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Launch HN: Heimdal (YC S21) – Carbon neutral cement

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Re: Launch HN: Heimdal (YC S21) – Carbon neutral cement

#21

Post by marcuslima »

reilly3000 wrote: post #18

This is great to see and I hope it’s a very successful enterprise! Since this is a novel enterprise and I think there is some appeal among architects and consumers, it may be worth carving out some marketing moat with a registered trademark and perhaps an icon. While they aren’t your customer, the whole supply chain would be pleased to use your materials in their projects- so anything you can do to help them brag ult…

Absolutely! We're in the early stages of developing an idea like this. We're working with a californian construction start-up to reduce embodied carbon in their building materials.

We've also thought about working with some big name companies like Apple, Amazon, big name hotels etc. to build a carbon neutral office/store/hotel. Haven't been able to reach the right people here yet though. Any intros/suggestions are appreciated!

Re: Launch HN: Heimdal (YC S21) – Carbon neutral cement

#22

Post by marcuslima »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #14
marcuslima wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Existing players have all been overwhelmingly positive! From their perspective we're not competing with their core business and they don't have to change any of their existing plants to use our product. All they have to do is buy from us rather than a mining company to get carbon neutral cement. The main push-back is the need to perform testing on the product to make sure they udnerstand performanc before integrating…

Tremendous news, thanks for sharing. Best of luck with your product.

Thanks!

Re: Launch HN: Heimdal (YC S21) – Carbon neutral cement

#25

Post by marcuslima »

Angostura wrote: post #23

I wish you the very best of luck. The kind of company that I'd like to be involved with and I'mm sure the same goes for others here. Just one thing. https://www.heimdalccu.com/our-story linked from your front page gives 'Page Not found'

Thanks a lot! Stay posted for open roles - we'll be needing to add to our team in the next few months.

Thanks for pointing out - will sort this out!

Re: Launch HN: Heimdal (YC S21) – Carbon neutral cement

#26

Post by matsemann »

marcuslima wrote: post #19
matsemann wrote: post #16

Curious about the name, my immediate thought (and interest making me click in) was that it sounds Norwegian. Any connection? I really like the idea. One thing I'm curious about is what's in it for the contractors (edit: cement producers) buying from you instead of others? I get the environmental impact, but my guess is they only care if touches their bottom line. Will it be cheaper, either in raw price or because of…

Nice catch! I'm orignally from Norway. Heimdal is the norse god of foresight. Something the world needs in buckets when it comes to climate change. Our experience so far has been that the environmental angle has been sufficient to persuade. Cement companies are in a bit of a bind given the attention to their sustainability efforts. However we're pitching ourselves as a cost competitive solution. Depending on geograph…

Cool. Yeah, maybe the old way of making cement will be too expensive in the future compared to a greener way. Good luck with your first mover attempt!

Another curious question: Do you make an "actual" limestone, or what is the final output? A rock, chalk, mudlike or something?

Re: Launch HN: Heimdal (YC S21) – Carbon neutral cement

#27

Post by filleokus »

Really cool! Looking forward to follow your journey.

I understand that you might not be ready to share numbers, but you mention both hydrogen and desalinated water as byproducts, which both are quite energy intensive to produce. Any chance to give a hint along the lines of:

    X kWh of power + sea water + sorbent (consumable?) => Y% CaCO3 + Z% H2 + W% H2O
When at scale, will your synthetic limestone be much more expensive than mined limestone or roughly the same?

Re: Launch HN: Heimdal (YC S21) – Carbon neutral cement

#28

Post by go_elmo »

marcuslima wrote: post #13
rout39574 wrote: post #12

How many orders of magnitude separate your current cost per ton of limestone from the popular status quo methods? You're talking about ancillary products and regulatory credits, which is a fine business model; but I'm asking about the core industrial process. Trying to get a sense of how much more efficient your scale-up needs to be, before your process is in the black.

Our current cost per tonne is in the same order of magnitude when including the carbon value from the European ETS. The key success criteria for making large plants profitable will be connecting to cheap electricity at <$50/MWh we're in the black

How "flexible" is the production? I mean during peak-sunny hours the price of electricity is well below that mark in some regions of europe? And would it e.g. make sense to scale up in a very sunny region & produce your own power? Last question: Do you need electrical power or heat? If latter, would a more efficient thermo-solar power plant make sense? Best of Luck! :)

Re: Launch HN: Heimdal (YC S21) – Carbon neutral cement

#29

Post by marcuslima »

filleokus wrote: post #27

Really cool! Looking forward to follow your journey. I understand that you might not be ready to share numbers, but you mention both hydrogen and desalinated water as byproducts, which both are quite energy intensive to produce. Any chance to give a hint along the lines of: X kWh of power + sea water + sorbent (consumable?) => Y% CaCO3 + Z% H2 + W% H2O When at scale, will your synthetic limestone be much more expensi…

Our synthetic limestone will be on par with mined limestone. At scale when accounting for the higher calcium content per tonne and value of carbon we expect to be cheaper even than mined limestone.

You hit the nail on the head there. The most important cost factor is energy. We're looking at <3MWh/tonne of CO2 removed. Somewhat higher than some competing DAC companies that claim 1.5-2.5MWh. But these guys have the added cost of finding permanent storage of their gaseous CO2. Cost estimates for this, at scale, are as high as $100/tonne

Re: Launch HN: Heimdal (YC S21) – Carbon neutral cement

#30

Post by marcuslima »

matsemann wrote: post #26
marcuslima wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice catch! I'm orignally from Norway. Heimdal is the norse god of foresight. Something the world needs in buckets when it comes to climate change. Our experience so far has been that the environmental angle has been sufficient to persuade. Cement companies are in a bit of a bind given the attention to their sustainability efforts. However we're pitching ourselves as a cost competitive solution. Depending on geograph…

Cool. Yeah, maybe the old way of making cement will be too expensive in the future compared to a greener way. Good luck with your first mover attempt! Another curious question: Do you make an "actual" limestone, or what is the final output? A rock, chalk, mudlike or something?

Thanks! Yeah, we think it will be. But more importantly, the old way isn't a viable option. It's effectively off the table. Sweden has already banned mining of limestone (https://www.ribaj.com/products/cementa-limestone-mine-suspen...) The product comes out as a really finely ground powder
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