LanzaTech
Auto Added by WPeMatico
Auto Added by WPeMatico
Bioengineering may soon provide compelling, low-carbon alternatives in industries where even the best methods produce significant emissions. Utilizing natural and engineered biological process has led to low-carbon textiles from AlgiKnit, cell-cultured premium meats from Orbillion and fuels captured from waste emissions via LanzaTech — and leaders from those companies will be joining us onstage for the Extreme Tech Challenge Global Finals on July 22.
We’re co-hosting the event, with panels like this one all day and a pitch-off that will feature a number of innovative startups with a sustainability angle.
I’ll be moderating a panel on using bioengineering to create change directly in industries with large carbon footprints: textiles, meat production and manufacturing.
AlgiKnit is a startup that is sourcing raw material for fabric from kelp, which is an eco-friendly alternative to textile crop monocultures and artificial materials like acrylic. CEO Aaron Nesser will speak to the challenge of breaking into this established industry and overcoming preconceived notions of what an algae-derived fabric might be like (spoiler: it’s like any other fabric).
Orbillion Bio is one of the new crop of alternative protein companies offering cell-cultured meats (just don’t call them “lab” or “vat” grown) to offset the incredibly wasteful livestock industry. But it’s more than just growing a steak — there are regulatory and market barriers aplenty that CEO Patricia Bubner can speak to, as well as the technical challenge.
LanzaTech works with factories to capture emissions as they’re emitted, collecting the useful particles that would otherwise clutter the atmosphere and repurposing them in the form of premium fuels. This is a delicate and complex process that needs to be a partnership, not just a retrofitting operation, so CEO Jennifer Holmgren will speak to their approach convincing the industry to work with them at the ground floor.
It should be a very interesting conversation, so tune in on July 22 to hear these and other industry leaders focused on sustainability discuss how innovation at the startup level can contribute to the fight against climate change. Plus it’s free!
Powered by WPeMatico
The energy giant Shell has joined a slew of strategic investors — including All Nippon Airways, Suncor Energy, Mitsui and British Airways — in funding LanzaJet, the company commercializing a process to convert alcohol into jet fuel.
A spin-off from LanzaTech, one of the last surviving climate tech startups from the first cleantech boom that’s still privately held, LanzaJet is taking a phased investment approach with its corporate backers, enabling them to invest additional capital as the company scales to larger production facilities.
Terms of the initial investment, or LanzaJet’s valuation after the commitment, were not disclosed.
LanzaJet claims that it can help the aviation industry reach net-zero emissions, something that would go a long way toward helping the world meet the emissions reductions targets set in the Paris Agreement.
“LanzaJet’s technology opens up a new and exciting pathway to produce SAF using an AtJ process and will help address the aviation sector’s urgent need for SAF. It demonstrates that the industry can move faster and deliver more when we all work together,” said Anna Mascolo, president, Shell Aviation, in a statement. “Provided industry, government and society collaborate on appropriate policy mechanisms and regulations to drive both supply and demand, aviation can achieve net-zero carbon emissions. The strategic fit with LanzaJet is exciting.”
LanzaJet is currently building an alcohol-to-jet fuel facility in Soperton, Georgia. Upon completion it would be the first commercial-scale plant for sustainable synthetic jet fuel, with a capacity of 10 million gallons per year.
The fuel is made by using ethanol inputs — something that Shell is very familiar with. It’s also something that the oil giant has in ready supply. Through the Raízen joint venture in Brazil, Shell has been producing bio-ethanol for more than 10 years.
The company expects that its sustainable fuel will be mixed with conventional fossil jet fuel to power airplanes in a lower carbon intensity way. Roughly 90% of the company’s production output will be aviation fuel, while the remaining 10% will be renewable diesel, the company said.
LanzaJet’s SAF is approved to be blended up to 50% with fossil jet fuel, the maximum allowed by ASTM, and is a drop-in fuel that requires no modifications to engines, aircraft and infrastructure. Additionally, LanzaJet’s SAF delivers more than a 70% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions on a lifecycle basis, compared to conventional fossil jet fuel. The versatility in ethanol, and a focus on low carbon, waste-based and nonfood/nonfeed sources, along with ethanol’s global availability, make LanzaJet’s technology a relevant and enduring solution for SAF.
Powered by WPeMatico
LanzaJet, the renewable jet fuel startup spun out from the longtime renewable and synthetic fuel manufacturer LanzaTech, has inked a supply agreement with British Airways to supply the company with at least 7,500 tons of fuel additive per year.
The deal marks the second agreement between the U.K.-based airline and a renewable jet fuels manufacturer following an August 2019 agreement with the British company Velocys. It’s also LanzaJet’s second offtake agreement. The company announced itself with a partnership between the renewable fuels manufacturer and the Japanese airline ANA.
Through the deal, British Airways will invest an undisclosed amount in LanzaJet’s first commercial scale facility in Georgia. The fuel will begin powering flights by the end of 2022, the companies said.
It’s part of a broader expansion effort that could see LanzaJet establish a commercial facility for the U.K. airline in its home country in the coming years.
Back in the U.S. the plan is to begin construction on the Georgia facility later this year, which will convert ethanol into a jet fuel additive using a chemical process.
Fuel from the plant will reduce the overall greenhouse emissions by 70% versus traditional jet fuel. It’s the equivalent of taking almost 27,000 gasoline or diesel-powered cars off the road each year, according to the company.
The deal is the culmination of years of research and development work between LanzaJet’s parent company, LanzaTech, and Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
Spun off in June 2020, LanzaJet was financed by an investment group including parent company LanzaTech, Mitsui, and Suncor Energy. British Airways now joins the two other strategic investors as LanzaJet eyes an ambitious scale-up program through 2025. The company plans to launch four large-scale plants producing a pipeline of renewable fuels.
“Low-cost, sustainable fuel options are critical for the future of the aviation sector and the LanzaJet process offers the most flexible feedstock solution at scale, recycling wastes and residues into SAF that allows us to keep fossil jet fuel in the ground. British Airways has long been a champion of waste to fuels pathways especially with the UK Government,” said Jimmy Samartzis, the chief executive of LanzaJet. “With the right support for waste-based fuels, the UK would be an ideal location for commercial scale LanzaJet plants. We look forward to continuing the dialogue with BA and the UK Government in making this a reality, and to continuing our support of bringing the Prime Minister’s Jet Zero vision to life.”
The LanzaJet fuel is certified for commercial flight up to 50% blend with conventional kerosene. “Considering the aviation market is 90 billion gallons of jet fuel a year, having 50% or 45 billion of production capacity and reaching that max blend level will be a great problem to have,” said LanzaTech chief executive Jennifer Holmgren in an email.
LanzaJet’s manufacturing facility in Georgia is designed to produce zero-waste fuels, according to Holmgren, and British Airways will receive 7,500 tons of sustainable aviation fuel from LanzaJet’s biorefinery each year for the next five years.
The partnership is between British Airways, Hangar 51 (International Airlines Group’s accelerator) and others.
In addition to its biofuel work, British Airways is also working with companies like ZeroAvia, the hydrogen fuels company that also received backing from Amazon, Shell and Breakthrough Energy Ventures.
“For the last 100 years we have connected Britain with the world and the world with Britain, and to ensure our success for the next 100, we must do this sustainably,” said British Airways chief executive Sean Doyle.
“Progressing the development and commercial deployment of sustainable aviation fuel is crucial to decarbonising the aviation industry and this partnership with LanzaJet shows the progress British Airways is making as we continue on our journey to net zero.”
Powered by WPeMatico
Just three months after LanzaTech announced a spin-out aimed at selling sustainable aviation fuel, the company is already preparing for two more.
LanzaTech CEO Jennifer Holmgren said Tuesday on the Disrupt 2020 virtual stage that the carbon capture technology company is planning to use its core technology to create two other businesses.
LanzaTech captures waste gas emissions and uses bacteria to turn it into useable ethanol fuel. A bioreactor is used to convert into liquids captured and compressed waste emissions from a steel mill or factory or any other emissions-producing enterprises.
The core technology of LanzaTech — and its future businesses — is a bacteria that likes to eat these dirty gas streams. As the bacteria eats the emissions it essentially ferments them — a bit like how beer is made, Holmgren recently explained — and emits ethanol. The ethanol can then be turned into various products.
“Using a technology like ours that can use so many different feedstocks — waste biomass, industrial gases, CO2 from the air — you’re going to be making so much ethanol, that I think of ethanol as the feedstock of the future. In other words, you’re going to use ethanol to make other products.”
In June, LanzaTech did just that and announced a spin-off called LanzaJet. The new company launched with commitments from Japanese trading and investment company Mitsui & Co. and Canadian oil and gas producer Suncor Energy, which will invest $85 million to fund pilot and development-scale facilities for LanzaJet.
Now it seems that LanzaTech has plans to pursue other pieces of the supply chain. Holmgren said the company is focused on a couple of use cases on the chemical side. Ethanol, for instance, can be converted to ethylene, which is used to make polyethylene for bottles and PEP for fibers used to make clothes.
“We see a path from ethanol to products using today’s supply chain,” Holmgren said.
More importantly, LanzaTech has focused on synthetic biology. The company has learned to modify the bacteria that it already uses to make ethanol, and instead harnesses it to make other chemicals directly.
“So you can imagine someday, we’re not just gonna make a fuel for a plane, we’re going make the seatbelts and upholstery — all of these things through synthetic biology,” she said, adding that this will likely become a spin-off.
The second spin-off company focuses on a byproduct it already makes. The bacteria that eats carbon monoxide, hydrogen and carbon dioxide is a “skinny bacteria” as Holmgren calls it, because it is mostly protein. LanzaTech already sells this skinny bacteria as a co-product of its technology.
“Not in the too distant future we will want to run a reactor with all of these gases, not to make ethanol, but to make protein, and I see that as an ultimate spin-out as well,” she said.
Holmgren didn’t provide a specific timeline of these spin-outs. Although she added that the company is putting together a plan now and will begin to make some moves in the next three months. There is capital that will be needed to get these enterprises up and running. The synthetic biology spin-off, which Holmgren said is further along, will need a couple hundred million dollars up front.
Holmgren also announced Tuesday during Disrupt 2020 a new small-scale waste biomass gasifier in India. The new gasifier will be hosted at Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemical, one of India’s largest refiners. The LanzaTech gasifier, which will be built in partnership with Indian project development firm Ankur Scientific, will use waste to make ethanol and chemicals rather than power.
Powered by WPeMatico
As part of the continuing global rollout of LanzaTech’s technology to capture carbon dioxide emissions and turn those emissions into fuel and chemicals, the company is rolling out a new small-scale waste biomass gasifier in India.
The new gasifier, which was announced Tuesday on TechCrunch Disrupt’s virtual stage, will be hosted at Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemical, one of India’s largest refiners. The LanzaTech gasifier, which will be built in partnership with Indian project development firm Ankur Scientific, will use waste to make ethanol and chemicals rather than power.
While most of the industry uses large-scale, expensive oxygen-blown gasifiers to make liquids, the LanzaTech air-blown technology is much cheaper and easier to operate and can still produce bacteria at a scale that produces a meaningful amount of ethanol.
Contamination also isn’t an issue with the gas feedstock for LanzaTech’s bacteria, according to LanzaTech CEO Jennifer Holmgren. The new process can produce biochar that ends up replacing fertilizer in soil and thereby reducing nitrogen oxide emissions, which are another greenhouse gas contributing to global climate change.
If the pilot project is successful and the gasifiers are rolled out at scale across India, it could mean an ability for the country to produce roughly 25 billion liters of ethanol per year and result in removing 60 million tons of carbon dioxide annually, according to LanzaTech’s estimates.
“Overall something that people said makes no sense, may well make sense and may well result in benefits beyond just the immediate reuse of waste agri carbon and production of a fuel that results in keeping some petroleum in the ground,” according to a statement from Holmgren. “Holistic systems thinking is the way.”
For Holmgren, the small pilot project in India is an example of how small-scale, low-cost distributed systems can compete with the big oil industry.
“There are two paths to scale, bigger which is cheaper per unit produced, or massively replicating a small scale unit (numbering up versus scaling up),” Holmgren said. “Most people have always believed that numbering up is for toys and food, but I think it will also fit process technology. Certainly, larger fits petroleum, but it can’t fit biotechnology or biomass or waste gases which are distributed and difficult to move.”
Decarbonization, Holmgren believes, will require a reimagining of traditional systems if humanity is to break the carbon cycle that’s now causing global climate catastrophes that can be observed in the Western United States right now.
“We must not benchmark today’s innovation against the past; we must, instead, imagine and create a very different future, one where the production of energy, fuels and chemicals is based on distributed, rather than centralized principles,” said Holmgren. “Recent breakthroughs in miniaturization, automation, AI and 3D printing enable distributed production beyond anything that could have been previously imagined and of course, a simple gasifier will help that along.”
Powered by WPeMatico
For nearly 15 years LanzaTech has been developing a carbon capture technology that can turn waste streams into ethanol that can be used for chemicals and fuel.
Now, with $72 million in fresh funding at a nearly $1 billion valuation and a newly inked partnership with biotechnology giant Novo Holdings, the company is looking to expand its suite of products beyond ethanol manufacturing, thanks, in part, to the intellectual property held by Novozymes (a Novo Holdings subsidiary).
“We are learning how to modify our organisms so they can make things other than ethanol directly,” said LanzaTech chief executive officer Jennifer Holmgren.
From its headquarters in Skokie, Ill., where LanzaTech relocated in 2014 from New Zealand, the biotechnology company has been plotting ways to reduce carbon emissions and create a more circular manufacturing system. That’s one where waste gases and solid waste sources that were previously considered to be un-recyclable are converted into chemicals by LanzaTech’s genetically modified microbes.
The company already has a commercial manufacturing facility in China, attached to a steel plant operated by the Shougang Group, which produces 16 million gallons of ethanol per year. LanzaTech’s technology pipes the waste gas into a fermenter, which is filled with genetically modified yeast that uses the carbon dioxide to produce ethanol. Another plant, using a similar technology, is under construction in Europe.
Through a partnership with Indian Oil, LanzaTech is working on a third waste gas converted to ethanol using a different waste gas taken from a Hydrogen plant.
The company has also inked early deals with airlines like Virgin in the U.K. and ANA in Japan to make an ethanol-based jet fuel for commercial flight. And a third application of the technology is being explored in Japan which takes previously un-recyclable waste streams from consumer products and converts that into ethanol and polyethylene that can be used to make bio-plastics or bio-based nylon fabrics.
Through the partnership with Novo Holdings, LanzaTech will be able to use the company’s technology to expand its work into other chemicals, according to Holmgren. “We are making product to sell into that [chemicals market] right now. We are taking ethanol and making products out of it. Taking ethylene and we will make polyethylene and we will make PET to substitute for fiber.”
Holmgren said that LanzaTech’s operations were currently reducing carbon dioxide emissions by the equivalent of taking 70,000 cars off the road.
“LanzaTech is addressing our collective need for sustainable fuels and materials, enabling industrial players to be part of building a truly circular economy,” said Anders Bendsen Spohr, senior director at Novo Holdings, in a statement. “Novo Holdings’ investment underlines our commitment to supporting the bio-industrials sector and, in particular, companies that are developing cutting-edge technology platforms. We are excited to work with the LanzaTech team and look forward to supporting the company in its next phase of growth.”
Holmgren said that the push into new chemicals by LanzaTech is symbolic of a resurgence of industrial biotechnology as one of the critical pathways to reducing carbon emissions and setting industry on a more sustainable production pathway.
“Industrial biotechnology can unlock the utility of a lot of waste carbon emissions,” said Holmgren. “[Municipal solid waste] is an urban oil field. And we are working to find new sources of sustainable carbon.”
LanzaTech isn’t alone in its quest to create sustainable pathways for chemical manufacturing. Solugen, an upstart biotechnology company out of Houston, is looking to commercialize the bio-production of hydrogen peroxide. It’s another chemical that’s at the heart of modern industrial processes — and is incredibly hazardous to make using traditional methods.
As the world warms, and carbon emissions continue to rise, it’s important that both companies find pathways to commercial success, according to Holmgren.
“It’s going to get much, much worse if we don’t do anything,” she said.
Powered by WPeMatico