Startup Series: Cemvita Factory

Sep 1

Today’s guest is Moji Karimi, CEO and Co-Founder of Cemvita Factory.

Cemvita Factory’s mission is to deploy nature-inspired economical technology to empower the energy transition and create a brighter future. This is done by a portfolio of industrial biotechnology solutions across Cemvita’s three verticals: CO2-based biomanufacturing, biomining, and subsurface biomanufacturing. On the surface, it sounds like the company is tackling an impossible number of initiatives for an early stage startup, but that’s part of the excitement of what's happening in synthetic biology right now. Cemvita’s de-siloed and deverticalized approach to innovation requires cross-functional expertise and problem solving.

Moji and Cody have a great discussion about biomining for lithium and copper, subsurface biochemical production, including gold hydrogen, and biomanufacturing of waste carbon dioxide into other end products. Plus they talk about the different use cases as businesses, and Cemvita Factory's cross-disciplinary approach to innovation. Solving climate change requires new ways of thinking, and Moji’s background and work at Cemvita is an excellent example of this.

Enjoy the show!

You can find me on Twitter @codysimms (me), @mcjpod (podcast) or @mcjcollective (company). You can reach us via email at info@mcjcollective.com, where we encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.

Episode recorded on August 8, 2022.

In today's episode, we cover:

[5:35] An overview of Cemvita Factory and the company's origin
[8:35] How Moji transitioned from deep space exploration into working on energy
[10:32] Meaning of biomimicry
[12:28] Cemvita's go-to-market applications
[17:26] Use cases for biomining and issues with lithium extraction today
[19:27] An overview of leaching
[24:17] Risky byproducts associated with using microbes and biomaterials for extraction
[27:28] An overview of subsurface biomanufacturing and gold hydrogen
[34:05] An overview of carbon biomanufacturing and how it can generate sustainable aviation fuel
[41:54] An overview of renewable natural gas
[45:24] How Cemvita's different pathways are interconnected
[50:50] How Cemvita is sourcing solutions

Jason Jacobs (00:00):
Hey everyone. Jason, here. I am the, My Climate Journey, show host. Before we get going, I wanted to take a minute and tell you about the, My Climate Journey, or MCJ as we call it, membership option. Membership came to be, because there were a bunch of people that were listening to the show that weren't just looking for education, but they were longing for a peer group as well. So we set up a Slack community for those people, that's now mushroomed into more than 1,300 members. There is an application to become a member. It's not an exclusive thing. There's four criteria we screen for. Determination to tackle the problem of climate change, ambition to work on the most impactful solution areas, optimism that we can make a dent, and we're not wasting our time for trying, and a collaborative spirit. Beyond that, the more diversity, the better. There's a bunch of great things that have come out of that community.
Jason Jacobs (00:55):
A number of founding teams that have met in there, a number of non-profits that have been established, a bunch of hiring that's been done, a bunch of companies that have raised capital in there, a bunch of funds that have gotten limited partners or investors for their funds in there, as well as a bunch of events and programming by members and for members, and some open source projects that are getting actively worked on that hatched in there as well. At any rate, if you want to learn more, you can go to myclimatejourney.co, the website, and click the, become a member, tab at the top. Enjoy the show. Hello everyone. This is Jason Jacobs, and welcome to My Climate Journey. This show follows my journey to interview a wide range of guests to better understand and make sense of the formidable problem of climate change, and try to figure out how people like you and I can help.
Cody Simms (01:56):
Today's guest is Moji Karimi, CEO and co-founder at Cemvita Factory, which is applying synthetic biology to reverse climate change. Cemvita Factory specializes in cultivating microbes that support our energy transition, and currently has solutions in development across three large categories. One, biomining for lithium and copper. Two, subsurface biochemical production, including gold hydrogen, more on that. And three, biomanufacturing of waste carbon dioxide into other end products, like sustainable aviation fuel and biogas.
Cody Simms (02:30):
Also, you might notice that I'm not Jason. This is Cody Sims, Jason's partner at MCJ. I did today's interview with Moji at Cemvita Factory, and you'll hear me take on episodes here and there going forward. I was looking forward to today's conversation with Moji, because on the surface, it sounds like they're tackling an impossible number of initiatives for an early stage startup, from lithium mining to hydrogen production, to sustainable aviation fuels and more. But that's what's so exciting about what's happening in synthetic biology right now.
Cody Simms (02:59):
Cemvita Factory most likely won't be a world class mining company or a world class hydrogen production company, or any of the above, but they don't have to be, they need to be a world class, being a platform for developing and scaling micro production that the industrial companies in each of these sectors then use, to redefine and transition their businesses. It's a de siloed and de verticalized approach to innovation, and it requires cross-functional expertise and problem solving. Moji and I have a great discussion about the different use cases as businesses pursuing. And we talk about Cemvita Factory's cross-disciplinary approach to innovation. Solving climate change, requires new ways of thinking. And I hope you'll enjoy learning about Cemvita Factory's approach as much as I did. Moji, welcome to the show.
Moji Karimi (03:43):
Thanks for having me.
Cody Simms (03:44):
Well, I am really excited to learn more about what you're building at Cemvita Factory, because you're building technology that solves multiple problems that all have significant carbon footprint potential. And so, I'd love to hear a bit from you about the high level of what you're building at Cemvita Factory.
Moji Karimi (04:07):
Yeah. Happy to share. So yeah, like you said, we're a platform company, so it's not just one thing that we are doing. It's a set of solutions. And at a high level, we're deploying this nature-inspired solutions from biotech industry using principles of bio mimicry. And these are economical solutions that we're bringing to bear to basically empower the energy transition, and create this net-zero economy and the brighter future that we all want. So happy to say more on the behind-the-scene biotech and synthetic biology part, what we do, which is the engine, but also about the market applications across oil and gas mining, all these industries that are really going through this transformation. And it's not just about carbon footprint, it's also about the environmental footprint, and we're helping them reduce both through this set of solutions from biotechnology.
Cody Simms (05:03):
Well, maybe before we go into the solutions, I want to hear how you got there, because one of the things I saw, I think on your website or somewhere, was the company originally started, or maybe you originally started your research in this area, working on deep space applications for trying to find the ability to essentially produce oxygen out in space for astronauts. At least that was my understanding. So maybe walk us through that origin story and how that ultimately led you to trying to work on climate change solutions.
Moji Karimi (05:35):
Absolutely. So, yeah, it's been an interesting journey along the way, and especially in terms of the applications, but my background is in the energy industry in Houston, and then my co-founder, Tara, who is also my sister and really the brain behind what we do. Her background is in biochemistry and biotech. And so, before Cemvita, after a few years in the energy transition, I just wanting to do something different. And I came across this opportunity company that wanted to commercialize DNA sequencing in oil and gas. So looking at DNA of microbes in the water and oil, building basically 23andMe for the subsurface. And so, that was my introduction to biotech. I shared that with Tara, with her background, she thought me more about biotech. And that's where we decided to start Cemvita with this vision to bring biotech apps, those common applications in pharma and medicine.
Moji Karimi (06:28):
And so, at the time Tara was writing the book for Springer, researching around artificial photosynthesis, and artificial photosynthesis turning CO2 basically into sugar, which is the classic photosynthesis, but also other things. So we picked that as the first application for biomimicry and using CO2 as a feedstock. At the time we're thinking about it, not just from the energy transition benefits, but also using CO2 as a feedstock in general. And the one thing that we researched, was how for astronauts going into deep space, they need to have regenerative ways of producing food. And so, if you could use that CO2 that they breathe out, which is one [inaudible 00:07:17] a person, it will become a sizable amount once you have six people, going into deep space. Using that amount of CO2 and turning it into sugar through our biochemical reaction so that they could use as a backup life support.
Moji Karimi (07:33):
So that was the first project actually that we did for a private space agency, and it was interesting, because the extension of it is for Mars, because 96% of the air is CO2. You don't really even have to do capture, you just use that abundant CO2 and go from that to fuels, to glucose, from glucose through biomanufacturing, to even pharmaceuticals, proteins, nutrients. So it creates this circular system. And what was fascinating was, this is what we learned from space industry. Every system is regenerative, is really built with sustainability in mind, in that they don't need a lot of energy input, and they're not heavy, they're not bulky. And so, we brought those design principles later to how we design and commercialize the pathways across our energy transition applications.
Cody Simms (08:29):
And what made you leap from the deep space exploration into working on energy?
Moji Karimi (08:35):
Well, the main thing was, everyone told us, if you want this to become a really big company, it's not going to happen in space, because unless if you are in satellites or rockets, space industry is quite small right now, up until when Elon Musk land on Mars, things would change, but for now, everything about space is, what can we learn? So then, we'll apply those solutions on earth. And this is precisely what we did. We learned that space industry has been thinking about CO2 as a feedstock for a long time. And so, how much of that is relevant to applications on earth? And so, that evolved into focus on energy transition, especially with my background in the energy industry has been in Houston. And if you remember, towards the end of 2017, '18 was where there was more of a push around ESG, and companies really starting to announce their 2050 goals and carbon capture utilization and storage start to formulate as an insure category. And we have the perfect solution, because of what we had previously done for aerospace.
Cody Simms (09:46):
You're the second entrepreneur I've talked to in a few weeks who started with a space focus, either in their career or in their business, and ultimately realized, maybe I should take what I'm learning and apply it to the challenges we have here on earth. And I guess it makes sense, if you're focused on space, you're focused on planetary systems in general. And so, becoming knowledgeable about how to work on other planets, and then applying that knowledge here at home, is an interesting path and interesting to see how many more entrepreneurs will get wooed by large space issues, and then realize, "Hey, maybe we need to make our own planet more habitable for future generations." Before we dive into your own solutions, maybe just define for everyone who's listening, what you mean by biomimicry.
Moji Karimi (10:32):
Yeah. So it's basically the principle of looking at nature and see, how could we replicate that as humans in a way that is engineered, scalable, robust, and that goes from just the design principles, like airplane looking like a bird, because that's what we've looked and saw. And it's like, "Oh, maybe we'll try that", all the way to more advanced methods of learning about how nature works. How is it that plants under ambient pushing temperature could fix CO2, and chemical reactions don't. They need a 1,000 degree centigrade to activate the reaction. And how can we learn? And then because of this revolution basically that's going on in bringing the cost down for DNA sequencing, for biotech. So that opens doors to new possibilities that was even crazy to think about just a few years ago.
Moji Karimi (11:30):
Looking at natural systems, especially in our case, microbes that are in nature that are fixing CO2, that are eating methane, that are producing hydrogen, that are bio weathering, extracting minerals from the rock, and see these are proof points that this is possible, and can we as humans study that, understand it with the next step being controlling it, and turn it into an engineered solution that we could deploy. And if you think about it, there's thousands of examples in our daily life. Even from fermentation to get beer to everything else is, at some point we learned that in nature, this exists, and we turn it into something that we could control and use.
Cody Simms (12:16):
And help me understand how you're controlling and using it. You have three, I think, go-to market applications of your technology today. Maybe define each of those for us briefly.
Moji Karimi (12:28):
Yeah. This could be a good time to just give lay of the land. The vision that we mentioned for really empowering the energy transition, is through this set of microbial solutions, and they go in three different themes. The first theme is sustainable extraction of natural resources, whether we're talking about hydro carbons or we're talking about minerals, metals that go into energy transition. From here on, companies are going to put more focus on sustainable extraction methods, and biotech has solutions to offer. Second theme is sustainable production of chemicals and fuels through biomanufacturing. We're starting to replace a lot of chemical reactions with biochemical reactions, especially for reducing the Scope 1 emissions. And then the third one is sustainable renewal of any waste that's created within that extraction and production process, back into other sources of value.
Moji Karimi (13:19):
So we see CO2, as an example, as a waste that you could use and recycle into other products. Now, this three themes then feed into our platform, and we have three business units or verticals. The first one is CO2-based biomanufacturing. This is where we have CO2-to-ethylene for decomposition of polymers and plastics. We have CO2-to-sustainable-aviation-fuels that we're doing with United Airlines. And we have CO2-to-renewable-natural-gas.
Moji Karimi (13:47):
There's other solutions in the pipeline, but these are the three key chemical pathways. The second vertical is biomining. This is using macros for better extraction of minerals from the whole body. We have a special focus on copper, for bioleaching of copper. And also, we have a new method for bio extraction of lithium that then goes into batteries. And then the third vertical is what we call subsurface biomanufacturing. This is basically turning a subsurface reservoir into a bioreactor and doing chemical reactions in the subsurface. And the flagship project is what we call gold hydrogen. It's a new way of producing biohydrogen in the subsurface, fermenting the unrecovered oil. So as a starting point, hydrogen is the chemical of choice for subsurface biomanufacturing for us. But yeah, that's it, in terms of the three verticals.
Cody Simms (14:36):
So many questions we're going to spend, probably the rest of the episode, unpacking amongst those three areas. Which of the three right now is driving the most commercial interest today? And which of the three do you expect to be the largest part of the business in the future?
Moji Karimi (14:54):
Yeah, if I look at both the technology readiness level, and also considering the demand in the market combined, I would say right now, biomining is really our highest or closer to market, because especially for QUA lithium extraction, because 89% of lithium comes from brine, and we need a lot more lithium. So companies really wanted to figure this out, how to get lithium out of QUA. So that's a very growing fast area, coupled also with bioleaching of copper, because today, 20% of the world copper is already bulged, and we're helping these companies really improve their recovery. So biomining, and then really fast followed by gold hydrogen. We just completed our first field trial in the Permian Basin two weeks ago, with really encouraging results, and we already started to plan for the next one.
Moji Karimi (15:50):
And so this too, part of the reason that they're really, I think initially are going to be to market faster, is because we're deploying the microbes in the environment. So this is what in C2 deployment or in C2 synthetic biology, as opposed to the third category though, it's really, really high potential, but it just takes time to build this. Plants scale them up, derisk the technology. So biomining and gold hydrogen is late 2023/24 timeframe for commercialization, whereas CO2-based chemicals, we're thinking about 2025/6 and beyond.
Cody Simms (16:31):
Well then let's dive in first to biomining. I'm a believer that, in order to scale a business, you got to find the initial market first. And even if that's not the moonshot part of the business, it's what's going to help you get to scale initially. And I imagine there's still quite a bit of value in solving biomining, even if the other two didn't exist for in Cemvita Factory. So let's start, you mentioned two big use cases with biomining. One was more sustainable lithium extraction, which obviously is extremely key to our electrified future. And two, you mentioned bioleaching of copper, which obviously, copper is also the glue that binds our electrified world together. And so, maybe help us understand, let's take those one at a time. What's wrong with lithium extraction today. We all have probably a sense of it, but it'd be good to hear it in your words. And how does synthetic biology help improve that process?
Moji Karimi (17:26):
Yeah. So let's start with, why is this a big topic now? All of us in climate tech, we've been hearing more about mining and metals also just in the past six months. And it's really because the demand for energy transition metals, is going to increase by about 500% by 2050. We need over three billion times of minerals and metals basically, across wind and solar, geothermal, for energy storage also, to stay within this two degree cap that we all want. For copper, that will be an increase by 40%, and then for nickel and cobalt 70%, and lithium 90% over the next two decades. So then you look at, well, what are the projects that we have right now? What's in the pipeline? How much is available and are we going to really hamper the growth of EV market, because we don't have enough lithium.
Moji Karimi (18:24):
And if you've seen in the news articles, that's already happening, because having access to metals is becoming more difficult. So then, in terms of how these are done today, in the case of copper, there is a lot of resources, but they're becoming low grade. A lot of new resources are low grade, and as they become deeper, the economics of being able to do open hole mining, just doesn't make sense anymore.
Moji Karimi (18:48):
So companies are looking at two solutions. On one hand, they need to deploy methods that allow the use of low grade ore, and still be able to extract enough copper economically. And so, that's what bioleaching of chalcopyrite is a method. And then second is a bit into the future. This principle of in situ leaching, to be able to not have to remove all the rock out, you just drill wells and inject the chemicals that wash off the metal. So the mining industry is working on both-
Cody Simms (19:22):
Just to interrupt you, Moji. What is leaching? Whether it's bioleaching or in situ leaching, what do you mean by leaching?
Moji Karimi (19:27):
This is basically when you remove all the rocks. If you've seen pictures of open mines, they stack them up in what is called a heap. It looks like a landfill. And then from the top, you spray in really corrosive acid, like sulfuric acid. And that acid would react with the rock and separate the metal, which comes off from the bottom. And then they do the post-processing to purify, let's say to copper. That's the leeching process. Use sulfuric acid, and that's part of the problem. Say for gold, use cyanide, which is a bigger problem. But bioleaching is where you replace the direct injection of sulfuric acid. Instead, you spray the microbes. And microbes do some of the same reactions, or produce their own organic acid to basically separate the metals. So, I think I mentioned 20% of the world copper today is already bioleached.
Moji Karimi (20:23):
So then you would think that these are big mining companies that probably already have the most optimized microbes out there with sophisticated labs, because these are the engine basically for getting the metals out. But what we found is that, that's not the case. And that's where we're helping the mining industry improve the efficiency of these microbes, both to get more metals out, but also to reduce the overall environmental and carbon footprint of the process. So that's for copper. For lithium, it's a little bit different, because it's not that there is this current process that we're just trying improve, it's that most of the world's lithium comes from brine, and we have QUA lithium, which is of course different, but there's not a lot of commercial methods for extracting lithium from clay. And we have developed a new method. So working with the big players in that space in the US to commercialize that.
Cody Simms (21:20):
So, if I understand lithium, you say extracting lithium is through brine pools. These are big, open air, large, essentially pools of liquid that have a lithium suspension in them, that eventually different companies have different chemical methods for pulling the lithium out of that suspension. And you see these big, bright colored, terrifying looking, green and red pools that are on the surface of earth in various parts of the world, mostly in China today. And what I'm hearing you say is, you're developing methods for being able to dig down into clay soils and use microbes to extract the lithium out of clay. Am I understanding that correctly?
Moji Karimi (22:04):
Correct. Yeah. So, there is this lithium clay belt in the US that goes through several of the states, including Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico. And that's why you see companies like Lithium Americas and others, are really active in those area. All these guys they're doing clay, they're not doing brine. So it's a really exciting, I think, way for US to play a bigger role in the local supply of minerals that then go into EVs, because a lot of times people don't know what goes behind producing these minerals. And I think where this all comes together is if you look at cobalt. More than two third of the cobalt comes from Republic of Congo, and the ores are sent to China for processing, and then it ends up in the US, but now everyone is paying more attention to that supply chain.
Cody Simms (23:00):
I should note that we're recording this episode, the day after the Inflation Reduction Act passed the Senate. So still TBD on what exactly is going to happen there, but there were quite a few incentives in that bill that focus on onshoring EV battery production. And if I understand correctly, a lot of the consumer facing EV purchase incentives are only applicable for large swaths of EV batteries, where either the manufacturing or the materials were sourced in the United States. So I imagine you'll see continued demand for that solution, assuming you can validate the technology for it.
Moji Karimi (23:38):
Yes. Yeah. We're very happy about that. And I think this was the right incentive across the board. This touches several of different areas that we're working on. At some beta, both for carbon capture and also for minerals and metals that enable the energy transition.
Cody Simms (23:57):
Before we move on to talking about subsurface biochemical and gold hydrogen, which is a totally different topic, today a lot of this mining happens by injecting acids or whatnot, as you mentioned, into rock. What are the risky byproducts of using microbes and biomaterials to do similar types of extraction?
Moji Karimi (24:17):
The reason that people do this, is to reduce the use of like cyanide and sulfuric acid, both for cost reasons, and also, what happens is when you use sulfuric acid, for example, at the end, the liquid has to go somewhere. So it's not like it all gets consumed. So what happens is, basically they set up a pond nearby the mine, and all the runoff after processing goes into the pond, which creates what's known as acid mine drainage, or AMD. And basically, imagine a pond with two, three million gallons of pH two water. And usually, they're next to a town.
Moji Karimi (25:01):
Once in a while they end up in the news, because the dam breaks or something, and it's a problem. And mining companies have to intuity take care of these ponds. And really, their goal is to increase the pH, say from two to seven throughout time. And that's why they even own mines nearby, and they dump lime to neutralize the acidity throughout time. When use microbes, you don't have the same process. The mechanisms are different, you produce a lot less aftermath materials, but even those are organic, because they're made by microbes as opposed to some of the more corrosive things that humans do.
Cody Simms (25:42):
Great. Well, let's talk about gold hydrogen. What you just talked about, is adding microbes to rock that has valuable ores in it, in order to extract the ores more sustainably. Now, switching gears to a different part of your business, I understand that subsurface biochemical is essentially finding either oil wells or natural gas reserves. I think probably more natural gas reserves actually, that either aren't producing anymore or that you can help flip the economics on, where you can add microbes to the subsurface and actually generate hydrogen in a more sustainable way than hydrogen is generated today, which is typically with electrolysis on top of natural gas. So maybe A, correct what I just said, and B, unpack that a bit more for us.
Moji Karimi (26:31):
Sure. I think this is a good time also, when you look at Cemvita, you could see, how do you guys doing mining, and then there's oil and gas in the CO2 base. It's because we have belief in the platform nature of biotechnology. And a lot of what you learn from microbes in the environment are the same, whether they're coming from the mine or in the subsurface, and no one has done this before, no one has really explored what this means, what solutions does this enable? And this is really why we're more aggressive and bullish in setting up this multidisciplinary teams where you could put a biohydrometallurgist next to your biogeochemist, next to your petroleum microbiologists, to really understand this environmental systems, and what influence could we have on the microbes to either make better products or reduce the environmental footprint and covered footprint of any given process.
Moji Karimi (27:28):
A perfect example of that is, subsurface biomanufacturing and gold hydrogen. And so, if you look at, basically the economy has been built on fossil fuel so far. So we've been drilling all these wells from 1900s, but mostly 1920s, '30s and onward. And a lot of those wells are now end of life, and they're producing less than five, 10 barrels a day, but the CapEx have already been spent to create those. So some of them actually creating problems, because if they're not sealed correctly, they will emit methane, which is a big problem already. So for me, I see those as a stranded asset that someone else had already spent the CapEx to build. So these are subsurface facilities that were some all there that we produce, find. But now, what if we go use them as subsurface facilities and have access to the hydro carbon that's unrecovered as a cheap carbon source in the feedstock, but we don't want to create fossil fuels on the surface for obvious reasons.
Moji Karimi (28:35):
What if you do the reaction in the subsurface? So use microbes in the subsurface to ferment the oil and produce hydrogen, because that's something that the demand for zero carbon hydrogen is increasing rapidly. And so, that's the principle, and it couples nicely with the fact that we're now realizing that there's even natural sources of hydrogen around the world that you could go explore and drill wells, and just produce hydrogen. So a lot of those have biological sources, so again, bio mimicry. So how is this happening? Can we control that? Can we improve that process to create a new way of producing hydrogen that's cheaper? In our estimation, less than a dollar per kg, but it's also sustainable into the future, given the resources that we have already.
Cody Simms (29:26):
And where are you in the production pipeline here in terms of whether it's commercial readiness, or just general technology readiness?
Moji Karimi (29:33):
Yeah. We've been working on this across the past year, and we just completed our first field trial, which was a big deal in derisking the technology in the Permian Basin just two weeks ago. In that case, basically we injected the microbes into a single well, so the microbes then had exposure to the hydrocarbons. And we basically shut in or closed the well for three days. And then after the three days you reopen the well and you measure, okay, well, how much hydrogen are the microbes producing. And the amount that we saw there was really encouraging, put into the metrics that we're looking for, for commercial deployment, which is to go to a reservoir and basically five to 15 wells to produce 215 tons of hydrogen a day.
Moji Karimi (30:19):
We have line of sight to that now. So we're now getting ready for the second field trial, which is more in the commercial setting where you have, it's not just a single well, you have a producer well, and you have an injector well. So from the injector well, you inject the microbes and the nutrients, and then you produce the hydrogen on the other end. Exactly as you would imagine a subsurface facility, you just introduce the input and you extract the output.
Cody Simms (30:45):
And so if I understand, you've got an oil well that's no longer producing profitably anymore. There's methane obviously in the well as well, because it's just the nature of drilling. Typically, wells are either capturing the methane, which we use as natural gas and connecting it to a pipeline and shipping it off, or they're just flaring it. So you're injecting your microbes in there. Methane is CH4, the microbes are reacting by essentially eating the carbon out of the CH4 and generating hydrogen as a result. Is that generally correct?
Moji Karimi (31:21):
Generally, not to get too technical, this specific solution works better with liquid hydrocarbons, whereas methane is more in the gas phase. Though, more often you see both in the same reservoir, so you're correct. And also, it touches on a different area too, with methane, a lot the natural gas reservoirs, they also produce CO2. So there's this other process called underground methanation. And what they're trying to do there, is to convert more of the CO2-to-methane, so that you reduce the overall emissions that you have to deal with on surface. So this is part of what the oil and gas industry is studying, but for us, we focused on the hydrogen pathway, producing hydrogen on the subsurface.
Cody Simms (32:07):
And then, what happens to the hydrogen when it's produced? If you're at a well that isn't connected to a pipeline, you're still going to have to transport it somehow. And I don't think there are large hydrogen pipelines today that exist across oil wells. So talk about the infrastructure that needs to get built, to support this at scale.
Moji Karimi (32:24):
Yeah. That's where it gets really interesting, and there's a bunch of options that you'll have. First off, because of what you mentioned, is to pick a location where it is close to a hydrogen infrastructure, whether near a blue SMR plant or other use case, or have already some of this commercial arrangements in place. I think California, for that reason, is a great place to do this.
Cody Simms (32:53):
These are producers that are already using methane to generate hydrogen. And so thus, essentially already have a business here and you're helping them explore other pathways to commercialize that same business.
Moji Karimi (33:05):
Yeah. Anyone that has a Steam Methane Reforming plant. I mean, they're already making hydrogen from methane. So of course, they already have pathways for how the hydrogen's been used. And if they're doing blue, it means they have to capture the C2 from that plant, and inject it. So that means they have a study and they have available and nearby subsurface place. So then you can look at a different pocket in that same reservoir to produce gold hydrogen, and then you could mix the gold and the blue. So, that logistically, makes sense.
Moji Karimi (33:37):
But in a more simple way, you could use the hydrogen on surface to turn it into ammonia for easier shipping. You could turn it into electricity. It becomes a case-by-case, what makes sense, but this is also why we have partners like Chart Industries who have invested in gold hydrogen program. And they specialize in liquefaction and transportation of hydrogen, and the rest is just getting off tips.
Cody Simms (34:05):
Great. And now, maybe let's go into your third business line, which is around oil, carbon biomanufacturing. You mentioned being able to generate sustainable aviation fuel. You mentioned something I had not heard of, called renewable natural gas. Maybe explain a bit about what this business line is and what some of the outputs would look like.
Moji Karimi (34:28):
Yeah. This is where Cemvita started. One of our first projects was C2 to bio-ethylene with Oxy. And then from that, the added C2 to SAF and now bring renewable natural action gas. So what we're trying to accomplish here is, we have this problem with CO2, and a lot of focus has been around how to capture it, but then how to get rid of it, to store it in the subsurface. And what happens then is, you are spending money capturing CO2, you're spending money storing CO2. No one is seeing a direct value from that platform for the climate purpose. Yeah, this is CO2 that was out, especially if it was from direct air capture. What we're trying to do is to say, that makes sense in the short term, and we need it.
Moji Karimi (35:18):
We know we need it, because looking at the model with the 2050, even if you store down emissions, we still need to take CO2 out of the air. But going beyond that, eventually we have to get smart about this and figure out ways that companies would by default basically use CO2 and get more CO2 out of the cycle, apart from being dependent for things like 45Q. So what that means is, you have to figure out a way to make money from CO2. And that's why CO2 totalization. If you could turn the CO2 into something else, that's our value, and find someone that will pay for that, then you create a closed-loop carbon system. And that helps, not have to really slow down the economic growth of the world that has been fueled by fossil fuel, but also not have to be punished by the emissions, because we could capture them. We could reuse them. Yeah.
Cody Simms (36:14):
Before we go into the how and the what, that you're developing here, a question I have on CO2 utilization and, we're investors in companies like Twelve and air companies. So we've certainly engaged in companies that are focused on CO2 utilization. I'm curious what you need to do to ensure permanency of the CO2 that is being utilized so that it's not just re-released once the end product that is generated is consumed by someone. So whether that's an alcohol, whether that's carbonation into a beverage, whether that is a perfume, et cetera, I'm very curious what the carbon accounting economics look like there in terms of ensuring that the CO2 that's captured and reused, isn't just then re-released.
Moji Karimi (37:00):
Yeah. I mean, that's an excellent point. In some cases where you are turning the CO2, for example, into PVC, and it becomes a pipe goes under someone's house, let's say a 100 years. In other cases, that's not what happens, especially fuels. And that's why initially, we stayed away from fuels, because we wanted to create more pathways that also have this sequestration built into them. But the reality of it is, in the marketplace, the incentives today are not to make things that also do this sequestration. And so you end up with fuels, and in that case at best, you could be neutral, because you're creating emissions again. And so, that is not to be used as a method of sequestration by itself, but it's like compared to, if you were to just use fuels that didn't use CO2 in the process, then you are creating still more emissions than that. So for each case, we have to do the life cycle assessment to see exactly what are we looking at?
Cody Simms (38:04):
And I suppose there's to some extent, right now, we're trying to make a market. And so, like most things in climate, if you're a complete purist, it gets hard to justify anything. Whereas here, building a market for CO2, even if part of that market is being used to generate products that won't permanently sequester the CO2 and still creating a market for CO2, that some of which will go to permanent sequestration as well. And again, help fund both R&D and scale companies that are working in this space.
Moji Karimi (38:36):
Exactly, yeah. Because sequestration is not always feasible either. If you think about, say Japan right now, even if they wanted to do it, they just don't have the place for it. And actually, one of the things that you mentioned about the bill that just passed, the Inflation Act, and one of the things that I was pushing for, which unfortunately didn't happen this time around, and so many other companies was to increase the incentives also for utilization, because right now we're incentivizing companies just to store the CO2. So then why would they give it to us for utilization if they could get more tax credits by just sequestration?
Moji Karimi (39:17):
But if the objective of government spending the tax money is to give US a strategic advantage in terms of technology, there is no new technology when it comes to sequestration. Just for directed capture, yes, but not for sequestration. That's TRL9 technology. Oxy and others have been doing since 50 years ago. So that utilization is where help is needed, because it's a nation industry, but it could be really impactful. So hopefully next time around, we'll try again to bring more parity to this 45Q.
Cody Simms (39:52):
Yeah. There's been a ton of debate and dialogue in the MCJ Slack community around 45Q and sequestration relative to utilization over the years. And I think obviously what happened now, is trying to encourage oil and gas companies to sequester rather than emit and putting the tax credits toward that. But agree that figuring out how we then can incentivize further innovation by actually utilizing the CO2 for manufacturing, hopefully is the next frontier that we'll get to. So let's talk a bit about then your product line in this area. What does it mean, again, to use microbes to help with essentially carbon to value use cases?
Moji Karimi (40:35):
Yeah. I mean, if you look at the spectrum of pathways, say ethylene is the biggest organic molecule in the world. So it goes pretty much into all polymers and plastics. So if you could make ethylene from CO2, that's really a way that we could decarbonize polymers and plastics. SAF the same way, within a few years they could be even more.
Cody Simms (40:59):
Sorry, I'll interrupt you there just to unpack acronyms. SAF being Sustainable Aviation Fuel.
Moji Karimi (41:05):
Yeah, sorry. Sustainable Aviation Fuels, that all the airlines now, when you book a flight, you could choose and offset your flight carbon footprint. And it shouldn't be just based on offsets, because you did this and then someone goes and plants a tree. It should also be, companies actually changing what they do and how, what fuel they use. So we're seeing this huge demand for Sustainable Aviation Fuels. And we have a pathway that could potentially create the most low carbon way to produce SAF, because the other pathways use biomass, they still need a good amount of energy for the reactions, whereas our pathway doesn't, and uses CO2 as a input and to the process. So SAF, and then the one that you mentioned that is a bit new, is the renewable natural gas.
Moji Karimi (41:54):
So let me touch on that really quick. If you think today, the world supply of natural gas is mostly coming from drilling. You drill while you produce natural gas, but then you also have what they call biogas or renewable natural gas. So this comes from landfills, because all the organic matter is producing methane, or from anerobic digesters who are connected to dairy farms and things like that. So think about what is happening is, basically there's these microbes called methanogens, they make methane. And so, these are the microbes that are inside that anerobic digester. These are the microbes that are at the depth of that landfill producing methane.
Moji Karimi (42:33):
These are also the same microbes that are inside the belly of the cow, which is why they produce methane. So in that case, we said, okay, can we learn from these microbes and create another pathway that it starts from CO2, get us to an intermediate substrate, an intermediate product that we could then use with NRA digestion to produce that end product, which is now called renewable natural gas, because it is renewable.
Moji Karimi (43:00):
So if you think about even what's happening right now in Europe and Russia and Germany, they want to have access to natural gas, but if it's only based on drilling and being shipped somewhere, that's not a good, safe option. You want to be able to produce it in situ, and pathways that is start from CO2 give you that ability, because there's not enough chicken farms and cow farms going around to produce the amount of renewable natural gas to create a dent into the supply farm natural gas. And it's a lower carbon option, which is why you've seen distraction around it.
Cody Simms (43:39):
Yeah. I mean, it does still obviously create emissions, and I assume it is essentially methane. So you have the same concerns and issues that if there are leaks or whatnot, you're releasing highly potent greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. But what I'm hearing you say is, however, it is reusing existing CO2 streams to harness it. And presumably, I would think of this then as a bridge technology, as we bridge our way to a more renewable and clean energy future. Is that how you would think about this?
Moji Karimi (44:12):
Yeah. And generally, this is how I think, like on the outer carbon side, which is the US, and in the natural gas side, same way, if electrification enabled by solar, wind, nuclear, geothermal is going to take a longer time, meaning that we're going to need to continue fossil fuels in the meantime. Why not figure out in the meantime to reduce their emissions, but also create more creative ways of producing the molecule or using those emissions. So that's an example of making renewable natural gas from CO2.
Cody Simms (44:45):
So Moji, you started to go down this path earlier, but we just talked about three incredibly disparate use cases. You're a small startup trying to pursue all of them. My assumption is, it will be really hard for you to be best in the world at multiple pathways at once. I'm curious what you view yourselves as being best in the world at. And I assume it has something to do with the R&D around new microbes for solutions, but maybe help us understand how you view the key expertise and key IP in your business.
Moji Karimi (45:24):
Yeah. That's a great question. And it's one I've thought a lot about. It's also get with this question a lot, because we don't exactly fit into a category that company could say, "Oh, these are the comparable companies." Companies that do a portion of what we do, like Twelve, you mentioned LanzaTech and Ginkgo Bioworks and others, but we're creating a new category for deployment of industry biotech across energy transition. And we don't do things because they're the easier thing to do, or the simpler to explain or things like that. I think about, when they think, and Bill Gates are talking about 2015, the type of companies that would be in the forefront of energy transition, what would they look like? What technologies are they deploying? And coming back from that, what do we need to do today to set us up in that direction?
Moji Karimi (46:19):
So that's the thinking, but in terms of how we manage to do it, we've created a seamless biofoundry, as we call it, where we do cross virtualization of ideas across the three verticals. So they actually, we have a map of interconnection between them and we have a matrix organization where we have business units and business unit leaders who are more industry focused. For example, Morne Weaks, who is a VP of biomining, comes from 25 years in mining industry. But then, we have a workflow for the projects, for microbiology, molecular biology, genetic engineering, scale up, and all projects go through the same workflow. So that allows us to pull this off in something that, from outside, looks like three different companies, but it's very well interconnected or within Cemvita. And yes, a lot of IP involved too across, because as you can imagine, this is all gray areas between different disciplines and less explored. So we have a huge focus on that.
Cody Simms (47:19):
And as I think about the evolution of these sectors and these industries over the last 50, 75 years, these technologies are fairly siloed. Whether it's mining, whether it's managing subsurface resources or whether it's creating in products to be used as feedstocks, those are three very different industries and sectors that have a lot of sunk CapEx into them. And what I'm hearing about you and other companies in the symbio space right now, is the fact that the production side of these businesses is platformized. You're producing things in bioreactors or whatnot, that don't necessarily require heavy sector-specific technology.
Cody Simms (48:07):
And that is enabling you to work across use cases. I still suspect that the go-to market in terms of ultimately transport and logistics of the outputs of your business, are going to need to stay verticalized in the industry sectors that they live in today. And so, what you're really talking about is platformizing the production level of these industries in a way that they haven't been able to do in the past because of sector-specific technology. Am I understanding that correctly in terms of the phenomenon that's happening broadly in synbio?
Moji Karimi (48:43):
You hit the nail exactly on the head. I actually wrote about this at Biofuels Digest, because any synthetic biology company you have to choose or your platform or your product company, right off the bat. And if you make the wrong call, you are screwed. And we've seen that play out in the market, like with ZymoGen is a good example. So what we decided to do is to be a platform, but we're really creative in the way we could go deeper into that vertical to commercialize this applications without the platform being disrupted. For example, if you look at SAF, that's in partnership with United, but Oxy is the execution partner. So Oxy has years of experience in building out and scale up and licensing and all that, so they could help us there. Or if you've got gold hydrogen, that's a wholly owned subsidiary of Cemvita. So that allows gold hydrogen to be more flexible, and what they need to do to bring their solution to market, whereas Cemvita could have stayed focused on the platform.
Cody Simms (49:36):
And so, for every one of these microbes that you're productizing, or microbe solutions that you're productizing maybe more accurately, you then need to make a decision as a business, or are you going to build out the CapEx to support the production of this, or are you going to work in partnership with another organization that has this need and maybe has infrastructure already in place, in which case you may become more of a licensing business than a product business. Or am I hearing you say, you've already made that decision across the whole stack, and thus you look for licensing opportunities for different microbe solutions that you're developing?
Moji Karimi (50:07):
Yeah. I mean, it's fluid. So we evaluate in a case-by-case, but the thing is, people at Cemvita, we come from this industry, we've built plants, we've operated plants, so this is not a mountain to us in terms of how that works. It's more about what makes sense for what pathway in the marketplace, and the speed by which we need to execute.
Cody Simms (50:28):
And how are you typically sourcing solutions? You've built these three very disparate solutions to date. These ideas that you're coming up with, are they companies coming to you and saying, "Hey, is there a solution for this area?" It's probably a little bit all of the above, but maybe walk us through one or two examples of how a project itself came to be.
Moji Karimi (50:50):
It's a really fun process. It goes both ways. We do, what could science enable, at the same time, one thing that has been really important to us and be curated in the past five years, is to build really deep relationship with our current network of customers and investors who include CVCs. So you have Oxy, you have BHP, you have Mitsubishi, you have Sumitomo. And then even 8090, who led our survey and ECB who joined, they have a lot of LPs who either are big companies or built the companies. So you could imagine, through working with them, we get a pretty good sense of what is needed in the marketplace, and then try to convert with what we think is possible, and in the grand scheme of things that we could actually do with the resources that we have.
Moji Karimi (51:42):
So it's a very interesting process of learning. None of these have been an aha moment. There have been several stage gate processes approvals to derisk in, but at the end of the day, I expect us to fail. I expect us to go after moonshot projects, and that's how you know that you are really shooting to knock it out the park, so it's a spectrum. The thing that, to answer your question is interesting is, you have to really understand the intricacies of the customer, what they're dealing with, to be able to know what solution is going to work.
Moji Karimi (52:18):
And so, if you think about renewable natural gas, that's how it is evolved, because it's not just about, oh, this reaction, you have to know how do aerobic digesters operate today? How do you natural gas companies think about it? Some of the national gas companies are now getting into that business, like Chevron, the biggest renewable natural gas company. And so, where do we fit in, in that scenario and finding the right opportunity to start to derisk the technology, protect the IP, package it up, and then to expand from there, to the rest of the market. So our team, this is how they think, and they go through cycles to arrive at what makes sense today and in the future.
Cody Simms (53:02):
How do you see sales and business development changing for companies in your space, whether you directly, or in general?
Moji Karimi (53:09):
I think one area that I really like this happening, is become more creative. You see different ways that companies are collaborating, because energy transition is very collaborative. And the deals are becoming more interesting, and people are open to new ideas. What enables the energy transition? You see a lot of more three-way partnerships too, with the offtaker, the technology provider, and the execution partner. And that allows companies, say like us, like Twelve and others, to bring solutions to market faster. CDCs are playing a bigger role than ever before in energy transition, and so that's been really exciting. And so, what I tell our team is, for any scenario, we just think about what makes sense, and forget about what's the status quo, how they've done it before, what the template they have used, and things like that.
Moji Karimi (54:09):
And then we go say the same thing to our lawyers, just say, this is the deal we want to do. And we go with them, we sit with the client and discuss it and just go from there. But the other aspect helping with this, is that companies make solutions, like this commitments have been made, and the CEOs look at the VPs and say, well, "I need my job. Now you go on and make it happen." So they're really looking for solutions. So that is a good setup for collaboration with the startups, which is why you see your startups in this area growing really rapidly, compared to before.
Cody Simms (54:37):
Yeah. And it sounds like, even roles like sales and business development and marketing need to be super entrepreneurial right now, because you're out having to solve problems in the market, you're not just selling off a rate card. I imagine every person you're bringing on board today has the ability to go fairly deep on the technology that you're developing, and identify what are potential solutions that are relevant for the company, versus not.
Moji Karimi (55:03):
Exactly. Yes.
Cody Simms (55:05):
Well, I really appreciate your time today, Moji. Is there anything I should have asked that I didn't?
Moji Karimi (55:10):
No, I think we covered a good spectrum of everything, and I know it could be a lot, just different solutions and opportunities, but that's what's really exciting about it. It's a new industry, energy transition, and same with the synthetic biology. We're exploring how we could use one solution to solve a problem.
Cody Simms (55:29):
Anyone who is interested today in what you're building, whether as a potential partner, as someone who is excited to try to work with you on this, what are you needing help with right now?
Moji Karimi (55:40):
Yeah, we would love to connect. I mean, everything that we do is built upon collaboration. So we're very open to exploring opportunities with different parties. We have some growth plans in the future. So, a lot of the followers, audience here, I'm sure some of them we know each other, we'll be in touch in different ways, would love to connect with those that I haven't had an opportunity to meet. And yeah, just if you keep an eye on the news coming from Cemvita, we have some exciting things in the pipeline for Q3 and Q4. So yeah, cemvitafactory.com or my LinkedIn, happy to stay in touch.
Cody Simms (56:14):
Moji, I super appreciate your time. Love that you, as a company, breaking down silos, because that's what needs to happen for us to solve climate change. And thank you for joining us today.
Moji Karimi (56:27):
Appreciate it. And Cody, it's also the silo of people like Armin Houston, came from the energy industry. Now we had such fun discussions with tech industry, Silicon Valley, Boston, New York. And at the end of the day, we all have the same goal. It's just the understanding, which is why it's really amazing what you guys are doing. So thanks again for having me.
Cody Simms (56:48):
Absolutely. I couldn't have said it any better. All right, thanks so much.
Moji Karimi (56:51):
Awesome. Thank you.
Jason Jacobs (56:53):
Hey everyone, Jason here. Thanks again for joining me on My Climate Journey. If you'd like to learn more about the journey, you can visit us at myclimatejourney.co. Note, that is .co, not .com. Someday we'll get the .com, but right now, .co. You can also find me on Twitter @JJacobs22, where I would encourage you to share your feedback on the episode, or suggestions for future guests you'd like to hear. And before I let you go, if you enjoyed the show, please share an episode with a friend or consider leaving a review on iTunes. The lawyers made me say that. Thank you.