183 - CO2 Capture Innovations: Steve Milward on 8 Rivers' Climate Tech

In this episode of Insider's Guide to Energy, host Chris Sass is joined by Steve Milward, CEO of 8 Rivers, a pioneering climate technology company. Steve delves into the groundbreaking innovations in CO2 capture and utilization, highlighting the company's commitment to developing sustainable and commercially viable solutions. With over 16 years of technology development and more than 600 patents, 8 Rivers is transforming the energy sector with its unique approach to using CO2 as a working fluid.

Steve discusses the Allam-Fetvedt Cycle, a revolutionary process invented by 8 Rivers that uses oxy-combustion to create hot CO2 and water, which can then be used for power generation and chemical production. He explains how this method offers a cost-effective and efficient alternative to traditional CO2 capture technologies, emphasizing the company's focus on industrial decarbonization and clean energy projects. The conversation also covers the successful demonstration of this technology at the LaPorte test facility and its potential global impact.

The episode further explores 8 Rivers' ambitious projects, including the Cormorant Clean Energy project in Port Arthur, Texas, aimed at producing hydrogen and ammonia while capturing and sequestering CO2. Steve shares insights into the company's strategic partnerships, plans for scaling the technology, and the role of government policies like the Inflation Reduction Act in driving the adoption of clean energy solutions. Tune in to learn more about how 8 Rivers is leading the charge in climate technology and shaping the future of energy.

Visit our website: https://insidersguidetoenergy.com/

Meet our Guest: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevemilward/

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 1:39 The Allen-Fedford Cycle
• 4:30 Demonstration and Success of LaPorte Test Facility
• 7:50 Commercial Projects and Partnerships
• 12:00 Hydrogen and Ammonia Production
• 16:30 The Role of Government Policies
• 19:00 Future of Climate Technology
• 32:00 Closing Remarks

Transcript

Transcript 

00:00:00 Steve Milward 

8 Rivers is a climate technology company. We're leading the energy transition and we're invented and commercialized. And technologies that are both sustainable and commercially viable. The heartbeat of our business is CO2. And the use of that CO2 as a working fluid over 16 years of technology development, including the groundbreaking. 

00:00:20 Steve Milward 

Allen fed fed cycle and with over 600 patterns to our name and over half of those being in CO2, we have turned the problem into a solution and we're now delivering that. 

00:00:31 Steve Milward 

Across the globe to to blue chip companies and blue chip projects in clean energy, clean fuels and industrial decarbonization. 

00:00:42 Speaker 2 

Broadcasting from Washington, DC, This is Insider’s Guide to Energy. 

00:00:59 Chris Sass 

Welcome to the Insiders guide to energy. I'm your host Chris Sass. Today, we're going to talk carbon capture and with me is the CEO of 8 Rivers, Steve Millward. Steve, welcome to the podcast. 

00:01:11 Steve Milward 

Hi, Chris and thanks for the invite to join you today. It's it's really good to be here, really good to be able to speak to everybody about what we're doing at 8 river. 

00:01:19 Chris Sass 

I am excited to have this conversation because I think you're doing something a bit unique and a bit different. We've done some carbon capture in the past. In fact, we've had eight rivers on in the past, but today's conversation is different. You, you you made an opening statement talking about capturing CO2 and doing something with it. Why don't we start with what it is we're. 

00:01:37 Chris Sass 

Going to talk about. 

00:01:39 Steve Milward 

Yeah, it really at the heart of everything we do at eight rivers is is CO2 and CO2 is the is the problem that everybody is looking to solve. But we look at it completely differently and all of our technologies really are around Oxy combustion one way or the other. When you look at all of the technology portfolio of eight rivers. 

00:02:00 Steve Milward 

Everything at the heart of that is oxy combustion, and when you burn natural gas and oxygen with CO2. 

00:02:08 Steve Milward 

The product that you get out the other side of that is is hot CO2 and water. That's essentially what you get. So you already have created the CO2. So now that you've got hold of the CO2 and that CO2 is extremely hot. 

00:02:21 Steve Milward 

You either use that CO2 to generate power in the Alan Fairford cycle, or you can use that CO2 in a reforming process to create other chemicals. Or you there are other means of using the heat in that CO2 and recovering that CO2 and using that CO2 in a process. 

00:02:39 Steve Milward 

And harnessing that CO2 that you already have captured and putting it to good use is a really efficient use of that CO2 before you then surrender it for sequestration. So rather than other technologies and other companies that look to address the problem at the back end of a system like a power plant where you look to strip out. 

00:03:00 Steve Milward 

The CO2 with a means we've actually created the CO2 in the 1st place used that CO2 and then sequestered or surrendered that Co. 

00:03:09 Steve Milward 

Do and that in itself is a different way of looking at the problem, because you've looked at the problem from from first principles and created something new. That means you don't have high CapEx and economics that don't work at the back end of a of a power plant or you know a steel mill or whichever process that you're looking. 

00:03:31 Chris Sass 

So so help me understand this a little bit better you're saying on the front end, you're creating CO2 or hot gas basically that you are able to use. Are you saying that a power plant would do this on the front end and use the heat from the CO2 to turn a turbine? Is that what we're trying to say? 

00:03:47 Steve Milward 

Yes, if the the Alan Fairford cycle, which was invented by Rodney Allen and Jeremy fed uh, you know from from 2000 and. 

00:03:55 Steve Milward 

Mind, that's essentially what is at the heart of the alarm fire fed cycle. You have an oxy combustor, so into that oxy combustor you have natural gas, you have oxygen, and then you use the CO2 that you recycle from the process in that combustion process to create a synthetic air. And because you don't have any air in the process, you're not creating any Knox. 

00:04:17 Steve Milward 

So now you have those 3 components. You have the oxygen, you have the natural gas, you have the CO2. 

00:04:24 Steve Milward 

And the output of that when you combust that is extremely hot CO2 and water, and you then use that CO2 through uh through a turbine, through an expander, you can generate power in in you with a with a supercritical CO2 turbine. Or you can use that. 

00:04:44 Steve Milward 

CO2 in a reformer and use the heat from that CO2 to reform natural gas into products such as hydrogen. 

00:04:55 Chris Sass 

Yeah, you you said that the Alan Bedford cycle or you described this process as a cost effective way, but it it sounds like it's a whole new way of doing things. So how is this a more cost effective way? Do you not need to put infrastructure in place to go build this? 

00:05:10 Steve Milward 

So the lafford cycle is is just like any any other power power generation facility in in what I just described in the fact that you have a turbine that generates power and on the other side of that turbine you've got the generator, the generator creating power that is then going to the grid. 

00:05:26 Steve Milward 

Really, when you look at the at the Alan fluffed cycle. 

00:05:30 Steve Milward 

The the technology itself and and has been demonstrated and has been also written in, in in many pre feed studies and and and government supported grants uh grant papers. 

00:05:41 Steve Milward 

Is as economical, if not more economical than the latest class of CTS. 

00:05:48 Chris Sass 

And and where is the development of this? Where are we on the life cycle of this technology? 

00:05:54 Steve Milward 

So originally back in 2009, when the company was formed when eight rivers was formed, the company then started to develop out the the Alan Fed Fed cycle and what was spun out of eight rivers was now the publicly traded company net power, which is one of the the big successes of eight rivers is is, is, is, is building that company and spinning that company out. 

00:06:17 Steve Milward 

And during the the decade of the 20 tens. 

00:06:22 Steve Milward 

Basically, eight rivers worked with net power to develop the LaPorte test facility, where there is a 25 MW electric, 50 MW thermal demonstration facility demonstrating the Longford cycle which was successful and a lot of learnings were gained from that demonstration. 

00:06:42 Steve Milward 

Facility which have then gone on to help net power build out. 

00:06:47 Steve Milward 

Uh, their business and and really, you know, establish themselves now in the market to deploy their first their first serial number turbine and project and get that out there, you know in whatever time scale that they're going to do that. 

00:07:08 Steve Milward 

Really. 

00:07:09 Steve Milward 

They're heading towards that now to develop that first technology on natural gas. Eight rivers is still looking to develop internally the Allen Petford cycle based on solid fuels and. 

00:07:22 Steve Milward 

Really, you know that 15 years that that have gone by have really helped eight rivers develop the technology and really get to a point where the technology can be deployed. 

00:07:33 

Right. 

00:07:34 Chris Sass 

We're we're using eight rivers kind of as we all like. We all know everything you do. Maybe it makes sense to take a pause here and explain about what kind of projects and things that rivers is doing. So you you gave an example of a spin out. You give an example from technology. What are the kind of things eight rivers are working on? 

00:07:51 Steve Milward 

So right now, one of the the big things that eight rivers is focusing on is what we call 8RH. 

00:07:57 Steve Milward 

Two. 

00:07:58 Steve Milward 

An 802 is a hydrogen production technology which again uses that same oxy combustion process and takes that and uses that to reform natural gas, uh into sing gas and then from that sing gas we produce hydrogen. Again we recycle that CO2 background. 

00:08:18 Steve Milward 

When it comes out of the CO2 convective reformer, we recycle that CO2 round. We harvest the heat and we send it back to the combustor to be reused while sequestering some of that CO2. 

00:08:31 Steve Milward 

But essentially, we're using that process, which is the same process as the Alan Fed Fed cycle to then. 

00:08:39 Steve Milward 

Creates through the reforming process syngas to hydrogen. That hydrogen can then be used to create ammonia, and then that ammonia can be exported. 

00:08:52 Steve Milward 

You know, into the market and it's that technology that we're developing right now and we're looking to deploy that in our first commercial project, which we've now which we've announced, which is Corman Clean Energy, which will be based in Port Arthur, TX. We're currently going through the FEED study. 

00:09:12 Steve Milward 

Building out the the engineering, but also looking wider at infrastructure and how we actually deploy the project. There's things like permitting planning. 

00:09:26 Steve Milward 

Working through all of those aspects, also working through port infrastructure in the Port Arthur area, working very closely with the local community around jobs that can be created for that local community, both in construction and in operation of the plant. And we're really working really, really closely with the strategic partners that we've already announced such as Casali. 

00:09:49 Steve Milward 

On the technology itself. 

00:09:51 Steve Milward 

To make sure that we can deploy that technology in a 20272028 timeframe. 

00:09:57 Chris Sass 

It's it's in the not too distant future, we'll see this for hydrogen, and I'm assuming based don't use describe just to master the obvious green hydrogen, yes. 

00:10:09 Steve Milward 

No, so this this is what if you have to give this a color you have the color you would give it is blue because well the the technology is based on reforming natural gas. So we're we're taking that natural gas which means that we're using this, this is this would be color if you if if you have to give it the color which I don't like to do it would be blue. But what I would say. 

00:10:19 Chris Sass 

OK. 

00:10:29 Steve Milward 

Is. 

00:10:31 Steve Milward 

This technology captures 99.98% of the CO2 from the process, so this is a very, very ultra low carbon technology. That's that's that's. 

00:10:47 Steve Milward 

Us being socially responsible for the process that we're going to put in place, that we are capturing and harnessing as much CO2 as is humanly possible in this process to make sure it is as clean as possible when we reform that that, that, that natural gas. 

00:11:04 Chris Sass 

And then what kind of scale are we talking about? So you're saying you're going to export it as ammonia? 

00:11:10 Chris Sass 

And we already moved ammonia around pretty readily, so that's not too difficult to imagine. But what's the scale of this process? 

00:11:18 Steve Milward 

So this particular project, the first phase of this project will create 880,000 tonnes of ammonia a year and we will capture 1.4 million tonnes of CO2, which we will sequester and that ammonia is obviously for sale. 

00:11:38 Steve Milward 

Onto the onto the open market or with through off take agreements. We're working on those off take agreements. 

00:11:44 Steve Milward 

Now a lot of people listening to this show will know that we're. 

00:11:50 Steve Milward 

The the current area of focus around the globe for ammonia are places such as Japan and South Korea, and they're looking to import that ammonia to use that as part of their decarbonization strategy in coal-fired power plants where. 

00:12:10 Steve Milward 

They can use the they can Co fire both the coal and the ammonia to offset the amount of coal that they're that they're burning in their boilers. 

00:12:22 Chris Sass 

When you say you're. 

00:12:22 Chris Sass 

Sequestering the carbon. What are you doing with the carbon? How are you? 

00:12:26 Chris Sass 

Sequestering it. 

00:12:28 Steve Milward 

So through and through off take agreements again, there are many Class 6 wells which are either proposed or in place in the US. There are also offshore wells which are. 

00:12:42 Steve Milward 

Are being created to sequester the CO2, so effectively burying that CO2 in in a well underground where that CO2 will will remain forever essentially from our perspective, the project will. 

00:12:59 Steve Milward 

Contract with a third party who will off. Take that CO2 and then show that CO2 is safely requested. 

00:13:08 Chris Sass 

Do you displace the technology in the ports today? Is it LNG that you're competing with? You're saying you're down on the Texas coast or is this brand new facilities just adding additional capacity? 

00:13:19 Steve Milward 

This is brand new facilities adding additional capacity. The the project itself currently as as it is it envisaged is hydrogen to ammonia and ammonia for export, but that isn't to say that we couldn't also produce hydrogen in the region and ammonia, we can produce both at the moment. 

00:13:40 Steve Milward 

Focuses on ammonia because of those markets that I spoke about in Japan and. 

00:13:44 Steve Milward 

Area but locally we could produce hydrogen and we could then distribute that hydrogen into networks that already exist in the region for hydrogen to users in the region who use hydrogen. 

00:14:01 Chris Sass 

And and what kind of power or what do you need for this operation? Is it mostly chemical? Do you need you need renewable energy to create the ammonia and the hydrogen? 

00:14:13 Steve Milward 

Now, So what what we basically need is a supply of natural gas and it's that natural gas that is at the heart of both the combustion process to create the CO2 and that natural gas is also the product which is then reformed into the seeing gas, which then becomes hydrogen. The other important aspect is. 

00:14:33 Steve Milward 

The power that we require in the area and obviously you know that there's a lot of, there's a lot of news around the limited amount of power in the region, but we've been working really, really closely with Energy Texas and really closely around the step ahead. 

00:14:52 Steve Milward 

And to work with them to understand what capacity will be available to us in the future. And we're assured that we will have the power in the region to supply what is a very, very large scale facility producing that ammonia. So really the infrastructure is key. 

00:15:12 Steve Milward 

I think the other area of infrastructure that's key as well that we're working on is the port access and ensuring that we can actually get the ammonia from our facility through a three and a half mile pipeline that takes us to the port which. 

00:15:25 Steve Milward 

And allows us to temporarily store the ammonia at the port before loading that onto a vessel and that vessel then making its way to its destination to the to to the, to the user that buys the ammonia from us. 

00:15:40 Chris Sass 

And do you? Do you have concerns about the ships? Have you you have hydrogen? 

00:15:45 Chris Sass 

Or other technologies that aren't running bunker fuel in the ships? Or are we just using? 

00:15:49 Chris Sass 

Whatever the ships are available. 

00:15:52 Steve Milward 

So the the ships themselves, that's currently something that's being looked at as to you know how those ships would be powered. There's no real decision around that at the moment and that's something that we're speaking with. 

00:16:08 Steve Milward 

With logistics providers around. 

00:16:11 Steve Milward 

I would say predominantly those ships will be you know they will be standard ships, you know, just running on normal bunker fuels in in the, in the in the short term obviously then transitioning those vessels to other fuels, but we're in open dialogue with shipping companies around. 

00:16:30 Chris Sass 

Makes sense? 

00:16:31 Chris Sass 

What? What are I mean, you're opening it, I assume in Texas, because of the North American availability of natural gas? Are there other markets that you're looking at this technology where this makes sense? 

00:16:45 Steve Milward 

Yeah, the the technology makes sense in in many regions of the world. I think the big focus now and the big focus for everybody is the subsidies in the US around 45Q45 V you know, all brought through by the Inflation Reduction Act. That's the real driver here is that, that's. 

00:17:02 Steve Milward 

Much driving everybody to sort of look really, really closely at the US because the inflation Reduction Act. 

00:17:10 Steve Milward 

Really allows you to use the policy for what it is, whereas in other regions of the world some policies are more restrictive or they've not been thought through yet. Or you there's, there's there's other, shall I say, boxes to tick that are much more difficult to tick. 

00:17:30 Steve Milward 

Or or not mature enough yet. So initially deploying the technology in the US makes a lot of sense because of the ease of the policy that is around the inflation reduction. 

00:17:41 Steve Milward 

Once we've then deployed the technology in the first instance, it then becomes easier to deploy the technology again and again and again and adapt that technology as other regions policies mature. 

00:17:56 Chris Sass 

When you're talking about deploying the technology, are you talking about deploying it as licensing or are you talking about deploying it as eight rivers or whatever company you established to do this? 

00:18:06 Steve Milward 

So initially the first project will be eight rivers. The first project corner clean energy currently is 100% owned by 8 Rivers. 

00:18:15 Steve Milward 

And. 

00:18:17 Steve Milward 

Once we've deployed the technology which many will see as a first of a kind technology, we do not see it that way and we can talk about that a little bit more later in, in, in the show. 

00:18:26 Steve Milward 

But right now, once we've deployed it once and we've proved to the world that this technology works and this process works, we'll then start to look at licensing that technology and licensing that technology to other companies who can deploy the technology. The idea here, Chris, and the idea behind the company. 

00:18:46 Steve Milward 

Is if we were to deploy every single project. 

00:18:51 Steve Milward 

We wouldn't deploy enough to make a difference. We really have to deploy in a licensing model so that many people can deploy this technology, not just eight rivers. 

00:19:02 Chris Sass 

To describe what one of these facilities is like, what? What will it look like? And you said you'll talk about the technology, but maybe it makes sense when you describe a little bit. 

00:19:12 Chris Sass 

You know, if if one of these were opened up in the port and. 

00:19:14 Chris Sass 

I drove by. What would it look like? 

00:19:17 Steve Milward 

It would look like any other chemical refinery that you would see you, you wouldn't really notice. You know, you couldn't look at it and say haha, that that is that is an 8 rivers 8RH2 facility you it it would just look like a series of columns. There would be an air separation unit which again just looks like a. 

00:19:37 Steve Milward 

A large square box to many people. 

00:19:40 Steve Milward 

Uh. 

00:19:41 Steve Milward 

You know, there's nothing really that you would see that you would recognize as as this technology it looks just. 

00:19:50 Steve Milward 

Standard columns standard refinery flare stack just like just like any other refinery. I would say it is smaller for its scale when when compared to other hydrogen technologies, but but. 

00:20:04 Steve Milward 

There's nothing really different about it. 

00:20:06 Chris Sass 

Now, is this mostly automated? Is it a pretty light crew working there or or how many folks tend to work at a facility like this? 

00:20:14 Steve Milward 

Yeah, we envisaged that in operation there will be around 90 uh, 90 jobs will be created in operating this facility across the facility, which is is very light that is born about the way we're going about the control system for. 

00:20:34 Steve Milward 

The technology and how we're doing that. 

00:20:38 Steve Milward 

With our partners Casale. 

00:20:42 Steve Milward 

Means that we can look at that in a different way, again not following the norm of how facilities have maybe been run before, but looking at how we can run it differently and how we can use things like remote monitoring and different systems that we can look to use that help us make it. 

00:21:02 Steve Milward 

A. 

00:21:04 Steve Milward 

Better working environment for the people who operate the plant and at the same time make sure that it's also safe and you know, run reliably and have all of those systems in place that allow us to use that sort of remote monitoring as well to operate the plant. 

00:21:24 Chris Sass 

You you said that. 

00:21:26 Chris Sass 

The technology some will perceive it as new, others will. Once you explain it, see that it's not really cutting edge or brand new across the the idea. Maybe you can unpack that a little bit and help me understand what you meant by that statement. 

00:21:39 Steve Milward 

Yeah, certainly. So if you look at any hydrogen production facility or any modern day hydrogen production facility, they're all based around autothermal reforming or the they're all reforming processes and this is no different. It is a reforming process, but. 

00:21:58 Steve Milward 

The way in which we carry out that reforming is to take the CO2 and use that CO2, use the heat from that CO2 in the reformer with the catalyst and the natural gas to create the syngas. 

00:22:13 Steve Milward 

And that in itself is not that. That's not novel. Yeah. The the novelty is, is, is is the CO2. 

00:22:22 Steve Milward 

Any reforming process uses heat and a catalyst to create syngas to create hydrogen. 

00:22:29 Steve Milward 

So there's nothing novel per say other than we're taking that heat from CO2. 

00:22:36 Steve Milward 

And. 

00:22:37 Steve Milward 

The rest of the system, you know, when you look at it is, is pressure string absorbers, it's secondary reforming. So whether that's gas heated, reforming or oxygen secondary reforming, you've got heat exchangers, you've got compressors. So there's a lot of standard kits that's in the process. 

00:22:58 Steve Milward 

That's all been proven at that scale before. There's a reformer that's at the heart of it, which we call the CO2 convective reformer. 

00:23:06 Steve Milward 

But again, as as I just said, it's just the reformer. It's just that it's getting its heat from CO2. That's the only difference. 

00:23:15 Chris Sass 

Now, do you envision you said that you know you wouldn't be able to scale up to meet the demand? If you look at hydrogen or ammonia, but it doesn't matter how you ship the molecule? 

00:23:26 Chris Sass 

How do you envision the future going? Do you see plants doing this? Do you see folks doing other methods, other many paths to get there, and that you're just one of them? Or do you expect significant part of the market to go this direction? 

00:23:41 Steve Milward 

I expected the market around the use of natural gas to create hydrogen and ammonia and again giving it a color which I don't like to do. But you know. 

00:23:50 Steve Milward 

It it's blue. 

00:23:52 Steve Milward 

We'll all be around this process, this, this or a reforming process. It has to be what I think this does and what I think we are. 

00:24:01 Steve Milward 

The rivers are doing. 

00:24:03 Steve Milward 

Is. 

00:24:04 Steve Milward 

Our carbon capture rate, which is at 99.98%, is currently one of the highest, if not the highest, carbon capture rate in a blue hydrogen reforming process. What I see that doing is I see that driving. 

00:24:23 Steve Milward 

Others to achieve the same, we went through a a period in the past five years whereby a lot of companies were producing the same technology. 

00:24:34 Steve Milward 

You know it will capture 9495% and really not driving to get that extra 5% because it it's diminishing returns. It doesn't really give them anything. 

00:24:45 Steve Milward 

But I think now what we see is that now you have subsidies in place that are, you know, rewarding you for capturing more CO2. And because companies like ourselves are driving to that socially responsible place of capturing as much CO2 as possible in a in an economical. 

00:25:05 Steve Milward 

Way. 

00:25:07 Steve Milward 

Our competitors will drive to do the same and we're already seeing some of our competitors start to have literature out in the market where they're stating 99% ninety 8% and that's a really good thing to see because previously that wasn't there and and you sort of think to yourself well you. 

00:25:27 Steve Milward 

You're helping drive the market to a better place. 

00:25:31 Chris Sass 

99% does that meet the sustainability goals for a lot of the large corporations or power companies? Is that what they're looking to do today, or will they still be? 

00:25:43 Chris Sass 

Really focused on the green hydrogen with. 

00:25:47 Chris Sass 

Without the blue color, I know you don't like the colors, but I think there's there's folks that will say they only want to buy green hydrogen, right? And there's certainly not enough available, if that's what you're wanting needed for your business. 

00:25:51 Steve Milward 

Yeah. 

00:25:58 Steve Milward 

And there. 

00:25:59 Steve Milward 

The interesting thing with the blue and the green. Uh, I think it's. I like to think of it more about best use case. 

00:26:08 Steve Milward 

And how you best using the product that you're producing and you know blue will be predominantly used, you know in large volumes for the production of ammonia as a carrier. 

00:26:23 Steve Milward 

Whereas you're green, you're green is probably a better use case around transportation. 

00:26:32 Steve Milward 

Green is also a lot more modular in the fact that it uses, you know, it's produced using electrolyzers and those electrolyzers and those plants can be smaller. They can be located, you know, very close to cities or very close to transportation hubs where the sea where where that hydrogen is going to be. 

00:26:53 Steve Milward 

Used. 

00:26:54 Steve Milward 

Whereas the blue is more. It's much larger scale. There's a space for both of them, and right now I see blue. Blue will go first, green is still trying to get itself off the ground. 45 V. 

00:27:12 Steve Milward 

You know, as as as a tax credit, there's a lot of companies looking at how they actually. 

00:27:18 Steve Milward 

They get 45 V from their project. What are the things that they've got to do to get their project over the line to get to financial close? How are they going to actually deploy that technology and how are they going to do it at the right scale? So I think once. 

00:27:36 Steve Milward 

Once green goes and and and a lot of projects start to go, I think Green will very, very very very quickly overtake. 

00:27:44 Steve Milward 

Blue. 

00:27:45 Steve Milward 

I I only see it as being a limited period of time for blue and. 

00:27:50 Steve Milward 

That that in itself is a good thing. 

00:27:53 Steve Milward 

Because you're you're you're using natural gas, which you let. Let's just be honest. Natural gas is a fossil fuel, but that's not a dirty word when you're using that fossil fuel to good use in capturing 99.98% of the carbon that's being socially responsible about the fuel and the resource. 

00:28:13 Steve Milward 

That we have available to us and that that's the right thing to do to get this off the ground. 

00:28:20 Steve Milward 

Plant. 

00:28:21 Steve Milward 

I think Green will then take over I very much like in the two, you know my my home country, which is the UK. 

00:28:31 Steve Milward 

The use of renewables in the UK and the policies that were put in place to drive large scale wind turbines. 

00:28:39 Steve Milward 

It took some time to get those off the ground. It took some time for developers to understand how to deploy renewables and and wind turbines at scale using the government policies that the UK government put in place. 

00:28:55 Steve Milward 

Once they've realised how to do that. 

00:28:58 Steve Milward 

It was very, very easy to deploy, you know, on a rinse and repeat basis. And now what you see in the UK is a really, really strong uh base, loads of renewables, you know. 

00:29:13 Steve Milward 

And and on some days in the UK now powering the, you know, powering the majority of the UK on wind. 

00:29:20 Steve Milward 

I think you can liken that to 45 V that wants industry and developers understand what they've got to do to get across the line with their projects. 

00:29:32 Steve Milward 

It will just be like rinse and repeat and and it will go very, very quickly. I'm, I'm sure of that. 

00:29:39 Chris Sass 

Other than the the subsidies or the the the IRA benefits, you also talked about offtake agreements. Are you pre selling some of your your capacity? Is that part of your goal or I mean cause ammonia is pretty much a commodity, right? So. 

00:29:55 Chris Sass 

Are are you finding an appetite in the market to preset to pre buy? 

00:30:00 Steve Milward 

Yeah. I mean to to to get any project, uh, such as ours, you know, through financial uh financial investment decision. 

00:30:11 Steve Milward 

You've got to have an off take agreement for the for the product. So there is a lot of appetite in the market now, a lot of appetite from Japan and Korea and and others for this product. Obviously you've got to be able to sell that product as cost competitively as. 

00:30:30 Steve Milward 

Double and it, you know, it's a very, very hot market. Ammonia has been around a long time. It's not something that's new. Uh, there is an ammonia market already. There are some very big players in that market that you're you're that that people who haven't played in that market before are now stepping into. 

00:30:50 Steve Milward 

You know, if you look at in the Gulf region, then you look at how many? 

00:30:54 Steve Milward 

Projects are anticipated. I think it's up around 2425 projects. That's a lot of projects and not all of those projects are going to go ahead, but all of those projects need somewhere to send that ammonia and that you'd that's where you start to drive. 

00:31:13 Steve Milward 

Cost and that's where our particular technology. 

00:31:18 Steve Milward 

Really, really plays to a strength of low CapEx because we don't have the A means at the back end. We're not stripping out the CO2. You know we are, as I said at the very beginning, creating that CO2 in the 1st place. We are putting that CO2 to very good use through heat. 

00:31:39 Steve Milward 

And heat recovery and reforming and we're then sequestering that CO2. 

00:31:44 Steve Milward 

So that means that, you know, we had, we had the problem in the 1st place and we turned that problem into a solution and therefore we don't have that large CapEx. We we have a we have a very, very competitive price to deliver ammonia to the market. 

00:32:01 Chris Sass 

Well, I think it's interesting hearing about the conversation, hearing about your projects. If our audience wanted to find out a little bit more about what's going on, where resource would they go to, where would they go on the web to find out more about what you all are doing? 

00:32:14 Steve Milward 

So they can go to our website so they can go to eightrivers.com. That'll tell them all about the company and it will have us all the links there to all of the technologies, to our projects, to our micro sites around Corman, clean Energy, there's there's plenty to read on the on the Internet as well by but. 

00:32:34 Steve Milward 

That that's been written by others. So if you if you just want to go onto the onto good old Google type in eight Rivers 8 or H2 or eight Rivers, Allen fed cycle into Google. 

00:32:44 Steve Milward 

As soon as you hit return, you're going to get a lot of results. Uh, if you. If you then click on the on the news tab, you're going to read a lot of news articles about eight rivers, and what we're doing in in the clean energy, clean fuels and decarbonization space. 

00:32:58 Chris Sass 

Well, Steve, I want to thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. It's been educational. I look forward to following you guys through 2027 and beyond to see the development in Texas. Thank you so much for being. 

00:33:09 Chris Sass 

Test. 

00:33:11 Steve Milward 

And thank you, Chris, and thank you to all the listeners. And if, if, if, if anybody is listening to this and thinks that's you, that company sounds interesting. I really want to learn more. They can always just reach out directly, always willing to speak to anybody about our technologies or the company in general. 

00:33:27 Steve Milward 

Thank you. 

00:33:27 Chris Sass 

Her audience? We hope you've enjoyed this episode of the Insiders Guide to Energy. Please take a second to like, add comments, follow us and subscribe to us on YouTube and we will see you again next time on the insiders guide to energy. Bye for now. 

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