It is a concern, almost at an alarming level, how easily experts can torpedo an application for a start-up’s funding with VCs. Some admit to taking seconds to dismiss some applications. I have seen some risible bloopers, posting them in a rogue’s gallery I keep for posterity. I would say the level of due diligence for this organisation is a number of steps higher on the ladder, but not completely infallible.
There are quick and easy opinions out there that can snag a competition entry. Just the word “methane” invokes a negative reaction. As an Olympic sport it would attract the high-jumpers among the leaping-to-conclusions competitors. Fortunately, we’re over that obstacle, but more evaluators are waiting in ambush.
Another Batch of Questions
A couple of them arrived today in a follow-up.
“The two Experts saw a lot of merit in your Solution and highlighted both social and environmental benefits potentially arising from your Solution. They were very complementary of the level of detail and quantity of information which you had included in your application.
“However, several comments were raised by the Experts about some key uncertainties about the future of your Solution. In particular, this related to the plan for the re-injection of CO2 into the lake, and the re-use of the CO2. The Experts felt that more time is needed for your Solution to develop and grow, allowing for a plan for these two points to be developed and implemented. Points were also raised about the need for more clarity on the scalability of your Solution, given that this is applied in a very specific context and is still at an early stage in development.
Scalability of Solutions is a vital component of the Solar Impulse Label, as we seek Solutions which can be applied in multiple contexts and where a clear plan is in place to expand and grow Solutions beyond the region/country where they are from. Given the ambitious nature of your project, concerns were raised that the project needs to be further along in its development before certainty can be given about its suitability for the Label.”
How do you carefully respond to a high-stakes question?
In respect of the two areas of remaining concern to SIF, we are pursuing more detailed solutions to both concerns. While we accept that it may take some months to resolve more detail to those questions, we have developed concepts to deal with them. Here is a pair of answers I put forward, not in detail with proof, but an introductory summary of what will come:
CO2 Disposition
Of all the experts that have been involved with the science and engineering of Kivu’s safety solution, Hydragas has paid more attention to the CO2 component than any others. You can’t resolve one without the other. We did a detailed mass balance of the CO2 within the lake during the extraction process and where it goes once extracted. Being a chemical engineer, I generally find that a thorough mass and energy balance exposes the deeper truths of what’s going on in an inarguable way.
It was on this basis that two of us, both chemical engineers on the Expert Group, convinced the rest of the group how the lake gas inventory should be managed more effectively.The two US-based developers now using and building on the lake now have solutions with potentially dire consequences for lake stability. They displace huge volumes of CO2 into shallow water and out of the lake with their produced gas, which is nearly 50% CO2. We correct those issues quite dramatically, consigning most of the CO2.
We are developing options to balance the CO2 in the lake over time by exporting CO2 to industries that convert it to protein or ethanol, or a new and efficient way to use it to accelerate plant growth in greenhouses. This graphic shows a summary of the complexity of potential CO2 disposition. It was done as part of my work with the Expert Group.
We wanted to show mass balance issues in removing gases from the lake occur when the method is problematic. We can resolve and optimize the solution to this issue very neatly with our know how. We aim to demonstrate that with the project we intend to build as soon as possible. Once we can fund a larger engineering team, the updates and data will be completed quickly and efficiently.
Carbon Dioxide Balance in Lake Kivu for an extraction method
A simulation over time of CO2 distribution, based on flows from all sources
Scalability of our Solution
I was discussing this very point with investors this morning. There should not be too much concern with TAM as a target for our scalability, mainly from one salient point:
The amount of methane dissolved in water globally (including methane in hydrates) exceeds the hydrocarbon energy content of all known (past and future) fossil fuels, including natural gas, oil, and coal. The resource is enormous.
This was not my view, but that of the USGS and other research institutions. There is more data available on where all the CO2 in the world resides, showing a simple deduction:
A corollary is that the amount of CO2 dissolved in water exceeds the amount in gaseous form in the atmosphere by a huge margin too.
How Big is the Problem?
Both CH4 and CO2 are present in Lake Kivu and are present in millions of times greater quantities in other lakes and oceans. If exploited (this is not our aim, nor is it as economic to pursue scattered pockets of gas hydrates) gas from water bodies could dwarf the oil and gas industry.
So why are these dissolved gas issues not demanding a huge amount of your attention? They are temporarily sequestrated in water, but how permanent is that as a solution? The warning signs are out, climate change is breaking the fragile stability. These hydrates and their gas content are liable to escape in certain locations as they are in the warming Arctic already, on land, and from the oceans. 10,000 gigatons are at risk of emission with global warming, 5,000 times more than gas from Kivu.
An Absence of Solutions
Since there are virtually no known solutions like ours to manage the threat from dissolved gases effectively, we have a problem. These resources are present globally in quantities millions of times larger than Lake Kivu’s gas resource in situ. If SIF wants to identify the availability of essential solutions for Climate Impact, then compare it to the many wind, solar, and a host of energy efficiency and storage technologies. These all have a role in limiting carbon impact but are readily available and abundant. SIF has recognised many of them as they have important. They are mature solutions in many cases and optimizing.
But what of solutions for managing or stabilizing CH4 and CO2 emissions from water in the lakes and oceans? It’s a giant problem that’s barely getting any attention. It’s a new field. It’s part of why we seek recognition as a Top 1000 Climate Solution.
So to answer, do we have an opportunity to scale up and improve CO2 disposition? Are we a valid Top 1000 Climate Solution?
Yes, we do. Can we? Yes, we can. Will we? That’s our mission, but it’s too big a problem to resolve on our own without large-scale funding from DFIs, and a large team, and hopefully SIF’s help too. Kivu is a microcosm of the problem, but its solutions provide a pathway to resolving much of that gigantic but unaddressed gas-in-water issue. The unfortunate thing is that it’s virtually and practically invisible out in the Arctic oceans and the tundra. It needs attention. We’re giving it all of ours.
A Cleantech Accelerator I completed prompted me to seek recognition for Hydragas. In fact, I had to read up on who qualifies for this label, awarded in recognition for top renewable energy solutions. It is a global recognition judged by the Solar Impulse Foundation (SIF) in Switzerland. Indeed to qualify, SIF must find you worthy of inclusion in their list. Their search was to end when they find 1000 Solutions that are worthy enough to help save the planet, but they have extended the search.
The label is inspired by Bertrand Piccard’s historic flight of the SolarImpulse. As with his SolarImpulse flight, circumnavigating the globe under solar power only, it’s an ongoing process that has a worthy cause and a mission. Following the mission demonstrates the sort of commitment that characterised his approach to that venture. As a legacy, the SolarImpulse Foundation will recognise hard work, innovation, and commitment to the same cause.
“Bertrand dedicates his life to demonstrating the opportunities lying in sustainable development and to raising interest in profitable solutions to protect the environment. He is a pioneer of new ways of thinking that reconcile ecology and economy, and uses his exploration feats to motivate governments and industries to take action.“
Does the Foundation seek out your Solution?
Chances are the SolarImpulse Foundation wouldn’t be able to find you as a start-up. So to get around that, who discovers who qualifies for this label? Likely as not, you are in an under-funded start-up, with no PR budget. But by contrast to start-ups, listed Solution owners include giant corporations with big budgets. If it is a concern that big players dominate the list, the foundation appears to want to take care of that. At least they should.
But it’s not enough to just ask for or to expect this recognition. Indeed, there is a prescribed application process to follow. It filters through a process to see if one created a solution of interest. If this meets their criteria, it is still further verified by their experts in the appropriate field.
The adjudication process follows your completed application. This application form starts with information requirements, detailed data, reports, publications, and references by request. The completed application is forwarded to selected experts to scrutinize your submission of scientific material, based on their broader knowledge and category expertise. After scrutiny, experts eventually get their opportunity to interrogate your submittal. It’s akin to defending an academic thesis.
I expect that their inquiry will be challenging. I say that I expect to be challenged, even with 10,000 hours of R&D on this topic under my belt. We know that the science behind it is complex, and often in dispute. It’s a common cause that it is not settled science. It’s a fast-changing field of developing theories and data discovery, with few subject-matter experts and many opinions. There is too little global experience on lakes like this one. More specific than that, Lake Kivu may just be the only one like this on Earth.
Can we be one who qualifies for this label?
“Our Solar Impulse Label awards efficient, clean, and profitable solutions with a positive impact on the environment and quality of life.“
We sincerely hope that it is us who qualifies for this label. Indeed, the Foundation’s recognition of this as one of 1000 Solutions would give us a right to display this valuable, aspirational label. Therefore we might expect it to give us a credible platform. This helps to attract funding or convince investors. It may also be helpful for governments to assess competitors. Here we can say real experts have checked our claims and validated them. We would wear the label with considerable pride, being part of a select group that takes care of our planet.
But for us, the greater recognition is what our Solution can do for the community stakeholders. For many of them, these impacts have real significance. It would be more meaningful than the outputs of Hydragas’ biogas recovery and power generation on Lake Kivu. Indeed these stakeholders are the communities, and the countries’ governments for can achieve environmental and safety benefits. The beneficiaries also include the users of the energy, our future investors, and the people employed by our organisation. But what are the positives of these claims? Can we back them up? Are there any negatives?
How do we measure a meaningful difference?
Gas Recovery from Source to End-user
Rwanda’s head of the Lake Kivu Monitoring Program, the LKMP, asked this question of us as appointed experts. This was indeed our role in the expert advisory group, through which we offered such support. I had to illustrate the differences that alternate gas extraction methods make to positive engineering and economic outcomes. One has to examine each step of the process of turning the lake’s resource into useful energy. The steps give clarity on how seemingly minor losses cascade into a huge energy loss overall.
Take the five steps in the above diagram for example:
Gas recoverability by Depth Zone: Of 5 zones, 2 have recoverable gas concentrations, while a shallower one has future potential. Most developers have designed to use one, or just half a zone. Hydragas can develop 2, potentially a 3rd. Gas extraction plants’ access to this resource for CH4 capture ranges from 46% to 100%.
Gas Plant Recoverability: The diagram shows how incoming CH4 splits up into six possible destinations. Only one output is useful energy. Hydragas’ multi-stage process gets 89% of the raw gas into the useful energy output.
Parasitic Power Losses: Legacy extraction plant uses too high a proportion of gas output to generate onboard power. This powers pumps and compressors, with legacy plants requiring 20-50%. By contrast, Hydragas’ extraction process uses just 2-6% for parasitic power production on board.
Generation Losses: Gas quality and pressure dictate which generation equipment one can use. Higher quality determines the use of higher-efficiency equipment. Legacy plants produce low-quality gas so engines operate at 33-41% efficiency. High-quality gas enables the use of 45-61% power plant efficiency.
Resource Degradation: The lake density structure breaks down with badly designed equipment and poor operational practices. The outcome is expected to cut the harvest period from 50 years, by up to 50%. The lake’s density structure’s ability to trap gas weakens over time. A weak trap allows gas to escape into shallow strata, where it is unrecoverable.
Total LossesImpact: Each outcome of the five steps seems modest. But multiplying them out shows our best competitor only delivers 10% of in-situ energy as power. Hydragas deliver either 35% (gas engines) or 51% (combined-cycle gas turbines).
Positive impacts: will they make the list of who qualifies for this Label?
Our view is that positive impacts decide who qualifies for this label. Here are our impacts:
Is Africa’s Lake Kivu a huge CCUS, or is it CCSU? Can it double up energy production with storage?
The Leader of the Sabyinho Family in the Virunga Mountains
We attribute “net-zero from Kivu’s renewable gas” because a series of Kivu projects achieve that for Rwanda and for Eastern DRC. So Kivu evolves into a hydroenergy battery, on top of being the world’s largest RNG bio-digester. It does much more than double duty for energy storage and energy production.
It’s a 500 cubic km water reservoir elevated 700 m above Lake Tanganyika for hydro and stores that same volume of renewable gas. And there’s more. It can produce RNG for 600 MW power, with 576 MW of hydropower, and can turn stored CO2 into 1 M tpa of ethanol for renewable fuel.
It naturally performs a complex CCS duty of storing gigatons of carbon. Our projects enable 2 gigatons of carbon emission reductions by preventing a build-up to a major gas eruption. Its hydropower potential to generate 576 MW of load-following, run-of-river power on demand. Add ethanol from CO2 and this now becomes a phenomenal nature-based solution, that lowers the cost of energy dramatically. It can also halve fossil fuel imports. It can halt or reverse deforestation. It’s a country-scale CCS, upgradeable to a giant among CCSU systems, and then a whole lot more. It’s a holistic journey to net zero from Kivu’s renewable gas and all these other achievements.
It’s so complex it defies conventional clean energy “taxonomy”
Lake Kivu has an extraordinary list of cleantech credentials. It complicates the simple job of filling out the project information questionnaire. “Which type of cleantech project is this? Pick one.” We need to tick off a series of boxes on a checklist that always demands one choice. It straddles as many as 6 categories. When investors demand a simple label, how do we help them out? They won’t like “It’s Complex”.
So how does this Complex Solution become recognised in the climate change lexicography? Nature has provided potential solutions to get the countries neighbouring Lake Kivu beyond carbon neutral. Are we going to trip up on naming it? It stands alone in this “really-good-for-the-planet” category of climate solutions. How can it also help this gorilla’s habitat survive and thrive?
The carbon-negative renewable natural gas contribution
We illustrate this lake as a leading example of how “Carbon negative” projects can be super-achievers in the great climate challenge of our times.
Even methane from cattle can become part of the solution. Let’s break this argument down further. RNG is known for providing carbon-neutral energy. Take biogas from agricultural waste, where the USA is targeting 40 megatons of carbon reduction by 2030. This one project on Lake Kivu in Rwanda and DRC achieves the USA’s RNG target by itself.
So how does gas recovery prevent gigatons of natural background carbon emissions? What if we can add a side benefit of reversing the destruction of vast equatorial forests to keep that carbon sink viable? This nature-based solution helps preserve the mountain gorilla’s habitat and a pristine lake while exceeding net zero. In reality, these benefits are a step up, adding to being carbon-negative. So “RNG Neg” can be a vital, although easily overlooked climate change solution. The solution has huge scaleability by doing far more than cutting methane emissions.
Let’s look at this specific methane source, created by nature without human intervention. Importantly, this case is where one can both extract natural biogas and reverse carbon emissions. As the add-on in this special case, it can replace forest biomass as the region’s primary domestic fuel within 10 – 15 years. This change in fuel takes deforestation pressure off the mountain gorilla habitat in the Virunga Mountains in Africa. So RNG is an opportunity to buy time for the gorilla habitat and recreate a vast carbon sink.
How carbon-negative is this renewable solution?
More than that, the graphic below shows how we get to the hoped-for impact of buying time in the Climate Change context. Compare it to other methods listed for negative carbon emissions. Most lack much capacity or even credence, requiring thousands of them to make a mark. Well, this unusual one wasn’t on the list. It should be in time, not just as a one-off.
The need to pull carbon dioxide from atmosphere to buy time (Inside Climate News)
Climate activists commonly advocate that natural gas is not “low-carbon” enough and not part of the climate solution. Natural gas suppliers field demands to remove any claim of having real “low-carbon” investments. The louder calls are to advocate the use of hydrogen, PV, or wind. But while hydrogen is in many ways an ideal fuel, it comes with user difficulties, dangers of explosion, and higher supply and distribution costs. It’s costly to transport, has low energy density, and is nearly impossible to move by old pipelines.
We should differentiate clean methane sources from conventional, fossil “natural” gas though. Some of them, like our projects, can even be strongly negative on carbon emissions. That’s a long way better for the planet than neutral.
The Purpose of Kivu gas extraction is evolving
The original Hydragas solution was a needs-driven innovation. It was created to deal with a looming threat at unprecedented humanitarian and environmental levels. Without acting on this threat in our lifetimes, millions of lives were at risk. The negative outcome is also a one-time, catastrophic environmental hit. We can avert this one-day, 2-6 gigaton carbon emission by preventing lake Kivu erupting. In a relative priority sense, the climate impact is a bonus on top of all these lives saved, but meaningful on a global scale.
Now sometimes we may think we have a great invention to talk about. But more importantly, to market it for investment, should we frame it in terms that resonate? Ours has been a 20-year pioneering, technological pursuit. So it isn’t just any cleantech project using available innovative technology. We now know it to be carbon-negative. So it stands out as a high-impact climate changer with added carbon sequestration value.
It took a decade to figure out how to do this project safely and effectively. We filled a need where suitable recovery technology did not exist. It overtook an older, flawed extraction idea and turned it around with an inventive breakthrough.
Our motivation was at first about solving a gas extraction problem. Then it became about saving lives. Then it grew to add the need to turn around carbon emissions. The line must now be: “It saves millions of lives, averting gigatons of carbon emissions, a nature-based solution making a country or two carbon-negative”.
Labeling is key; Can we call it a grid-scale battery, or CCS?
How is it going to sell the concept to investors? So should we re-frame it further? We can make it focused on the climate change problem of the day – energy storage. Should we now claim that; “We see Lake Kivu as a giant battery capable of 263 TWh of renewable energy storage.” We can add that; “This battery trickle-charges itself at 2,600 GWh per year.” What is the key data to place with that label? Renewable gas can produce 600 MW of clean power for the next fifty years.
Like a good battery, we can stretch it out longer though. Look after it and it never degrades. We still have the urgent, initial need to drop the danger level of gas build-up, for say 25 years. Then we could then produce over 200 MW of renewable, clean power for centuries.
Adding a 576 MW Hydropower Investment to the Same Lake
But there’s more to add to this “battery”. This same lake has been producing 18 MW of hydropower, from an old run-of-river station at its outlet, for over 50 years. The Ruzizi River cascade drops another 700 metres to Lake Tanganyika just 50km south of the lake’s outlet. A series of dam-free hydropower projects on this cascade can also deliver 576 MW. So the two projects in combination can yield 1200 MW for the next 25-50 years. The longer view is perhaps for over 800 MW in perpetuity. That’s one big, long-life battery!
An equatorial lake and a volcano, a recipe for an energy opportunity or a lurking nightmare?
So “whose definition is this definition?”
As we hear in the climate debate, any “natural gas” label is in a contentious basket of climate value and recognition as non-fossil due to its recent biogenic origin. It is grouped and assumed to be formed, with its fossil relatives coal and oil. Let’s flex a defining piece of that narrative. In talking of semantics and messaging, what of biogenic gas? Does Mesozoic-age fossil-formed gas rank the same as “fresh” biogas from cow manure in bio-digesters? They are both GHGs. Its formation followed similar pathways, millions of years apart. I studied this comparison with some global experts. Today our conclusion must be that RNG best categorises itself as a carbon-negative renewable gas.
That’s not the end of the argument either. In an ongoing review of the Lake Kivu MPs, governing the lake’s use, some reviewers would like to have a new take. Their view is any biogas already in the lake today is “fossil”, but from tomorrow any additional naturally produced biogas is “renewable”. What crappy, revanchist thinking is this? It is one pool of carbon-negative renewable gas.
The Case for Biogenic, Renewable Status – is it Clear?
The carbon dioxide and methane in Lake Kivu in Africa are biogenic. It’s freshly brewed. A 2020 paper published in Switzerland by students questions this established basis of gas formation. The reason why it is in dispute seems flimsy, in that they measured the 2019 gas content with a new, hitherto untested electronic method. Their measurements showed no increase in gas content, despite the passage of some years. They concluded that suddenly the theory of biogenic gas formation was wrong and perhaps somebody brought in 60 billion cubic metres of fossil methane from the Middle East gas fields and dumped it all into the lake. Perhaps somebody would have noticed? Why do that anyway, as it would have cost tens of billions of dollars, just to confuse everybody? If fish could even live there in anoxic water, one may ask, is something fishy?
I’ll stick with the established theory. Algae consumes dissolved carbon dioxide to grow biomass. Biomass biodegrades in anoxic depths to make methane and carbon dioxide. It uses the acetate process and also methanogens. The world’s largest bio-digester is part of a cycle making carbon-negative, renewable gas. Can we continue down this defining path and call it a bio-battery, powered by carbon-negative renewable gas? It sounds more promising than the theory in the paragraph above.
CCUS: Does it Work Like a Bio-battery or a Bio-digester?
Most of the gas in Lake Kivu now in situ has been generated biogenically. This process is not controlled by any feedback loop that says it is approaching full saturation.
The essential action on us now, with a GHG reserve building up, is to first harvest it to make it safe. The second is to combust methane in power generation or in-home cooking. A third action can be to re-absorb the carbon dioxide made, into the deep lake unless we extract it for other uses. Here it can be a substrate for microbiology that can turn back to methane. A virtuous green cycle is thus potentially possible. Again, it sounds like it works as a battery. Like any battery, its design and operation have room for enhancement. We could speed it up but with due caution.
So we can consider treating it like a giant battery. We keep it in reserve and deplete it when we choose to and we are able to. We are now capable of doing it safely, finally. Now is the time we must do it urgently to constrain climate change.
Defining CCUS
Must we prove to skeptics that it’s renewable and it has negative emissions? I met recently with Foresight, a Vancouver group that champions clean energy solutions. I had this question: “If the gas is naturally biogenic, but not extracted continuously, is it still renewable?” The answer was yes because it can be stored. But that answer would not be so if it leaked out into the atmosphere immediately. But in Lake Kivu’s case, it is fully trapped. This is a huge, natural CCUS reservoir that can store 450 bcm of gas (at the safe-side limit). It is the definition of Carbon Capture, Usage, and Storage/Sequestration (CCUS). But now I’m seeing CCSU in the literature also.
What is the risk if we don’t harvest this lake gas?
We must first deplete this reservoir (or energy battery) by 50% now for safety reasons. That is why we must extract methane for the next 25 years to use up half the partial pressure (or volume) of gas in place. The method used is important, as it is no good to redistribute methane to shallower water as our competitors do. That is dangerous.
Thereafter we can discharge it indefinitely at a lower rate, closer to its natural recharge rate. That would be sensible. But our first order of business lowers the risk of eruption by a factor of two. It makes the lake 100 times safer. 99% risk reduction. We do this by depleting gas from the upper portions of the layered lake’s depths. These portions give rise to the gas in situ most at risk, as they have the highest partial pressure.
With some caution, we can research further into “farming” gas generation. We understand the micro-biology and bio-chemical engineering pathways of using the returned CO2 to generate new methane faster. Key to these actions will be in managing the nutrients flowing to the shallow biozone to enhance algae growth. This is done by water lifted from the nutrient-rich depths. That is the key to multiplying the energy potential in the long term.
Safety Action: Preventing a catastrophic lake eruption
This is a very high-stakes resource management game. Those gigatons of gas, if left until they saturate the lake’s capacity, will erupt. The world’s limnology experts describe the mechanism as a limnic eruption. It’s much quieter, almost silent, but could be 50 times more deadly than Krakatoa’s explosion in 1883. Many casualties may result from lake tsunamis caused by a giant, surging column of gas and water. Waves would radiate out to the lake’s shores. But it’s the toxic and asphyxiating blanket of cloud that follows, emanating from that erupting column that is much more deadly.
So, gas extraction is our pre-emptive action to mitigate a catastrophe. It has to be done properly, with precision and care. Some amateurish and ill-considered legacy methods were used and more were planned. These attempts were worse than doing nothing. They break all the safety rules and bring the danger of eruption forward. The worst aspect of legacy methods is the deliberate breakdown of the lake’s multi-layered density structure. This structure was formed slowly over hundreds of years, strengthening to form a perfect trap for gas forming below.
The lake’s long-term safety plan is still built on the concept of removing the bulk of the lake’s methane in 50 years. After the first harvest, we may pause for perhaps 100 – 150 years to allow gas to regenerate. As the methane inventory reaches a viable concentration again, we begin to extract once more. That’s still in the harvesting plan. The concept is written up in the rules for how Lake Kivu must be developed. But a review in 2019-2020 revisited some of these options.
What carbon is in the envelope we evaluate?
The gases are produced biogenically in the world’s largest, contained bio-digester. Lake Kivu became one of the largest, manageable carbon sinks over millennia. I wrote it up in a breakthrough ventures application. I worked out the data in a painfully complex spreadsheet. It is NRCAN’s government-designed calculator to determine the carbon SSRs. There were guidelines. i.e. Use ISO 14064-2 Section 5.3 “Identifying GHG sources, sinks and reservoirs relevant to the project”. It was highly explicit about every value to be used.
I had already worked out the answer in 20 minutes by normal means. It took 150 hours to use this standardized government-style spreadsheet. The answers were 1.01% different. The specified calculator gave a modestly higher answer. This is miniscule compared to the arguable range of tons of CO2 per ton of CH4; the currently published range is between 25 and 103. There is a long explanation about which number applies when based on when the reduction is most needed. For simplicity, the calculator used 28. Using this range the averted carbon emissions vary from 1.9 to 6.3 gigatons. The high end of this range is very close to the total annual US emissions in 2014, published by the EPA, of 6.89 gigatons.
Why is it so complicated? Was it to ensure one didn’t cheat? In essence, it defines the full envelope. It assesses GHGs and SSRs with a cumbersome methodology. One even includes the GHG impact of building and then demolishing the equipment. One must account for displaced energy when switching to a new source. It presents the data in a spreadsheet common for all applicants. But getting it done is way worse than doing your taxes. The outcome still shows this renewable gas is carbon-negative.
Proving renewable gas is carbon-negative
Net carbon output from generation of 1 kWh of power
The adjacent figure (click on it to expand) shows L-R the improving trend of power generation from coal to natural gas. Hausfather presented the data to show the US power industry gains from replacing coal with natural gas. I added the final bar to show how the proposed Lake Kivu project outperforms. The linked article questions whether natural gas is a bridge fuel to renewables. I would argue that RNG is itself a game changer that goes much further than carbon neutrality. But how can these special cases be replicated on a global scale? There are opportunities for scale-up of averting major emissions in my next post.
I added the final bar to show how the proposed Lake Kivu project outperforms. The linked article questions whether natural gas is a bridge fuel to renewables. I would argue that RNG is itself a game changer that goes much further than carbon neutrality. It transforms from being a clean gas source to the most powerful, renewable battery out there.
But how can these special cases be replicated on a global scale? There are opportunities for scale-up to avert major emissions in my next post. That means going after the biggest resource of all, methane in the oceans.
Let’s not forget how to help the gorillas
But let’s not forget the gorillas in the Virunga mountains. Before even considering deforestation, Africa’s equatorial forests are under threat and so is the gorilla’s mountain domain. Apart from land pressures, the region still uses firewood and charcoal for 80-90% of its non-transport energy needs. Any action that reduces deforestation is also about protecting their shrinking domain. Sustainable, renewable natural gas will help, so let’s make it a strongly carbon-negative renewable gas. It will be hugely impactful at -5500 kg CO2/MWh. 100 MW produced here zeros out the climate impact of another 1200 MW produced from fossil natural gas.
What message sells to investors?
This project needs investment. This type and scale of project is desperately needed. People need to be assured of safety where they live. The gorillas need their forest back. So now we need to pitch the investment, but also the back story to investors. The question is how? It’s a great impact investment with high returns. But for investors? They’re skeptical, as they must be. Any claim we can make to amp up a valuation has to be discounted or countered by them when negotiating an investment deal. At a September 2021 conference in Vancouver, a well-known CEO of a Cleantech investor told me that just having methane in play is a red flag.
This much carbon mitigation (whether 40 or up to 130 megatons per year) can be worth a lot as tradeable carbon offsets. The Canadian government has priced carbon on a rising scale up to CAD 150/ton by 2030. Imagine if we could sell that for $600 M a year. So, inevitably as founders, we should get quizzed on this point. And so it has been. We like to appeal to the investors’ better selves too, with the humanitarian and environmental impacts that are the real drivers. The Lake Kivu project has had a huge impact. The priorities are first to people’s safety, then to the environment, and finally to the community’s bottom lines.
How to market “carbon negative renewable gas”?
As an aside, I would be interested in the stats on this. How many pledges are made to fund renewables? As many as are calling on others to do the funding? How many are calling for funding negative carbon projects or for countries to go net zero? I have seen hundreds. Is it a facile way to get position on the bandwagon? Whatever came of Canada’s Prime Minister’s 2015 pledge at COP-21 in Paris to fund $2.6 B of clean energy projects in the developing world? How much more is being promised at COP-26 in Glasgow in 2021?
Cleantech Finance – Two “Valleys of Death” facing entrepreneurs – FCA
On the other hand, how many of the valid cleantech start-ups with projects eventually do get funded? Worse still, how many are not? Who, among many innovators and developers, crosses the proverbial “valley of death” illustrated here by FCA? Where do these developers, looking and pitching for these funds, get the money? Their enthusiasm is more evident than that of corresponding investment funds.
For that answer, it’s probably from intermediaries. They are like a giant filter that slows the flow of funds to projects and new start-ups with ideas for carbon emissions reduction. I get frustrated by hearing the boasts of new funds saying, like Brookfields, ” We have raised 30 billion dollars for Climate Impact projects in 2021″, but we seldom see any sign of this being spent. Perhaps they hoard it like Scrooge McDuck, earning fees for not passing funds on to the intended recipients.
The Role of the Intermediary, the Aggregator
This clean energy funding marketplace has seen a proliferation of financing intermediaries. They are aggregators of new project prospects, those start-up prospects that couldn’t afford to present at all the conferences. Is this changing now with COVID-19 taking conferences virtual?
Intermediaries don’t raise funds as start-ups, but to aggregate. They provide aggregating vehicles to reduce the hard work for bigger funds and individual climate investors as a conduit for hard-to-pitch-for funds. They can charge fees for their disbursement of other people’s money to projects. In doing so they are earning a 5% slice of the investment without carrying all the downsides of failed investments. They also secure rights to step up investment later at a discount. It’s a sweet gig.
Changing Tactics during the Time of COVID-19
Perhaps the tactic for start-ups and developers lies in two complementary pathways. The first is to present themselves more often at these virtual fundraising events. The formerly prohibitive cost of attending is down by 90%. Secondly is how to frame our projects better for primary investors.
What now of the intermediaries? What will they want to invest in and what makes them worthwhile as intermediaries? Start-ups need to connect with them in a way that works. So let’s present our options as Hydragas. Let’s label Lake Kivu as the promising niche that it is. Let’s see if that is a giant energy storage system or a series of clean projects with gigatons of carbon-negative emissions reduction. We’ll colour it any way the market wishes, as long as we get to fund it. Some ways just cost more than others, but that’s still way better than lingering on zero investment.
