Climate change is the defining challenge of our time. The task to decarbonise and defossilise transport and industry must be executed by the generations alive today for the benefit of those to come. The responsibility rests with us.
Greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced. Renewable energy and materials will emerge as the champions of a climate-neutral future. Many of the solutions rely on gases. Hydrogen and its many derivatives can be produced as clean energy vectors. Capturing CO2 from gaseous emissions is also essential. Methane, nitrous oxide, and F-Gas emissions must also be eliminated. Bio-based solutions such as biomethane, liquid biofuels and biocarbon will also have major roles to play. Our work at sbh4 touches all these areas.
We provide advisory services for climate tech in multiple ways. The scope, budget and timescale of each engagement is customised to your requirements. Much of our work is related to due diligence on behalf of investors in projects or technologies. In those cases, the engagements are on fixed timelines and with clearly defined deliverables.
We also take long-term ‘operating partner’ engagements in support of operating companies seeking to decarbonise, startups looking to grow and project developers who are keen to prepare the most investable clean energy and decarbonisation projects with the best returns. In these cases, the nature of our support can evolve flexibly, according to evolving requirements and the intensity of support can also change through the engagement.
Beyond climate-tech, clean energy projects, and the pursuit of net-zero operations, our expertise also extends to industrial gases, gas analysis and gas detection.
If you are interested to review a selection of open reference letters from clients that we have supported in the above areas, please get in touch.
Climate change is a reality that confronts our world. Decarbonisation of energy supply and industrial processes will be essential to mitigate the impact of carbon dioxide emissions to our atmosphere. Hydrogen as a renewable or low-carbon energy vector will have a major role to play in securing a sustainable future. Numerous clients have approached me to better understand the market opportunity for their products in this green-tech sector.
Financial sponsors and fund managers have sought my opinion on the most likely winners in this space to guide their investments. Consulting firms have also requested expert advice to support strategy studies that they have been engaged in. And leadership teams within operating companies have benefited from my expertise as they reflect on the opportunities and threats that hydrogen and other decarbonised energy gases may present to their business or how hydrogen may play a role in decarbonisation of their operations.
Thomas Heinrich, Managing Consultant at NexantECA:
“Stephen and I have been working together on a number of hydrogen projects. It has been a joy to exchange ideas with Stephen, given his excellent technical and market knowledge and collaborative approach.”
Green hydrogen and captured CO2 are the building blocks to make syngas for e-fuels generated though the ‘power to liquids’ pathway. Sustainable fuels can also be produced from syngas derived from biomass or waste. The key unit operations are: alkaline, or PEM electrolysis followed by the reverse water gas shift reaction or co-electrolysis of CO2 and steam on a solid oxide electrolyser; Fischer Tropsch synthesis; and methanol synthesis. From e-methanol there are many fuel and chemical molecules such as gasoline or formaldehyde that can be produced. Fischer Tropsch generates a synthetic crude that can be refined to yield e-gasoline, e-diesel, and e-kerosene.
These e-fuels have the advantage that they are carbon-neutral drop-in replacements for fossil fuels. Compatibility with existing fuels means that existing logistics and storage infrastructure can be used. Furthermore, they avoid the capital cost of replacing the vehicle, ship, train, or aeroplane that they are used in. At sbh4 we have supported investors with due diligence studies to evaluate start-ups in this space. We have also supported major development projects in Africa to scale up e-fuels production for export to Europe and advised on policy, standards and common user infrastructure development to ensure the region is attractive for inward investment.
Greenhouse gas emissions reduction is a dominant theme at present and will be essential to meet the aspirations of The Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Carbon dioxide emissions can be reduced using carbon capture and utilisation or storage. With 30 years of processing, purifying and commercial utilisation of gases such as carbon dioxide, I have the experience to guide companies through the decarbonisation maze to find cost effective, or profitable mitigation strategies.
With international expertise in the energy sector, gas analysis, gas monitoring and refrigerant gases, I can also advise on emissions control strategies for the other potent greenhouse gases: methane, nitrous oxide and F-Gases. Hydrogen was top of the renewable energy agenda in 2020, driven by the publication of many hydrogen strategies and financial stimulus. Hydrogen derivatives, CCUS and e-fuels, and mitigation of other greenhouse gas emissions have more recently joined hydrogen in the green-tech spotlight.
Solid biofuels such as wood have been used since man learned how to make fire. In its modern form, wood pellets are a high-volume energy vector for power generation. Biocoal, or biocoke derived from wood, or biochar made from post-harvest biomass residues have some advantages over raw biomass. These are their reduced moisture content, higher energy density and better storage and handling properties. They can be used as substitutes for fossil coal in energy systems and replace coal coke or petcoke as a reducing agent. Liquid biofuels already have a role to play in our energy systems. Synthetic diesel is made from refined cooking oils and bioethanol is blended with gasoline. Their role will grow and over time, they will be joined by bio-methanol from biomass gasification. These liquids can be substituted by e-fuels as renewable electricity generation ramps up and power to liquids technologies scale up and mature. Our industrial decarbonisation studies at sbh4 have often proposed the use of biofuels as short-term drop-in replacements for fossil fuels. Hydrogen and ammonia will have their day, but availability and cost-effectiveness are favouring bio-based solutions in some of the cases we are exposed to.
Green hydrogen has become synonymous with the electrolysis of water using renewable power. This is an area where sbh4 has frequently been engaged to advise project developers with technology selection and support electrolyser start-ups with their innovation and business development strategies. I also provide a training course for World Hydrogen Leaders on electrolysis technologies and run the masterclass in this area at their World Electrolysis Congress. In 2021 I specified more than 2GW of electrolyser capacity for various projects in Asia. Prior to my work at sbh4, I product managed two electrolyser product ranges for Linde Gas. My expertise in this field has been used by the World Bank, IFC and Asian Development Bank to support projects they have been executing.
