In this episode of GNP Spotlight Series, we sit down with Clément, CEO of Mitico, to explore the innovative carbon capture technology his company is developing. Clément shares his journey from managing a lab at Caltech to founding Mitico and discusses how their technology helps industrial plants reduce CO2 emissions.

Join us as we discuss the importance of carbon capture in achieving global climate goals, and how Mitico is collaborating with stakeholders to push this technology forward.

🎥 Guest: Clément Cid, CEO and co-founder of Mitico

📝 Full episode transcript

Yeah. Hi, Clément. Welcome to our Spotlight series. Hi, uh, thanks for having me. Hello, everybody. Glad to be here. Can you tell us more about yourself and give us an overview of your company and the tech you're offering? So I'm the CEO of Mitico. Before creating Mitico, I was working as a lab manager at Caltech in Pasadena, California.

And the founding team of Mitico was actually part of the same engineering team where I started. We spun off a technology that enables point source emitters, so industrial plants basically, to drastically reduce their scope one emissions, the CO2 that they emit directly from their own processes. We talked before, before recording this podcast about recent regulatory updates regarding carbon capture.

So can you discuss these developments and their impact on the industry and your company? I mean, the regulatory conditions around CO2 emissions vary a lot by jurisdiction. It is in the U. S. state dependent in terms of a potential carbon taxation, but there are some federal regulation around the emission of CO2 for power production that the EPA has set forward.

These are basically limiting the emissions of new and recently built gas fired power plants and incentivize them or forces them actually to reduce their own CO2 emissions. So at MITICO, what we are providing is a solution for those emitters to meet those rules and decarbonize while still producing, you know, secure supply of electrons for the growing demand on the energy grid.

The way these rules and regulations are unfolding outside of the U. S. is also very dependent. There is carbon taxation in Canada, for instance, that is applicable to even very small emitters, as low as 10, per year, depending on the province. We have a carbon tax that is increasing. In Europe, which is one of our early markets, there are carbon taxation and cap and trade that enable our company to be cost competitive with emitting CO2 without capturing that carbon.

And how do you position yourself in the carbon capture space to drive the narrative that carbon capture is not just a solution, but a necessity for global climate action? You're absolutely right. The emissions associated with point source emitters, so the industrial emitters, the big plants, are a huge portion of our overall global CO2 emissions.

To just give you some numbers, the power sector in the U. S. accounts for 1. 7 gigatons. of CO2 per year emitted, and that number is poised to increase between 30 to 70 percent uh, between now and 2040. So this is increasing because of the demand on the electrical grid, while at the same time the country has carbon neutrality requirement.

and the regulatory aspect around carbon emissions from the EPA. So you see there that without carbon capture, basically we're non, um, we won't be able to attain our climate goals as society. So what we propose at MITICO is a solution that enables those emitters to quickly decarbonize and at a very low cost.

The name Mitico comes from mitigation. So we enable the mitigation, the mass mitigation of carbon emissions for the power sector and other industries that, uh, still need combustion to, uh, to work. Overall, when we look at the carbon footprint of those industries, uh, we see that electrification cannot be the answer to all processes, but electrification also means that the demand on electricity on the power grid is increasing.

And so whether it's a scope one or scope two reduction requirement, uh, our technology and our company can provide the solution. And what strategies do you use to educate and engage the public and stakeholders on pushing more carbon capture into climate policies? Carbon capture technology started for purification of CO2 for other industrial usage.

So that's how it started historically and how The currently well known amine based technology was birthed. Now, the challenge with this type of process is the cost associated with it, as well as the, uh, potential stigma when it's connected to dirty sources of energy, like coal, for instance. What we see for us is, um, that carbon capture is, Is a necessity, just like you have NOx and SOx removal, you need to have solutions that take care of the waste.

If we consider CO2 a waste that impacts all of us around the globe. Now, whether it comes from fossil or non fossil combustion, combustion processes are used all around in all industries and providing a solution to decarbonize them is a necessity to reach carbon neutrality. There is no other way. That will be able to go to net zero without carbon capture being a major part of that emission reduction plan.

And when we talk about partnerships, how do you collaborate with other industries or governments to amplify the message that carbon capture is an important part of achieving net zero targets, as you mentioned? Well, we work with different stakeholders, depending on the type of project and depending on the interest that the local communities have.

So one thing we realized at Mitico is part of our job is to improve. The well being of the communities where the technology is being implemented. I mean, that sounds, you know, a little bit obvious, but a lot of industrial processes that are already existing are providing jobs, but also potentially some environmental impact to the local communities.

So what we see as our big win is we enable current industries that have already been working and implemented in communities to get cleaner. And the way we can look at it is this way you avoid new potentially polluting industry to come up in different set in, in, in other areas. Now, how we approach it with, uh, the different stakeholders is dependent on the relationship and their interests.

In the technology for an emitter, for instance, we're looking at the impact that the technology can have on their own scope one and scope two emissions. So whether it is a data center that needs decarbonized electricity or a utilities that need to decarbonize their electricity, the association of carbon capture with the way they're doing business.

makes a lot of sense for them when we show them that we can provide decarbonized power at a fraction of the cost, uh, of other type of carbon neutral processes. But we also understand that communities want to go beyond, uh, usage of fossil fuel for every application. And so where we come in is as the, potential solution to enable them using, uh, you know, more renewable sources of electricity, but still having a backup gas power generator, for instance, and all in all doing that no carbon emission or very close to no carbon emission.

And since this is a short conversation, where can people research more about what you're doing? And get in touch. Yes. So I invite everybody to our website, mitico. tech, uh, m i t i c o dot t e c h. You can send us a message. Uh, we're also active on LinkedIn. We are in the Pasadena area next to Los Angeles.

To, to receive, uh, folks who are interested in, uh, in seeing the technology, meeting with the team. And we're going for a pilot in Canada this winter. So we'll have opportunities to show the technology to interested parties. Thank you for watching Green New Perspective Spotlight Series. If you like our content, please consider subscribing to our social media channel and follow our podcast on your favorite streaming platform.

Thanks.