Energytech Startups

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Unknown
Energy tech doesn't move forward alone, and neither should you. Energy tech cipher brings together the founders, investors, operators and corporates, shaping what's next, from innovation trends to data driven insights. This is where the ecosystem connects, collaborates and moves. Find your place in the ecosystem at Energetic Cipher. That's cipher as in C, PHER where we bring the community together online and in person.

00;00;29;11 - 00;00;55;18
Unknown
Everything is bigger in Texas, including climate change, but luckily Houston is leading the energy transition here in town, the fourth largest city in the United States. Entrepreneurs from across Texas and around the world gathered to work with titans of industry to build the technology that will reduce emissions and power a low carbon future. We sit down with those changemakers and wildcatters who are solving the toughest energy challenges, with trillions of dollars on the line.

00;00;55;19 - 00;01;14;19
Unknown
We dig into how Houston will bring technology to market on a massive scale. Join us as we talk with leaders from the energy capital of the world, as they show us how the energy transition gets done. I am Nada Ahmed and this is the Energy Technology podcast, and I'm Jason Etienne. Let's jump in. Welcome back to the show everybody.

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Unknown
We are here with someone very special today, Mr. Davis from wood. And you'll expand to us what what actually does. And she's the director of strategic Advisory Americas. Atwood. So welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Yeah. So tell us a little bit about what? For people who might not. I mean, we in Houston are quite familiar with with wood as a consultancy, but I'm sure there's it's a big company and there's a lot of different things that you guys touch on.

00;01;44;01 - 00;02;15;19
Unknown
Give us kind of that overview. And then also specifically your role. Okay, sure. So what is a it is a very big company. So we're a global engineering consulting and operations firm that we we serve the energy and materials sectors, which also sounds very broad, but that what that means is on the energy side, we do everything from, you know, all and gas power, including thermal power generation as well as renewables.

00;02;15;22 - 00;02;44;21
Unknown
And then on the materials side, we do anywhere from chemicals, life cycle, life sciences, pharmaceuticals and mining and metals. And so our business is broken up into three different sectors. Our project sector is essentially, the EVC arm of our company operations. We have operators, maintenance experts that are the boots on the ground for a lot of our clients and know these assets inside and out.

00;02;44;26 - 00;03;16;21
Unknown
And then on the consulting side, which is where I sit, we we do we really cover the entire project lifecycle. So anything from very early phase advisory concept all the way through operations improvement is something that our specialists, do and consult with from on the technical side and as well as in on the digital side. So digital operations, asset management, those sorts of things.

00;03;16;23 - 00;03;31;07
Unknown
Awesome. Okay. If you can break it down for someone like me who actually doesn't know much about how the industry works at a big scale. Sure. Like, what kind of projects are we talking about? Are we talking about someone wants to develop, I don't know, a wind farm or they want to build a dam or like, how does.

00;03;31;08 - 00;03;55;19
Unknown
Yeah. What? Like what what what size of thing are we talking about when you involved? Yeah. So I'm going to give a broad answer, but we, we work on projects that are, you know, anywhere from very small. We've done, you know, pilot. We've helped startups with pilot. And then we do, you know, giant megaprojects. So gigawatt scale projects, those typically come on, come on in smaller sizes.

00;03;55;19 - 00;04;27;08
Unknown
You won't bring an entire gigawatt online at once usually. But yeah. So wind farms we do that. We do solar energy storage. Really anything energy. So also I guess on the upstream and gas side, you know, anywhere from offshore platforms to, refining, petrochemicals. We've worked on green hydrogen projects, staff projects, a lot on the energy transition side as well.

00;04;27;11 - 00;04;53;27
Unknown
I'm very curious, do you have nuclear projects coming in the in the pipe? We have some that are right now, like very advisory focused. But nuclear is a interesting sector for sure. A lot more traction. We've seen but I think there are still some challenges in terms of licensing, permitting, public sentiment, but it's one that I'm very interested to follow.

00;04;53;28 - 00;05;21;08
Unknown
Interesting. All all across the energy. So did what kind of start more as an engineering consultancy and then moved into more, you know, the advisory work that you do. You know, tell us a little bit about the history of wood. So would. I don't know if I can cover it properly, but we our, our history is over 60 years and we have a lot of, I guess, other companies that have come together that you might have or might not have heard of.

00;05;21;12 - 00;05;52;22
Unknown
So Mustang engineering, Amec Foster Wheeler, JP Kenney are just a few of the brands. So the way wood has grown is that there have been certain companies that are like maybe specific to one sector, and we've brought it under the same umbrella of wood. And wood now actually serves as the energy and materials pillar of sadhana. That's our, our parent company now.

00;05;52;25 - 00;06;22;08
Unknown
Okay. Fascinating. And tell us about your journey and how you ended up in this role today for the starting from wood or do you want me to? We can go all the way back to and whatever you think would be interesting. Yeah. What's interesting? Sure. So my background, I'm a chemical engineer by schooling. I, I started out with Schlumberger, actually, so I worked on the upstream side.

00;06;22;08 - 00;06;55;06
Unknown
I was a wireline field engineer, so would go out to, well, sites and did that for a couple of years before. I kind of wanted to move into into something, you know, a little bit different. So I actually started out on the Mustang side. I came to would then which Mustang is now under the wood umbrella. But I started out in automation and control systems, and that was something that was very interesting to me because it really covered the entire energy spectrum.

00;06;55;06 - 00;07;42;03
Unknown
So when I did that, I got to work on, you know, upstream projects, downstream projects, midstream chemicals. I saw a really a diverse range of of projects and the energy ecosystem and did that for about ten years. And then I moved still within wood. I did some business development. I've always been interested in energy transition and decarbonization. So I after my business development, a role, I moved into a, a decarbonization focused role working on really lifecycle assessment, carbon accounting and that sort of thing for a couple of years.

00;07;42;05 - 00;08;22;13
Unknown
That's another area that would have built out expertise and that we're quite proud of. And then after that, I moved into this wider strategy role where, you know, decarbonization is a piece, but it, it, it really covers our entire kind of consulting arm. And what we do is we look to bring kind of the domain expertise in the technical expertise that we have all in all of these industries to our clients, our partners who are sometimes, you know, investors working on things like due diligence for, you know, before they need to make big decisions on some of these transactions.

00;08;22;15 - 00;08;48;13
Unknown
So in terms of like when you know how you get clients to do this kind of work, is it do you respond to RFP? Is it like building on relationships and understanding what customers need? Yeah, it's a bit of both. Certainly we, you know, get RFPs, but we also have built many customer relationships. We work with a lot of the big energy companies here in Houston as well as around the world.

00;08;48;16 - 00;09;17;06
Unknown
So, yeah, it's it's it's a very broad range of things. Someone is just, you know, through networking. We we've met with different, you know, whether it's startups or investors, if there's a need for, you know, engineering or advice, advisory services, domain expertise, we are happy to help. No, I was glad you explained a little bit about wood controls because I was thinking when we sat down like I only know what is a controls company.

00;09;17;12 - 00;09;43;09
Unknown
And because I worked on, I worked on surface equipment before and just had like no concept that there's like more to this business because we saw the like wood controls team everywhere. Okay. And so I'm glad I wasn't going to make too much of a fool myself on the air. A small part of this organization, different, different, you know, areas, different customers know us for different things because we do cover such a broad range of services.

00;09;43;13 - 00;09;58;07
Unknown
Yeah. I'm a little curious because you said you started out wireline and and I think, just because I'm curious and I'm just thinking of the timing. I mean, what does it mean to be like a young woman out in the field kind of doing I don't want to say real engineering work, but like, you know, it's a real guy.

00;09;58;12 - 00;10;25;27
Unknown
Intense, you know? Yeah. Macho industry in some ways. Yeah, it it was definitely interesting. I was actually kind of like Schlumberger directed me towards wireline because, I mean, they saw it as more of, like a, a technical, part of field services in terms of, like analyzing data. But, so I actually worked for them up in Bakersfield, California, was my field assignment.

00;10;25;27 - 00;10;54;25
Unknown
And out there, you know, everyone is is usually very nice. I didn't run into too many, like, bad experiences, but it is, I don't know that I've been. I probably count on one hand how many well, sites I was on where there was another woman. One very distinct kind of thing that I remember and always tell people is in some ways it was nice because like, some of the customers liked to,

00;10;54;27 - 00;11;16;11
Unknown
Make sure that there was a women's bathroom so I would get, you know, carted out my own porta potty, which is very fancy. But yeah, it's and I don't think it's not even just being a woman. Right. Like, for me, it was my first role at a school or SLB, I should say no. This is really a great job of training their, engineers.

00;11;16;11 - 00;11;51;14
Unknown
They they send you basically to SLB school, I'm sure. I'm thinking they still have that facility. Mine was up in Tulsa, and they put you through training. But then when you get out there and, well, initially you get out there, you're, you're partnered with a more senior engineer or specialist to kind of learn the ropes, but that's only for, you know, anyone from six months to the to a year, and then you're kind of on your own, usually the youngest person on kind of a field site, you're working with, much more experienced operators and the, well site staff.

00;11;51;14 - 00;12;15;26
Unknown
So there's a level of humility that you have to have, and not, you know, be to, I don't know, think too much of yourself because as the engineer on site, you are, you know, have some that level of seniority. It's your site at the time while you're running, the services. But you have to understand that the people around you are very much more experienced.

00;12;15;26 - 00;12;53;16
Unknown
And that's how I was kind of able to set myself up for success. Do you do you think that like field experience? I guess my question is, like in your world today, does that kind of street cred matter that you can't you had field experience versus because the role you're in today is so different? Yeah, I assume I don't know if I would call it street cred, but it's it was definitely a super valuable in being able to know what what it what it looks like right upstream, what it looks like at a wall site, how even a well is completed when you're trying to, advise on different things?

00;12;53;18 - 00;13;19;10
Unknown
I guess maybe it is. It is a it does give you a level of credibility. I just didn't think of it as street credible credibility. But yeah, I, I and I always tell my any junior engineers, newer engineers that if you have a chance to get out there and do field experience, even, you know, at refineries at all of these facilities, you're working and that's, it's really invaluable.

00;13;19;12 - 00;13;40;27
Unknown
And how do you work. You know you've seen probably would change a lot over the how many years have you been. I would I mean almost 14, 14 years. I was gonna say you, you went through the entire shale revolution there, right. Yeah. Yes. I did one of my, close, close colleagues and friends was much more involved on the shell side.

00;13;40;28 - 00;14;10;21
Unknown
I did not have too much exposure. Exposure to shell, my kind of upstream type work, was mostly offshore. But, yes, there there have been many changes. I will say, when you're kind of, you know, starting as an engineer. I did not pay as much attention to what all the different corporate changes were. I don't think I did for probably the first ten years of my career.

00;14;10;21 - 00;14;39;14
Unknown
So I probably can't give you like, a great history, but I, I think, so one great thing about automation and control systems, right? As a, not really an industry, but as maybe a sector. Is that you, whether you're doing, you know, offshore oil and gas or refining, or, or chemicals or whatever industrial process it may be, you need control systems, right?

00;14;39;14 - 00;15;02;12
Unknown
So one, in terms of like stability, it was nice being on that side because as you know, and gas goes in cycles. But, you know, when all prices are high refining is usually down and vice versa. So that was a good way to kind of keep busy. And being being able to see both sides of, of that industry.

00;15;02;14 - 00;15;32;17
Unknown
And how do you work internally, how you've seen would work internally with innovation and adapting to like new business, new industries that are being, developing or evolving? Yeah. So probably the last kind of three, three or so, 3 or 4 years of my career at would I have been exposed to a lot of, you know, the energy transition I think we all saw right after, what, 2022 when the Inflation Reduction Act came out?

00;15;32;17 - 00;16;02;02
Unknown
There was so much excitement, a lot of investment kind of poured into, a lot of different projects, specifically in hydrogen, whether it was blue hydrogen or green hydrogen. We kind of get away from the hydrogen rainbow now. But those were two that were there was a lot of excitement around specifically. And we saw some very, oh, trying to think of the best way to say it, like ambitious projects.

00;16;02;07 - 00;16;26;07
Unknown
And it was I think it almost did a disservice to the hydrogen sector, because we saw a lot of people who maybe didn't have the background in these industrial processes, didn't really know what goes into bringing something online or the the safety aspects around them or the permitting, they would, you know, come in and want to start with gigawatt sized projects.

00;16;26;11 - 00;16;51;01
Unknown
And a lot of that is wasn't right as a first step, very economical. And they weren't like the quality projects that you would really want to, kind of give credibility to the sector. So we saw a lot of those projects. We did a lot of engineering on those projects. Some of them, you know, were very, they were never going to going to pass.

00;16;51;02 - 00;17;16;05
Unknown
Right. So, you know, if you're if you're Electrolyzer project needs the entire city's water supply, it's probably not a great project. And and I'm not I'm exaggerating a little bit, but not not as much as as one might think. What happens when you deliver that kind of news to a founding team? How do they respond? Usually, I mean, it depends.

00;17;16;06 - 00;17;57;26
Unknown
Usually not. Well, a lot of times it really is. A lot of it's a different type of client, and it depends on whether they have experience in industry. And I think that's something that is, very critical. Right. As a, as a founder, not maybe to have your own hands on experience, but you should have someone on your team who has, you know, a voice to, to be able to, to actually inform, what it, what kind of the industry challenges are, what maybe the risks that industry is willing to take and just, getting to commercialization.

00;17;57;26 - 00;18;21;02
Unknown
But, yeah. So back to your question. It was it's definitely an interesting dynamic because, you know, as a as the engineering firm or the consulting firm, delivering that type of news is obviously, you know, it's not great news. So a lot of times we'd get pushed back. Right. And, and some of it, it was from the whole ecosystem.

00;18;21;09 - 00;18;45;02
Unknown
Because a lot of times for these projects, you get quotes from the OEMs, right? The, the, your vendors, the electrolyzer manufacturers, whoever it may be. And those are typically optimistic. And then when you put the whole engineering package together, you find like, oh, your your project is actually two and a half, five times more than, than what you thought it was going to be.

00;18;45;03 - 00;19;08;15
Unknown
And, and so but the client, the founder, the whoever the project developer is, how I would, I would put it they don't want to hear that. And you like that's devastating news. So a lot of times, there's pushback like, well, maybe your engineering isn't right or, or there's got to be something wrong in your estimate, because how can it be that much more than what we thought it was?

00;19;08;16 - 00;19;27;06
Unknown
So very. Yeah. So hard conversations. But but I mean, that wasn't true for every single project developer we worked with. Right. It's not. And I assume it's also not fly by night. There's a there's a whole spreadsheet and then some that supports it. But I having been in the founders shoes, it's, hard to imagine all the details.

00;19;27;06 - 00;19;48;15
Unknown
And I think that's, that's part of why you do need like real, real engineering to come in and, and, and kind of support it. But I'm curious, you know, when you give that bad news to an entrepreneur, do they, after they get over there, I don't know. Depression, do they come back and say, no, we're gonna we're gonna solve these problems that drive cost or like, how do you did you kind of have that kind of back and forth to help them get to the right answer?

00;19;48;21 - 00;20;20;14
Unknown
Yeah. So I mean, depending on the on the again, the developer, yes, we would always offer some value engineering and and it really depends. Right. How is any amount of engineering going to close the gap, or do you need to really go back to the drawing table. And and one thing right, like when you're going to from like a pilot scale to the commercial scale that you want to be able to repeat, the cost is not always it's not necessarily linear, right?

00;20;20;16 - 00;20;48;03
Unknown
There's lots of complexities with utilities when you think about power and water consumption and, and managing any, affluent streams, those sorts of things. So, yeah, it takes a lot of I mean, when you get knocked down, you have to get back up, as they say. Yeah, yeah. Because but also, you know, it's not like the people coming to your entrepreneurs in the sense that way we work with entrepreneurs like.

00;20;48;06 - 00;21;14;13
Unknown
No, but like the way we work with entrepreneurs. But these are like big developers who've done many of these projects before. Maybe they're doing a new project that's a little bit different or a new industry, but often they're also parts of big corporates. They'll have a development team or. Yeah. Thanks for listening. If you're fundraising now or know someone who is, I want to tell you about saffron, our investor relationship management product for energy tech founders.

00;21;14;19 - 00;21;39;02
Unknown
Think of it as a CRM built for energy fundraising. Use our recommendation engine to find the right investors faster, and then track every conversation and stay connected through your raise. There's a free tier so you can start today at no cost. That's cephyron.com. Now thanks. And back to the show. Yeah. No, no, that's that's fair. So it's interesting the ones that.

00;21;39;09 - 00;22;15;13
Unknown
So it also depends if you've had if your developer have you had experience. So if you're doing hydrogen for example, if you have been, you know, maybe a renewables developer when you, are doing a project that involves molecules in like, especially for something that's like volatile and and flammable, just a different safety challenges and the complexity of these types of projects, are, are really very different than in the infrastructure or the renewable side.

00;22;15;16 - 00;22;42;26
Unknown
Not to say there's not challenges there either. Right? You're dealing with lots of high voltage equipment, but but yeah, process processes where you're moving, molecules that, you know, one are very tiny, can explode it and need to be, you know, compressed to very high, high pressures. And when you have high temperatures, those are a lot of different challenges that you, you might not have been exposed to before.

00;22;42;28 - 00;23;02;29
Unknown
So I guess the scope of work, like depending on the project, could be like the techno economic assessment, like is it economically viable? And then there's also the risk assessment piece. I'm sure you guys also do like different risk assessments of like, yeah, is this economically might make sense, but is it putting a lot of risk in the community where you're building this plant.

00;23;03;01 - 00;23;24;29
Unknown
Yeah, exactly. So the you have the techno economics and I'm glad you said community because that is a, a big part of developing these projects. And you can see a lot of it now with data centers. Right. And so, even so, like if you take carbon capture projects, for example, you wouldn't hear about those too much in the news.

00;23;25;02 - 00;23;54;24
Unknown
But when you get to like the local level, the community pushback was was quite big. And and we know maybe like if you are familiar with the industry, if you know what carbon capture is, you kind of already have an understanding that like, hey, this if I, you know, if I already have, I'm going to say a refinery, if I'm going to add a carbon capture, system and store CO2, then that is taking pollutants that would otherwise.

00;23;54;25 - 00;24;23;03
Unknown
Right, go into the air and it'll it adds a environmental friendliness aspect. But the the general public, they don't necessarily know that they don't follow, you know, what's going on. So, a big part of of having these first of a kind of a kind projects move forward is that, information transference in education for the local communities where you want to put these projects in.

00;24;23;07 - 00;24;45;26
Unknown
Otherwise they're just not going to move forward. And that's one where we talked about nuclear earlier that I think is going to be very interesting, especially because of all the pushback we're seeing from data centers. Right. And I think, yeah, people don't realize it's always often the permitting that's the biggest risk. And that's a lot to do with public perception and how you're working with the different stakeholders in that community.

00;24;45;27 - 00;25;08;28
Unknown
I mean, I early in my career worked in and that was the biggest risk for CCS projects. They're probably a lot safer than storing natural gas. But people live around natural gas reservoirs because there's always been there, and they built communities around it. And then when you talk to them about introducing CO2 underground, they find that really scary.

00;25;09;01 - 00;25;53;12
Unknown
Where CO2 is, you know, you not as toxic, toxic as natural gas. Absolutely. And, we actually partner with the University of Houston and other universities around Texas and in the US, or probably other many other regions as well. But, they're they actually, did an interesting study. I think this was in partnership with Hetty, the Houston Energy Transition Initiative on, CO2 storage to address some of those community concerns and to help kind of have a, have an overview, because I believe it was a systemic review of many different studies.

00;25;53;14 - 00;26;13;03
Unknown
But yeah, that's such an important part of moving this, these projects forward, I would say as important or maybe even more than the techno economics of a project. So I want to go back a little and, you said, you know, you're working with startups, but you also kind of leaned into this role with, like carbon advisory.

00;26;13;05 - 00;26;41;04
Unknown
Like what? What turned that on from you? Obviously, coming from an oil and gas background was this walk us through that thought process of you saying, I want to do this. Yeah. So I've always been interested in decriminalization and energy transition. So back when I was doing chemical engineering, my my undergrad, I remember my like, senior project was on CCS, because I've always felt very passionate about climate justice.

00;26;41;11 - 00;27;12;13
Unknown
And I was actually born in Kandy, Suri Lanka and Sri Lanka is actually, I believe, the the country that is the most, if not very close to up there at risk from like climate change. Right. And energy is so important to to everybody. But we also don't want to, you know, have access to energy at the expense of our health or, you know, anyone else's health.

00;27;12;13 - 00;27;36;08
Unknown
Really. So putting those two kind of things together, when I was given the opportunity, I was actually part of it was my, my leadership, my my peers, they all knew, right, that I was interested in decarbonization. So actually, when the the role came up, I was asked if I would. Well, I was asked if I knew if anyone who was interested.

00;27;36;08 - 00;28;00;23
Unknown
And I said, yeah, me. Always. Is that like, yeah, yeah, it could be. But yeah. So that I mean hopefully that answered your question, but it was just it's been something that I've been interested in and I just love all of the innovation in the sector and doing, new things. So I'm someone who is very much like a lens jack of all trades.

00;28;00;23 - 00;28;23;09
Unknown
I like to know a little bit about a lot of things, and not like a lot necessarily about one thing and just all the different technologies, the different technology pathways in, when it comes to decarbonization, energy transition is has been very interesting to me. Oh, I want to ask a question, but go ahead. No, you can ask no.

00;28;23;12 - 00;28;43;28
Unknown
Because so we see a lot of a lot of different U.S.. And there's a part of me that wants to know if from your perspective, do they all look the same, or are they all really different because you actually get to go in? Yeah. Well, I will caveat, but saying I'm definitely not the technical expert who gets to go in, but I can tell you like from a high level.

00;28;43;29 - 00;28;46;29
Unknown
Right. So.

00;28;47;02 - 00;29;18;25
Unknown
Let's take a, excuse me a Kiss project in like a cement plant. Right. You're going to have a big a big part of the CO2 that is released is from the process itself. Right. And what that means is you have a, a stream that is much more concentrated in CO2. And when you have a stream that's that much more concentrated in CO2, then it's a lot easier to capture.

00;29;18;28 - 00;29;44;03
Unknown
Right. And that's compared to, let's say, the other big kind of source for capturing CO2 is when you burn a fuel. And and in that exhaust of that fuel, you have CO2. But it's not it's not nearly as concentrated as in something like cement. And that makes it harder to capture. And then on the even more, the further spectrum, right, is direct air capture.

00;29;44;03 - 00;30;18;04
Unknown
So that's in all of the air around us. You think about, you know, what, the concentration of CO2 is there. And it's it's a very small. And so that process is, is very different in that you basically have these giant fans that are sucking in as much air, as, as very inefficient. Yeah. Yes. And trying to take out the, you know, the tiny amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere and it's I did I did look it up once because I was like, well, how much more efficient can this be than like a forest?

00;30;18;04 - 00;30;40;10
Unknown
If you think about like a DAC facility, that's the same size. And I think when I looked it up, it was like 100 times more CO2 that would would be from the forest that compared to a forest and like forest. Yeah. From a deck. From a deck. Okay. So from that perspective it was like okay. And then the other one, you have to kind of wrap your hair around is or your head around is.

00;30;40;12 - 00;31;06;16
Unknown
When you think about point source capture, it's, it's preventing CO2 from getting into that sphere. And then on the side of deck, it's removing CO2 that's already in the atmosphere. Not and still, you know, questions still remain is like, is that is that really economical? Can it be if were you getting the power from is that power being diverted from like other places where they're using coal, like, I mean, you have to do the whole life cycle, right?

00;31;06;17 - 00;31;28;06
Unknown
Yeah, absolutely. So very. Yeah, yeah. So I mean deck is is one that's definitely, very expensive compared to like one source capture and other things. Yeah. I think we're very smart human beings. With all that we're doing with AI, we should be able to solve this problem to. Yeah, yeah, if we put enough money into it, I don't know, or just put more heads into it.

00;31;28;06 - 00;31;54;28
Unknown
You said the keyword here, the amount of money we're putting into AI. Yeah, yeah. Fascinating. Do you have a favorite technology that you can talk about? Oh, man, I shouldn't say favorite, but, I'm a favorite. We know I won't. I do have favorite technologies, but but what I think that is been super fascinating, I think is so innovative is, it's a company.

00;31;54;28 - 00;32;37;11
Unknown
We actually they're a startup that we've partnered with recently. We've been working with them for probably close to two years now, and they're here out of Houston, Eclipse Energy, they are a biotech company that, is focused in the oil and gas space. So essentially they have microbes like that's kind of their technology. And, if eclipse is listening, I really hope that you excuse me if I explain this all wrong, but they essentially inject these microbes down hall, down hole into existing depleted, and gas wells.

00;32;37;13 - 00;33;07;03
Unknown
Right. So the infrastructure is already there. You bring in like, maybe a frack truck and, and, you inject these microbes into the well formation, and the microbes consume that residual oil and gas. And for anyone who's not familiar, when you extract oil and gas from a reservoir, you still leave a lot behind, right? It's just not you can't take all of that out in an economical way.

00;33;07;03 - 00;33;26;16
Unknown
So a bunch of it is just, left behind, sometimes abandoned. We call these wells, like plug in abandoned wells a lot of the time. Those are the ones that are, you know, problems for operators, too, because you you have to spend a lot of money in, kind of taking care of these wells, making sure you're not leaking methane.

00;33;26;20 - 00;34;15;24
Unknown
So it's a big cost in the balance sheet. But anyways, the microbes consume the and gas and what you get. Out of that is a hydrogen rich stream. So essentially you are converting well and gas into, into hydrogen. And we did a early techno economic analysis and a lifecycle analysis for eclipse. And what we found is that you can do this and get hydrogen at a cost as, as low as $0.56 per kilogram of hydrogen, and that's like a 90% reduction for a in cost of what the, the typical cost for clean hydrogen is and the what is it?

00;34;15;24 - 00;34;58;02
Unknown
The carbon intensity of that hydrogen was below the 0.45kg CO2 per kilogram hydrogen kind of range that the Department of Energy and the Inflation Reduction Act had used to kind of qualify green hydrogen. But yeah. So that's something that so technologies is like that. I would have never come up with something like that. But it's taking existing infrastructure, which reduces the amount of capital that you have to spend to, to do like a project like this and producing clean molecules is, I just a fantastic way to extend the life or reuse some of these assets.

00;34;58;05 - 00;35;22;14
Unknown
So do they inject these microbes into the reservoir? Yeah. And then and then they come out with the with the hydrogen rich stream. Yeah. So an eclipse has a they're kind of, field development kind of process that they follow. And so like initially you'll, you'll do it in a huff and puff kind of way where you'll inject the microbes.

00;35;22;16 - 00;35;52;02
Unknown
Yeah. I'm gonna so you inject, you inject these microbes, you shut in the. Well and then the, you know, the microbes do their thing, their pressure builds up. And then when you open the well again, you get that stream out. But then eventually, as you develop the whole field, you will have wells that are specifically for injection, and then you will have other wells where the, the hydrogen gas comes out of that are the production wells.

00;35;52;07 - 00;36;12;17
Unknown
Yeah. And that's a normal setup for, for a kind of what was that secondary recovery when people do this kind of injection on one side and production on the other. Yeah. It's it's like like what you would do for enhanced oil recovery. Yeah. That's that's that's. No. So I remember now so we had so eclipses a spin out of some Vita factory and used to be called gold H2.

00;36;12;17 - 00;36;33;00
Unknown
And so we brought and. Yeah, that's, that's where I forgot about that name change. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. They're gold. Yeah. Because they're. That's true. Yes they were gold and I will add so they, they the name changes because they have their don't want to be confined just to hydrogen. So they're working on some other cool technologies that I will leave them to speak to.

00;36;33;02 - 00;36;59;16
Unknown
But how do you partner with them. What's the partnership like. So specifically with a clip. So they have multiple partners. And I think partnership is kind of part of their strategy. So for all of the field services, right when it comes to bringing these microbes out, putting them in the. Well, they're partnered with Weatherford for that side. But then all of the surface facility development, because there is some carbon capture involved.

00;36;59;16 - 00;37;21;09
Unknown
And when you bring this, you know, stream of hydrogen up to surface, it's mixed with a bunch of stuff, right? So you have hydrogen, but you'll also have some CO2, you'll have some natural gas, you'll have some residual oil, and you'll have produced water. All of that needs to be separated. The hydrogen then needs to be purified, you know, pressured and and be ready for pipeline transportation or use.

00;37;21;11 - 00;37;48;21
Unknown
Right. And so all of those surface facilities, that is what woods role will be so that we're they're prepared partner in that part of the development. We've also you know, we've done their life cycle assessment and techno economic analysis recently. We, we we speak with them. And you know, just there's so many different like questions that come up when you, when you're talking about commercial deployment.

00;37;48;21 - 00;38;09;18
Unknown
So that sort of like advisory role is something that we also do with the clips. So you would be like their go to partner for those kind of advisory services that they might need. Yes. And especially like on that surface facility part of it. So who pays for that.

00;38;09;21 - 00;38;37;15
Unknown
Which does the startup end up paying for that. Because that's or is it like do you give them a discounted rate or does it. Yeah. Does it all company pay for that. So I'm trying to think of how much I can. Yeah. You can't it. Yeah. No. So maybe maybe maybe a different question. Like when I think about the lifecycle started like I started as a small team and then they grew and grew and part of their journey is like figuring out, like, what risks they got to burn down.

00;38;37;16 - 00;38;57;11
Unknown
Yeah. And and I'm so curious how you could to kind of frame it again. You said a lot of the prior work comes from prior relationships and longstanding relationships with energy companies, kind of by definition of startup has no relationships other than the founders kind of walking in the door and bringing in with them. And so I'm curious, how does a relationship start for a startup?

00;38;57;11 - 00;39;15;21
Unknown
Because I feel like in my shoes and I was starting we start our careers around the same time. Yeah, I was like, I don't know anybody and I don't know why they would ever pay attention to me. Yeah. And and so I'm curious, how would you advise like a founder to come in. And it sounds like the way to start relationship is with something simple like a or lower a scale like a t e.

00;39;15;23 - 00;39;31;29
Unknown
But how do you find these kind of startups? Come in the door and decide that you are the partner versus the cheap mom, and shop down the street? Because I used to be the kind of person who was hired a mom and shop my mom and pop and I would pay for it later. Yeah, yeah, no, that's a good question.

00;39;32;01 - 00;39;54;11
Unknown
So I can. I'll keep on with the eclipse example. So for eclipse, it was actually, I think I was at a ESP event where I was on a panel. Right. And eclipses CEO prob happened to be there and he just shot me a LinkedIn message after and said, hey, you know, I saw you. I would love for you to come visit us at at our offices.

00;39;54;14 - 00;40;25;21
Unknown
And and I was I was very open to that. There's another kind of later stage startup that, I happened to be at their, at a they were, it was at Sarah Week and they were presenting on their technology. The company's name is via separations for anyone. Yeah. Yes. So Shreya was presenting and, I just thought it was it was a very interesting, practical kind of technology that they had.

00;40;25;22 - 00;40;50;20
Unknown
So in that case, I went up to her after her presentation and, and said, I would love to learn more and handed her my card. And it's kind of been going from there. So we're we've been talking for a while now and what our next steps might be. Can't share that. But but yeah, so so going to industry events and, you know, kind of you got to kind of put yourself out there when you're a founder and you're just starting.

00;40;50;20 - 00;41;19;03
Unknown
And I had to do that a little bit when I was in business development. And it's definitely something that's, that's hard. If you're not, like, a super extroverted person, but, just taking risks, which, again, is another part of, of being a startup. But I would say industry like getting, getting in on the industry and kind of going to, you know, some of these, not don't have to be conferences.

00;41;19;03 - 00;41;36;02
Unknown
I was going to say conferences, but that comes at a cost too. But but there's other like industry partnerships or technical groups that you can join to get yourself more exposure. And there are lots of free events that happen around Houston now with, you know, the iron and green town labs with the whole ecosystem that's being built. Yeah.

00;41;36;03 - 00;42;07;11
Unknown
For sure. And then I should probably mention universities to. Right. Like, we work, as I mentioned earlier, with several different universities, including the University of Houston. So, that's a way to get an introduction, just leveraging the network that you maybe already have. And most founders, I think, would all have a, you know, have a university relationship that they can leverage or get to someone in, their alma mater.

00;42;07;14 - 00;42;26;08
Unknown
I think that's really good advice, just leveraging the network, even when, you know, founders, there's a conference and the ticket is too expensive. Like reach out to the organizers. Yeah, find out who do you know, and you'll be surprised. I remember one friend. You'll be surprised. He was doing a carbon capture technology, and he went out to the I think the grove.

00;42;26;12 - 00;42;47;00
Unknown
Is it the grove right outside of Georgia? Brown. Okay. Just like, I don't know, ordered a drink or something and was just like, okay, I'm here. And he emailed all of the speakers and was like, do you wanna meet? I'm right outside. I'll buy you a drink. That is that is a great strategy. And it shows in a like being creative, like you're innovative, like hang out around the car.

00;42;47;02 - 00;43;10;09
Unknown
I mean, all of these conferences have after like, after conference events and social life. It's in their week. You know, there's so many after Sara we kind of events you know around there week that I mean it is a pretty hefty price to go there for a founder. But there's just so much happening around that week. Just hang out in that area and you'll you'll meet people.

00;43;10;10 - 00;43;56;21
Unknown
Yeah. Exactly. Well, I guess, you know, we're here with the, the audience. What, what would you ask our audience to, to do to support you and your work if you could. So you know, and from the investor side, it's, it's always easier for startups if they have investment and money. So that's always one thing. From industry partners, like giving a space to deploy technology and, and be able to test this technology in an industrial environment is so beneficial because going from lab scale to pilot scale to having to integrate with something that's already built, so we call it like brownfield integration or upgrades is it comes with its own unique

00;43;56;21 - 00;44;19;16
Unknown
challenges, and you'll actually uncover a lot of those when you get to that stage. But to do that, you have to have, you know, one of these companies that's already up and running to really take a chance on you and to kind of have that, confidence that, I don't know, you're not going to take down their asset, for example, that they won't put you in a situation where you will.

00;44;19;17 - 00;44;38;08
Unknown
But but still. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you for being here and sharing with us. Yeah. Thank you for having me. I've enjoyed talking with you both. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's show. If you liked the show, share it with a friend or give us a review on your podcast platform.

00;44;38;09 - 00;44;45;21
Unknown
Lastly, if you have an entrepreneur in Houston that you'd like to hear more about, let us know and we'll try to bring them in. See you next week on Energy Tech Startups.