Project finance, Regulatory

DOE seeking applications for $500m in CO2 transportation infrastructure

Under this FOA, the transport system—which may include pipelines, rail, trucks, barges, and/or ships—must connect, either directly or indirectly, two or more CO2 emitting sources to one or more conversion sites or secure geologic storage facilities.

May 3, 2024

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) is planning to disburse up to $500m for projects that will help expand carbon dioxide (CO₂) transportation infrastructure to help reduce CO₂ emissions across the United States.

America’s carbon transport system is already of significant scale—including multiple methods such as pipelines, trucks, and freight that together transport almost 60 million metric tons of CO₂ per year, the DOE said in a news release. The United States will likely need to capture and permanently store approximately 400–1,800 million tonnes of CO₂ annually to meet its net-zero commitments by 2050. To accommodate the rapid growth of carbon capture and storage industry, we must significantly expand the infrastructure to transport carbon dioxide over the next decade.

This funding opportunity announcement (FOA) will provide future growth grants under DOE’s Carbon Dioxide Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation (CIFIA) program, made available through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Future growth grants are intended to provide financial assistance for designing, developing, and building CO₂ transport capacity up front that will then be available for future carbon capture and direct air capture facilities as they are developed and for additional CO₂ storage and/or conversion sites as they come into operation.

Under this FOA, the transport system—which may include pipelines, rail, trucks, barges, and/or ships—must connect, either directly or indirectly, two or more CO₂ emitting sources to one or more conversion sites or secure geologic storage facilities. DOE is interested in projects sited in different regions that will provide increased understanding of varying CO₂ transport costs, transport modes, and transport network configurations, as well as technical, regulatory, and commercial considerations. This information will help inform DOE’s research and development strategy and to encourage commercial-scale deployment of carbon capture and storage and CO₂removal.

Read more details about this FOA here. All questions must be submitted through FedConnect; register here for an account. The application deadline is July 30, 2024 at 5:00 p.m. ET.

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Project finance, Project news, Raising capital

Navigator Gas makes clean ammonia devcap investment

London-based Navigator received approval for a $2.5m development capital investment into a Gulf Coast clean ammonia project.

Navigator Gas said this week that it had received board approval to make a development capital investment into a clean ammonia export project in the U.S. Gulf Coast.

In its 1Q24 earnings release, the company stated the following:

On May 14, 2024, the Company’s Board of Directors approved a $2.5 million investment in an early-stage clean ammonia export project in the U.S. Gulf coast area. The Company expects to make its first monetary contribution to the project in the second or third quarter of 2024, and we will provide more details as the project develops. This initial investment is development capital, and subject to board approval, we also expect to make larger investments at FID and during the construction phase of the project towards a terminal and ship-shore logistics.

May 16, 2024

Innovation, Project news

US steelmaker committing to hydrogen offtake

A US steelmaker has made offtake commitments to several hydrogen hubs in development, in an effort to support reliable supply and affordability. The resulting steel will be sold at a premium to the auto industry.

Cleveland-Cliffs, the largest producer of flat-rolled steel in the US, is starting to make commitments to several hydrogen hubs in the Midwest in an effort to advance the supply of clean hydrogen.

In remarks last week, Cleveland-Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves said his company is seeking to break the hydrogen industry’s chicken-and-egg dilemma by committing to offtake from proposed hubs in Ohio and Northwest Indiana.

As it stands, industrial gas producers don’t produce hydrogen at scale to reduce costs because there’s no demand, Goncalves said. And there’s no demand, he added, because there’s no supply.

“We are breaking this chicken-and-egg conundrum by committing with offtakes to the hubs,” he said, noting his company will take half of the offtake from the Toledo, Ohio hub being developed by Linde and other partners.

“The footprint [of the project] is 100 tons per day,” Goncalves said. “Our offtake there is 50 tons per day,” with the additional 50 tons per day likely taken up by other industries like automotive, he added.

Meanwhile, Cleveland-Cliffs has made an offtake commitment to a Northwest Indiana hub being developed by Constellation and bp, Goncalves said.

Cliffs recently conducted a trial use of hydrogen in steelmaking at its Middletown Works blast furnace, and is set to launch another trial at its Indiana Harbor facility, which is near the proposed Northwest Indiana hub.

Due to the proximity of the company’s steelmaking facilities using hydrogen, Cleveland-Cliffs has committed to 200 tons per day of offtake from the Northwest Indiana hub, which is expected to produce 1,000 tons per day. Cliffs made further commitments for offtake with bp for hydrogen produced elsewhere in Northwest Indiana, Goncalves said.

According to Goncalves, the hydrogen production could turn the region into a producer of hydrogen cars.

“So that would make for us to be the enabler of having the automotive industry building stuff in Northwest Indiana to produce hydrogen cars if the OEMs really pursue this route,” he said.

He added that he is hoping that the hydrogen trial at its Indiana Harbor No. 7 facility will be done with a permanent pipeline.

Steel premiums

Cliffs is already charging a premium of around $40 per ton to automotive clients for steel produced using lower carbon feedstock from the company’s HBI facility. Goncalves estimates that this cost gets passed on to the ultimate buyer of a new car, raising the window sticker MSRP price of a car by around 0.1%.

“As one of the largest suppliers of steel to the automotive industry in the world, Cleveland-Cliffs wants to continue to invest in green initiatives,” Goncalves said. “And therefore, we need to be paid for that. That’s not unreasonable and should actually be expected and universally accepted.”

The current HBI steel product, called Cliffs H, will become Cliffs H2 – and become even more expensive – once hydrogen is available in larger and more affordable amounts, according to the executive. And when hydrogen completely replaces natural gas, the product will be called Cliffs H Max, where the steelmaking process has reached minimum theoretical coke rates – likely around 2029 or 2030, he said.

July 31, 2023

Innovation, Project finance, Raising capital

Carbon utilization firm raises $20m Series A

Investors include Korea’s Envisioning Partners as well as United Airlines’ Sustainable Flight Fund and Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund.

Dimensional Energy, Inc., a CO2-to-SAF and carbon utilization technology firm has closed a $20m Series A funding round.

In addition, the climate tech company announces their filing of the Delaware Public Benefit Corporation Charter, the first step in becoming a certified B Corporation.

The funding round was led by Envisioning Partners, a prominent Korea-based impact venture capital fund with a strong global focus on climate investing, with strategic participation from United Airlines’ Sustainable Flight Fund, Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund, RockCreek Group’s Smart Aviation Futures fund, DSC Investment, Delek US, New York Ventures, Climate Tech Circle, and continuing support from existing investors Elemental Excelerator, Chloe Capital, and Launch New York among others, according to a news release.

The Series A round funding, combined with committed third-party project financing, positions Dimensional Energy for significant growth, enabling the company to rapidly achieve commercial scale and expand its portfolio of high-value, financially attractive projects, according to the company.

ReSource reported in August that the firm was in the late stages of a roughly $100m equity and debt round led internally.

In May, the company signed an offtake agreement for 5 million gallons per year with Boom Supersonic, which is seeking to build a supersonic airliner that will travel at speeds twice as fast as today’s commercial jets.

Dimensional Energy will allocate the newly raised funds to advance its key initiatives:

Construction of the world’s first advanced power-to-liquid (PtL) fuels plant, utilizing emissions from the Lafarge Richmond Cement Plant in British Columbia, Canada, in partnership with Svante, a leader in carbon capture technology.
The continued development of commercial power-to-liquid plants globally including a project with financing from Seneca Environmental and development support from Elemental Excelerator’s Infrastructure and Community Engagement programs.
Introduction of Dimensional Energy’s first consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) products, including fossil-free surf wax and a cruelty-free fat alternative tailored for vegan food manufacturers.
Technology advancements including the evolution of Dimensional Energy’s proprietary reactor and catalyst technologies, which are being developed with funding from the Department of Energy’s ARPA-E and SETO programs, in collaboration with Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Cornell University. These innovations are field-tested at Dimensional Energy’s technology center in Tucson, Arizona.

December 12, 2023

exclusive

Innovation, Project finance, Project news

Canadian renewables major eyeing hydrogen production at pumped hydro facility

Canadian power generation giant TransAlta could co-locate hydrogen production with select wind and hydroelectric facilities.

TransAlta, the Canadian power generator and wholesale marketing company, is contemplating a buildout of hydrogen production capabilities at its 320 MW Tent Mountain pumped hydro storage project in Alberta, Executive Vice President of Alberta Business Blain van Melle said in an interview.

“Our view on hydrogen is that it’s a technology that’s an option, somewhat further out in the future, particularly when it comes to power generation,” van Melle said. “If we can offer our customers maybe a power and hydrogen solution, and they’re using the hydrogen in another process, that would be something we would look at.”

In early 2022 TransAlta made a CAD 2m equity investment in Ekona Power, a methane pyrolysis company based in Vancouver. The company also committed USD $25m over four years to EIP’s Deep Decarbonization Frontier Fund 1.

That latter investment is a way to continue to learn about hydrogen and have exposure to emerging technologies, van Melle said.

The recent 50% stake acquisition in the Tent Mountain project includes the intellectual property associated with a 100 MW offsite green hydrogen electrolyzer and a 100 MW offsite wind development project.

Having hydrogen production co-located with wind and pumped hydro storage could make sense for the company in a few years, van Melle said. FID on Tent Mountain could be reached sometime in 2025 and will require the company to secure a PPA offtake and determine capital cost. Development work will take three to four years and earliest construction could begin in 2026.

The company has not had discussions with potential offtakers, van Melle said, adding that development on the pumped hydro facility needs to mature before a hydrogen component advances.

March 1, 2023

Project finance, Project news, Raising capital

Exclusive: Hydrocarbon recycling firm raising pre-IPO equity

An early-stage company capturing and recycling CO2 from hydrocarbon engines in the northeastern US and Germany has hired an investment bank to help them with a public listing and is raising pre-IPO platform equity.

ESG Clean Energy, a Massachusetts-based carbon capture and recycling firm formed in 2016, plans to go public in 2025 but will first raise pre-IPO platform equity, CEO Nick Scuderi said in an interview.

ESG Clean Energy will change its name in a re-brand and has hired an investment bank to help with the IPO, which does not yet have a targeted quarter, Scuderi said. He declined to name the advisor.

After the name change but prior to the public listing, ESG is seeking to raise between $20m and $40m in platform equity, he said. The company is interested in a traditional IPO, not a SPAC or private debut opportunity.

Angel investors have backed the company to date, with some $40m total raised, Scuderi said. He owns a controlling stake in the company.

Power, water and CO2

ESG Clean Energy, billed as a thermal dynamics and fluid mechanics engineering company, has patented technology for use in fossil combustion engines – both piston-driven engines and bottoming cycles (secondary thermal dynamic waste-to-energy systems). Exhaust is treated to produce CO2 and water.

The technology is commercialized, producing power at a facility in Holyoke, Massachusetts under a 5 MW/20-year PPA with Holyoke Gas & Electric. The 5,000 square-foot plant in the city proper has two Caterpillar G3520 natural gas engines each producing 2 MW of power running on natural gas during peak hours.

The waste-heat from Holyoke One is used to create commodities, including distilled water.

“What we have is a design, a system, where we utilize our technology to separate the water from the exhaust,” Scuderi said. “We can utilize this technology in any power plant in the US that’s running on natural gas.”

In arid regions, the distilled water aspect has obvious potential. The Holyoke One facility makes up to 14,000 gallons of distilled water per day, Scuderi said.

The system is also applicable in ICE engines, Suderi said. The company has been in discussions with auto manufacturers to license ESG’s IP; he declined to name which auto companies.

The CO2 is sold to offtakers who do not re-emit it into the atmosphere, such as cannabis growers and CO2 beverage makers. ESG is also able to sell carbon credits.

Bankable opportunities in the US and Germany

Holyoke One, at a cost of $20m, can be replicated throughout the US and, post-IPO, ESG has eyes on power projects in New England, California and Florida, Scuderi said.

Power plants that produce from 100 MWh to 200 MWh will cost between $400m and $450m, and each of those projects will be set up as a separate LLC, Scuderi said. The demand is particularly large in powering data storage.

“We have different [investment] funds that are very large that are willing to put up the money” to fund the projects, Scuderi said. “It’s bankable because the power sales agreement is tied to a data storage company that’s triple-A rated.”

Data-heavy geographies like Virginia are targets for this kind of development, and ESG plans to sharpen its focus on these projects, as well as project finance efforts, following the IPO.

Now, the company has six large scale projects in development in Germany, including one advanced project serving a cloud computing offtaker in the Berlin area, needing 150 MW to 200 MW of power per hour, Scuderi said.

“In Germany, we’re very far along with getting power sales agreements,” he said. “Once we deploy this technology in one location, the world’s going to want it.”

February 27, 2024

exclusive

Personnel moves

Advisor Profile: Cameron Lynch of Energy & Industrial Advisory Partners

The veteran engineer and financial advisor sees widespread opportunity for capital deployment into early-stage renewable fuel companies.

Cameron Lynch, co-founder and managing partner at Energy & Industrial Advisory Partners, sees prodigious opportunity to pick up mandates in the hydrogen sector as young companies and early movers attract well-capitalized investors looking for auspicious valuations.

The firm, a three-year-old boutique investment banking outfit with offices in New York and Houston, is broadly committed to the energy transition, but is recruiting for new personnel with hydrogen expertise, Lynch said, adding that he is preparing for a new level of dealmaking in the new year.

“I think we can all expect 2023 will be even more of a record year, just given the appetite for hydrogen,” Lynch said. “Hydrogen is one of our core focuses for next year.”

Cameron Lynch

Lynch started his career as a civil & structural engineer and moved into capital equipment manufacturing and leasing for oil & gas, and also industrial gasses –things like cryoge

nic handling equipment for liquid nitrogen. He started the London office of an Aberdeen, U.K.-based M&A firm, before repeating that effort in New York.

Founding EIAP, Lynch and his business partner Sean Shafer have turned toward the energy transition and away from conventional energy. The firm works on the whole of decarbonization but has found the most success in the hydrogen space.

Earlier lifecycle, better valuations

Hydrogen intersects with oil& gas, nuclear, chemicals, midstream companies, and major manufacturing.

Large private equity funds that want to get into the space are realizing that if they don’t want to pay “ridiculous valuations for hydrogen companies” they must take on earlier-stage risk, Lynch said.

Interest from big private equity is therefore comparatively high for early-stage capital raising in the hydrogen sector, Lynch said, particularly where funds have the option to deploy more capital in the future, Lynch said.

“They’re willing to take that step down to what would normally be below their investment threshold.”

Lynch, who expects to launch several transactions in the coming months with EIAP, has a strong background in oil & gas, and views hydrogen valuations as a compelling opportunity now.

“It’s very refreshing to be working on stuff that’s attracting these superb valuations,” Lynch said.

There’s a lot of non-dilutive money in the market and the Inflation Reduction Act has been a major boon to investors, Lynch said. For small companies, getting a slice of the pie is potentially life changing.

The hydrogen space is not immune to the macroeconomic challenges that renewables have faced in recent months and years, Lynch said. But as those same challenges have accelerated the move toward energy security, hydrogen stands to benefit.

Supply chain issues post-COVID pose a potential long-term concern in the industry, and equity and debt providers question the availability of compressors and lead times.

“I would say that’s one of the key issues out there,” Lynch said. There’s also the question of available infrastructure and the extent to which new infrastructure will be built out for hydrogen.

EIAP sees the most convincing uses for hydrogen near term in light-weight mobility and aerospace, Lynch said. The molecule also has a strong use case in back-up generation.

Hydrogen additionally presents companies in traditional fossil fuel verticals the opportunity to modernize, Lynch said, citing a secondary trade EIAP completed earlier this year

California’s Suburban Propane Partners acquired a roughly 25% equity stake in Ashburn, Virginia-based Independence Hydrogen, Inc. The deal involved the creation of a new subsidiary, Suburban Renewable Energy, as part of its long-term strategic goal of building out a renewable energy platform.

December 13, 2022