What is LanzaTech's main mission in the context of the green transition?
LanzaTech takes waste carbon from industrial gases found in industrial sites or solid trash and converts it into daily-use products. By recycling carbon pollution and turning it into ethanol, we are able to make sustainable aviation fuel through our sister company LanzaJet, polyester that is used in clothing and shoes, and surfactants for detergents. Given that all this ethanol is produced from carbon that is already above ground, we believe that there is enough carbon to allow us to transition to a circular carbon economy.
In simple terms, how does your technology work, and how feasible is a post-pollution world?
We use a biological fermentation process which is very similar to making beer, but instead of using sugar as feedstock, we use waste gases. To mitigate the cost and emissions linked to transportation, we put our production facilities where waste is and then take the pollution, pass it through a bioreactor, and make ethanol. Unlike a brewery, where the process is batch-based, our production is continuous, and the chemistry happens in seconds. In this whole context, ethanol is just an intermediate, the central piece being the resulting ethylene, which is the largest raw material used in the petrochemical industry today. Seeing the huge potential derived from this straightforward way of using our technology, we strongly believe that a post-pollution world is in the making as we speak.
What is your current footprint and what are your potential expansion plans?
Our first commercial plant was established in 2018. At the moment we have four facilities (at steel and ferroalloy mills) operating in China. The plan is to walk in the footsteps of the solar industry and open plants everywhere in the world. This year we will inaugurate a facility in India together with IndianOil, and we will commission a plant in Ghent, Belgium. In terms of demonstration scale plants, in Japan, we are working alongside Sekisui to turn their trash into ethanol, and in Canada, we have co-developed a next-generation bioreactor in partnership with Suncor that uses wood waste as feedstocks. We are also present in Australia, through Woodside, with whom we are now designing a biogas-based project.
What are some of the most prominent brands that use your ethanol products?
When it comes to backend partnerships, ZARA, H&M Move, Lululemon and Adidas are some of the clothing brands that use our polyester in their fashion items. Some of them mention our company by name on the clothes' tags, while others allow us to reference the partnership on social media. Additionally, Coty, the company that produces Gucci perfume, underlines the importance of our ethanol in each of their presentations. Unilever is also on our partners list, and together with Borealis and Technip Energies we are collaborating with On to help them produce EVA foam for their running shoes.
Across LanzaTech's 15-year-long journey, what major challenges have you had to overcome?
Even though now the public seems to understand that waste can be turned into beautiful and useful products, general acceptance and the rate at which decisions get made are probably two of the main issues of our industry. To create a future that is sustainable, we need to be able to categorize projects according to their development stages and make a clear difference between what is commercial and what is just in the idea phase. Governments and investors have always liked to support very early-stage projects, but once you get into commercialization it is much more difficult to obtain funds. It is important to push for projects that help decarbonize today and not only support those that promise to show results in ten years' time.
Which geographies show the most potential for your future plans?
Now, we feel we are underrepresented in the U.S., but with the Inflation Reduction Act, we expect to be consistently growing in this market as well. The Middle East is another destination we are interested to conquer and we have actually just announced a joint SAF project with a waste management company in Abu Dhabi. As a small company, we need to build as many plants as possible and be everywhere in the world to be successful. Thanks to the partnership with Brookfield Renewable, we have access to the necessary capital to license our technology.
In your view, what should we do as a society to help accelerate the decarbonization of the planet?
Carbon capture and reuse is a critical enabler for the energy transition, but the change is only going to come when it becomes mainstream to look at a label and clearly see where that carbon is coming from.
Each and all of us have a major role to play in the acknowledgment of climate change challenges, and teaching people there are viable solutions out there is critical to the success of the world bending the carbon curve.
