A millennial startup founder who’s turning carbon emissions into rocks lays out how he’ll eliminate 1 million tons by 2030—and what a great mentor Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy has been

masquenox , 6 months ago

Sooo… just another capitalist non-solution bankrolled by one of the very same capitalists that got us into this mess.

Yawn.

newthrowaway20 , 6 months ago

Really just a drop in the bucket. We’d have to capture some 500 billion tons of CO2 to get the volume comparable to what we had in the 90s. So this number is going to have to go way the fuck up if it actually wants to do anything meaningful. Especially because we keep increasing the amount of CO2 we’re putting into the atmosphere.

Salamendacious OP , 6 months ago

It’s definitely not the only solution, assuming everything here’s accurate. It’s a start but there’s so much that needs to be done.

Varyk , 6 months ago

This is awesome. The article should specify that a gigaton is a billion tons, just to more accurately portray the roadmap of the company, but the process itself sounds straightforward and forward-thinking.

CameronDev , 6 months ago

Whats the over/under on this being a Theranos situation?

Salamendacious OP , 6 months ago

I’m hopeful that the verification problems that allowed Theranos to happen won’t be repeated but honesty… who knows

Varyk , 6 months ago

The Theranos debacle was based on imaginary analysis processes that didn’t exist.

Mineralization in general and mineralization of carbon is a more simple concept and practice(capture carbon, trap carbon, deposit trapped carbon) based on existing phenomena, so there’s way, way less wiggle room for claims of breakthrough technology by a cult of personality that cannot be audited for authenticity.

CameronDev , 6 months ago

Is rapid mineralisation of carbon at scale a solved technology? I didnt see anything about how they were speeding it up, or even if they had captured/stored anything yet.

To me, this article stunk of an attempt to build a cult of personality, so I am pretty skeptical, but this is not my wheelhouse so I could be very wrong.

Varyk , 6 months ago (edited 6 months ago)

Mineralization of carbon is an understood, slow natural process that this company artificially rapidly accelerates.

As for your claim that the article doesn’t mention if they’ve stored any carbon yet, within this article, his referenced holding up stored carbon at a presentation from one of the three plants they’ve built so far mentioned in the article (the UAE plant is operational).

This is not a technical article, it’s an introduction to a new sustainable company that’s producing carbon trapped minerals.

If you are interested, he explains the process a little more here:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-M1w2yMknU&t=108

I didn’t get the cult of personality at all. He has a few quotes, and mostly talks about how big the problem they’re facing is, how they’re learning and appreciate the guidance and support they’ve received so far. His videos have no production value and online presence isn’t screaming for investment.

This is in stark contrast to theranos and the highly produced holmes who claimed to have already solved all problems and consistently bragged about the limitless applications and comprehensive success of her technology that was completely obscured, even in-house.

The article is optimistic about the technology, but it is very unlike something like the glorification of theranos or holmes.

CameronDev , 6 months ago

Ill give that a watch, thanks.

I read the bit about the rock he presented, but it doesnt make it clear whether that was a rock that was naturally mineralised or something that they had produced.

The cult of personality vibe was mostly from the “millenial” part of the headline, and the Bill Gates association, it just rubbed me the wrong way i guess.

Hopefully I am wrong, and this pans out, we definitely need this kind of tech to work.

ikidd , 6 months ago

You aren’t wrong about the cult of personality thing here. Why we need to know anything about the founder and his association with Bill Gates is beyond me. Talk about the process and the business case, but if I never hear the name of another business “guru”, I’ll be happy.

sirico , 6 months ago

What’s millenial have to do with anything? Also paywalled. Here’s the article: Talal Hasan, CEO of 44.01, at the Fortune Global Forum in Abu Dhabi on Nov. 27. COLE BURSTON FOR FORTUNE Over the past couple of decades most startups paid little attention to how much carbon they’re releasing into the atmosphere, let alone consider how they might lock it all back in.

Yet that is precisely the task of Talal Hasan, founder and CEO of 44.01.

The Bill Gates–backed company has developed an accelerated process that allows CO2 to be safely deposited in rocks called peridotite. Although peridotite mineralization is a naturally occurring process—CO2 is absorbed by the element when rainwater falls—it can take decades to trap even small amounts of carbon.

Speaking at the Fortune Global Forum in Abu Dhabi on Nov. 27, Hasan revealed his company can now speed that process up into a time frame of mere months.

By the end of this decade he wants to achieve a benchmark of converting a million tons of carbon a year into mineralized peridotite.

44.01 achieves its mineralization by injecting CO2 into water before dissolving the liquid into rock deep below the Earth’s surface, thus ensuring it isn’t once again released into the atmosphere.

The carbon stays safely in the rock forever, Hasan explained, illustrating using a mineralized piece of peridotite where white veins of carbon had been stored in the otherwise dark substance.

It’s perhaps no surprise that Hasan’s team has caught the eye of Microsoft founder Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures, an investment vehicle aiming to scale green businesses.

The three-year-old company is currently operating across three locations: London, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates, the latter of which is home to an already and up-and-running site for burying CO2.

PUSHING THE NEEDLE BACK Across the globe companies are pledging to be emissions-free: Amazon said it aims to be net zero carbon by 2040, while Apple wants to achieve this by 2030. Governments around the world are scrambling to reach their own targets as well.

Although welcome, reducing emissions does little to reduce the record-high level of carbon emissions in the atmosphere.

“For us to generate a carbon credit we need to remove net 1,000 kilograms, or one [metric] ton of CO2,” Hasan explained, adding that he understood concerns that carbon capture may distract from or delay carbon emissions targets.

He outlined that carbon capture is likely needed alongside decarbonization in order to achieve net-zero targets, a plan set out by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

And 44.01 will have to ramp up its work if it’s going to help with hitting targets set out by the body.

“[The IPCC] have predicted that by 2030…one gigaton per year has to be removed from the atmosphere. That grows to about 20 gigaton by 2050,” Hasan continued. “Just to put it into perspective, one gigaton is the equivalent of all of air travel globally.”

The Omani entrepreneur added he is focused on bringing costs down to scale the business faster, explaining: “No one’s ever drilled in this rock before; no one’s ever done what we’re doing in this particular type of rock. So every injection we do, we find ways to bring the cost down even further…It’s absolutely feasible to scale on a cost basis.”

As these costs come down, and scale ensues, Hasan said the business should be on track to have a site which can process a million tons of carbon per year by 2030.

THE BILL GATES EFFECT As well as winning Prince William’s Earthshot Prize in 2022, Hasan and his team have garnered greater interest having made it into the portfolio of Breakthrough Energy, a venture founded by Bill Gates.

“Breakthrough Energy have been phenomenal. They’ve really helped us with not only the right connections, helping us with financing, but also with coaching, mentoring,” Hasan said. “They’ve been great. It’s about people at the end of the day; it’s about getting the right people in, the right mindset, having that innovative mindset, trying things which no one else has ever tried before.

“Especially in the field that we’re in, no one’s ever done this before, so we’re constantly looking for people to challenge the status quo—Breakthrough really helps us do that.”

Bill Gates’ @Breakthrough Fund has been “great with coaching and mentoring,” says @4401earth founder Talal Hasan at #GlobalForum. t.co/2cGpyH5lHfpic.twitter.com/lhh7vB8CFX