Emissions Decisions

A couple of friends with energy podcasts are looking for more energy tech companies to highlight Please tag any good ones or send me the profiles of founders they should reach out to Some great stories out there that could use more exposure Alberta Innovates Calgary Economic Development

Join us for Calgary Cleantech's final meetup of 2024 next Thursday at 4:30pm at Platform Calgary. Shariful Nabil, CEO of O-Two Carbon Inc., will share how they are taking patented technology from the University of Calgary to market by converting flue gas into ethylene, reducing both emissions and costs. Signup link below: https://lnkd.in/gD5EuBSC

Congratulations to Adam Weinstein, Matthew Goldsilver, MBA, Nouman Ahmad, Ian Burgess and the rest of the incredible team at Validere on participating in the TSX market opening with Deloitte I remember when we all worked above a salon and people would wander in looking for their appointment and we’d still try to tell them about the business Great to see the progress over the past several years and excited for what’s to come as the company does carbon accounting for the world’s largest and most critical supply chain

Impact Logic sponsors our jobs section, and we've recently been excited to highlight some of the technical roles that are moving the needle in cleantech Take a look at recent roles with CarbonCure Technologies, Carbon Upcycling Technologies, Hydrostor, and Crusoe Hard not to find what you are looking for at names like Crusoe as their business combines energy trends with AI trends - pretty much the intersection of everything exciting right now

In our latest newsletter (in comments) we write about how a lot of energy transition funds are really only comfortable investing in renewables, and not true cleantech This isn’t a fit for their returns (as it’s now a cost of capital competition in those industries, better served by larger players) and it’s also meant that true cleantech has been underfunded for years as renewables are 75% of deployed capital Hydrogen, batteries, grid efficiency tech, modular nuclear and carbon capture have all been underfunded Kudos to names like NGIF Cleantech Ventures, Longbow Capital, and BDC that have always funded a wider variety of companies, and likely now see it pay off as others chase those same names slightly further down the risk curve

I’ve always enjoyed Energy Disruptors and met with dozens of interesting companies and builders at it over the years Exciting to see Ambyint, TransAlta, Suncor, Carbon Alpha, Alberta Indigenous Opportunities Corporation, Carbonova Corp., Cenovus Energy, General Fusion, Orennia, Carbon Upcycling Technologies, Cemvita Inc., Goparity Canada and other sector leaders presenting I write about energy for Forbes periodically and I have a couple articles/topics I’ve been researching out of personal interest, outlined below Send me a note if you are attending the conference, or in Calgary next week for it, and you have insights on these topics and want to connect! -Making existing energy supply chains more efficient is one of the biggest environmental wins today (lots of new tech for this) -Energy demand, especially power, is going to experience a step change in growth we haven’t seen in decades given reshoring, AI etc (we are not used to this and need to meet it) -Every company is becoming an energy company (even tech is vertically integrating - either through partnership exposure or physical investments) -Energy and emissions dynamics require new markets (capital allocators should be making seamless decisions between projects vs offsets) -Nuclear is cool again (which aligns with the facts) -A shift in consumption trends is going to drive more fuel demand than expected (retirees have income and want to travel, millenials also rank travel as their top spending priority vs previous generations)

We were lucky to get a guest columnist to write about nuclear and it is already one of our most widely read pieces (in comments) All the misconceptions on cost (isn’t it expensive?) and risk (isn’t it dangerous?) are addressed With nuclear being one of the few low emission solutions for baseload power available today in multiple locations, our guess is as good as yours why it faces so much resistance It feels as if sentiment is just starting to catch up to to the pro nuclear science and we are lucky to be a part of it Take a look at nuclear jobs from Bruce Power, Helion and others, and let us know what you think of the piece

Take a look at what's worth measuring in 2024 and where you can save money Validere continues to integrate with a lot of the largest energy names and experts like Lindsay Campbell regularly advise on the key inputs that inform everything from regulatory submissions to green bonds Worth checking out

Good morning, CDR community! I'm excited to share that the Research Partnerships team at Lithos Carbon is growing: [1] Interested in the scientific frontier of ERW commercial-scale data? 🚀 Come join the team as a trusted Research Scientist! https://lnkd.in/g8AU7BBF [2] Have a knack for managing key research partnerships? 🏫 Take on a brand new role as Science Partnership Manager! https://lnkd.in/ggJnbBDH

In our latest newsletter (in comments), we go through the tools cleantech founders can use to accelerate sales and extend runway There are a lot of cleantech companies that are constrained for capital and these strategies allow their innovations to get to scale within those constraints We dive into each of these, and you are welcome to reach out if you want more details, but some examples include Outsource near-term hires. Fractional roles are less cost, and reduce burn, as role requirements arise. This bridges companies to when they need a full-time person. Firms exist such as Leeg Group that can provide entire fractional verticals Pull cash forward from customers on deals. You can often sell longer-term subscriptions, offtakes, etc., where a client pays you today for better future terms. You just run this against your cost of capital and advance this structure if it’s better. Sell non core parts of the business such as IP, or business units. It can sometimes be cheaper to sell a business unit for zero than shut it down (since various contract terminations can cost an organization a lot of money). Many companies may even want it. Grants. There are lots of orgs/programs out there including National Research Council Canada / Conseil national de recherches Canada,Emissions Reduction Alberta (ERA), Alberta Innovates, SCALE AI | Canada's AI Global Innovation Cluster, Mitacs, and many others where you can access critical dollars to advance cleantech. If you don’t have time to pursue your own grants there are orgs such as Thin Air Labs that help you. If you can’t run your emissions calculations (required to show the benefit) there are even software names such as Arbor that can do the entire calc for you quickly Adding venture debt to the capital structure is often cheaper/faster than a new round in many markets right now. Gives you more room to plan and solve problems. Leo Tam at ATB, Stefan Chiasson, CPA at BDC, and Jeffery Lightburn, CA at NBC all do a good job of providing capital solutions Optimize working capital. This can include getting a higher rate on cash, extending payment terms with vendors, getting cashback on spending, and speeding up receivables requests (time to invoicing) etc. If you don't have someone with a finance background there are great providers like Ramp that do this for you Make more money off your tools today, without going through your sales process. This can include selling a right to sell your product, licensing it, or selling partnership exclusivity in a region (put a term on it) Access funding and discounts from suppliers. If you’ve developed a new hardware solution that can be deployed (everything from batteries to recycling plants to carbon capture sites, etc.), then your suppliers are going to want you to succeed. Many founders never think of this, though, and simply treat them as arms-length sources of materials. And many others