S1E19

Turning Industrial Waste into Carbon Storage | Scaling Climate Tech in Austria | S1E19

with Lucas Huba· Sequestra· 75m

TL;DR

Sequestra uses AI-driven mineralization to store CO2 in industrial waste, creating construction materials and addressing hard-to-abate emissions.

Synopsis

Lucas Huba, founder of Sequestra, discusses their technology for mineralizing CO2 into industrial waste materials like steel slag and mining tailings. This process permanently stores carbon, transforming waste into valuable construction aggregates. The company aims to provide carbonation intelligence and industrial-scale reactors to heavy industries. The business model is driven by the EU's delegated act, which recognizes CO2 stored in building materials as permanent utilization, exempting companies from emission fines. Sequestra focuses on hard-to-abate sectors like cement and waste incineration, offering a solution for their unavoidable process emissions and creating a new revenue stream from waste valorization.

Key metrics

by the numbers · 8

13 billion tons
Chile copper tailings
10%
Global emissions reduction potential
20%
CO2 uptake potential of steel slag
€1 billion
Carbon capture plant cost
90%
Carbon capture for enhanced oil recovery
€140 per ton
EU ETS fine for cement
7%
Steel sector global CO2 emissions
20
Mineralization startups in Europe

Topics

8 tags

Industrial DecarbonizationCarbon Capture Utilization (CCU)MineralizationWaste ValorizationMetallurgyClimate Tech EcosystemStartup FundingPolicy Incentives

Stats

Duration: 1h 15m
Words: 12.7k
Questions: 41

Timeline

11 chapters

Guest Introduction
Lucas Huba, a metallurgist and entrepreneur, is introduced as the founder of Sequestra, focusing on CO2 and industrial waste.
Educational Background
Lucas shares his journey into metallurgical engineering in Leoben, Austria, and his growing interest in heavy industrial sustainability and recycling technologies.
Entrepreneurial Roots
Lucas discusses his innate entrepreneurial drive, which led him to found two NGOs, 'Engineers for a Sustainable Future' and 'Shift Tanks', during his PhD to engage engineers in sustainability.
Sequestra's Genesis
Lucas identified a critical gap in green heavy industrial production, leading him to explore valorizing industrial waste materials by storing CO2 within them, which became the foundation for Sequestra.
Core Technology
Sequestra's technology focuses on the mineralization of CO2 into industrial waste materials like steel slag, transforming them into valuable construction aggregates.
Policy Tailwinds
A new EU delegated act defines CO2 used in the building sector as permanent utilization, providing a significant economic incentive for Sequestra's technology by avoiding emission fines.
Sequestra's Approach
Sequestra employs a wet process direct carbonation technique, mixing waste materials with water and injecting CO2, coupled with an AI-driven rapid empirical testing system for carbonation intelligence.
Business Case
The business model leverages the high EU ETS fines (e.g., €140/ton for cement) by offering a cost-effective solution for CO2 storage in building materials, creating a new revenue stream for industrial waste producers.
Austrian Climate Tech
Lucas highlights the challenges for industrial climate tech hardware startups in Austria, noting a lack of ecosystem support, specialized workshops, and fellow founders despite good grant funding.
Scaling Challenges
Scaling a high-tech startup in Austria and Europe presents challenges in securing large amounts of capital beyond national grants, though new EU investment initiatives offer potential solutions.
Future Vision
By 2030, Sequestra aims to be the global leader in carbonation intelligence, with automated labs and industrial plants, focusing on developing technologies that directly reduce emissions.

Key insights

5 takeaways

01
EU Policy Drives CCU Value
A recent EU delegated act redefines CO2 utilization, recognizing only building material storage as permanent. This creates a strong economic incentive for mineralization over other carbon capture and utilization pathways.
02
Hard-to-Abate Sector Challenge
Industries like cement, waste incineration, and refractory production face unavoidable process emissions. Carbon capture and utilization technologies are essential for their long-term viability under tightening regulations.
03
Industrial Waste as Carbon Sink
Mineral waste materials such as steel slag, mining tailings, and building rubble possess significant capacity to chemically bind CO2. This offers a scalable solution for permanent carbon storage and valorization into construction products.
04
Data-Driven Carbonation Optimization
Sequestra's unique approach uses automated rapid empirical testing and big data to optimize carbonation processes for diverse waste materials. The goal is to become a global leader in carbonation intelligence.
05
Austrian Climate Tech Ecosystem Gaps
Despite good grant funding, Austria lacks a robust ecosystem for industrial climate tech hardware startups. Challenges include finding co-founders, specialized workshops, and late-stage capital compared to software ventures.

Pull quotes

4 quotes

Every molecule of CO2 that's used in the building sector is utilization and everything else is an emission. This is our biggest tailwind at Sequestra right now
Lucas Huba
We are a hybrid between big data and yeah, heavy industrial green tech and big data and AI is a big word.
Lucas Huba
If you want to get free money as a startup owner, you should come to Austria. There's a lot of grant money, but we have no infrastructure for if you if you try to build a chemical reactor.
Lucas Huba
Intentions don't matter actions do. like talking about stuff a lot of people like to talk about what they would do.
Lucas Huba

Transcript1972 cuesClick a timestamp to jump

Welcome to a new episode of the Energy
Bridge., today we have the pleasure
to have Lucas Huba, if I pronounce it
well.
>> Yeah, that's fine.
>> Yeah. well since I'm from Chile from
a mining country I'm very excited to
this interview because you are a
metallergic expert
an entrepreneur
and working with CO2 so it's a lot of
topics together very interesting so
thank you for being here with us
>> thank you very much yes
>> thank you very much Lucas you're one of
the coolest researcher I already told
you I'm not a researcher anymore or
>> but having said that yeah you have a way
like you have done so much man I have
three pages of what you have done
already how old are you
>> I will turn 32 soon
>> yeah maybe we could start with your
educational journey and you were telling
us u behind camera that Austria is
you only have a small mining So how do
you how did you get this methological
passion?
>> Yeah, passion. So I grew up in a small
town. It's close to Leon where I
studied. Leon has or still has but back
then it has a very very high reputation
in terms of engineering. So it was
always considered very good technical
university and still is.
>>. just in the last years got a big
down because the urge to study something
in engineering got much less in Austria.
Less and less people are studying
engineering and so although it hit hard
on Leo every first year at this
university is the same for every major
and then they make this presentations of
the different studies and they present
themselves to all the students. It just
looked very interesting, like
metalology is very big, very hot.
Everything is super heavy in a steel
plant. Everything can, just
that the crane that picks up steel pls
has five tons just at the very top of
the crane. Everything is massive. I just
liked it. And it back then I also was
interested in earning money. I would
say I have to say back then I was like I
want to have a job where I can earn have
a nice career as an engineer and
methology for sure is a field where you
can do that. So then I started after
one year I switched and started
methological engineering and then I just
stick to it and I always liked it. I
have to say it's very niche..
>> I've never in my whole life met anyone
outside of a professional context that
also studied meloical engineering at
conferences. Yes, of course. But no, not
that a single party never I met anyone
who was like I also studied methological
engineering
>> in India when you do when you go for
engineering.
>> Yeah.
>> So if you have a high rank you go for
computer science. Yeah. If you have
slightly lower rank, you go for
electronics and communication
>> then then a bit more then maybe
mechanical and if you have the last rank
>> then or no
mining or metallergy or something but I
mean it's getting more and more
important now like when but I'm talking
about way back like a decade back.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In Austria has a very
strong methological industry.
>> Yeah. there's this process if
you produce steel you take iron or take
out the carbon then you have enriched
hot metal with enriched carbon content
and you need to take out the carbon and
this process you blow in oxygen this
process is called basic oxygen furnace
or LD process it's the most famous
industrial process in the world and
around 75% of all steel produced by this
process it was developed in Austria
called LD is lint stonovitz process so
we have a very strong methological
background
>> and I just yeah I liked it and I stick
to it and that's how it
>> you did all your studies in Luben.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I Yeah. Everything I
was I told you I was in India for two
months as an internship and then I
wanted during my PhD I wanted to go
abroad but then corona hit so I
>> I was eight years in Le. Yeah.
>> Yeah. And in the middle of your studies
you went into recycling technologies.
How was the motivation and what do you
do?
>> I have to say heavy industries,
everything in heavy industries moved
into sustainability., it's all
>> energy optimization, less resources,
recycling. So
>> when I looked at potential master thesis
topics,
>> it's all recycling optimization. So I
just started a master thesis in
recycling engineering, recycling some
slack. Slag is a byproduct in every
pyromethological process. So every
mineral material that was that was
liquid at some time is a
>> slag.
>> So I started in this field then I
liked it pretty much. this whole
heavy industrial sustainability topic.
It just seemed very interesting and
challenging to me and it is very
challenging. We can talk about it later
for a long time. it is never ending and
very challenging and this is how I got
into this field actually also when I was
in India it's also did something to
me to see the environmental problems you
know of like Mumbai
and I was just like
>> what can you do work right like going to
India and it changed your life
>> it changed my life yes in some way for
Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Now I came back then I
graduated.
>> Okay.
>> Then I did
7 months of traveling.
>>.
>> And then I went to India again in this
traveling period and then traveled the
whole country and also other countries
in Southeast Asia and I was like yeah
>> you need to do something. I'm
a big Africa fan also. I've been many
times in Africa and it's the same thing
in Africa. Who is developing a recycling
process? if you are in a country that
has much bigger urgent problems you
know.
>> Yeah. Yeah. So I was like I always
was like we should develop technologies
for the world in a country we can do it.
This is why I then stuck to recycling
engineering and did my my PhD in this
field and I always liked it. I really
have to say it was a good
>> profession to choose.
>> But it's also a thing like
every everything that got manufactured
>> the let's the in poorer Asian countries
in African they got stuck with it like
plastic is a big problem in India and
also in Africa.
>> Yeah
>> 100 years ago everything was sustainable
for them. They would use plantbased
plates.
>> Yeah.
>> Or steel plates. Then they plastic
got introduced I guess 30 years ago or
something and now they filth everywhere.
>> It's crazy. Yeah, it's get gets ever
more crazy. No. So this was the how I
maneuvered into this field.
>> Did it also inspire you to take on
entrepreneurship?
>> I think I always had this
entrepreneurial thing in me. I just for
a long time didn't do much about it.
>>. But looking back, I've always been
like this. I just I think my studies
were too consuming.
>>.
>> So that was not really a possibility. I
studied like crazy. I wanted to get done
with studying and there was not much to
do around that. But then I started
working in my PhD.
>>.
>> And I worked and after 40 hours everyone
went home, . And I was like I
was always and also still today I have
>> I don't know but I have too much energy
like I have just it can be
annoying also to other people I just
said I can't go home after 40 hours I
don't know what to do then I
can I do a lot of sports and stuff like
this but
>> also back then everyone went home at
3:00 and I was like I can't do this I
can't do this for three years I
will go crazy and then I founded these
two NOS's and it really gave me a lot
purpose was also like building something
entrepreneurial on a volunteerial basis.
>>.
>> But I worked 40 hours a week and then
put in another 2530 into those building
those two organizations. And
>> what are they about?
>> So the first one doesn't exist
anymore. It was called Engineers for a
Sustainable Future. I wanted to
seeing all this crazy environmental
pollution in other countries I was
like we need to leverage engineers. So
what I realized in Leob a lot of the
studies went into sustainability but on
an engineering field like
energy optimization. I studied me
mythology and I never had any lecture
about sustainability. Nothing at all.
And I was like
>> this is weird. there's a study
it's called environmental protection.
They had some stuff but we in methology
nothing. And I was like we need to we
cannot transform sustainability minded
people to become engineers. It's
impossible. if some someone
who's very idealistic is like we need to
change this and that they don't change
the blast furnace process.,
like people who worked for 20 years in
blast furnace research might change it,
but it's rocket science to change
something there. You can't just maneuver
in there and be like, I will now build a
new blast furnace. So, I was like, we
need to change the engineers of the
future. So, how so how we could we do
this? Let's organize some events and
speeches and presentations of people who
can tell them nice stuff. That's what we
did. We invited some people and then a
lot of people came to us and are like I
also want to be part of this
organization. And we're like there's
nothing to do. And we're three people.
We organizing events. We don't need 16
people for doing that. And then we came
up with this idea of starting a think
tank. It's called Shift Tanks.
>> Yeah.
>> It still exists. But I exited it
September. It's already 3 years. So we
founded it 5 years ago. If you are a
company and you have a problem which
needs to be solved but not just for you,
you can hand it in there. and students
in engineering and I have a lot of PhD
students also
>> and more senior people work on it
completely for free and volunteer and
this is what Chief thinks is doing and
this consumed a lot of my time because
>> we running this thing with I
don't know over 100 people at some point
it was crazy but it was also fun and we
got it got a lot of nice feedback we got
this Austrian sustainability award for
student organizations handed over by the
by Leonardo de Gesla.
>> Okay.
>> Three years ago. this is was my start
in entrepreneurship
and yeah
>> so now maybe we can go to the point that
bring us today which is your
>> sequestra that you are the founder.
So maybe you can tell us what did you
see in the industry that you decided
to go for it?
>>
we talked about this beforehand. You
know if you talk about people in the
sustainability bubble I call it because
right now it's a shrinking bubble again.
Unfortunately it was very big a few
years ago and it got a bit bit bubblier.
You hear a lot that people say we have
all the technologies we just need to
implement them then this is
very true for
energy generation like PV that
>> of course you can implement it but this
is not true for have industrial
production right now if you want to
produce any metal in a green way
>> good luck there's no metal in
the world which is produced green
>> unfortunately we are far off and the
reason is that it's much more complex
than just changing the overall
production process. There's it's so
interconnected everything and I was like
I would like to be involved in something
technologically
challenging
and already when I did my PhD I recycled
wastes from heavy industry. So my PhD
was on recycling slud from the zinc
industry.
>>.
>> And if you recycle any metal, I'm not
talking about just melting a can and
producing or melting a copper coin and
producing a new copper coin. This is
very easy.
>>.
>> But if you recycle a smartphone, you can
get out some of the metals that were in
there. But you will end up at some point
with a residue that's much more complex
to recycle than the last residue you
went in with. And if you would try to
get out any metals there, the next resid
is even more complex. And so this whole
circular economy thing where you can
bring everything back into the loop.
It's I can I can I can tell you why
it is so complex in the methological
field. You can rank metals like gold
is a very very precious and aluminium on
the other side of the spectrum is very
unprecious.
>>.
>> And the more unprecious the metal is
>> the easier it oxidizes.
aluminium is never present as aluminium.
It always has an very thin oxide layer
on top. The problem is if you now have
aluminum and you want to recycle it, you
always lose a little amount to the
slack. Okay? And if you now have
gold, for example, you can recycle it
over and over again. With gold, you can
just remelt and remelt and we'll never
lose any gold. Aluminium is not the same
thing. This is why it gets so complex.
If,
>> if you have a car and you separate all
the different metals of the car and
remelt them, you always will end with
end up with some impurities in the un
noble or unprecious
sorry of the of the of the of the
more precious metal in the unprecious
metal and you can't get it out. And this
is why you always lose material in the
recycling process. And this problem is
unsolved. But I drifted off completely.
I was saying that when I worked on
recycling those sludes, I saw you always
end up with some material that has no
use in the end and it can't go anywhere
really, like in the end you
have some slack and it mostly goes to
landfill all over the world. Actually in
Chile because you're from Chile, Chile
is the biggest copper producer in the
world., of course, because you
worked in this industry. I just just
learned last week that Chile has 13
billion tons of tailings on hypes.
Billion tons on million tons.
>> Okay. Well,
>> there's no use right now for this. So,
this is where our mining and circular
industry
>> how it is really working in real time.
And then I was like, there needs to be a
way to valorize this materials. And then
I came across an article where someone
stored CO2 in a steel slake. I was like,
that's nice because maybe you can use it
to store C2 in the end. If you just
can't use it anymore and it's this slack
is on hypes and unused, maybe at least
you could store CO2 in there, so it
doesn't harm the climate anymore. Then I
looked into it. It's a field that's been
around since years already. And we then
started. So I asked my boss at
university, can I have a small research
budget? and I got I don't know €10, 000
or something like this and I was allowed
to employ a bachelor and a master
student. It was the same guy who did his
bachelor thesis and then master thesis.
And we looked into carbonation of
steel slack and just tried what already
was
yeah already proven in the literature
that you can store CO2 in a steel slack.
And this is what we tried and then I was
like if I would ever found a company I
think this would be a really big lever
because nobody's doing it like
>> on scale right now with nobody
very very small amount of companies.
>> Yeah. there's a huge potential and it's
technologically very challenging. So I
also wanted to do something which is
very hard to do technologically and then
I thought I will work as a
consultant now for a few years build
some contacts in the industry. I was
thought about 3 years but I didn't make
it far. I just worked six months until I
started to found a startup on the side
and then I
tried to look for some motivated
co-founders.
>>.
>> Then we started. So okay I am mind blown
with the figures the numbers
it's a huge
>> I read somewhere that you are aiming to
reduce the entire greenhouse gases
>> in 10% that you can store 10% of the CO2
>> yeah in
>> this number also blew my mind but I
didn't come up with it as a
researcher you need to read a lot of
literature all the time and there are
some journals that are very high ranked.
one of them is science.
>> Yeah, sure.
>> So, there was a science article I just
stumbled across and they analyzed all
the mineral wastes in the world and how
much CO2 you could potentially store and
how much CO2 would be stored if those
materials would be utilized in the
building sector. You don't so you don't
have to mine fresh materials for
concrete, . So you carbonate the
steel slack and use it as a replacement
for fresh concrete and this in the whole
world sums up and this is a cons
conservative study. There's also one
which gives double the amount of CO2
storage actually I like before it's a
nature paper another science paper is
equally high ranked. If you store CO2 in
all the mineral wastes in the world, you
can store 400 million tons of CO2. And
if you utilize this materials, you will
save an other
around 3.6 billion tons and this is 4
billion tons and this is 10% of the
global emissions. So we don't we didn't
come up with this number but we used it
a lot in our calculations.
The potential is big because if you look
just
just just in just the steel sector
for every ton of steel you produce you
produce around 2 to 300 kilogram of
blast furnace slack and 150 to 300 it
ranges on 150 to 300 of basic basic
oxygen furnace lag. both of them.
>>.
>> And both of them can take up around 20%
of CO2 if you do it the right way.
>> So it's big numbers
>> a lot. And well the sequestra is an
Spanish word, right?
>> Yes. This is
>> which is to capture
>> to kidnap. I was told
>> kid. Yeah. Yeah.
>> To capture. If you store CO2 or if you
take CO2 and store it underground or
store it in a way so it doesn't harm the
climate anymore. This term is considered
as sequestration
>> sequestration.
>> So in German it's sequestr in English
sequestration. So like sequestr sounds
nice. So let's take this name. Then we
secured the name and that's that's
>> cool.
>> So you have this like residual
waste from the industry you are
putting carbon
>> on it like fixed it to the material
and then you use that material like part
of the construction.
>> So this is how it would end this would
would work in the end. Yes. how we hope
that it would work for many residues. We
as a not planning to do this ever. We
are a technology developer. So we
develop the technologies for steel plans
to do this in the end.
>>.
>> But we are not planning to take in big
hypes of slack and carbonate them and
sell the carbonated slack. In the end,
it would look like this.
We need to decide
what is hard to abate and what is
I wouldn't say not hard to abate but
easier to compensate you the hard to
abate sector there are few industries
which are not possible to decarbonize
right now it's cement waste incineration
and the refractory industry refractory
industry is if you take materials
mineral materials and make bricks out of
them that are used in furnaces and stuff
like this. A refractory industry in
Austria. It's RHI Magnesita is a very
big company. They are worldwide active
and the reason is if you take cement and
if you produce cement 2/3 of the CO2
come from the input material you have
calcium carbonate you calcate CO2 goes
out you have calcium oxide and this has
the binding properties of cement. So it
doesn't matter what energy carrier you
use, CO2 is emitted. The same is for
waste incineration. But
>> there's also a potential for the
cement industry using concrete as well
to store, right?
>> Yeah. In the end, in the end. Yes. Yes.
Yes. But right now they are looking into
this problem. I just attended this
number will blow your mind now because
it blow my mind big time. I already knew
it before a little bit. But two months
ago, I was at a conference. It was by
accident in Vienna. was called the
global cement carbon capture utilization
and storage
>> conference
only conference only dedicated to carbon
capture utilization in the cement sector
>> they calculated that for a medium-sized
cement plant it means like 1 million ton
per year it's not very big it's not very
small 1 million ton clinker production
per year a carbon capture plant will
cost €1 billion
>> this is more than a cement plant, you
know,
>> like this.
>> so now they are they are looking
into this. The same is for waste
incineration. You will never get rid of
residual waste in a city,
right? Everybody's talking about
circular economy. But if you look what
happens right now, people are still
throwing out everything. And where does
it go? A lot of it goes good to
recycling. Good. But a lot of it goes
into waste incineration plants. It's
burned to generate electricity in
Austria and also in Germany. you're not
allowed to landfill residual waste. In
many other countries, put it into
landfill still. But in Austria, you need
to put it into waste incineration. And
this will come up in all countries in
the world. All the developing countries
are looking at this technology like this
is perfect because we could get rid of
our hypes
>> and you and we generate
>> Yeah. And turn heat and electricity. But
hard to bait. C2 goes out,
like
>> and look at just one step back.
>> Yes.
what are the technologies for carbon
capture and utilization what are the
different technologies and then also you
you can explain a bit about what is your
technology
>> yes and I'm just saying those
are the industries that need to
extract CO2 from the off gas they don't
have have any other possibility to get
rid of their emissions so now they need
to capture CO2
>> okay
>> there are different technologies but
they are also constantly evolving Tell
us about the storage process. How how
the carbon are getting stored in
different
>> Yeah, this is later first you
need to capture it.
>> Yeah,
>> this is you call it point source
capture. Point source means there's one
source where CO2 is emitted.
>> And here you could install an ANC scrub
or cryogenic or membrane technology.
Another technology is
>> direct air capture to suck it out of
the air. It's much more expensive right
now but it's also being developed. Then
you have the CO2 present. Okay. Okay,
>> let's say you have it now running out of
the carbon capture plant in a liqufied
form. So you have the carbon capture
plant and the liquifier. So what do you
do then with it? I have to say there are
almost no plants in Europe that do this
right now. In America, yes, but it's a
different topic. They now go into the
technological field of carbon capture of
and storage., carbon capture
and storage means
storing CO2 underground in an old oil
reservoir.
>>.
>> Or old gas reservoir.
>>.
>> The problem is right now there are
around 400 if I'm not wrong million tons
of capacity of carbon capture
installed in the world. Yeah. 450
but around 90% of this is enhanced
oil recovery. So what they do is in
America is very big. They take out the
CO2 from the offers of a cement plant or
of a coal fired power plant even worse
and then they liquefy it and pump it
into oil reservoirs to squeeze out more
oil. This is how this is the climate
technology. This is a as a enhanced oil
recovery technology.
>> So using CO2 to pump
>> yeah this is a very major industrial
widely used process enhanced oil
recovery. So now we considered CO2 is
somewhere in an off gas or in the
atmosphere you extract it from this
media which is much easier in a
point source.
>>.
>> Because in a cement plant off gas you
have around 15% of CO2. In the
atmosphere you have 420 ppms. You can
imagine how much more air you need to
put through a process to get out the
same amount of CO2. This is why it's so
expensive. But in the end you have CO2.
Now you could store it underground in
America using it for bringing out more
oil. Unfortunately in Europe they're
going more into underground storage
where it reacts with formations
underground and stays there forever.
>> Solid
>> solid as a carbonet. This is what we do
as well but we do it above ground and
store it in a waste material. So we use
a steel slack. A steel slack contains
chemical compounds that can take up CO2.
They are calcium and magnesium are the
most important ones. If you have any
material also if you break down this
building and take the building rubble
mill it finally you can carbonate it.
You can store CO2 in there
>> and this material is then carbonated
>> and then it could be used in a building
application and as soon it as it is used
in a building application it's
considered as carbon capture
utilization. So you don't this is a bit
bit misleading but because you don't use
the CO2 you use a material that contains
the CO2 but it's considered a CO2 disase
and now a very important point
until a few years ago actually until
last year in July it's not it's still
very fresh many major industrial players
had the plan to build carbon capture
plants to get rid of their emissions
yeah
>> and sell the CO2 to the chemical
industry to produce
fuels or plastics. The problem is what
happens to a fuel? It gets burnt and the
CO2 is out again. The same is with
plastics. You can produce a nice plastic
structure but then you recycle it maybe
once, twice, three times, it degrades
and at a certain point it is burnt and
then it's also out again. So the EU
brought out a law, the European
Commission brought out a delegated act
for the whole EU which says every
molecule of CO2 that's used in the
building sector is utilization and
everything else is an emission. This is
our biggest tailwind at Sequestra right
now because until now we had to compete
with the chemical industry. you
can take CO2 and transform it into a
green fuel. You can still do it, but you
have to pay the emissions fine for that.
And this is not a good deal. So, I know
it's confusing to have the overload
picture. There is a cement plant.
>>.
>> You take the CO2 out of the of the of
the of gas in a few years. Right now,
>>.
>> no cement plant has a carbon capture
plant, but they all planning to do it.
And then you have waste materials. They
can come from everywhere you could be
steel slack. It can waste be waste
incineration ash. It can be building
rubble. It can be mining tailings from
Chile.
>>. All of them can take more or less
CO2. Depends on the material. And then
you use it in a brick. CO2 utilization.
No fines paid anymore for this CO2.
>> No taxes for using it.
>> For using it.
>> Yeah.
>> No. Now, as soon as you use this
material, the CO2 is considered
permanently stored because as a
carbonet, it's not released at any
times until you heat the material up to
1, 000°, which does not happen with a
normal building material at any times
once the building is built. If you break
down a house and want to recycle this
rubble, you mill it and use it as a
recycling concrete, but you don't heat
it up to 1, 000°. So this carbonate stays
a carbonate and this is why it's
considered permanent.
>> Wow.
>> Thank you for explaining it because
decarbonization for a very long time
was also accounting problem that
everything was happening at Excel.
>> How to put
>> Yeah.
>> put off the Yeah.
>> Yes.
>> It was still in there but it was in the
Excel sheets. It was going from here and
there
>> but so just the just going back to so
the technology of sequestra.
>> Yes. this.
>> So how did it differ?
>> Now it gets into we were we talked now
about carbon capture storage and
utilization. Now we only talking about
the utilization part and here about the
technology
>> that we follow is called mineralization
or carbonation.
>> Yeah
>> carbonation or mineralization means
mineral compound reacts to carbonate.
This is mineralization. Calcium oxide
reacts to calcium carbonate. This occurs
also in nature. If you have a mountain,
if you have a volcano, it blows up, it
brings out new material, carbonates very
slowly, takes up CO2 from the
atmosphere. We do this in a very
enforced, very rapid way. It's called
technological carbonation.
>> Okay?
>> And we there are two major categories.
There are direct and indirect
carbonation. And in we work in direct
carbonation.
>> Okay?
>> So we take the material and carbonate
the whole material directly..
>> Indirect would be you leech out the
carbonatable phase like calcium oxide
and carbonate only this phase and then
you have pure calcium carbonate. This is
not what we do. We take the whole slack
material for example steel slack
carbonate the whole thing and here you
have three sub categories wet dry and
semi-d dry and we work in wet process
carbonation. The reason is the kinetics
are higher so it reacts faster in a
slurry. We mix the material with a
slurry with water to a slurry. and
injects CO2 and reacts with the water.
CO2 reacts with the water to
different
pre-steps and then to the carbonate. And
this is what we do and this differs to
some of our competitors. They use other
processes or or so many many companies
try to produce something as it's
called supplementary cementitious
materials. So in the cement industry you
can use other materials other than
cement as cement but for this you need
binding properties of the material. We
don't work in this field right now.
Maybe in the future we produce
everything that's not an SEM right now.
So because we have a wet process so the
hydraulic properties are already
destroyed. Our materials are very
quickly carbonated then used as a
filler. And what we do different at
Sequestra we have one focus point.
Sequestra is not a heavy industrial
green tech company, just a heavy
industrial green tech company. We are a
hybrid between big data and
yeah, heavy industrial green tech and
big data and AI is a big word.
>> Yeah.
>> But what we tried to do is if you take
steel slack and then you take a steel
slack from another steel plant, they are
different.
So it's not steeling is not always the
same and if I take a tailing from Chile
it's also not the same. So I always need
different process conditions and the
problem is slack what I said before and
industrial residue is very complex and
iron ore is super straightforward you
know you have also some minological
faces and it's a complex material but
the slag afterwards most likely more
complex.
So it always differs and it's very hard
to tell why it's good for carbonation
and why not. And we stop this approach
of looking into the material in a very
nitty-gritty way and doing all this
microscopic analytics. We just do rapid
empirical testing.
So we take the material and try to
carbonate it and see if it does
carbonation or not.
>> Yeah.
>> And this in a fully automated way in a
small reactor. So we built a reactor
which takes in a sample, does a test,
puts out the sample, takes the next
sample, does the next test and can
variate process parameters and this
completely automated. And with this we
want to generate a lot of data
automatically and become we call it the
global leader in carbonation
intelligence. We want to be the company
that knows more about carbonation than
anyone else
>> following a semi-liant rapid testing big
data approach. So we just test the hell
out of materials super fast and build up
this big data and then with models
predict this material. in the
end it could go as far as can I tell a
steel plant to run their process a
little bit different so the slack looks
a little bit different and then I
process it in this parameter set so it
goes into this building application in
the most economic feasible way is super
niche of course I know I see your faces.
No,
>> it's actually very interesting but also
it's challenging us.
>> Yeah, I'm sorry but it's very very niche
where we are in a niche. I told
you like there are categories down and
we in the super niche of slurry
carbonation here we even more niche
>> with one technique and then to test
every material and to have a catalog
like
>> yes we follow approach like if you
send us a material as a customer want to
know how much CO2 can my can take my
material up
>> we will anonymize your material we don't
care what it is you can we run it
through the same process
every time like a big big blood testing
lab. We just see what it does.
this very rapidly and here we are the
first in the world. Nobody has ever done
this and nobody's doing it right now. So
our engineering team half of our
engineering capacity are meatronics
engineers. So we are very deep in
automatic
reactors right now. Was this your piss
to the investor as well that they
were like I don't know what you're
talking about. You're making a lot of
sense to take the money and
>> yeah this this is a whole different
topic right now I was just
talking about the technical part but
this is what we do. We have two
departments at sequestra one is called
sequestra intelligence where we want to
become the leader of global carbon
global carbonation intelligence.
>> Yeah.
>> And then we have sequester industrial.
Here we try to build reactors that would
actually do this than out at the steel
plant.
>> So we sent use that our customer value
proposition is as follows. You send
us a sample of your material. We run
it through our process. We can tell you
this material can take up 60 m% of CO2.
>> Yeah.
>> and the process on industrial scale
would cost XY Z. We can set up this
plant for XY Z. And with the CO2 price
rising to this level, you could earn
blah blah blah as much money and the
material could go into this industry in
this country. This is where we want to
go in the next years and then sell the
plant and such an industrial industrial
mineralization plant.
>> this is done big projects.
They cost a few dozen million euros and
this is done major industrial plant
engineering. We are far away from this
right now. Right now we are very strong
on this analytical side and starting to
build the first reactor
>> right now like you're you're processing
a lot of different materials and
graduating big
>> right now actually we don't process so
many industrial materials we
calculated slack compositions ourselves
and just produce them ourselves. So we
work with synthetics legs where you
where we can rule out disturbances and
just train our technology.
>> Okay.
>> This will be right.
>> Where where you getting those material
from?
>> So we are methologists. So we just
calculated slack compositions.
>> We bought the materials. We sent them
>> to a partner. They did the melting.
>> Yeah.
>> And then we sent them to another
partner. They did the milling. And now
we have I don't know how many buckets
of synthetic very pure, very precise
like materials. And you said
precisely it's not just for the heavy
industry but you're somewhere in
between that it can be used not
because of the intelligence what you're
doing.
>> Yeah.
>> But primarily it's still the hard to
abate sector right like the metal sector
>> there there is an urge for getting rid
of CO2.
>> Yeah. M
>> and with this new law that CO2 that's
only storing building materials, there's
a big potential for the building
sector to store CO2 in their building
materials. So we talk mostly to
companies that have huge quantities of
waste materials that sell them to the
building sector already. So our for
example, a very good case for us is the
readymix concrete set., ready
mixed concrete are those trucks with the
funnels on the back that go to the
construction site
>> because this product is already wet and
we have a wet process. So, you don't
need to dry the slack before mixing it
into the ready mix concrete. So, we a
good approach for us would be you have
ready mixed concrete side. You bring
some slack from the steel industry there
and some CO2 from the cement industry.
Carbonate the slack and mix it into the
ready mix concrete. And the business
case in the end is that the building
industry, this ready mixed concrete
>> plant, this this company can,
the cement industry would pay in a
few years they're calculating like 2030
they're calculating €140 per ton of
emission fines. So the cement industry
would
have to pay €140 for every ton. It's
a lot of money for a cement because a
typical cement plant
>> Yeah.
>> emits 6 700, 000 tons with one million
ton of production. So you can calculate
how much money this is. You would have
to pay in fines. So the ready mix
concrete producer could say I take your
CO2. you extracted it from the
off gas. Now it cost you like €4 per ton
or 50. Now you still have 90 that
you're saving. So you're extracting it
and I take it and storing my material
and I will I will do this for €8 you
know good deal less than the fine and
this is the business case behind it and
for this we built analytical and
industrial technologies for this
carbonation
>> how I think did you I know I talk too
much rather so
it's great but these are the
incentive right like for the industry
why they should be doing it and also the
pressure on them
>> it's not only the price. If you look at
the emission trading system, first of
all, the prices get high and second, the
emission certificates in total get less.
At a certain point, you're not allowed
to emit anything anymore. Doesn't matter
how much money you have. In Europe, they
so they drop every company out of the
business that's not able to reduce their
emissions. And like I said before, we
have hard to evade industries, cement,
refractory, and waste incineration. they
are very very hard hit and then you have
companies which have it also very hard
but a bit less hard for example the
steel sector
>> the steel sector can decarbonize with
greener electricity the cement industry
or not and this is the incentive to get
rid of this is a lot of CO2 and right
now this is also many people don't don't
really know it but if we talk about
carbon capture and storage this is
forbidden in Austria you're not
even allowed to do it right now they are
re-evaluating it But the problem is we
are very slow with everything. So if you
would now build so the cement plant
needs to get rid of the CO2 otherwise
they need to close the shop at some
point.
>> But if they would extract the CO2 right
now they have nowhere to go with it. So
they don't invest into the plans right
now. There's a very very interesting and
dynamic field right now. When I was at
this conference, I was sitting in this
room. There was like 100 people from all
over the world like scientists and CEOs
from leading cement companies and they
were openly talking about and nobody
knows what to do right now., it
was really interesting. It was like
at the forefront of something big
happening, like
>> we have this and this problem.
>> My my question about the implementation
challenge like that you're going to
face. What do you think like going
forward?
>> Yeah. Yeah,
>> first I want to know from you that
the industry that you want to
target and you feel that they are going
to be the first first pilot or the
first people that you would like to
reach out to and that you already
imagining working with and then what are
going to be the implementation challenge
going forward. Yeah. So right now we are
talking to a few different companies
already. So what they want to do and
this is a very big business case for us
for the next years you don't
always need to go you have an idea and
you need to plan it on this industrial
scale it doesn't work like this
a very big business case for us is
finding out for companies if they have a
case with their material or not
>> if you are a steel plant and you have 10
million tons of steel on a hype because
you were supposed to landfill it and now
maybe you could bring it to the building
sector
You need to find out if you can store
CO2 or not and how much the
process would cost and we try to find
this out for companies. So sequester
intelligence is supposed to find out if
a material has a potential or not.
>> Yeah.
>> So this is where we move right now and
what the companies then want to know is
how would it work on a pre-industrial
scale. So they would don't want to
carbonate 10 million tons in 5 years.
They want to just try it out with a few
hundred kilos, .
>> Exactly.
>> And right now we are having
Yeah. Fortunately, it's a very good
situation right now. a few leads
where we could maybe build those
demonstration plans for companies. So
they want to have those demonstrators on
site.
>> Yeah.
>> And can carbonate some steel slack and
try out different stuff. And there are
not many plant companies right now that
can build mineralization or they
they can
>> that are in this field.
>>.
>> So we got approached by big by some very
big companies. it's not right now but
it's maybe in one or two years u we
could be already setting up some of
those and this is how we move forward
right now
>> and still we are a startup
>> to build a plant it's hard and big
>> so we see a very big case in this
evaluating and securing IP
>> do you already have IP
>> we filed three patents already
>> yeah and is in the process right now.
>> One is already published. You can look
it up if you want.
>> What is it about?
>> This is about fully automated data
generation for carbonation and applying
on industrial scale. So we patented this
whole thing of generating the data in
sequester intelligence and applying it
in sequester industrial.
>> So machine learning driven optimization
of processes for carbonation. This is
what we patented
>> and that you got it.
>> Yeah, we got it. we filed it
now. It's it's published and now we need
to enforce it in different countries and
we will try this I don't know in now
it's published I think now we have 12
more month to enforce it in the end.
yeah
>> I have a question regarding the
European law that you mentioned. Do you
think that it's it's going to have an
impact in the
prices of the construction material like
to be differentiation with others
like hey I can sell I can sell my
product with carbon inside so you can
>> yeah it like they are already doing this
if you look at the big cement
producers they talk about green cement
it's not green yet but it's greener
>> of
I worked as a sustainability
consultant before founding this startup
and I worked on a time where I was the
biggest driver and sustainability
consult consultancy that was ever there.
It was two years ago. We went to
companies and you could charge whatever
you want. everybody wanted to
lower their emissions and print nice
sustainability reports and was the
biggest topic ever. And back then
everybody was talking about building
green and we need the greenest
materials.
>> Right now this whole bubble burst a
little bit it got much less
important. America moved way
far away now from all these topics and
they have a big things to say in the
industry still. in Trump
now they're building new blast furnaces
and opening new coal mines and stuff
like this. So this whole drive
unfortunately got a little bit away but
what we see is that it's still very
important for the European industry for
the hard to bait and industrial sector
because they know it's a hard topic and
you need to work on it for years and
years and years and still yes they are
trying to charge more for greener cement
but it's not as important anymore but it
will for sure be it always goes in loops
if it doesn't go in a loop right now we
all done
>> we don't need to talk about This
is already very late anyways. But I
see that the whole sustainability
thing got much less important.
like two three years ago every everybody
was buying a lassen Do
what this is? This those bikes where you
can transport stuff.
>> Last mile last mile
>> last mile transport like was
everywhere and don't throw away
straws and Brad no people don't care. M
I don't know it just got less but
still the industrial sector is still
very hard on decarbonization because
they know you can't just start and do it
in two years.
>> I don't know if you're related with the
the construction like the
certification in the construction
construction field.
>> Yeah.
>> because they speak about zero
carbon buildings or houses. so do
you think that this can have an impact
also in this certification?
>> Yeah, this has a big impact. Yeah. Yeah.
This
>> get carbon or something.
>> Yeah. Yeah. they did a lot of stuff,
building with wood, building
using adding
ch biochar to concrete, storing
CO2 in materials. Zero carbon is
nothing, like there's nothing
zero carbon right now, unfortunately.
But it is big. And yes, this is al
also of course an input.
We want to get smarter in this field as
well. And we also have people who work
just in this field like building
materials.
>> Still our niche is the carbonation
and there is importance to
it. but this is such a how should you
say the
stuff that's connected to physics
>> and how to carbonate a material in the
optimal way is the same in 10 years than
it is now but this regulation
about what's green in the building
sector is changing every year. So we
observe it but right now we are way too
early anyways to talk
>> in this industry we are focusing on if
someone wants to carbonate materials and
a lot of people want to do this how can
you do it in the most
>> efficient way
>> efficient way this is
>> sector agnostic yes let's say
>> yeah we are material agnostic that's
what I meant before if you send us it
must be mineral but otherwise it doesn't
store CO2 it must contain calcium and
magnesium
>> as soon as you have a material lying
around you can send it to us and we will
tell you what it can do in terms of CO2
uptake.
>>.
>> And also you're impacted around the
globe like you're you're startup based
out of Austria but then I'm sure you're
getting leads out of all across.
>> Yeah. Like it was funny you were
laughing before about the conference I
was right capturing utilization
conference. Two weeks ago I was at a
conference. It was also in Vienna by
accident. Next year it's somewhere else
but by accident it was also in Vienna.
It was called global slag at a
conference. It's only about slags.
>> Only waste.
>> Only slags, not only waste. A slag is
just the methological waste.
>> Okay.
>> So, a slag is if you have a
pyometological process. Pyomatological
means heating stuff up to around over
1, 00 1, 200° and everything is liquid.
You have the metal and then you have a
mineral phase swimming on top of the
metal which contains everything that's
not the metal.
>> Okay.
>> And this is a slack.
>> Impurities or
>> Yeah. impurities. Like if you have an
iron ore, you have iron and calcium,
silicon, magnesium, aluminium and all of
this sums up in the slack. This is a
slack and slack look like rock material.
And this conference was only about
slack, global slack. There were like 250
people there and there I met a lot of
people from all over the world from I
don't know Kazakhstan to South Africa to
South Korea and of course yeah we could
work everywhere but right now this is
another two years down the road right
now.
>> yeah so just to I could ask in Chile for
some interested companies that
>> Yeah, you can. Yeah.
>> Yeah. Cool.
>> I we can spend a lot of time on the
technology. I figured
but I would like to also ask you a
couple of other stuff because you
you're innovator and it's it's a hard
tech right like it's it's not it's not
cool. it's it takes time for
the for the kind of work that you're
doing. It's a scaling challenge. You
already know for a while that it's
like 3 years down the line that you have
to do something. So you need a lot of
patience. But what specific
opportunities and challenges that you
see for Austria and within the
region for innovators like
>> for innovators
>> for more green tech challenges more more
more difficult challenges not not cool
stuff but more more in where you
really need to innovate.
>> Yeah this is a very good question. You
know what I invited in
two weeks we have a party.
>> Yeah.
>> why?
>> Why?
>> Tell us why. why we do this?
Because I realized that the climate tech
bubble in Austria doesn't exist. There's
no climate tech bubble because with I'm
talking about industrial climate tech.
>> there are a few companies but clean
technology development in startup
ecosystem is not happening. I was part
of the entrepreneurial leadership
program of Austrian startups which was
very nice. It's a boot camp program.
>>.
>> Takes one years. Shout out to the guys
very guys and girls there was very nice
met some very good friends but I was
the only guy doing hardware and then my
co-founder was in a batch one year later
only guy doing hardware
>> not talking about green tech just
hardware that everybody's doing
software startups so the hard thing in
Austria is finding anyone you can talk
to about your startup to start from you
know like there is no bubble and we need
to get better in this manufacturing
right like
>> manufacturing ing also like
I know some hardware startups but like
people who had how we started
we started in the workshop of my
co-founder we with our own money we buy
a laptop a scale a tube some pipes and
started carbonating lime from the from
the workshop like like like you use
at the construction site from from
balmax
>> we started to carbonate this in our
workshop and now we're trying to scale
it into industry. If you want to talk to
fellow farmers, you don't find them in
Austria. And this is a big pity. And
what's the challenge? There's no
ecosystem for it. We have a super good
grant system in Austria. Like the one of
the best in the world. If you want to
get free money as a startup owner, you
should come to Austria. There's a lot of
grant money, but we have no
infrastructure for if you if you try to
build a chemical reactor. Have fun
finding a workshop. It took us a year to
find something., in Sweden they
have green tech hubs where you have a
office building on top and in the ground
floor you have a workshop where you can
do whatever to scale up to a few hundred
kilos of batch processing.
>> I know EU funded a project in Sweden
called hybrid. They're also making
>> hybrid. Yeah, they're making green
material, green metals.
I think they got 100 million fund from
EU or something and yeah
>> I don't know that but yeah Sweden is
another thing in Austria we
have so many good engineers but not a
real lot of entrepreneur entrepreneurial
drive and if you would start you would
have a very hard time finding fellow
founders
>> and this coming back to the party we now
started to organize climate tech parties
>> where we bring people together not just
people who are already in the climate
tech sector but also some are
engineers but they don't have an entre
entrepreneurial spirit but maybe they
meet someone there and thinking co-found
startup and I was looking and waiting
for someone to invite me to climatic
party but I was done waiting so we're
organizing
>> we will invite you we already did it
on 25th so first we are going to have a
conference and then we have a party
>> that's perfect yeah no no I am very very
I appreciate it a lot that you are
doing this also because there needs to
be done more
>> yes not enough happening so to be
innovative in Austria grants are perfect
but finding someone who can help you
because they did the same thing 3 years
earlier
>> but just on that note what do you
what startup challenges that you think
in the heavy heavy
>> I would say there's just a lot of
opportunity
>> if you I really until now it was it's
always hard and a lot of work and you
need to maneuver fast but you need to do
this in every startup but getting money
was easier for us.
>> No. what what I meant was that that
more innovative stuff in a green
green
>> what could be
>> yeah what could be potential
>> oh yeah
there's so much I'm coming
from the metological sector I could tell
you a lot of stuff in the methological
sector right now for example
>> head yeah
>> yeah for example if you look at steel
production steel emits around 7% of
global CO2 emissions
>>.
Only steel.
>> Only steel.
>> They always say if steel would be a
country, it would be before India. You
know, in CO2 emissions, that's what they
always say. So, it's a lot. A lot of
people know this also and they're like,
we need to do something about steel
production.
>>.
>> Steel 2 million two billion tons per
year production of steel.
>>.
>> Half of it is in China. 2 billion tons
per year.
>> Aluminium is 70 million tons per year.
So, it's much much much less.
>> Yeah.
>> So, steel divided by 30.
>> Okay. Yeah, it's aluminium. But 3% of
the CO2 emissions only aluminium. Nobody
knows that., people like
aluminium, it's nice. The foil, cool.
Emits a hell lot of CO2.
>> Completely untackled problem. If you
produce aluminium, you produce a sludge.
It's called red mut.
>> But you think it's also like for example
the most steel it produced by China.
>> Yeah.
>> And most aluminium I'm not sure. It's
also
>> every metal is China except copper then
>> Chile
>> and do you think that they're they're
doing something about that?
they're doing a lot about
decarbonization as a whole with PV
>> it's a lot in China but also a
lot of somewhere else but there is so
much opportunity
and you could found a startup in every
of those fields and do something and you
would find customers
in our fields.
>> Yeah. mineralization. how many
startups are there in Europe? We have a
very comprehensive competition map and
we think there are not more than 20 all
over Europe., if you if you if
you try to
make a new app for food delivery, you
have 20 competitors in every city.
>>.
I'm just saying and so in
talking about innovation one of
our challenges and this will be one of
our new niches where we maybe move in
but if someone wants to found something
this is one of what I think if you want
to found a startup and want to have an
idea what to found which which have the
biggest impact is CO2 logistics. I think
this will be a major case
>> for if you need to remove CO2 from
the off gas of a cement plant, where are
you going to put it and how? This is
nature.
>> if you have a good model that
can predict the optimal case, is it even
worth it for this plant to extract CO2
or should you just shut down the plant
because it's not worth it? C2 logistics
just a major case.
>> now we would like to know about the
challenges of scaling up and a
startup here in Austria in Europe
especially in high-tech as you
>> a good question.
>> Yeah. He talked about the ecosystem for
startup like yourself. So what are the
unique challenges that you are facing? I
have to say in our state right now it's
good because there's a lot of grant
money in Austria you have a really good
grant situation you can get big grants
from the state so
>> up to 3 million euros there's a very
famous grant it's called general
program of FFG buses program you can
hand in sector agnostic everything you
want
>> they decide if they want to fund you can
get up to €3 million for your project
budget for 2 or 3 years.
>>.
>> And you can do a lot of stuff with
grant money. For us as a high-tech
startup, we will reach a point in the
next years where we will need
amounts of money that are not really
there in Austria.
>>.
>> And it's a good question.
This is what again,
like we don't have this big brother
where we can look up to and be like, how
did you do it 3 years ago?.
>> So you are building it on the way kind
of
>> I have to say right now building a
industrial tech startup. I think we are
one of the first ever did this out of
Austria. So, it's very hard to say right
now, but I think we will do it with a
good mix of investors money and big
European grants and just try to Yeah,
it's always important to gain a lot of
traction,
>> to prove that someone in
the end would buy it at the point where
it can't sell anything yet. There's
always this. But do you consider
maybe for currently you're based out
of Austria that that you might there
might come a time that you might have to
pay somewhere else.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> No, this could be the case here.
>> Right now it's good in Austria. I have
to say we don't we find good people
here, engineers.
>> the current situation is really good.
also recently there's a big problem
in Europe because companies get funded
to a certain stage then the money is not
here anymore.
>> Then some of the companies are not good
enough. They die and some of them are
really good and what happens they get
bought up by American investors and go
over to the US. Now the EU wants to stop
this because it happened a lot because
at a certain point you reach a level
where no European fund can invest the
sums in American investors can invest.
in Sweden is a bit different. So
Sweden, UK, Munich is also a hub. They
have big startups, but many of them just
went to the US because they had the big
money. And now they the European Union
wants to invest in startups, promising
ones for them to stay and they just
published it a few weeks ago that they
want to invest 70 billion euros in the
next two or three years. The European
Investment Bank. So we see right now a
lot of opportunity and maybe I'm talking
too much right now but I don't think
that right now in the next one or two
years we could completely fail.
>>.
>> because what we do is niche and it's
needed. people need and I know
it's needed.
>> Yeah.
>> And it's very research in
intensive. And the good thing is if
you build something like we do the
importance doesn't fade. if you
let's say you build something like
Spotify had a lot of competitors on its
way but all of them died
>> for us even if we would now have 10
competitors. If you're selling, this is
also one of my what I always say. If you
want to found something, hair industrial
green tech is a good field because you
can never easily dominate a market
completely because you want to build an
industrial plant. Investors don't like
to hear that. You can't but you can't
really dominate it. If you want to build
an industrial plant, it consumes a lot
of capacity and you can't build
industrial plants all over the world at
the same time.
>> Exactly.
>> Spotify can do that. You can roll out
the app. No, it's no problem. It's an
it's it's it's a software, but
for heavy industrial tech, it's hard to
dominate a market and this is a big
opportunity for many different players.
It levels it out a bit and the market is
gigantic. Anyways,
>> like for heavy industrial green tech.
>> Yeah. No, for sure. We think that you're
going to make it.
>> Let's see.
>> And
thanks.
>> You were telling us about the party that
you're hosting so that there could be
more robust ecosystem, .
>> Yeah. What what do you think there
should should be more done in
Austria? Vienna as a as a it's
it's also the epicenter because there
are so many other regions which look
forward to Vienna as a center for maybe
startups going forward. So how can the
ecosystem get better?
>> I don't really not a hard question. It's
a really hard question. What I found
also like talking about you, I don't
know you really well. just a few
weeks but you already make something
possible. You came from somewhere
else and just started something and you
invite 100 people and Leonor was like
speaking at your event.
>> There's an Austrian doing this.
>> I don't know what's going on with the
Austrian people but most of them are so
lazy it's fired it's a good
life anyways. many of my colleagues good
degrees they work in the industry is
just perfect my what should I
do why why should I found anything you
know it's perfect
>> what like I don't know
how we can come up with this drive but
you just started it apparently it's
working you managed to invite a lot
of senior people to your events I don't
know how you did it actually because
but it's really good many people
tried this where they failed big I see
that a lot of Austrian and founders have
drive but I don't know I never started
this startup to earn a lot of money I
mean on the way maybe
>> but I always want to do something
challenging and something in
sustainability technology if you do this
and follow something useful that could
be big it will get big at some point
maybe not the first thing but many of
our founders in Austria want to find
something to become rich and this is not
a very good incentive. You don't build a
nice flourishing
ecosystem I think with too many founders
who want to build the 20th dating app.
>> I have no idea how we can do it. and
our startup ecosystem is good but to
bring more into this climate tech
bubble.
>> Yeah, a party is a good idea.
>> Parties. Yes. Yes. Yes. I think it's
really a good idea. to
>> we're going to support it.
>> Yeah, sure. Sure.
>> And yeah, just to maybe going to the
future,
>> how do you see the sequestra
in 2030 for example?
>> Yeah, like in the best case scenario, we
would be the leader in carbonation
intelligence, like having a
big lab with fully automated machinery
that's doing this tests..
>> People are sending us samples and we
have the most brilliant engineers
looking at big data models and be like
yeah I don't know we are we are able to
predict this and that and we can
really look into the carbonation as it
happens and the same time already
building industrial plants if
sustainability doesn't die completely
which I hope it does not but right now.
I have to be as realistic.
did you hear what the German
counselor just said?, it's just all
everything is going into the wrong
direction a little bit.
>> but I still think that there is a
lot of potential and it will move back.
It could be very good. It's hard to say.
Right now, if I could go back and do the
I think I would found more or less the
same thing. I would not right now
advise anyone to go into something that
just measures sustainability. I would
urge everyone to go into a direction
that really develops technologies that
are used to reduce emissions. When the
whole sustainability bubble started to
go big, most startups were platforms
that measured CO2 in similar to we can
track all your emissions and many of
them died right now because
>> but really bringing down emissions
technologically
I would go in this direction. I think
every startup that goes into the
direction still has a very bright
future. just to
in the advice space here for
the community that is interested
maybe to make a
a startup or or some initiative
what would you advise in this in this
regard like would you
>> not just in entrepreneurship but
also getting into the sector
exactly in general
for energy transition
>> also you're tackling more mostly the
industrial decarbonization challenge
like what kind of job you think and how
can people get into that
>> industrial decarbonization challenge
>> I think there are a lot of people
already interested in sustainability I
would like to see more engineers being
interested in sustainability
>>.
And this is what I tried to do with
Shift Tanks.,
it's a very odd question. How would you
do this? Yeah,
I would just, I at some point
I gave up motivating people that don't
want to be motivated.
>> That's a good
>> That's a good one.
>> Yeah, because I wasted a lot of time.
but I would say if you find
people that have a certain spark, you
can just help them. So, what I do all
the time is I hook up people., I
meet someone, they tell me blah blah
blah, I do this or that, and then six
weeks later, I meet another one. My I
always remember what people do. I don't
remember like when my mother tells me
anything, I don't remember it,
like two minutes later, I forgot it. But
if I meet someone at a conference and I
met him two years ago somewhere, I can
still remember where this guy studied
and what he did and blah blah blah. I
remember all this professional stuff. So
I always try to connect people and I
don't really have any advice, but if
someone already has the spark, you can
just tell them, hook them up with the
right people and you should just start.
I meet a lot of people all the
time and 6 months later they tell me the
same again. Yeah. I'm also thinking
about starting something like what do it
>> have you done? Yeah.
>> Yeah. Well, just there's
this very nice saying the book
the almanac of no raikant very good book
I recommend everyone to read it's maybe
one of the
>> I will check it out. It's it's really
good and he has he quotes a lot of
stuff and one of it is intentions don't
matter actions do. like talking
about stuff a lot of people like to talk
about what they would do.
>>. I don't know. There's no advice for
people to interest them in
sustainability because many people tried
it and I think you need to utilize
capacities people have for
sustainability somehow.
I don't know it's a hard topic. I
think I motivated already a lot of
people in my life to do something in the
direction of sustainability
but with many I think it won't just just
won't happen like some I had a
friend who was working in
sustainability and then just shift and
went to the defense industry was like I
don't know how this happened but it just
happened and then
>> you can't motivate if you if you just
motivate a few people
>> that motivation
Yeah, I heard a saying that it's if
the ideas will fly, it would be cloudy
all all day or something like that.
>> Yes, this is very
>> is to do things.
>> This is very true. yeah, many people
are just afraid to start, but
>> some of them are not you.
>>. And some some of them they
just need
some kick in the ass and then they do
something.
>> Yeah. We invite to the community to do
and accomplish their dreams and just
take the jump, right? Like they take the
leaf and just go for it. That's
>> Lucas. do you have any last thoughts
about like how people can engage more
with the Questra and learn about your
mission?
>> Oh, of course., we have a website
which is mostly updated on LinkedIn. We
post a lot of stuff.
we don't have a we have we have
something where you can sign up but
yeah I think LinkedIn is the best the
best thing right now to follow what
we do but we don't post a lot of
insights all the time
>> so most of our work just goes into
developing but if someone is out there
who is like I think I'm a very skilled
engineer doesn't really matter what
field
>> and we really trying to hire a topnotch
team. I think right until now we really
did very well with a lot of very good
people
>> and we also want to hire more very good
people. So if someone is like I would
like to get to know this company you can
just reach out to me and maybe at a
certain point we can work together also
other startup founders that want to
collaborate
always open for that.
>> Amazing. yeah this has been a very
insightful interview. Thank you. I
have a friend Gabrielle in Chile who is
metallurgical. So he's he's going to eat
and we hope to have you again with some
sequestra updates and we wish you the
best.
>> Thank you. It was very nice. Very nice.
Thank you.
>> And for the community, thank you for
watching the this long interview
until the end and see you in the next
episode. Chow. Chiao.

Turning Industrial Waste into Carbon Storage | Scaling Climate Tech in Austria | S1E19

EU Policy Drives CCU Value

Hard-to-Abate Sector Challenge

Industrial Waste as Carbon Sink

Data-Driven Carbonation Optimization

Austrian Climate Tech Ecosystem Gaps