Thanks for the comment. See calculation breakdown added in a few threads above. Some of our thoughts about the carbon negative part:
Paper mills captures CO2 from trees (that are sustainably harvested, more trees planted than harvested p.a.) of which parts of it is released after some of the lignin is burned (inefficiently) for fuel. If they stop burning lignin for fuel, they need other energy sources, and then the question is how the paper mill chooses to do this:
- The mills can choose to burn fossil fuels, get a renewable source, or buy electricity from the grid. We will only source lignin from players serious about sustainability and green alternatives (industrial broilers could also use green hydrogen), alongside prioritising maximised energy efficient operations
- Even if they get electricity from the grid, the world is moving forward and we’re luckily reaching a point where additional capacity in the grid is coming from renewables, while fossil is decreasing - boosting new renewable buildout more
What’s very important in what you point out is that when we expand our lignin supplier base, we need to be careful in selecting our suppliers, understanding their alternatives and understanding our Scope 3 emission effects to ensure it aligns with our mission of saving the planet :) And that's what we will do - ensure that this ends up on the right side.
This is a very fair question. We need to be mindful going forward in how we communicate. We can say that our Scope 3 emissions are negative, but scope 1 we are slightly positive (but still much lower than competition) Just to clarify; we go from 7-10kg CO2 positive for traditional methods, to 5 kg negative in two steps; Step one is we reduce emissions from transport, extraction etc because we have a better Crusher which recycles the road better, which takes us to just above 1kg pr m2 - massive savings already from the traditional method, and this could be counted mostly in Scope 1 or 2, some of it in 3 (reduced extraction). The remaining ca -6 kg is the effect of lignin - here debated in the thread and that we are saying is carbon negative. This is a scope 3 effect.
Thanks for pointing out! We are still a young company and need to work on our Scope 1-3 accounting :)
It's correct that lignin is used as a fuel, here's one source of it. ~98 is burnt.
"currently most of the lignin produced from paper industry is burned as low-value fuel to generate electricity and heat (Luo and Abu-Omar, 2017) and only less than 2% is used for producing specialty chemicals ..." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09266...
Thank you for this Question! In Norway, where we have stabilized more than 2,5 mill sqm of road, this is the problem we solve the most. Our Lignin is very strong, and more dynamic than our competitors binders, which means it doesn't crack in freeze-thaw cycles like other binders can. And as we crush rocks and get an even mass to mix the lignin into, we get a very good road to handle such cycles. And the pothole-problems almost don't exist.
Yes indeed, thanks for the great short hand product notes!
Lower carbon impact + lower cost + 0-25% more durable
We can supply the crusher hardware, our binders, onsite first time PM + remote PMs after that. We now do this in all of Europe, UK + North America.
Imports are not an issue to North America and Carbon Crusher is an American company and we already have presence in the state of New York. There is no adoption risks as we see it, as long as the training is done properly.
The training is mainly operating training combined with daily and monthly maintenance. We have an extensive library of remote content for training purposes. Typical onsite training is 2 weeks, if the personell has experience with road maintenance. We are also looking at VR training to speed things up on the remote training side:)
Thanks for the question! I do not believe that Lignin is the right "glue" in this case. It is quite water resistant, but to bind properly, it needs a certain amount of finer particles in the mix. If You choose gravel instead of pebbles, it should on the other hand work fine.
Thanks for diving into this! Yes, our Crusher, method and the Lignin binds sand and silts in a great way. If there is a lot of clay, we would also like to add some lime to help with the internal moist, here we have several carbon neutral solutions. Our finished road is more waterproof (compared to a gravel road without Lignin f.ex) and our roads helps a lot with the draining of water from the road. However, as on every road, the shape of the road is important so the water finds the shortest way out of the road, and the ditches should be maintained as for any other road.
Transport is included in all of our estimates, but we haven't yet done the comparison for every location in the world. We are working on a tool so we can on the fly update the CO2 calculation for each customer based on the location in our next markets which are North America and Southern Europe. That said, traditional road repair uses bitumen from oil production, or fly ash from coal power plant, which would also have to be transported from their respective source, and both oil, coal plant and lignin plants can be found around the world. Our current producer has great coverage in Europe and also in North America, and we are constantly looking at growing our supplier network.
We are also focused on transport by electric trains in the Nordics and have also ordered Tesla Semis that can help us move binders and equipment.
We are 20% cheaper than the traditional method, factoring in the maintenance interval (we have a few years longer interval). This is with a solid gross margin, so we could also go lower to increase demand when needed.
We see a lot of interest from Eastern Europe (Poland + Baltics) and also from gravel roads around the world where we have an even stronger USPs to the customers. In maintaining gravel roads - the only alternative to our method is to put more gravel on every other year, which is expensive, time consuming, and leaves a terrible Co2 footprint compared to our long lasting roads.
Good question! First I think Haakon thinks it sounds A LOT cooler. Second, we have been R&D our asses off developing the actual Crusher hardware. The current Crusher we have developed over the last years is specifically designed for crushing in harsh environments and tailored for binding ligning into the roads. It is produced, tested over years and works perfectly for our purpose now. It is part of our IP and helps us make carbon negative roads that are more durable and cost less for our road owning customers. Can´t wait to share details about our next gen crusher thats coming later this years that will crush the current one especially on the software/sensor side
Thanks! We are very excited turning roads into a part of the climate solution. Road construction and refurbishment is a very conservative industry and unfortunately they often want to stick to the way they've done things before. But we're working on disrupting this leveraging YC, cool green climate tech and documentation from our long track record!
There are huge amounts of lignin in the world which is the base for our current binder. With our current producer volumes and without leveraging synthetic bio we can reach USD 2bn in yearly global revenue.
If we were to leverage all the current lignin supply in the world we could Carbon Crush 1.5million miles of roads every year.
"Great question, we would love to crush carbon in South America! Our 14 year old road is in Heart Valley in Norway. All of our experience is from Norway so far and our current binder works well in similiar climates around the globe. So places like Brazil we will need to do testing to find the best binder for those environments. We are already in talks with Brazilian ligning producers btw. Our goal is to have a sustainable binder tailor made for all environments
Thank You!
You are right! The video shows the first step, which is the crushing. Lignin mixing is step 2.
The road can be used by cars immideatly after compacting, as with other methods. However, if You want asphalt on top, it is necessary to let it dry for 2-3 weeks to let the water-solved Lignin harden and dry.
In the video it was already a lot of small particles in the ground. We can make rocks smaller, but not bigger:-) The sizes of the gravel bits are evenly distributed, but with some fines on the top(due to Newton). We are using 2,5 meters crushers. That makes it possible to not stop the traffic while working.
Paper mills captures CO2 from trees (that are sustainably harvested, more trees planted than harvested p.a.) of which parts of it is released after some of the lignin is burned (inefficiently) for fuel. If they stop burning lignin for fuel, they need other energy sources, and then the question is how the paper mill chooses to do this: - The mills can choose to burn fossil fuels, get a renewable source, or buy electricity from the grid. We will only source lignin from players serious about sustainability and green alternatives (industrial broilers could also use green hydrogen), alongside prioritising maximised energy efficient operations - Even if they get electricity from the grid, the world is moving forward and we’re luckily reaching a point where additional capacity in the grid is coming from renewables, while fossil is decreasing - boosting new renewable buildout more
What’s very important in what you point out is that when we expand our lignin supplier base, we need to be careful in selecting our suppliers, understanding their alternatives and understanding our Scope 3 emission effects to ensure it aligns with our mission of saving the planet :) And that's what we will do - ensure that this ends up on the right side.