The Grandmother Changing the Energy Industry, Turbine Burns 100% Hydrogen for the First Time, Exxon's CEO $60B Vindication, Can Hydrogen Power Crops?
Rayyan Islam
Co-Founder and General Partner at 8090 Industries. Merchant of Decarbonization. Neo-Industrialist
Fellow Agents of change,
This week marks the 74th edition of Decarbon Weekly and it has been a big week in the world of energy filled with massive developments in the hydrogen market as well as a Game of Thrones race between oil majors Exxon and Chevron to consolidate production as they announced monster acquisitions of Pioneer and Hess Oil respectively. There’s a lot to cover. Let’s get started.
With that said, let’s get to Decarbon Weekly.
WHAT CAUGHT OUR EYE:
- Meet Meredith Angwin, the Grandmother Changing the Energy Industry 🔥🔥 - Beam Solar Energy From Space? These Scientists Achieve a Breakthrough - Exxon CEO’s $60 Billion Vindication
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WHAT CAUGHT OUR EYE:
Meet Meredith Angwin, the Grandmother Changing the Energy Industry Along a twist in the Connecticut River within an old-style colonial Vermont home lives Meredith Angwin, a grandmother who saw what almost no one else did: the coming downfall of the American electrical system. Angwin self-published Shorting the Grid: The Hidden Fragility of Our Electric Grid, the first-ever explanation for laymen of America’s labyrinthine, abstruse power markets. Her diagnosis was simple and troubling: when America moved away from the monopoly utility system in the Nineties toward restructured electricity markets, all players were divested from the responsibility of keeping the lights on.
A few months after Shorting the Grid came out, Ice Storm Uri blanketed Texas in darkness. Since then, Meredith has become a quasi-celebrity. She’s appeared on major podcasts like Power Hungry, Odd Lots and Breaking Points to talk about the grid. Her book has begun to win praise from environmentalists and journalists such as Robinson Meyer, the editor-in-chief of Heatmap, a publication covering climate change, who told Ezra Klein that Angwin’s book, is “like the best explanation of how electricity markets actually work and the thinking behind them.” Today, her self-published book has become required reading for anyone concerned about energy in America. It’s a cult hit on Amazon, having risen to the top of its categories several times since publication.As heavily subsidized renewables outbid reliable nuclear and coal plants in the market, the grid would become overly reliant on just-in-time natural gas and imports from neighbors for reliability. Penned by Emmet Penney, and published on the Spectator, this is the story of how a seventy-eight-year-old grandmother saw what few could and what inspired her, in the last chapter of her life, to write an entire book about it. The answer has deep roots in the American character — our mastery of the practical arts and our naturally democratic instincts for free association.
Three years ago, Angwin self-published Shorting the Grid: The Hidden Fragility of Our Electric Grid, the first-ever explanation for laymen of America’s labyrinthine, abstruse power markets. Her diagnosis was simple and troubling: when America moved away from the monopoly utility system in the Nineties toward restructured electricity markets, all players were divested from the responsibility of keeping the lights on. As heavily subsidized renewables outbid reliable nuclear and coal plants in the market, the grid would become overly reliant on just-in-time natural gas and imports from neighbors for reliability.The self-published grandmother saw what almost no one else did: the coming downfall of the American electrical system.
Beam Solar Energy From Space? These Scientists Achieve a Breakthrough Even by the standards of the Space Race, the idea seemed bold, maybe a bit crazy. In 1968, before the first human set foot on the moon, an engineer working on one of the Apollo mission’s experiments proposed a new way to power the world. Giant orbiting solar power plants could soak up the constant sunshine in space—unhindered by clouds, night or seasons—and beam it back to Earth, Peter Glaser wrote in the journal Science. Only space-based solar and perhaps nuclear fusion held the potential to one day replace fossil fuels as civilization’s main energy source, and fusion was so far off that Glaser dismissed it as “the physicist’s dream.” This May, researchers huddled on a rooftop in Pasadena, California, received a ping of energy from an experiment passing high overhead. Designed at the California Institute of Technology and launched on a SpaceX rocket in January, the experiment had transferred power wirelessly, shifted the direction of the beam with no moving parts and then aimed it at Earth. It’s one of three Caltech experiments, packed onto a single satellite, now testing key components of a space-based solar system. Glaser’s dream has inched closer to reality. Written by David R. Baker from Bloomberg, this is the story of how it got here.
The basic idea stretches back even further than Glaser. Author Isaac Asimov set his 1941 short story “Reason” aboard a space station that absorbs the energy of the sun and beams it to a distant Earth, though the technology the station uses is never spelled out. Atwater’s colleague Ali Hajimiri found a translation of the story while growing up in Iran. “I was exposed to that from an early age,” he says. “It was more of the science-fiction realm for me.”
Exxon CEO’s $60 Billion Vindication In 2021, Darren Woods suffered a humbling defeat. A little-known activist investor convinced shareholders to give it three seats on the board of the oil behemoth he helms, Exxon, attacking his big spending and strategy for the shift to green energy. Following the loss, Woods told investors the company had heard their criticisms. The oil boss slashed costs, hired senior executives from outside the company, and committed Exxon to a $17 billion five-year plan to cut emissions and build a ‘low carbon’ business. But Woods, 58, didn’t pivot Exxon away from fossil fuels, making his largest investments in production and maintaining his conviction that Exxon is, and will remain, an oil company. A little more than two years later, Woods is riding high and cementing his commitment to oil. On Wednesday, Exxon said it would buy West Texas shale giant Pioneer Natural Resources for nearly $60 billion, Exxon’s biggest deal since its merger with Mobil in 1999.
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Exxon’s full board of directors, including those who were nominated by the activist investor, Engine No. 1, voted in favor of the deal, a generational gamble on the future of oil. He has reminded some that they voted against the oil company in the proxy fight with Engine No. 1, only to see the company’s profits surge to a record $56 billion last year on the back of Exxon’s continued investment in production.
China Is Beating the US in the Race for China Is Beating US to Seabed Lithium, Manganese, Nickel and Rare Earths: Deepsea mining efforts have qeuietly accelerated. Despite this, the US has been little more than an observer in this race leaving China at the forefront and the gap continues. James Stavridis writes an op-ed for Bloomberg on things to consider to accelerate US into the race.
Yet virtually every admiral, scholar and policymaker I know is now a staunch supporter of the treaty because of the strategic benefits it conveys. Thus, the first and most important thing the US can do is to have the Senate ratify UNCLOS. Next, the US should consider providing tax incentives to domestic companies willing to participate in seabed mining — much as we now incentivize microchip manufacturing as a national-security imperative. Third, we should look at putting together a consortium with our Western allies to conduct mining with a strategic objective.
A Vast Untapped Green Energy Source Is Hiding Beneath Your Feet: When it comes to geothermal, we’re incredibly excited about 8090 Industries portfolio company Quaise, which is pioneering millimeter wave technology commercialized out of MIT’s fusion plasma center to completely unleash geothermal drilling and can reach depths of 12 miles - unlocking supercritical heat at costs comparative to nuclear. Few people on Earth have reached closer to its center than Buzz Speyrer, a drilling engineer with a long career in oil and gas. It’s about 1,800 miles down to the core, smoldering from celestial impacts that date back billions of years and stoked to this day by friction and radioactivity. That heat percolating upwards turns the rock above into a viscous liquid and beyond that into a gelatinous state that geologists call plastic. It’s only within about 100 miles of the surface that rock becomes familiar and hard and drillable. No surprise, then, that there are 2 million active oil and gas wells worldwide, but only 15,000 for geothermal. Nearly all are hydrothermal, relying on those natural sources of hot water. Only a few are EGS. A trio of operating plants in eastern France produce only a trickle of power, having drilled into relatively cool rock. Then there are hotter experiments, like in Utah and across the border in Nevada, where a Houston startup called Fervo is working to connect two wells of its own, a project that is meant to provide clean power to a Google data center.
World first as Siemens Energy Burns 100% hydrogen in industrial gas turbine: This week marked arguably one of the most significant milestones in the energy transition, but it was barely talked about in executive circles and the media. The world’s first use of 100% hydrogen in an industrial gas turbine has taken place in western France, by Siemens Energy, paving the way for large-scale H2-based energy storage projects. While many manufacturers, including GE, Mitsubishi and Kawasaki, have stated an aim of being able to convert their industrial gas turbines to run on 100% hydrogen, Siemens Energy’ SGT-400 model is the first to achieve the goal.
“The Hyflexpower project demonstrates that hydrogen can be used as a flexible energy storage medium, and that it’s also possible to convert an existing gas-fired power turbine to operate using renewable hydrogen,” said Siemens Energy in a statement. “Thus it is a real driver for accelerating the decarbonisation of the most energy-intensive industries.”
The Green Bet: Investing in Nuclear Energy: Penned by friend, Neev Efrat, this essay exclusively delves into the venture capital opportunities surrounding nuclear Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). He beautifully explores the driving forces behind their demand, assess market risks, and highlight key players within the current ecosystem. He covers why we should be taking nuclear incredibly seriously, the myriad of nuclear market opportunities, replacing coal, data centers, desalination, steel manufacturing, industrial heating, mining, space travel, grid resiliency, fuel and more. He also covers the market risks, value chains.
“There’s not been a resurgence of nuclear power, ever, since its heyday in the late 1970s,” Ray Rothrock, a longtime venture capitalist who has personal investments in 10 nuclear startups, told CNBC. Now, that’s changing. “I have never seen this kind of investment before. Ever.”
Forget Transportation, Can Green Hydrogen Supercharge Crops? In the dry, red dust of Western Australia’s vast Pilbara region, something green is growing. In October 2022, construction began on a massive solar photovoltaic and battery installation, around 40 soccer fields in size, that will soon power a 10-megawatt electrolyzer—a machine that uses electricity to convert water into hydrogen. But that hydrogen isn’t going to fuel cars or trucks or buses: It’s going to grow crops. The Yuri Project—a joint venture between global fertilizer giant Yara, utilities company Engie, and investment and trading company Mitsui & Co.—is producing green hydrogen that’s combined with nitrogen to create ammonia for fertilizer production. Given the long-running conversation about hydrogen-fueled vehicles, fertilizer probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about green hydrogen. But in the past few years, the discussion around the fuel has shifted and broadened as more industries see this zero-carbon fuel’s potential to decarbonize carbon-intensive industrial processes and sectors. The production of ammonia for fertilizer contributes around 0.8 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Currently, the industry is a major consumer of hydrogen, which is produced from natural gas or coal and generates significant carbon emissions. Green hydrogen, on the other hand, uses electricity from renewable sources to split water into hydrogen and oxygen using a process called electrolysis, which means the process generates zero carbon emissions.
That is an exciting prospect for Yara, which is the largest ammonia producer in the world. “The concept of green ammonia was first slated to us probably back in 2014,” says Leigh Holder, business development director for Yara Clean Ammonia in Australia. “It was viewed with a lot of skepticism back then, and a lot of that had to do with the cost of renewables. Large-scale industrial applications—like the Yuri Project—are what will really drive demand and a company like Yara will need enormous amounts of green hydrogen.”
The Biggest Winners in America’s Climate Law: Foreign Companies: Co-written by friend Amrith Ramkumar of the Wall Street Journal and Phred Dvorak, I found this piece absolutely fascinating. After analyzing the 2022 climate law and the torrent of government subsidies it helped unleash to help the U.S. build clean-energy industries, there’s an intriguing discovery: The biggest beneficiaries so far are foreign companies. The Inflation Reduction Act has spurred nearly $110 billion in U.S. clean-energy projects since it passed almost a year ago. Companies based overseas, largely from South Korea, Japan and China, are involved in projects accounting for more than 60% of that spending. In fact, fifteen of the 20 largest such investments, nearly all in battery factories, involve foreign businesses. These overseas manufacturers will be able to claim billions of dollars in tax credits, tied to production volume, making them among the biggest winners from the climate law - and rewarding the largest investors. It begs the question - with increased global geopolitical tensions rising in China, at what point, does this activity get stunted and under greater scrutiny.
About Rayyan Islam
Rayyan Islam is the co-founder and General Partner of 8090 Industries, the leading partner and investor for industrial breakthrough technologies focused on decarbonization and national security. The companies Rayyan’s invested in, sourced and advised have grown to over $8B in private market value. Rayyan has led investments in groundbreaking companies like EquipmentShare, Astranis, Cemvita, Circ, Oklo, Infinium, Orbit Fab, Quaise, Addionics, Living Carbon, Liberation Labs, and more. Rayyan is also the co-founder of Gold Hydrogen, which produces abundant clean hydrogen from microbes and old oil wells for less than $1/kg. Rayyan was recognized by Business Insider’s SEED 100, as one of the top 100 early-stage investors of 2023, alongside Peter Thiel and Vinod Khosla and amongst the most powerful seed stage climate tech VCs by Fortune Magazine. As a frequent speaker on venture capital and climate technologies, Rayyan has spoken at NYU, Stanford, UT Austin and the United Nations and his work has been featured on CNBC, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Wired, Yahoo Finance and more.
Influenced by his family upbringing in Bangladesh, he personally witnessed the ramifications of energy insecurity and climate change at a young age and its impact on communities around the world. Determined to make a serious dent on the issue, Rayyan has supported a cadre of climate technology solutions, drafted policy recommendations to President Joe Biden’s climate transition team and founded the decarbonization focused newsletter Decarbon Weekly, which counts C-suite executives, leading climate scientists, members of state and local governments, founders, investors and foundations amongst its thousands of subscribers.
Rayyan lives in Dallas, Texas with his wife, son and daughter.
Thank you!