Jordan Blum, editorial director, Hart Energy: We are here at the massive Gas Tech conference in Houston. I'm joined by Chris Richardson, the CEO of 8 Rivers. 8 Rivers is here. You're doing a lot with net zero solutions. If I can get you to just talk a little bit about the company, your support and everything you have going on here at Gastech.

Chris Richardson: Sure. Thanks very much Jordan. Happy to be here today. 8 Rivers is an innovation company that is also a project developer. We have four key areas of focus right now in terms of our technology and we're looking to deploy those into projects mostly here in North America. These are all first of their kind technologies to be deployed in the field. That includes a very low carbon blue ammonia project that we're looking at doing in Port Arthur, Texas, based upon a technology we call 8RH2. We also have a power generation technology called AFC [Allam-Fetvedt Cycle], which can use solid fuels such as biomass or coal to develop zero carbon emission power and we're looking at developing a project in Wyoming with that technology. We also have a sour gas processing technology that we're talking with a number of parties in the Middle East about deploying, and then we also have a direct air capture technology called Calcite that we're very happy to announce that today.

We just received an investment from JX [Nippon Oil Exploration], the Japanese energy company, for the progress of the pilot for that project in Alabama as part of the DAC hub for the DOE [Department of Energy] has set up in that part of the country for the southeast. In terms of our backing, we were founded 16 years ago. Many of our founders are still owners of the company, but we are very lucky to have SK— it's the second largest company in Korea—as our primary backer. They own a majority of the company and control the board, and they have been a big supporter of our technology and the deployment of our technology over the last few years.

JB: Very good. Well, you just mentioned congrats on the announcement with the joint venture with JX this morning. If I can get you to just elaborate on the potential for the Calcite technology and the project Cardinal that you're building up in Mobile, Alabama, starting out with the pilot and then a much larger hub.

CR: That's right. So our technology for direct air capture is focused on the calcium cycle, and there are other players in the market that are looking at a very similar approach, but we believe ours is lower cost, higher efficiency, more durable, easier to deploy and most importantly very scalable. Because for direct air capture to really make the impact that we wanted to make and for it to hit the economics we wanted to hit, we believe you have to be at scale and you have to be able to repeat that scale. And so our technology, which JX has been now a partner with us in and looking to develop this both in Alabama and then we're broadly around the world, including in Asia where they have a big interest being a Japanese energy company. We're excited about starting with a pilot in Alabama. We have boots on the ground right now developing that process that's just going to prove up the process itself and the scalability of the technology and then the first commercial plant would follow, and we're starting pre-FEED on that first commercial plant with JX's support here probably later this year, early next year, after the pilot's completed.

We're very excited about both the pilot and the next step and then longer term the scalability of this technology.

JB: Right. Yeah. So you mentioned obviously economically scalability will be key, long-term. Obviously federal support is a pretty key component for getting things off the ground. Can you talk about how all those pieces are coming together?

CR: That's true. The tax credits that are available for direct air capture, obviously critically important for the economics of these projects, but we believe over time we'll be able to push down the average cost per ton to about a hundred dollars as we scale up the projects and scale up the technology deployment. Very fortunate to have DOE support and also support from the XPRIZE [Foundation] and a number of other kind of early stage direct air capture programs have enabled us to get what we are in this project. But now we're looking really to scale it up while we have DOE support to buy CDRs [carbon dioxide removal credits]. The project will stand and the project will survive and thrive based upon really private capital more than government capital.

JB: Great. Switching gears just a little bit, just down the road from Houston and Port Arthur, you mentioned the Cormorant project, a big clean fuels ammonia project. Can you talk about just the potential for there and the repeatability I guess?

CR: Sure, sure. So as a technology developer, our goal is to develop first of its kind projects, completely prove up the technology in the cycle, and then from there, license that technology more broadly. And so while we are looking to own and operate with appropriate partners, a 900,000 ton per day ammonia facility based upon our 8RH2 hydrogen technology, which is ultra-low carbon blue hydrogen. Our technology actually produces at the back end of the process, produces pipeline quality CO2. So there is no post-combustion capture. The cycle, the inherent nature of our technology produces pipeline quality CO2 without the need for a beams or any scrubbers or any post combustion capture. That's because we oxy fire, we use oxy combustion and then use the CO2 that's produced from that as our working fluid in the process. So for our energy production, we use that CO2 to turn the turbine.

Here we use it as the heat transfer mechanism to run the process, and then the result of that is just water and CO2 at the backend and you don't have to have all of the post combustion scrubbers. This gives us more efficiency. This lowers the capex and lowers the opex and makes it a smaller footprint and we think that is very replicable as a licensor. I'm not sure how many projects we'll develop. It depends on at the time how much we want to own and operate versus how much we want to license. There'll be some balance between the two, but we know that we own the development risk and the technology risk on these first of its kind projects. We think this is very low risk and it's already been substantially de-risked through all the work that we've done on the technology development side. But we're really excited about the project. We own the site. It's in Port Arthur, Texas. It's near a number of other related industrial facilities and we're working on the development of a terminal associated with that as well with an FID [final investment decision] probably in the next 15 to 18 months on that project.

JB: Great. Good luck with that. Going back just a little bit, I mean 8 Rivers we'd probably say first made its name pretty big in the business with the NET Power business several years back. That's since been spun off, but you all are still doing a lot with clean power, turbine development. I think you all are working with Siemens now?

CR: That's correct. So NET Power was a big success for 8 Rivers. That was a technology that we had developed and brought in partners including Oxy and Baker Hughes and Constellation and  SK to that project over time. we're still a very proud minority shareholder in that project. They're developing their project with Baker Hughes and Oxy for using a natural gas fired turbine to create energy using what's called the Allam-Fetvedt Cycle, which is a technology that we had developed 8 Rivers, and again, very proud to be a shareholder in that company. We're going our own direction because we maintain that technology for solid fuels, including biomass and coal. And so we're developing a turbine, and we're very happy to have announced a few weeks ago a program with Siemens Energy to develop that turbine for our applications of the AFC technology.

JB: Very good. Obviously, one of the big discussion topics at Gastech overall is just going to be carbon capture. I wanted to get your take on just your bullishness on that business and kind of 8 Rivers role within the space.

CR: We think that it's going to develop really aggressively here in the medium- and longer-term. We're already seeing a lot of activity in the space. We would be driving the growth of that industry as a customer. We're not looking directly at sequestration or transportation of CO2 as a business for us, but that ecosystem, that infrastructure is vitally important to all the technologies that we're deploying. All of our technologies work off a system that produces pipeline quality CO2, and so we believe we'd be really a major contributor to the economics of that infrastructure that's being built out, and we think that's going to be absolutely key to decarbonization and meeting any type of net zero targets in the future.

JB: Great. Well, thank you so much for joining us here at Gastech. Really appreciate it. To read and watch more, please visit online at hartenergy.com.

Comments