates's clean tech fund, and

682
00:36:00,719 --> 00:36:04,680
Speaker 7: Energy Impact Partners, which historically has been their LPs or

683
00:36:04,840 --> 00:36:08,680
Speaker 7: utilities across North America and Europe, though they've expanded beyond this.

684
00:36:09,080 --> 00:36:12,440
Speaker 7: We further have investors. We have a number of strategic investors,

685
00:36:12,480 --> 00:36:16,239
Speaker 7: so the likes of Rio, Tinto A, Ramco, sabok H

686
00:36:16,280 --> 00:36:19,160
Speaker 7: and m Sciencemic Group, so players who look at us

687
00:36:19,160 --> 00:36:22,200
Speaker 7: as a solution to their decarbanization challenges.

688
00:36:22,400 --> 00:36:24,560
Speaker 4: That's who's been our investor base to date.

689
00:36:24,680 --> 00:36:28,319
Speaker 7: And just to say in terms of rapid scale, I

690
00:36:28,320 --> 00:36:33,319
Speaker 7: would say this speaks to two things. One is that

691
00:36:33,520 --> 00:36:37,799
Speaker 7: the value proposition of thermal energy storage is coming into

692
00:36:37,840 --> 00:36:40,880
Speaker 7: its own just by virtue of the energy system around us.

693
00:36:40,920 --> 00:36:44,000
Speaker 7: So like this type of a solution even just ten

694
00:36:44,080 --> 00:36:48,400
Speaker 7: years ago wouldn't have had the same compelling value proposition

695
00:36:48,480 --> 00:36:52,120
Speaker 7: to customers because you couldn't get cheap off feak electricity

696
00:36:52,280 --> 00:36:54,359
Speaker 7: at the prices that you can get it today. And

697
00:36:54,400 --> 00:36:58,160
Speaker 7: that value proposition is only going to strengthen every time

698
00:36:58,200 --> 00:37:01,280
Speaker 7: we deploy more solar and winds and connected to the system.

699
00:37:01,440 --> 00:37:02,879
Speaker 4: Right, so it's not even that we need to.

700
00:37:02,840 --> 00:37:06,200
Speaker 7: Deploy more faster, even if we just every time you

701
00:37:06,280 --> 00:37:08,800
Speaker 7: connect more solar and wind to the system, you create

702
00:37:08,960 --> 00:37:12,920
Speaker 7: more frequency of very low price hours because you have

703
00:37:13,000 --> 00:37:15,840
Speaker 7: more hours where solar and wind can be dominating the

704
00:37:15,880 --> 00:37:18,160
Speaker 7: generation stack. And then the second thing I would say

705
00:37:18,280 --> 00:37:23,200
Speaker 7: is because Rondo has designed with proven components. So all

706
00:37:23,239 --> 00:37:26,799
Speaker 7: of the subcomponents of the system are you know, materials

707
00:37:26,960 --> 00:37:30,160
Speaker 7: or pieces of equipment that are used or proven elsewhere

708
00:37:30,239 --> 00:37:32,520
Speaker 7: and then they're put together within the system and that

709
00:37:32,800 --> 00:37:35,840
Speaker 7: is what makes it very easily and rapidly scalable.

710
00:37:36,440 --> 00:37:38,440
Speaker 1: What is next for Rondo?

711
00:37:38,960 --> 00:37:43,799
Speaker 7: So in terms of industrial de carbonizations, solutions that have

712
00:37:43,960 --> 00:37:47,560
Speaker 7: existed and that industrials have you know, had available to

713
00:37:47,640 --> 00:37:49,880
Speaker 7: them to consider in the past have been things like

714
00:37:50,400 --> 00:37:55,120
Speaker 7: electric boilers, heat pumps, hydrogen. And where this differentiates basically

715
00:37:55,520 --> 00:38:00,279
Speaker 7: is in delivering lower cost energy or heat for these industrials. Right,

716
00:38:00,320 --> 00:38:04,040
Speaker 7: So electric boilers they're lower on the capital cost end,

717
00:38:04,120 --> 00:38:06,680
Speaker 7: but then they're running with twenty four hour electricity, and

718
00:38:06,760 --> 00:38:09,239
Speaker 7: twenty four hour electricity is a lot more expensive than

719
00:38:09,280 --> 00:38:11,480
Speaker 7: your cheapest six seven hours per day, so that's not

720
00:38:11,760 --> 00:38:14,480
Speaker 7: an energy source that is typically cheaper than.

721
00:38:14,560 --> 00:38:15,319
Speaker 4: Gas or coal.

722
00:38:15,600 --> 00:38:18,760
Speaker 7: Heat pumps obviously only serve up to a certain temperature

723
00:38:18,800 --> 00:38:20,800
Speaker 7: and as they as they push into the higher temperatures,

724
00:38:20,840 --> 00:38:24,120
Speaker 7: they're coefficient performance drops, but then they also have that

725
00:38:24,280 --> 00:38:27,960
Speaker 7: issue of running off twenty four hours of electricity. So

726
00:38:28,360 --> 00:38:30,719
Speaker 7: first of all, they can't serve certain temperatures, which takes

727
00:38:30,719 --> 00:38:33,000
Speaker 7: them out of the equation for those customers. And then

728
00:38:33,040 --> 00:38:35,680
Speaker 7: if you're towards the higher end of what heat pumps

729
00:38:35,680 --> 00:38:38,480
Speaker 7: can serve, then you're again getting back into this challenge

730
00:38:38,480 --> 00:38:41,920
Speaker 7: of running off a more expensive energy source. And then

731
00:38:42,000 --> 00:38:45,600
Speaker 7: hydrogen does have the potential to run off the cheaper

732
00:38:45,719 --> 00:38:50,280
Speaker 7: energy source of just focusing on off peak electricity. However,

733
00:38:50,520 --> 00:38:53,600
Speaker 7: its rounter efficiency is poor, right, so by the time

734
00:38:53,600 --> 00:38:56,759
Speaker 7: you've converted that off peak electricity into hydrogen and then

735
00:38:56,760 --> 00:38:59,040
Speaker 7: a hydrogen back into the heat, you know, you've lost

736
00:38:59,040 --> 00:39:01,680
Speaker 7: something like forty nine fifty percent of the energy relative

737
00:39:01,719 --> 00:39:04,200
Speaker 7: to our solution, which is ninety six ninety eight percent

738
00:39:04,320 --> 00:39:06,919
Speaker 7: energy efficient, And so it's just always going to be

739
00:39:07,120 --> 00:39:08,400
Speaker 7: more economic.

740
00:39:08,120 --> 00:39:09,560
Speaker 4: Now within the class.

741
00:39:09,719 --> 00:39:12,120
Speaker 7: The other thing I would say is, again we're using

742
00:39:12,360 --> 00:39:16,120
Speaker 7: bricks and existing materials that enables us to drive down

743
00:39:16,200 --> 00:39:20,320
Speaker 7: cost and have a very competitive cost base, which again

744
00:39:20,480 --> 00:39:24,560
Speaker 7: means that I think somewhat differentially, we are saving our customers'

745
00:39:24,560 --> 00:39:27,120
Speaker 7: money on all of our projects. We're helping our customers

746
00:39:27,239 --> 00:39:30,239
Speaker 7: achieve a lower cost of heat. Now in that context,

747
00:39:30,320 --> 00:39:33,840
Speaker 7: where does this mean that we're trying to go basically big,

748
00:39:34,080 --> 00:39:37,799
Speaker 7: as in big in deployment and scale. So you know,

749
00:39:37,880 --> 00:39:41,600
Speaker 7: as referenced, we have the Caligrim unit that's in operation.

750
00:39:42,160 --> 00:39:45,840
Speaker 7: We have six or so units that are in delivery.

751
00:39:46,239 --> 00:39:48,800
Speaker 7: I already referenced some of the ones that were announced

752
00:39:48,880 --> 00:39:52,160
Speaker 7: last year were three units in Europe that were announced

753
00:39:52,160 --> 00:39:55,680
Speaker 7: as being financed through break Through Energy Catalyst and European

754
00:39:55,680 --> 00:39:59,440
Speaker 7: Investment Bank, which are with Cavestro's chemical plant in Germany,

755
00:39:59,640 --> 00:40:04,719
Speaker 7: Greenla which is a green industrial park serving biogas in Denmark,

756
00:40:05,080 --> 00:40:07,279
Speaker 7: and then a food and beverage player in Hiberia. So

757
00:40:07,440 --> 00:40:09,600
Speaker 7: those are kind of next down the docket, and then

758
00:40:09,800 --> 00:40:15,160
Speaker 7: scaling pipeline behind that into a number of the sectors

759
00:40:15,200 --> 00:40:19,080
Speaker 7: that we've discussed as well as geographies that we've discussed.

760
00:40:19,080 --> 00:40:22,719
Speaker 7: So broadly speaking, North America, Europe and Australia would be

761
00:40:22,719 --> 00:40:27,080
Speaker 7: our core geographies and we selectively work in some geographies

762
00:40:27,080 --> 00:40:27,680
Speaker 7: outside of that.

763
00:40:28,160 --> 00:40:30,440
Speaker 1: Mark. Thank you so much for joining. It's been really

764
00:40:30,560 --> 00:40:33,640
Speaker 1: fascinating hearing about Rondo and everything. You guys are doing.

765
00:40:33,719 --> 00:40:35,120
Speaker 1: It's a really exciting time for you.

766
00:40:35,480 --> 00:40:35,880
Speaker 4: Thank you.

767
00:40:41,320 --> 00:40:44,200
Speaker 1: And finally we hear from Philippe Belan, the CEO of Everdi,

768
00:40:44,280 --> 00:40:53,400
Speaker 1: who've developed a new bio based eye for coloring textiles. Philippe, welcome.

769
00:40:53,719 --> 00:40:56,359
Speaker 1: Could you just introduce yourself, tell us a little bit

770
00:40:56,360 --> 00:40:57,960
Speaker 1: about yourself and your background.

771
00:40:58,560 --> 00:40:59,600
Speaker 8: So as a.

772
00:40:59,560 --> 00:41:04,680
Speaker 9: Background, I'm an engineer in the educational background, but I'm

773
00:41:04,680 --> 00:41:10,200
Speaker 9: not really practiced my first education as I jumped into

774
00:41:10,239 --> 00:41:13,279
Speaker 9: a position that was more commercial or on branding, and

775
00:41:13,320 --> 00:41:16,480
Speaker 9: I have been spending pretty all my career in the

776
00:41:16,960 --> 00:41:17,719
Speaker 9: upper hile and.

777
00:41:17,880 --> 00:41:19,160
Speaker 8: Home decoration industry.

778
00:41:19,280 --> 00:41:22,279
Speaker 9: In my last position, I was CEO for French quite

779
00:41:22,360 --> 00:41:25,839
Speaker 9: famous brands as a loud or pettybatto, So I'm very

780
00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:28,360
Speaker 9: well aware of the stakes.

781
00:41:27,880 --> 00:41:31,280
Speaker 8: Of this industry is really harmful for the planet.

782
00:41:31,440 --> 00:41:34,759
Speaker 9: So from the inside I could feel, i say, the

783
00:41:34,840 --> 00:41:39,359
Speaker 9: lack of solution as a CEO to try the carbonizer

784
00:41:39,480 --> 00:41:43,200
Speaker 9: to depolute this industry. And basically I've been in touch

785
00:41:43,440 --> 00:41:46,400
Speaker 9: as a business angel with Eva Dye and I decided,

786
00:41:46,480 --> 00:41:49,080
Speaker 9: i would say three years ago, to invest as a

787
00:41:49,120 --> 00:41:53,760
Speaker 9: business angel first so I could follow their track record.

788
00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:58,719
Speaker 9: They go through very important and outstanding milestones and at

789
00:41:58,760 --> 00:42:01,919
Speaker 9: the end of twenty twenty three, I had the opportunity

790
00:42:02,040 --> 00:42:05,440
Speaker 9: to join the board of the company, to be the

791
00:42:05,520 --> 00:42:08,319
Speaker 9: chairman of the board, to try to manage with them

792
00:42:08,640 --> 00:42:11,319
Speaker 9: the path of growth, and from time to time I've

793
00:42:11,360 --> 00:42:14,800
Speaker 9: been more and more involved in the company. Quite naturally,

794
00:42:14,840 --> 00:42:19,160
Speaker 9: I decided to join, fully quitting my previous job as

795
00:42:19,160 --> 00:42:21,800
Speaker 9: the CEO of Loud. So I jumped from a company

796
00:42:22,160 --> 00:42:25,719
Speaker 9: with more than two thousand people to a company with

797
00:42:25,840 --> 00:42:29,000
Speaker 9: less than twenty. But for me it was not a

798
00:42:29,080 --> 00:42:33,279
Speaker 9: problem and I did it nearly without any hesitation. I've

799
00:42:33,320 --> 00:42:37,200
Speaker 9: been named as a veteran joining for us French, the

800
00:42:37,280 --> 00:42:40,480
Speaker 9: veteran is something that is meaning that you are very old,

801
00:42:40,640 --> 00:42:44,880
Speaker 9: but in English it's exactly the same meaning, and I

802
00:42:44,920 --> 00:42:47,799
Speaker 9: perfectly understand the term in English, and so that's why

803
00:42:47,920 --> 00:42:52,000
Speaker 9: I've been names like this. And yes, I'm quite a

804
00:42:52,239 --> 00:42:55,080
Speaker 9: non typical profile within the startups.

805
00:42:55,080 --> 00:42:57,560
Speaker 8: I'm only with young people less than.

806
00:42:57,440 --> 00:42:59,680
Speaker 9: Thirty five, so they are young and I'm old, and

807
00:42:59,719 --> 00:43:02,359
Speaker 9: it's really cool for me to be amongst them.

808
00:43:02,640 --> 00:43:06,319
Speaker 1: So apart from it being really cool to maybe rediscover

809
00:43:06,400 --> 00:43:09,799
Speaker 1: your youth with these young colleagues, presumably to make such

810
00:43:09,800 --> 00:43:12,680
Speaker 1: a big decision to go from leading an organization with

811
00:43:12,800 --> 00:43:16,040
Speaker 1: two thousand employees to one with just twenty. You must

812
00:43:16,040 --> 00:43:18,520
Speaker 1: have seen some huge potential. So could you tell us

813
00:43:18,520 --> 00:43:21,360
Speaker 1: a little bit about that potential? And you know, whatever

814
00:43:21,440 --> 00:43:24,160
Speaker 1: die does that attracted you to being involved.

815
00:43:24,320 --> 00:43:27,359
Speaker 9: The main reason of my decision was the potential and

816
00:43:27,480 --> 00:43:31,440
Speaker 9: the ability of ever dye to transform deeply the industry.

817
00:43:31,560 --> 00:43:32,239
Speaker 8: This is the point.

818
00:43:33,120 --> 00:43:35,799
Speaker 9: And I have a background of engineer, I know very

819
00:43:35,800 --> 00:43:37,880
Speaker 9: well the industry. I can be in the shoes of

820
00:43:37,920 --> 00:43:40,239
Speaker 9: the customers and I say there is a way to

821
00:43:40,320 --> 00:43:43,400
Speaker 9: transform really in this industry. Because I was quite frustrated

822
00:43:43,400 --> 00:43:46,680
Speaker 9: that the seeo to find good solution to transform the industry.

823
00:43:46,719 --> 00:43:48,960
Speaker 9: So when you were in contact with such a solution,

824
00:43:49,200 --> 00:43:51,759
Speaker 9: for me, there was no vegitation. I had to jump

825
00:43:51,800 --> 00:43:54,040
Speaker 9: on it and to try to develop it and to

826
00:43:54,120 --> 00:43:57,560
Speaker 9: make it come true basically, so to transform the potential

827
00:43:57,640 --> 00:44:00,080
Speaker 9: of this technology to real.

828
00:44:00,400 --> 00:44:03,200
Speaker 8: And what is the purpose of evad eye is to

829
00:44:03,239 --> 00:44:04,320
Speaker 8: try to take.

830
00:44:04,160 --> 00:44:08,640
Speaker 9: Carbonize and they pollute the dying operation in the textile industry.

831
00:44:08,719 --> 00:44:11,520
Speaker 8: Maybe you don't know because it's not very well known. Obviously,

832
00:44:11,520 --> 00:44:14,160
Speaker 8: we know all that textile is very harmful.

833
00:44:14,320 --> 00:44:17,080
Speaker 9: We know a lot of things about fast fashion and

834
00:44:17,280 --> 00:44:21,520
Speaker 9: destruction of ecosystem and deforestation, a lot, a lot of

835
00:44:22,239 --> 00:44:25,719
Speaker 9: very negative externalities. But from the inside you know that

836
00:44:25,960 --> 00:44:29,560
Speaker 9: the main parts of these very harmful impacts are due

837
00:44:29,600 --> 00:44:32,160
Speaker 9: to the dyeing process. What is the dying is the

838
00:44:32,200 --> 00:44:35,160
Speaker 9: fact of you see to add colors on fibers and

839
00:44:35,239 --> 00:44:38,680
Speaker 9: the chemistry that is at stake today in the conventional process,

840
00:44:38,920 --> 00:44:43,920
Speaker 9: it's it's a chemistry that it's basically recombining covenant bounds.

841
00:44:43,960 --> 00:44:47,439
Speaker 9: So sorry to be quite technical here, but I won't

842
00:44:47,480 --> 00:44:50,279
Speaker 9: do more on this. But it requires a lot of

843
00:44:50,400 --> 00:44:54,439
Speaker 9: energy to activate the chemical reactions by hitting the dye

844
00:44:54,480 --> 00:44:57,520
Speaker 9: bas You use a lot of water that you pollute

845
00:44:57,600 --> 00:45:00,719
Speaker 9: because the chemical reaction is not net I would say,

846
00:45:00,719 --> 00:45:03,080
Speaker 9: it's not spontaneous. So you need to help a lot

847
00:45:03,280 --> 00:45:06,960
Speaker 9: by adding a lot of chemical activators that are full

848
00:45:07,000 --> 00:45:11,840
Speaker 9: of very polluting agents like heavy metals, salts.

849
00:45:11,440 --> 00:45:11,880
Speaker 8: Et cetera.

850
00:45:12,040 --> 00:45:14,080
Speaker 9: So at the end, you put a lot of dirty

851
00:45:14,120 --> 00:45:17,160
Speaker 9: things in a bass of water, You put your fibers,

852
00:45:17,280 --> 00:45:21,120
Speaker 9: You eat a lot sometime more than eight ten hours.

853
00:45:21,200 --> 00:45:24,440
Speaker 9: You eat at least seventy to eighty degrees to up

854
00:45:24,480 --> 00:45:27,759
Speaker 9: to one hundred twenty five twenty three, and then you

855
00:45:27,840 --> 00:45:30,840
Speaker 9: wait ten hours so you spend a lot of energy.

856
00:45:30,960 --> 00:45:33,080
Speaker 9: You use a lot of energy, You use a lot

857
00:45:33,080 --> 00:45:36,520
Speaker 9: of chemical products that are all today, they are all

858
00:45:36,520 --> 00:45:40,160
Speaker 9: coming from the petrochemical industries of fo size origin. And

859
00:45:40,360 --> 00:45:43,280
Speaker 9: at the end you have your textile that is dyed.

860
00:45:43,440 --> 00:45:45,319
Speaker 9: But on the other side you have a die bas that.

861
00:45:45,360 --> 00:45:46,560
Speaker 8: Is very very polluted.

862
00:45:47,239 --> 00:45:50,120
Speaker 9: For most of it in the worldwide industry of textile

863
00:45:50,280 --> 00:45:54,200
Speaker 9: in countries where the facilities are not very well developed.

864
00:45:54,400 --> 00:45:58,640
Speaker 9: These die bas go directly to the rivers or the seed,

865
00:45:58,760 --> 00:45:59,960
Speaker 9: so you pull youte directly.

866
00:46:00,200 --> 00:46:01,879
Speaker 8: The water is on the ed on the planet. That's

867
00:46:01,880 --> 00:46:04,200
Speaker 8: why at the end the problem, what is the problem?

868
00:46:04,320 --> 00:46:07,839
Speaker 9: You use something like five percent of the total ggymission

869
00:46:07,880 --> 00:46:10,719
Speaker 9: on the planet and your accounting for twenty percent of

870
00:46:10,760 --> 00:46:13,000
Speaker 9: the water pollution on the planet. This is the problem.

871
00:46:13,080 --> 00:46:15,680
Speaker 9: So if you want to remind two figures, this is

872
00:46:15,719 --> 00:46:18,520
Speaker 9: the two five percent of gymission twenty percent of the

873
00:46:18,600 --> 00:46:20,840
Speaker 9: food of the pollution of the water on the planet.

874
00:46:21,120 --> 00:46:24,000
Speaker 9: So tell us about your solution. I mean, I think

875
00:46:24,040 --> 00:46:27,040
Speaker 9: you mentioned when when we spoke that you could use

876
00:46:27,160 --> 00:46:30,880
Speaker 9: room temperatures so reduce the heating and kind of reduce

877
00:46:30,920 --> 00:46:33,399
Speaker 9: the amount of chemical being is. Can you tell us

878
00:46:33,440 --> 00:46:36,760
Speaker 9: a bit more about your ab dye solution. So maybe

879
00:46:36,800 --> 00:46:39,879
Speaker 9: this is the co founder Amira ro who invented that.

880
00:46:39,960 --> 00:46:42,920
Speaker 9: So I wanted to it to quote per Obviously she's

881
00:46:43,040 --> 00:46:48,759
Speaker 9: a talk to her in chemistry specialized in intelligent textiles,

882
00:46:49,000 --> 00:46:53,000
Speaker 9: and she made this discovering very very in a very

883
00:46:53,480 --> 00:46:57,480
Speaker 9: smart way. And what is this Basically this patented invention.

884
00:46:57,840 --> 00:47:01,279
Speaker 9: Basically the fibers that you have to die are previously

885
00:47:01,520 --> 00:47:04,799
Speaker 9: clean but strongly clean to big and basically basically we

886
00:47:04,880 --> 00:47:07,640
Speaker 9: say bleached. First, the natural color of the.

887
00:47:07,600 --> 00:47:09,680
Speaker 8: Fibers have to be removed because if if you.

888
00:47:09,680 --> 00:47:13,720
Speaker 9: Want to dye a certain red on the grayish fabric,

889
00:47:13,960 --> 00:47:16,600
Speaker 9: the natural natural color of the fiber is kind of

890
00:47:16,680 --> 00:47:19,680
Speaker 9: grayis it's difficult to match with the exactly color you want,

891
00:47:19,719 --> 00:47:21,840
Speaker 9: so you need to start from the white.

892
00:47:22,360 --> 00:47:23,759
Speaker 8: So first you have to bleach it.

893
00:47:24,040 --> 00:47:28,439
Speaker 9: This bleaching washes very deeply the fiber to remove all

894
00:47:28,480 --> 00:47:31,359
Speaker 9: the grease, all the oil, all the rocks that you

895
00:47:31,360 --> 00:47:34,120
Speaker 9: can have from the previous steps of production of the

896
00:47:34,239 --> 00:47:37,640
Speaker 9: of the fibrics basics. So when doing that, this bleaching

897
00:47:37,920 --> 00:47:41,960
Speaker 9: is going to charge negatively the fibers. There is a

898
00:47:42,040 --> 00:47:47,160
Speaker 9: creation of an electric electrostatic charg and ionization of the

899
00:47:47,160 --> 00:47:50,400
Speaker 9: fiber that creates a kind of negative charge at the

900
00:47:50,440 --> 00:47:53,280
Speaker 9: surface of the of the fabric, and this is exactly

901
00:47:53,320 --> 00:47:56,880
Speaker 9: what we will use to anchor our pigment that is

902
00:47:57,080 --> 00:48:00,160
Speaker 9: positively child that we create as a positive charge.

903
00:48:00,200 --> 00:48:02,440
Speaker 8: Pigment obviously a positive charge.

904
00:48:02,640 --> 00:48:06,320
Speaker 9: Approaching a negative charge you create a kind of magnet effect.

905
00:48:06,520 --> 00:48:08,400
Speaker 8: And then afterwards you need.

906
00:48:08,320 --> 00:48:11,920
Speaker 9: To dry the fabric because obviously first you are in

907
00:48:11,960 --> 00:48:14,880
Speaker 9: a wet condition of you see within the water, and

908
00:48:14,920 --> 00:48:17,720
Speaker 9: then you need to release the water and to dry

909
00:48:18,239 --> 00:48:20,439
Speaker 9: the fabric at the end. And this drying is made

910
00:48:20,480 --> 00:48:23,160
Speaker 9: at something like more than one hundred degrees to just

911
00:48:23,320 --> 00:48:27,000
Speaker 9: drive very quickly the fabric and with the heating we

912
00:48:27,080 --> 00:48:30,719
Speaker 9: create a polymerization between our pigment and the fiber. Like

913
00:48:30,800 --> 00:48:33,680
Speaker 9: this you have a stronger attachment with a very good

914
00:48:33,800 --> 00:48:36,520
Speaker 9: quality dyeing that matches with the.

915
00:48:36,400 --> 00:48:37,680
Speaker 8: Requirement of the industry.

916
00:48:37,800 --> 00:48:41,160
Speaker 9: So there is a two steps approach which is drastically

917
00:48:41,160 --> 00:48:45,279
Speaker 9: different from the conventional one. And like this, you can

918
00:48:45,400 --> 00:48:51,000
Speaker 9: operate at room temperasure without adding chemical additives to accelerate

919
00:48:51,320 --> 00:48:55,040
Speaker 9: the reaction. So room temperasure and something like three times

920
00:48:55,120 --> 00:48:59,160
Speaker 9: or four times more quicker than the conventional process. So

921
00:48:59,200 --> 00:49:02,640
Speaker 9: you gain the energy to eat and you gain by

922
00:49:02,920 --> 00:49:06,000
Speaker 9: the time cycle that is far shorter. So the global

923
00:49:06,280 --> 00:49:09,000
Speaker 9: GGE emission depends what you see of the context and

924
00:49:09,040 --> 00:49:12,120
Speaker 9: the type of production that you can drop the energy

925
00:49:12,120 --> 00:49:15,400
Speaker 9: consumption by something like from nineteen ninety five percent to

926
00:49:15,680 --> 00:49:18,759
Speaker 9: sixty seventy percent that do this, and the water that

927
00:49:18,840 --> 00:49:21,720
Speaker 9: you are releasing is quite clean. It means that within

928
00:49:22,080 --> 00:49:25,720
Speaker 9: the water there is no more polluting agents and only

929
00:49:25,960 --> 00:49:29,520
Speaker 9: maybe a very light proportion of all that stuff that

930
00:49:29,560 --> 00:49:30,680
Speaker 9: you put in the water.

931
00:49:31,000 --> 00:49:34,160
Speaker 1: So what I'm getting from this is there's a huge

932
00:49:34,280 --> 00:49:38,360
Speaker 1: energy saving from this process that your company has developed,

933
00:49:38,560 --> 00:49:42,480
Speaker 1: and also a reduction or an elimination i should say,

934
00:49:42,480 --> 00:49:45,880
Speaker 1: of the chemical pollutants that result from the process. Just

935
00:49:45,920 --> 00:49:50,880
Speaker 1: obviously these are the positives. One thing we've always seen, sadly,

936
00:49:50,920 --> 00:49:54,240
Speaker 1: I would say, is that it's very difficult for cleaner

937
00:49:54,600 --> 00:49:58,040
Speaker 1: options to compete or to really scale unless they're competitive

938
00:49:58,080 --> 00:50:01,160
Speaker 1: on cost. So how much does this cost compared to

939
00:50:01,320 --> 00:50:03,520
Speaker 1: the conventional dyeing methods.

940
00:50:03,760 --> 00:50:07,640
Speaker 9: We will be competitive or even cheap than the conventional

941
00:50:07,719 --> 00:50:12,680
Speaker 9: process with at least two conditions. One scaling, because obviously

942
00:50:12,880 --> 00:50:16,560
Speaker 9: we need to produce a very high scale to obtain

943
00:50:16,840 --> 00:50:19,240
Speaker 9: the targeted costs of our product.

944
00:50:19,400 --> 00:50:22,680
Speaker 8: So we need volumes because it's a very correlated to

945
00:50:22,760 --> 00:50:23,600
Speaker 8: volume of production.

946
00:50:24,040 --> 00:50:27,799
Speaker 9: We are doing green chemistry to produce our pigments and

947
00:50:27,920 --> 00:50:32,480
Speaker 9: this green chemistry does not require a dedicated, first of

948
00:50:32,560 --> 00:50:36,760
Speaker 9: a kind factory. We will use very standard chemical reactors

949
00:50:36,760 --> 00:50:40,320
Speaker 9: that we can find with a third party operators as.

950
00:50:40,320 --> 00:50:42,880
Speaker 8: CDMO or CMO with a tolling model.

951
00:50:42,960 --> 00:50:46,800
Speaker 9: So we will have third party to produce and to

952
00:50:47,160 --> 00:50:49,880
Speaker 9: I would say to scale and to find a good

953
00:50:50,400 --> 00:50:52,960
Speaker 9: process to optimize the cost. So this is the first

954
00:50:53,000 --> 00:50:56,440
Speaker 9: condition is to produce at scale, and today we need

955
00:50:56,480 --> 00:50:59,160
Speaker 9: to multiply by for the size of reactors that you

956
00:50:59,200 --> 00:51:01,600
Speaker 9: are using today we are at the scale of around

957
00:51:01,719 --> 00:51:04,719
Speaker 9: forty liters and we need to reach size reactor of

958
00:51:04,880 --> 00:51:08,439
Speaker 9: around ten thousand liters. With this, we are pretty sure

959
00:51:08,480 --> 00:51:11,560
Speaker 9: that we will drop the cost to our target. It

960
00:51:11,640 --> 00:51:13,759
Speaker 9: will be the cost of our product. But on the

961
00:51:13,800 --> 00:51:16,960
Speaker 9: other side, you need to take into consideration that the

962
00:51:17,080 --> 00:51:20,799
Speaker 9: dying meal won't choose so much energy, we won't pay

963
00:51:21,000 --> 00:51:24,320
Speaker 9: for the water treatment to match with the local regulation,

964
00:51:24,680 --> 00:51:28,000
Speaker 9: won't choose so much water than previously, and as the

965
00:51:28,120 --> 00:51:32,600
Speaker 9: time cycle is far quicker, there will big big savings

966
00:51:32,680 --> 00:51:34,920
Speaker 9: on the side of the diame mids. So all in all,

967
00:51:35,000 --> 00:51:37,239
Speaker 9: with that, with all the savings on one side and

968
00:51:37,320 --> 00:51:39,359
Speaker 9: the drop of the cost on our side, we will

969
00:51:39,360 --> 00:51:42,720
Speaker 9: be competitive or even cheaper. Just imagine the world within

970
00:51:43,120 --> 00:51:45,600
Speaker 9: I would say five to ten years, what will be

971
00:51:45,640 --> 00:51:49,399
Speaker 9: the cost of energy and will the water be as

972
00:51:49,560 --> 00:51:53,040
Speaker 9: accessible as today in some regions. So reducing the dependence

973
00:51:53,080 --> 00:51:55,880
Speaker 9: on the water and energy is strategic in this industry.

974
00:51:56,280 --> 00:51:58,879
Speaker 1: I mean, you've painted a picture picture. Your company has

975
00:51:58,920 --> 00:52:02,920
Speaker 1: a clean alternate, it's potentially cheaper if it scales, and

976
00:52:03,000 --> 00:52:05,600
Speaker 1: so there's huge potential there. So I suppose my final

977
00:52:05,680 --> 00:52:08,040
Speaker 1: question is what is the plan that you have, the

978
00:52:08,080 --> 00:52:10,920
Speaker 1: strategy you have in order to achieve that scale that

979
00:52:11,040 --> 00:52:11,799
Speaker 1: you're looking for.

980
00:52:12,160 --> 00:52:15,520
Speaker 9: Basically, we need to cover all the use cases because

981
00:52:15,600 --> 00:52:19,439
Speaker 9: each color is different from another one, each fiber we dyed,

982
00:52:19,640 --> 00:52:22,640
Speaker 9: it's a different case. And basically you have four types

983
00:52:22,640 --> 00:52:25,000
Speaker 9: of machine within the dyeing mies that we need to

984
00:52:25,000 --> 00:52:27,839
Speaker 9: master with our technology. So we need to develop all

985
00:52:27,840 --> 00:52:30,440
Speaker 9: these use cases from time to time. So it's planned

986
00:52:30,480 --> 00:52:33,640
Speaker 9: for the next three years and like this, we expanding

987
00:52:33,680 --> 00:52:35,719
Speaker 9: our use case, we'll be able to.

988
00:52:35,800 --> 00:52:39,400
Speaker 8: Cover and have to acquire more market share. But to scale.

989
00:52:39,440 --> 00:52:42,759
Speaker 9: We need to start from the most easy part of

990
00:52:42,760 --> 00:52:46,319
Speaker 9: our technology, which is on the cellulosic fibers for the

991
00:52:46,400 --> 00:52:49,920
Speaker 9: colors we have already developed and it's the primary colors

992
00:52:49,960 --> 00:52:53,680
Speaker 9: and kind of black. Starting from that, we have enough

993
00:52:53,719 --> 00:52:58,080
Speaker 9: potential by working with very few clients customers to scale

994
00:52:58,120 --> 00:53:02,319
Speaker 9: it in a real obviously industrial condition, and we don't

995
00:53:02,360 --> 00:53:05,839
Speaker 9: need to have a two hundred thousand customers. We need

996
00:53:05,880 --> 00:53:10,319
Speaker 9: to develop strategic partnership to integrate their supply chain and

997
00:53:10,440 --> 00:53:13,680
Speaker 9: to be adopted by their times the diamies that they

998
00:53:13,680 --> 00:53:16,520
Speaker 9: are nominating from time to tax. So we will focus

999
00:53:16,600 --> 00:53:21,440
Speaker 9: on few clients that are really committed in CSR topics

1000
00:53:21,600 --> 00:53:24,640
Speaker 9: and trying to have a positive impact in their supply chain.

1001
00:53:24,920 --> 00:53:28,279
Speaker 9: We have already developed these contacts and so we are

1002
00:53:28,320 --> 00:53:31,640
Speaker 9: working very closely with these partners. Browns are the first

1003
00:53:31,719 --> 00:53:34,600
Speaker 9: prescriptor and then we go to the dying miss they

1004
00:53:34,600 --> 00:53:37,640
Speaker 9: are using to be adopted. And I insists on one thing,

1005
00:53:37,840 --> 00:53:40,920
Speaker 9: if we do a correctly, our job quite seamless as

1006
00:53:40,920 --> 00:53:43,440
Speaker 9: an adoption because we use the same machinery that is

1007
00:53:43,480 --> 00:53:46,440
Speaker 9: already install in the dying mill, and the practice on

1008
00:53:46,480 --> 00:53:49,919
Speaker 9: an everyday basis is very simple and very similar as

1009
00:53:49,960 --> 00:53:53,839
Speaker 9: they're currently doing. There is only one exception. Just don't

1010
00:53:53,880 --> 00:53:56,840
Speaker 9: put the heat puton onar Philip.

1011
00:53:56,920 --> 00:53:59,959
Speaker 1: It's really fascinating the work that your company is doing.

1012
00:54:00,080 --> 00:54:03,160
Speaker 1: What I really love actually is that you have already

1013
00:54:03,200 --> 00:54:05,640
Speaker 1: developed a solution, but there is still work to be

1014
00:54:05,680 --> 00:54:07,560
Speaker 1: done in the lab. I mean, you've got to scale

1015
00:54:07,600 --> 00:54:09,480
Speaker 1: the solutions you've got, but you're also getting to do

1016
00:54:09,560 --> 00:54:11,040
Speaker 1: some of the fund technology development.

1017
00:54:11,120 --> 00:54:20,000
Speaker 8: Thank you very much, you guys.

1018
00:54:21,120 --> 00:54:24,240
Speaker 6: Today's episode of Switched On was produced by Cam Gray

1019
00:54:24,440 --> 00:54:28,160
Speaker 6: with production assistance from Kamala Shelling. Bloomberg NIF is a

1020
00:54:28,200 --> 00:54:31,319
Speaker 6: service provided by Bloomberg Finance LP and its affiliates. This

1021
00:54:31,400 --> 00:54:34,080
Speaker 6: recording does not constitute, nor should it be construed as

1022
00:54:34,120 --> 00:54:37,880
Speaker 6: investment in vice, investment recommendations, or a recommendation as to

1023
00:54:37,920 --> 00:54:39,400
Speaker 6: an investment or other strategy.

1024
00:54:39,440 --> 00:54:42,839
Speaker 2: Bloomberg ANIFF should not be considered as information sufficient upon

1025
00:54:42,920 --> 00:54:44,600
Speaker 2: which to base an investment decision.

1026
00:54:44,719 --> 00:54:47,680
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1027
00:54:47,719 --> 00:54:51,440
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1028
00:54:51,440 --> 00:54:53,879
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1029
00:54:53,920 --> 00:54:57,160
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