pkrein

7 ms·

1.
by pkrein 10mo ago
Hi HN, author here. I wanted to address the most common theme in the comments: safety. The regulatory burdens I've encountered and described were not related to safety requirements. They are procedural questions with no bearing on safe
2.
by pkrein 2y ago
nothing in hardware is cheap until it scales up. in fact, the cost vs. scale dynamics are well understood, see Wright's Law. the "huge assumption" is our entire roadmap... and the major things that drive cost-down are: (1) in
3.
by pkrein 2y ago
CO₂ is captured from the atmosphere in biomass as C C in biomass is converted to C in bio-oil, with relatively small release of CO₂ C in bio-oil is injected deep underground for permanent storage/sequestration If this process had not h
4.
by pkrein 2y ago
Bio-oil production itself has a small amount of net positive emissions associated with it. We also purchase renewable electricity, renewable diesel, etc. to minimize those emissions. The net carbon negativity comes from the balance of the b
5.
Stripe, Google, Meta, et al. buy $53M in carbon removal from Charm Industrial(frontierclimate.com)
2 points by pkrein 3y ago|0 comments
6.
by pkrein 3y ago
Wildfires.org is doing really awesome work on unblocking and accelerating environmental review and planning for all kinds of wildfire prevention treatments.
7.
by pkrein 4y ago
Carbon purchasing already exists. Voluntary purchases like Frontier: https://frontierclimate.com/ and many other corporate buyers. Regulatory cap-and-trade markets like CA ARB LCFS: https://en.wikipedia.org/
8.
by pkrein 4y ago
Read two comments up. Biochar/ash made from the biomass goes into the soil.
9.
by pkrein 4y ago
It's tough for building hardware, where the engineers own building their prototype systems. Likely other roles in sales, etc. would go remote sooner.
10.
by pkrein 4y ago
If you or your friends are mechanical engineers, we're looking for great meche's with experience in thermal, fluids, combustion, ag processing and more. Would love to chat: https://charmindustrial.com/team or emai
11.
by pkrein 4y ago
Leaving the biomass on the field results in the CO₂ going back into the atmosphere (~80% within 2 years): https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/10.4141/cjss2010-055#T0002 By contrast, our process retains the nutrients, im
12.
by pkrein 4y ago
Want to come show us how it's done? :)
13.
by pkrein 4y ago
The process separates the biomass carbon into bio-oil, and the NPK in the biomass separates into the biochar/ash (2% of the N, 70% of the P, >90% of the K). That biochar/ash goes back into the soil. So we recover most of the nu
14.
by pkrein 4y ago
Actually we aren’t burning the biomass, we’re heating it without oxygen (pyrolysis) to create a transportable biomass intermediate called bio-oil. That bio-oil is rich in carbon, molasses-like consistency, and the overwhelming odor of barbe
15.
by pkrein 4y ago
Our customers are technology companies based in the Bay Area, check out the home page: https://charmindustrial.com We delivered 90% of permanent carbon removals globally last year: https://twitter.com/charmindust
16.
by pkrein 4y ago
Academia has started referring to our category as Biomass Carbon Removal and Storage, or BiCRS (pronounced like “bikers”): https://www.icef.go.jp/pdf/summary/roadmap/icef2020_roadmap....
17.
by pkrein 4y ago
Initial testing was in San Francisco, where corn stover is relatively tricky to come by because corn is not widely grown in California, and agricultural residues cannot be brought into the state because of the bugs. Wheat straw was much eas
18.
Corn Cobs: Fuel of Nightmares(charmindustrial.com)
161 points by pkrein 4y ago|185 comments
19.
by pkrein 5y ago
Not sure how we got to $0.01/kWh (half the cost of the lowest PPAs ever signed for solar in Saudi Arabia), but if the electricity cost is 10x lower than current California prices, I see how electrofuels could pencil.
20.
by pkrein 5y ago
Ok so the 40% efficiency and 2.5x reduction in electricity prices cancel each other out... we're still at electricity costs == energy in the jet fuel. No room for electrofuel plant capex or any other electrofuel plant opex. And to get
21.
by pkrein 5y ago
If the founders are around... trying to understand their economics. They claim to sell Jet A at the market clearing price. Jet A goes for $0.45/L. The lowest industrial electricity rates in the US are $0.05/kWh (double that in Cal
22.
by pkrein 5y ago
This. Equivalent CO₂, but bio-oil has 1/3 the energy content of crude oil.
23.
Our climate is hosed, here’s how *you* can help(erikareinhardt.com)
2 points by pkrein 7y ago|0 comments
24.
by pkrein 7y ago
I saw a very interesting talk by Mike Tamir, Berkeley and Uber Autonomous Group, about an extension his research group built to detect sensationalism and emotional appeals. The idea was that detecting writing designed to anger, incite and s
25.
by pkrein 7y ago
Would this make hydrogen fuel cells (the reverse of electrolysis) have double the power density as well? That would be meaningful for reducing hydrogen fuel cell weight and cost per vehicle.
26.
by pkrein 7y ago
It may not be necessary for complex organic molecules to assemble out of nothing in a finely tuned primordial soup. Two recent studies to illustrate this: 1. Simple chemical droplets can divide and multiply in the right conditions: https:&
27.
The Fermi Paradox and the Aurora Effect: Exo-Civilization Settlement(arxiv.org)
92 points by pkrein 7y ago|96 comments
28.
by pkrein 7y ago
Peter, co-founder/CEO here... tag managers from all these players only solve the issue on websites, but only 30% of the data we manage comes from websites. The rest comes from mobile apps, payment systems, helpdesks, CRMs, email, push
29.
by pkrein 7y ago
Peter, co-founder/CEO of Segment here... I'm not sure it felt that way in the moment. On December 11, 2012 we were in pretty bad emotional place. I was on the verge of quitting at several points during the prior month, and was hos
30.
by pkrein 8y ago
The economics you're looking at for biogas and electrolysis look roughly right to me. But our models suggest that thermal gasification of biomass can get down to $1/kg. So then you're looking at $4.50+/kg for electrolysi

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