We are a climate tech startup developing a dramatically cheaper sensor for measuring soil carbon. Soils have gigaton-scale sequestration potential but current measurement techniques are woefully expensive and inaccurate. We've derisked our technology and are now growing the team to productionize it. Join us!
At Yard Stick, we’re inventing a new method of soil carbon measurement. Affordable soil carbon measurement will unlock soils as the most scalable and affordable form of carbon sequestration (gigatons per year!). We’ve packaged decades of soil science research into a handheld soil probe which measures soil carbon quickly and accurately, while reducing the cost of measurement by 90% over existing methods.
At Yard Stick, we value climate impact above all else. We help farmers get paid to fight climate change.
Removing CO2 from the atmosphere will be necessary to avoid the worst effects of climate change. Among the possible methods for CO2 removal, sequestration in soils is widely seen as the most affordable and scalable, and comes with the valuable co-benefit of improving soil health. However, current methods for actually measuring increases in soil carbon are prohibitively expensive and frankly medieval. At Yard Stick, we’re inventing a new method of soil carbon measurement. We’ve packaged decades of soil science research into a handheld soil probe which reduces the cost of measurement by 90% over existing methods. Our probe combines a suite of cutting-edge sensors, a clever form factor, and advanced machine learning techniques.
I'm currently hiring for two positions on our hardware team!
If you're interested in healthy soils, and particularly their enormous potential for carbon sequestration, consider joining my team at Yard Stick! We're building hardware that measures soil carbon in-situ, 90% cheaper than conventional methods. Currently hiring a few different hardware roles:
Primarily it's ranchers and farmers globally who want to get paid to add carbon to their soils by adopting more soil-friendly practices. This is a rapidly growing market as more companies are looking to offset their emissions. There's also a good deal of growers simply interested in learning about the climate impact of their practices, or soil researchers studying the carbon impact of various practices.
Current soil carbon measurement methods are very cost- and labor intensive, so our in-situ spectral probe will make these measurements much more accessible.
No. Healthy soil means high carbon content (mycelium, microbes etc).
"Dead soil" that has been tilled too much will have fucked up nitrogen and other cycles, requiring irrigation, supplemental fertilizer and more pesticides.
The climate crisis angle is just icing on the cake.
Interesting question - I'm not sure I know the answer but happy to speculate. Electrolysis certainly is a much tidier process than gasification, but everyone seems to assume it's powered by 100% renewable energy. What incentives exist to make H2 production decarbonize faster than the rest of the electricity grid? I'd expect electrolysis to only be fully carbon-neutral when the rest of the grid is, which will take some time.
On the other hand, our process is close to carbon neutral from day one (we've confirmed this with an external life cycle assessment), and will become significantly carbon negative when we begin sequestration. And as I mentioned elsewhere, sequestration is the primary mission and electrolysis is unremarkable at it :]
So, my point is that in the bio-gas process, you are generation H2 + CO2 and using some proceeds from H2 sales to sequester the CO2 you produce.
However, with electrolysis (from renewable elect. plants), you aren't generating any CO2, so any profit that you spend on Carbon sequestration (from somebody else's process) would be a much more Carbon negative proposition overall.
All this depends on the H2 production cost as to which is a mor effective Carbon sequestration scheme, right?
In the paper I cite (I convert SEK to $): bio-gas costs ~$4/kg H2 (let's say this produces 5 kg of CO2), and electrolysis ~$4.50/kg H2 (producing 0 kg Carbon).
Now say it costs $0.50/kg for CO2 sequestration). In the biogas process, because of the cost to sequester the CO2 byproduct, your actually spending ($0.5×$5)+$4 = $6.50/kg H2 produced just to get Carbon Neutral. However, for electrolysis (without the mess) you're only spending $4 to be Carbon Neutral, and if you want you can spend $2.50 (which you avoided by chosing elect. over gas), to go Carbon negative.
These are rough numbers I guessed at based on a little googling. Am I far off on the real numbers?
I'm really not trying to be a pain. What you're proposing is still light years better than the greedy bastards reforming natural gas and pocketing 100% of the profits without giving a second thought to the environment. I'm just wondering if there might be a way for you guys to do even more good, more easily.
The economics you're looking at for biogas and electrolysis look roughly right to me. But our models suggest that thermal gasification of biomass can get down to $1/kg. So then you're looking at $4.50+/kg for electrolysis or $1/kg for gasification... and you can see how all that math changes.
Electrolysis also typically costs more than you'd expect as soon as you add the requirement of renewable energy supply. Usually the renewable energy supply is solar, which has a ~30% duty cycle. So 70% of the time your electrolyzer is sitting idle. This crushes your economics and makes solar-powered electrolysis untenable in all of the analyses I've seen. We didn't have any clever ideas for how to change that situation, so after looking at it ~1.5 years ago we decided to look elsewhere.
Good answer, thank you. Like I said, it all boils down to the cost of H2 production for a given process. If you have a path to get to $1/kg H2, that is truly awesome!
Working very peripherally in this sector, I applaud your efforts, not only for the ingenuity, but also for the guts to consider environmental impact as opposed to stock-holder happiness from a profit margins perspective.
Honestly, it would be cool if on your site you showed a side-by-side comparison on your profit model compared to a competing natural gas reforming competitor's profit structure to demonstrate to customers how you are sacrificing some profit for environmental benefit, whereas the competition simply pockets the profit and turns a blind eye to the environment. For me, that would help me decide to buy potentially higher cost H2 from you, just like I choose to pay a higher premium for energy I know is renewable sourced.
The world needs more innovators like you folks. Good luck!
(Charm Co-founder here) Ultimately our goal is large-scale CO2 removal and sequestration with biomass. This process produces an excess of energy which we can sell in various forms to fund the process. We chose to start with Hydrogen simply because it's quite easy and has a large industrial market.
Also note that the largest use of hydrogen (~50%) is actually for ammonia production as fertilizer, which alone is responsible for 1-2% of global CO2e emissions. Decarbonizing that industry would be fantastic.
US annual hydrogen production is approximately 10 million metric tons (1.0E+10 kg), 68% of which is used in petroleum processing.
Given that worldwide production of hydrogen-derived ammonia is 140 million tons in total, compared with hydrotreated gasoline coming in at about 2000 million tons worldwide, it doesn't appear that the U.S. is an outlier.
Decarbonizing the fertilizer industry would be fantastic. Wind-powered and solar-powered electrolyzers are already starting to do that job, perfect uses for intermittent energy sources. I'm skeptical that your process can realistically make more fertilizer than it consumes.
I find it a little disturbing that you boast "Hydrogen's quite easy" with this little public documentation to back up your claims. Be real careful here: you don't want to be the next Theranos.
You have lightning trapped in a bottle because of your luck in landing a YC slot. I encourage you to consider pivoting technologies away from anything involving hydrogen. Since you're such a big fan of ammonia, why not just go straight for that? Getting your nitrogen from the plant instead of from the air might stand a better chance to beat Haber-Bosch.
(1) electrolysis is much more expensive than steam methane reformation, so unfortunately I don't think it's gaining much steam as a real hydrogen production method.
(2) typical ammonia fertilizer application is 0.125 tons/acre/year at a price of $500/ton = $62.50/acre/year. Our grass and gasification process yields $1,750/acre/year worth of hydrogen... so roughly a 28:1 financial return on the fertilizer input which is probably pretty close to the EROI (Energy Return on Investment)
(3) To clarify "hydrogen is quite easy"... not on an absolute basis (which is quite hard), but relative to other products that could be produced. For example, you mention ammonia, but ammonia production has enormous economies of scale benefits from complex compression systems and pressure chambers... if you run the math it doesn't work out as favorably as hydrogen, and it's substantially more complex and difficult.
(4) We are funded by an amazing group of angel investors, but that does not include YC.
(1) You should check out https://wcroc.cfans.umn.edu/wcroc-news/ammonia-wind (the title specifically mentions "gaining momentum"). (Bear in mind this technology works by making H2 first from electrolysis). There's a half-dozen more of these research groups. Wind and solar electrolysis are sensible because they can be placed next to ammonia consumers that currently have to have ammonia shipped in from thousands of miles away. Unfortunately, your technology is tied to CO2 injection wells, which aren't all that common outside the western US.
(2) I'd love to see your math, but assuming it's not available, let me show you my math: Assume 6000 pounds per acre per year yield of wet grass. Say that's 5000 pounds dried. Model grass as 100% cellulose, which is 6% by weight hydrogen. Assume 100% process efficiency, where you get all the hydrogen out, and it's magically compressed. 300 pounds of hydrogen sounds like a lot, but according to wikipedia, is only worth about 32 cents a pound at the pipe. So my numbers show $100/acre/year. The value goes way up at the "pump", but that's because of transportation infrastructure that neither you nor your competition provide. That also assumes free injection of low-pressure waste CO2, which is not only a fantasy, but presumably ties your process to a location far away from your target market for the H2.
(3) Ammonia solves your hydrogen storage and transmission problem, so my math shows it's way favorable, especially since you're triply tied to a CO2 injection site, fertile acreage to grow your grass, and an H2 consumer. Picking ammonia makes cost-effective transportation to the consumer possible. Realistically, you'd react the ammonia with CO2 to make urea, which is way better than ammonia for both transportation costs and market demand.
(4) Didn't say YC funded you, but you were in their demo day, hence my mention of the YC slot.
(1) When we investigated this last year the ammonia synthesis capex looked untenable and we didn't see a path to lower that capex. Re:injection wells... they are super common in Texas/Louisiana region as well, which happens to be where most of the US refining capacity and ammonia production is located, so we're very near customers there.
(2) 6000 dry lbs/acre/year = 3 dry tons/acre/year which is an extremely low yield. Even miscanthus and switchgrass get over 10 dry tons/acre/year, energy cane gets to 20 dry tons/acre/year and our grass gets to 25+ dry tons/acre/year. So that brings your $100/acre/year up to $800+/acre/year. Then for the chemistry it's important to note that much of the hydrogen gas produced is actually coming from H2O that reacts with carbon in the cellulose to produce 2 H2 + CO2. So, stoichiometrically you get significantly more than the elemental hydrogen content of the grass itself. That gets you another factor of 2 or so... and then we're at the $1750/acre/year mentioned in the parent comment.
(3) Agreed the transportation costs are better for ammonia, but we aren't actually transporting the hydrogen except over a feeder pipe into a refinery or ammonia plant. It's cheaper and simpler to transport the grass as opposed to the hydrogen, mostly because you get to avoid the pre-transport compression energy and losses. Again, as in (1) the issue with ammonia is the heavy capex based around Haber-Bosch pressure vessels and compressors... we didn't have any good ideas for reducing those costs, so there's no sense in competing there.
(4) We weren't at YC's demo day... not sure what you're referring to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
(1) Since you're limiting yourself to the gulf region, it'd probably be responsible to disclose your CO2 injection costs, including the cost of compressing the CO2 to the necessary pressures. It'd also be responsible to either disavow or embrace enhanced oil recovery vs. other injection approaches: you're either devoted to reducing carbon or making gasoline cheaper, and you have to choose.
(2) If these numbers are accurate, you're doing yourself a disservice by burying them. 25+ dry tons/acre/year is amazing. And I thought the crab grass on my lawn grew fast.
I seriously doubt your chemistry, however. Let's look at your three possible approaches (2b sounding the most like what you're claiming to do):
(2a). Charring: Hopefully using all that free low-grade heat from the refinery you colocate with, the cellulose cooks until all the hydrogens join with the ample oxygens in the cellulose and you end up with a char and steam. No hydrogen this way.
(2b). Steam Reforming: This tech works with natural gas because the C:H ratio is so low, and no oxygen is introduced that doesn't bring its own "dates". Because the C=O bond in carbon monoxide is so strong, you can leach off some of the H2. However, as soon as you raise that C:H ratio, or up the available oxygen, steam reforming fails and just becomes combustion. C:H in cellulose is 6:10 vs. methane's 1:4. And that's before the 5 oxygens (vs. methane's 0) ruin it further. No hydrogen this way.
(2c). Fischer-Tropsch (the original Hans and Franz): In a chamber about as expensive as your Haber-Bosch capex, you somehow convert dried grass and catalyst to a mix of H2 and CO, the latter of which you can convert into more H2. Doesn't sound like you're using this approach, though it could technically work if pressure cooking your grass didn't require ridiculous amounts of energy, and you had a way to separate the H2 from the syngas. How many MJ of energy is that? So, maybe Hydrogen this way.
(2d) What'd I miss?
(3) Ok, so your co-founder's protestations about making gasoline cheaper were unnecessary, and you co-locate with oil refineries. Instead of downplaying it, own it: grassoline is trademarked but not for the type of product you'd make. Makes sense to leverage someone else's existing capex, as long as they let you. Those oil guys are flush with cash, why are you distancing yourself from them? They'd love to have your CO2 if it's at high enough pressure.
(4) My mistake. Your timing was highly coincidental with Demo Day, technology looked like it could have been part of it, and the faulty assumption was mine.
Are there hydrogen pipelines that make it easy to sell hydrogen on a larger regional market, or will you have to deal with a ton of transport issues too?
That advance is for combining hydrogen and nitrogen in order to make ammonia. This company is talking about production of hydrogen, so the technologies complement one another.
Indeed, but they're also touting that the energy component of haber-bosch can come from complete combustion of the charcoal, which is where some (much?) of the economic incentive comes from to pay for 'geologic sequestration'.
If a less energy-intensive ammonia process is used, perhaps a simpler hydrogen-generating process would be a better fit. ie, if the heat can't be used directly, is this process an economically viable way to generate hydrogen?
(Co-founder at Charm) Fair points. I'm not going to defend corn ethanol - our process yields 10x more saleable energy per acre than corn ethanol. The energy crop we're currently field trialing is similar to sugarcane, with extremely high yields (and our process uses the entire plant, unlike ethanol). Of course, energy crops are only required at large scale. At small scale, there's plenty of agricultural waste available for cheap, as you mentioned.
PV certainly wins on efficiency compared to crops, but it's also relatively expensive (an acre of PV vs an acre of perennial crops). Also PV is quite unremarkable at removing CO2 from the atmosphere :]
Looks like Miscanthus grass. Although shouldn't it not matter? Why not partner with a corn grower and use corn stalk or chopped corn cobs? Or gasify cardboard.
(Charm Co-founder here) Certainly - you're effectively describing biochar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochar) which historically has been used as both an energy source and a soil amendment. Using it as a sequestration method has gained some attention recently, though I have reservations.
For one, biochar is typically produced in small, low-efficiency reactors without proper emissions control (though this is solvable). The bigger issue is the high energy content of biochar (~30MJ/kg). Simply burying all of this energy isn't economical - it makes much more sense to store carbon in its oxidized state, and sell the energy that's released in the process (in various forms - we're starting with Hydrogen).
Thanks for the reply, yes I am aware of biochar but wasn't sure grass was a suitable source.
The latest research seems to show that done properly, biochar can improve crop yields substantially, so that could be a way to pay for the process, but the other aspect is that it can be produced in a very low-tech manner, which is almost certainly the situation in many or most parts of the world.
How are you planning 'geological carbon dioxide sequestration'? I'm not sure of the chemistry/process, but is burning the charcoal completely actually necessary to produce hydrogen? It seems not, to me. The cynical view of course is that you will omit the costly sequestration step, which makes this just another biofuel endeavor, with the attendant pros, and, mainly (IMHO), cons...
Did you try blowing air through the mass from bottom up? It can help loosen the grass chips, reduce moisture and prevent agglomeration and is useful as long as the air flux doesn't prevent the grass from funneling down.
Certainly we considered it. The problem is that on this prototype system we were operating with a sealed hopper. Thus any gas injected into the hopper would travel through the system and dilute our output gas stream. Also any oxygen in the injected gas would result in combustion rather than gasification.
The inside of the funnel can be lined with a tube punchered uniformly and use pneumatic nitrogen piped from above and outside of the sealed hopper? I’m getting these weird ideas in my head.
We are a climate tech startup developing a dramatically cheaper sensor for measuring soil carbon. Soils have gigaton-scale sequestration potential but current measurement techniques are woefully expensive and inaccurate. We've derisked our technology and are now growing the team to productionize it. Join us!
Apply here: https://jobs.lever.co/yardstick/b6aecf87-1209-4e11-84b5-97a7...