What’s the next big investment idea that is gaining steam, or should I say… Carbon?
Carbon Sciences is a company is Santa Barbara, CA that is that is putting a spin on the problem of green house gases. The company is taking carbon and treating it with low-cost technology that combines captured CO2 with water and tailings, the waste mineral products from mining operations, to produce precipitated calcium carbonate (PCC) — a useful intermediary with a wide range of applications in the consumer goods, construction and agricultural sectors. Because it uses cheap raw materials, GreenCarbon is an attractive alternative to conventional PCC technologies, which use expensive materials like limestone and are often much more energy-intensive.
According to CEO Derek McLeish, these products, which include everything from toothpaste and paper to building materials, make up a $12 billion market in the U.S. — which offers plenty of room for growth. Most of that growth will be due to increased worldwide demand for paper, he says, a resource-intensive industry that could consume up to 70 percent of all PCC produced. Different grades of PCC are also priced differently; the cost can vary from $5 a ton to $1,000 a ton.
Carbon Sciences has a mobile prototype of GreenCarbon up and running in a solar-panel equipped lab truck to show off the technology, and it plans on building a mini-pilot system within the next 2 to 3 years to begin scaling up. A commercial-scale demonstration will then follow. Though he didn’t reveal any names, McLeish told me his company had already formed strategic partnerships with several major U.S.-based firms in the paper and pharmaceuticals industries.
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