Beyond Petroleum or British Petroleum?

Amazon invests in Direct Air Capture startup CarbonCapture

• CarbonCapture Inc. receives equity investment from Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund.

• Collaboration between CarbonCapture and Amazon to make 100,000 tons of carbon removal credits available.

• Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund was co-founded by Amazon in 2019 to achieve net-zero carbon by 2040.

• The fund has over 400 signatories, including Best Buy, IBM, Microsoft, PepsiCo, Siemens, Unilever, Verizon, and Visa.

• CarbonCapture aims to democratize access to and reduce the cost of carbon removal credits with Amazon’s support.

• Amazon is committed to decarbonizing its operations through renewable energy, sustainable materials, and electrifying its delivery fleet, while also investing in direct air capture technology to reduce atmospheric carbon.

Frontier makes third round of commitments with another $7 million in carbon

• Frontier facilitates $7 million in carbon removal purchases from 12 companies on behalf of Stripe, Shopify, and H&M Group.

• The companies involved in the purchases are Airhive, Alkali Earth, Banyu Carbon, Carbon Atlantis, CarbonBlue, CarbonRun, EDAC Labs, Holocene, Mati, Planetary Technologies, Spiritus Technologies, and Vaulted Deep.

• Stripe also provides $500,000 in R&D grants to Carboniferous and Rewind, as well as $200,000 to Arbon and Vycarb through a partnership with Activate.

• Frontier evaluated 132 applications and 230 pages of technical reviews over the last three months from its global network of scientific experts.

• There was a significant increase in applications proposing solutions capable of storing CO₂ for 1,000+ years compared to three years ago.

• The selected companies pursue 14 different approaches to carbon removal, including extracting CO₂ from seawater, slurry sequestration technology, and enhancing carbon absorption in rivers.

• These approaches address all five priority innovation areas identified in Frontier’s RFP, including reducing the energy and cost of direct air capture and accelerating weathering rates of geochemical approaches.

• The cohort of companies is geographically diverse, with headquarters in five different countries and deployment sites spanning various locations, including India, Indiana, Nova Scotia, and Israel.

• The selected companies project that they could collectively remove over half a million tons of CO₂ annually by 2026.

Lots of action in the Carbon Removal space. Most recently:

• Amazon’s deal with Oxy’s 1PointFive

• Microsoft’s deal with Heirloom Carbon

• Oxy acquiring Carbon Engineering

• DOE granting DAC hub funding

Bernard Looney is out as BP’s CEO

• BP CEO Bernard Looney resigns abruptly over past relationships with colleagues.

• The company cites that Looney was “not fully transparent” about these relationships, leading to his immediate departure.

• Chief Financial Officer Murray Auchincloss will serve as interim CEO.

• Looney had been leading BP’s transition towards renewable energy and had a prominent role in the company.

• BP had recently faced challenges in defining its pace of the energy transition.

• The board reviewed allegations of personal relationships between Looney and colleagues in May 2022, finding no breach of company code.

• However, further allegations emerged, leading Looney to acknowledge he was not fully transparent in his disclosures.

• Looney had been named CEO in 2019 and was known for advocating for a greener, low-carbon future for the company.

• He had pledged to reduce oil and gas output and invest more in clean energy.

• Looney’s 2022 bonus was reduced due to safety issues, including worker deaths at a BP refinery.

• BP shares have faced pressure, and Looney’s departure follows shifts in the company’s renewable energy strategy.

• BP’s transition strategy had been dialed back earlier this year, leading to changes in its share price.

• The company faces pressure to demonstrate improved returns from renewable energy investments.

• BP shares have been relatively flat compared to competitors like Shell.

• Looney’s resignation is not the first abrupt executive transition for BP, as it had experienced one in 2007 when then-CEO John Browne stepped down.

With Bernard steering the ship of the energy transition despite constant setbacks, will the new BP look revert to its roots?

United signs 1 billion gallon off-take for SAF from Cemvita

• Cemvita Corporation enters into an offtake agreement with United Airlines for up to 1 billion gallons of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from Cemvita’s full-scale SAF plant.

• Cemvita will supply United Airlines with up to 50 million gallons annually for 20 years, producing SAF from CO2.

• United Airlines Ventures President Michael Leskinen highlights Cemvita’s technology as a path forward to address the shortage of available SAF and producers.

• Cemvita’s technology offers a potential supply of SAF with minimal land, water, and electricity requirements and aims to be cost-competitive with existing crop-based feedstocks.

• The SAF produced using Cemvita’s technology has the potential to be carbon-negative.

• United Airlines has been actively investing in SAF producers and innovative technologies to decarbonize air travel.

• They have launched the UAV Sustainable Flight Fund

  to support startups focused on SAF research, technology, and production, with Cemvita as part of the portfolio companies.

• United Airlines has invested more in SAF production than any other global airline.

Chevron acquires majority stake in hydrogen energy storage project

• Chevron U.S.A. Inc., through Chevron New Energies, acquires 100% of Magnum Development, LLC and a majority stake in ACES Delta, LLC, a joint venture with Mitsubishi Power Americas, Inc.

• ACES Delta is developing the Advanced Clean Energy Storage project in Delta, Utah.

• The project uses electrolysis to convert renewable energy into hydrogen and stores it in solution-mined salt caverns for seasonal, dispatchable energy storage.

• The first phase, capable of converting and storing up to 100 metric tons of hydrogen per day, is under construction and expected to be operational by mid-2025.

• Chevron aims to support the Intermountain Power Project’s “IPP Renewed” initiative and provide hydrogen to utility, transportation, and industrial sectors in the western U.S.

• Chevron’s involvement is part of its commitment to lower carbon energy solutions and expanding the hydrogen supply.

• The partnership with Mitsubishi Power aims to create a cost-competitive market for emerging lower carbon solutions.

Sage Geosystems shares results from geothermal pilot for energy storage

• Sage Geosystems announces results from its full-scale commercial pilot for energy storage and geothermal technology.

• The technology offers short- and long-duration energy storage, making it suitable for baseload energy generation.

• It is cost-competitive with lithium-ion batteries, pumped storage hydropower, and natural gas peaker plants.

• Sage’s energy storage technology enhances grid reliability and offers stable power output.

• No induced seismicity was observed during operations.

• The storage technology is scalable and can be used in newly drilled or existing wells, not limited by geography.

• It can optimize energy flow from low-demand to high-demand periods.

• Sage’s energy storage provides a cleaner option for ancillary and black start services, and redistributing curtailed energy.

• The EarthStore™ technology harnesses pressure energy and benefits from the formation’s heat.

• Key pilot results include generating 200kW for over 18 hours (long-duration) and 1MW for 30 minutes (load-following), high subsurface system efficiencies, and costs in line with other storage solutions.

• It can interconnect with power grids or develop microgrids.

• Sage is also working on Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) with a design that halves the cost of traditional EGS two-well systems.

Lyten raises $200 million to produce lithium-sulfur batteries using 3D graphene

• Lyten, Inc. raises $200 million in an oversubscribed Series B funding round.

• The funding will be used to scale manufacturing and commercialize three product lines: Lithium-Sulfur batteries, lightweighted composites, and next-generation IoT sensors.

• The round is led by Prime Movers Lab, with significant participation from strategic investors like Stellantis, FedEx Corporation, Honeywell, and Walbridge Aldinger Company.

• This funding round brings Lyten’s total equity investment to over $410 million since its founding in 2015.

• Lyten aims to deliver commercial Lithium-Sulfur batteries from its automated pilot line in San Jose, CA, by early 2024.

• The company’s mission is to create materials that enable major greenhouse gas-emitting sectors to achieve net-zero emissions without sacrificing performance or profitability.

• The company intends to break ground on scaled-up 3D Graphene and Lithium-Sulfur battery manufacturing facilities in 2024 in the US.

• These batteries offer higher energy density than lithium-ion without using NMC (nickel, manganese, cobalt) or graphite.

• Lyten collaborates with Stellantis, FedEx, the U.S. Government, and other industry leaders to develop lightweight composites and ultra-high sensitivity sensing networks.

• They aim to deliver their first commercial composites application by year-end.

DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.