AtmosZero
Assembly Line
AtmosZero Closes $21 Million in Series A
AtmosZero, the company on a mission to decarbonize steam, announced the close of a $21 million Series A round co-led by Engine Ventures and 2150 to accelerate the commercialization of its Boiler 2.0 technology. Constellation Technology Ventures, the strategic venture arm of Constellation Energy Corporation (Nasdaq: CEG), also joined the round along with existing backers, Energy Impact Partners, Starlight Ventures, and AENU.
Industrial steam, which is used across the built environment and industries from food and beverage to chemical manufacturing, is generated by burning fossil fuels onsite in boiler systems that account for nearly eight percent of global primary energy use. AtmosZero’s proprietary Boiler 2.0 technology extracts heat from the air and delivers high-temperature steam with maximum efficiency and zero carbon emissions, allowing companies to replace their existing natural gas and oil boilers quickly and cost-effectively.
First electric cars. Next, electric factories?
BASF has joined a consortium including SABIC, a Saudi chemicals firm, and Linde, a European engineering firm, to develop an electric furnace that can generate heat intense enough for the chemical reactions that are their bread and butter. These firms are not the only recent converts to the electrification of industry. On February 8th Rio Tinto and bhp, both gargantuan mining firms, announced a joint effort to build Australia’s first electric smelter for iron ore. Fortescue, another mining giant, is introducing all-electric excavators and mining lorries, while Spain’s Roca Group recently unveiled the first electric industrial tunnel kiln for ceramics. Such innovations offer a new path to slowing global warming which may in many cases prove quicker and easier than approaches based on ccs and hydrogen.
Some companies are betting that what works in the home can work in the factory, too. One such is AtmosZero, a startup that aims to reduce emissions at New Belgium Brewing, an American beermaker. AtmosZero is installing a heat pump that will soon replace one of the gas-fired boilers at New Belgium’s brewery in Fort Collins, Colorado. Like most industrial firms over the past 150 years, New Belgium burns fossil fuel to produce steam, which in its case then heats the ingredients required to make beer. AtmosZero’s heat pump will allow it to produce that steam without any burning. Since the electricity used to run the pump will be renewable in the future, that eliminates most greenhouse-gas emissions from the process. It is also more efficient, consuming less energy overall. And because the heat pump transfers warmth to water, just as in a conventional boiler, the equipment can be slotted into New Belgium’s existing factory, without the need for a complete overhaul.