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Prometheus Materials has an intriguing answer. The University of Colorado spinout is turning algae into cement using a process that\u2019s similar to how coral and seashells naturally form. \u201cClimate change is potentially an existential problem, and we\u2019re finding that nature may have provided us with the keys to a solution,\u201d says Loren Burnett, the company\u2019s cofounder and CEO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prometheus is still in the early stages of commercialization with minimal revenue from a test facility in Longmont, Colorado, near Boulder. But it\u2019s figured out the science and is now raising what Burnett expects will be between $15 million and $35 million in venture funding (plus additional project financing) to build a 35,000-square-foot factory to make at least a half-dozen different varieties of precast, bio-concrete products, including blocks, panels and pavers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Burnett expects that the combination of the factory\u2019s production and a licensing strategy that will allow it to sell its bio-based material in powdered form to producers worldwide will help it reach $75 million in revenue by 2027. \u201cThe key here is that we\u2019ll leverage the large producers of cement and concrete using their production and distribution facilities,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s a big number, but even if Prometheus reaches that goal it\u2019s barely a drop in the bucket for the more than $300 billion global cement industry. That helps explain why Prometheus is one of a number of startups now trying to tackle the hard problem of cement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Biomason,<\/a> for example, has developed a similar way to grow cement bricks and tiles with bacteria. Terra CO2, with a different low-carbon alternative to cement, has raised money from Bill Gates\u2019 Breakthrough Energy Ventures. Brimstone Energy is working to commercialize carbon-negative cement and is building a pilot plant near Reno, Nevada with backing from venture firm DCVC. All three have gained more venture funding than Prometheus, with Brimstone raising $60 million, Biomason $87 million and Terra CO2 $99 million, according to venture-capital database PitchBook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gates, who wrote a book called How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, <\/em>has called out the desperate need to come up with a cleaner and affordable alternative to cement to fight climate change. Cement is a major producer of greenhouse gasses both because of the chemical reaction that creates it and the fossil fuels required to heat the kilns where it\u2019s produced. \u201cWe don\u2019t have a way of doing it that\u2019s clean, that doesn\u2019t cost dramatically more, more than twice the price,\u201d he told NPR\u2019s Marketplace<\/a> in 2021. \u201cSo if people think it\u2019s just passenger cars and electricity, they\u2019re going to miss what we need to do to get to zero.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n To bring the cement industry in line with the Paris Agreement on climate change, its annual emissions would need to drop by at least 16% by 2030,<\/a> even as cement production is slated to increase, according to a 2018 report by the London-based think tank Chatham House. \u201cThis problem is so huge it\u2019s going to take all of us being wildly successful,\u201d Burnett says of his company and its competitors. \u201cEverywhere you look, you\u2019re going to see concrete. It\u2019s ubiquitous.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Four University of Colorado Boulder academics, Jeff Cameron,<\/a> Sherri Cook,<\/a> Mija Hubler<\/a> and Wil Sruber<\/a> \u2014 all Prometheus cofounders and advisors \u2014 stumbled onto the idea while searching for a solution to a different problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They\u2019d received a $2.4 million grant from the Department of Defense\u2019s research arm in 2017 to see if they could use biology to produce protective structures in deserts and other remote environments with difficult terrain. \u201cThey knew they couldn\u2019t fly in concrete because it\u2019s too heavy, and they knew they didn\u2019t want to truck it in over large expanses of hostile territory,\u201d Burnett says. \u201cSo if they could use local materials to produce hardened structures to protect troops and high-value military assets, that\u2019s what they wanted to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The researchers began testing bacteria in petri dishes to see what they could come up with. At first they worked with ureolytic bacteria, which had been studied for civil engineering applications,<\/a> but they eventually switched to cyanobacteria, commonly known as blue-green algae, which gets its energy from photosynthesis. As they delved deeper, the Defense Department asked them to make a little two-by-two cube of the material. \u201cWe learned quickly that a lot of the challenges we had to address were in the scale-up,\u201d Hubler says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, the company grows its algae in narrow 1,350-liter tanks with artificial seawater that\u2019s full of nutrients, bubbled air to provide carbon dioxide and LED lights to mimic sunlight. Prometheus harvests the algae and puts it in a separate tank and, using a proprietary process, stimulates what\u2019s called biomineralization \u2014 the formation of minerals into biological structures. \u201cThat\u2019s our secret sauce,\u201d Burnett says. The result is a slurry that it dries into a powder and combines with proprietary natural binders to create a zero-carbon bio-cement. The material can be mixed with the granular material known as aggregate to form bio-based concrete. The final bio-concrete blocks look pretty much like those made with the industry standard, Portland cement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Burnett, 66, a serial entrepreneur, previously founded five companies, four of which were based on tech transfer from a university or a lab. In 2011, he created the now-dormant e-Chromic Technologies based on technology licensed from the Department of Energy\u2019s renewable energy lab for a window technology that reflected infrared radiation back into the atmosphere to reduce the need for air conditioners and cooling. \u201cThat\u2019s where I got bitten by the decarbonization bug,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In February 2021, the University of Colorado\u2019s tech-transfer office connected Burnett with the four professors, and the next month they founded the company together.<\/p>\n\n\n The early stages of a university spinout are tough because academic researchers can\u2019t use their school labs for commercial work, but raising money takes more than just theoretical proof that the technology works. Cameron set up a basement lab in his house with fish tanks and bubbling apparatus purchased from pet stores. \u201cWe were sending samples to some of our investors that me and my kids actually made,\u201d Cameron says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A year later, the startup raised $8 million<\/a> in venture funding led by European life sciences firm Sofinnova Partners that included strategic investors Microsoft, architectural firm Skidmore Owings & Merrill and roofing giant GAF<\/a>. That enabled Prometheus to start pilot projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\nPetri Dish Days<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Decarbonization Bug<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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