Is a climate solution technology investment worthy?
While many proposed hard tech climate solutions are steaming piles of crap before they even get to the starting gate, we cannot address climate change without investment in the most promising technologies. Instinct, market studies, vaporware, and founder provenance may be enough to justify an investor’s decisions when a climate solution is soft tech, but when a proposed technology involves infrastructure, equipment, and thermochemical or electrochemical processes, critical analysis of the claims and the plans is required.
To be considered for investment, early stage hard tech ideas have to come with a description of the fundamental research that supports the premise of the idea and how it would solve a problem. The team requesting funding for a technology must provide a process flow diagram that shows reactors, separators, and other pieces of equipment along with estimates of their energy and mass feeds/outputs, and reasonably possible chemistry outcomes.
This is the foundation for analysis which needs to be repeated when the tech moves from lab to pilot scale or from pilot scale to demonstration or demonstration to production.
Thermodynamic Due Diligence ensures that the proposed technology obeys the First Law. It consists of tracing the energy needed for mass flow, momentum changes, heat transfer, chemical reactions, and separation reactions. Energy has to balance and energy consumed has to exceed theoretical minimums that take inefficiencies and loss into account.
Many proposed technologies fail the First Law sniff test – the energy requirements they claim their process will use are insufficient to supply the energy needs of the process. Without this verification, any claims of climate benefits must be taken with a grain megaton of salt.
Materials Due Diligence examines feeds and outputs to check that the Law of Conservation of Mass is obeyed. Mass is neither created nor destroyed in chemical reactions. Cold fusion and alchemy aside, the mass of each element entering a process equals the mass of that element leaving the process. For example, the number of carbon atoms going into a process must match the number of carbon atoms coming out of it. Astonishingly, this is another sniff test that many proposed technologies fail to pass.
The more complicated part of due diligence for materials is identifying real-world chemical reactions that the proposing team didn’t identify. It is rare for only one reaction to occur when reactants are combined. Potential side reactions can be reasonably predicted based on the composition of the feeds and favorability of reaction at the given conditions.
Side reactions can change the economics of a process by fouling equipment, reducing yield, requiring more expensive feedstocks, or requiring expensive operating conditions. They can also result in the production of substances that need to be reviewed for their potential to cause harm to human health or the environment.
Health and Environmental Due Diligence assesses the reasonable potential for risks from intended chemistry as well as undesirable and unanticipated chemicals produced outside the desired chemistry. Even in small quantities, undesirable chemicals can put an investment at risk. This includes substances that pose physical risks, such as explosive hazards; substances that cause illnesses like cancer, disabilities such as blindness, and that damage unborn children; and substances like aquatic toxics that cause environmental harm.
If carbon storage is part of the proposed technology, Equilibrium Due Diligence is required. Just because a waste stream is underground does not mean it is incapable of migrating. The assumptions made about sequestration must be revisited, taking the drivers of mass transfer into account. Similarly, if sequestration is part of the proposed technology, Reaction Rate Due Diligence must be implemented to ensure that the time required for the sequestering reaction meshes with the anticipated rate of production of CO2 that needs to be sequestered.