Calix Podcast INNOVATING FOR THE EARTH

In this Innovating for the Earth podcast, Heirloom CEO Shashank Samala and Leilac CEO Daniel Rennie explain how their partnership aims to accelerate the removal of legacy carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the Earth’s atmosphere and provide a pathway for the electrification of hard-to-abate industries, including cement, lime, iron, and steel.

 The unsung heroes of this world, in James' opinion, are engineers. Sure, people talk about Einstein and Marco Polo and Shakespeare and Steve Jobs and Winston Churchill and Nelson Mandela and Rihanna. And yes, good on them. Amazing stuff. But the fact is that none of these high achievers would have been able to do much at all without engineers. Every time you drive on a road or a bridge or through a tunnel or get on a bus or a train over a tall building, or open your laptop or tap on your phone you're only able to do it because of engineers. Maybe someone else had the idea to build the road or the laptop, although engineers have plenty of ideas. But engineers turn those ideas into things that actually work and that we can use without them. We wouldn't be able to go anywhere or do anything. 

On starting with Calix in 2012, Matthew’s role was the mechanical engineer for the Calix Flash Calciner (CFC), from the conceptual process design through to the commissioning and first production runs.Following the CFC’s completion, Matthew was involved in the development of the ACTI-Mag product, spending many hours helping to develop the production process and first manufacturing plant at Calix’s main production site located in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria. Having gained experience developing the process for the ACTI-Mag product, Matthew was then put in charge of developing and delivering a high-volume output ACTI-Mag production facility in Queensland. The project was developed under budget and ahead of schedule. At the end of 2016, Matthew was seconded to the European branch of Calix to work on the LEILAC project. Matthew was placed in charge of delivering the Calix component of the FEED stage and developing the budget for the project. With the consortium approving the budget and the project moving into the detailed design and procurement stage, Matthew was placed in charge of delivering the mechanical components of the project, which will begin construction in mid-2018. On returning back to Australia, Matthew was placed in charge of Calix’s development program for an electric calciner for processing innovative battery materials. The program ran to schelude and was delivered early and under budget. In 2019 Matthew moved into the Engineer Team Leader role, managing the engineering team based in Australia to help support the development of Calix’s core technology, the European development program and local water business. 

Claire joined Calix as a process engineer in January 2021. She started at Calix as the primary BATMn plant operator, working to complete trials and assist in the development of test plans. Claire was also involved with data processing and reporting of results from the BATMn plant to assist the Engineering Team with feasibility studies and design phases for various projects. Now, Claire works as the R&D Plant Coordinator, where she is responsible for working with key stakeholders to identify and facilitate program and trial requirements in the BATMn plant. She is also heavily involved in ensuring safe operating procedures are maintained and utilised and the plant, and its works, comply with all Safety, Environmental and Quality requirements. Prior to joining Calix, Claire graduated with a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering from RMIT University, where she spent her final year completing numerical studies to investigate flame speeds of alternative fuels.” 

Governments are spending big on electrical infrastructure upgrades and flagging that the future of industry is going to be powered exclusively with electricity with grid scale storage and export with batteries and hydrogen. 

Many mineral or chemical processes haven’t had the opportunity to make use of low cost, renewable electricity because availability of proven, large scale, electric fired thermal processing hasn’t been available until now. The next 10 years is going to see significant shifts in costs and processing methods to more sustainable energy sources. 

A shift to processes which are more flexible in energy source and feedstock. A seismic shift in Process Engineering, Economics and Profitability is here today. Is your business ready for the coming decade? 

Calix electric calcination is the next step in thermal mineral processing. The world is shifting from the use of fossil fuels over to clean, adaptable technologies. The Calix Technology enables this transition to clean fuels, while maintaining flexibility with process integration and energy source. 

Find out more: https://www.calix.global/sustainable-processing/ 

 Together, they explore how Calix’s LEILAC (Low Emissions Intensity Lime and Cement) carbon capture technology can help significantly reduce lime’s impact on the environment. 

A TECHNOLOGY THAT IS AVAILABLE NOW 
As environmental regulations toughen, and shareholders and stakeholders place increasing pressure on companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, lime producers need solutions quickly to help mitigate their CO2 emissions. Calix’s LEILAC (“Low Emissions Intensity Lime and Cement”) Technology is available now to efficiently separate the CO2 emitted in lime production. Calix’s LEILAC Technology captures the process CO2 emissions that are generated when limestone is heated. These emissions are unavoidable regardless of the fuel type and can constitute up to 75 per cent of CO2 emissions from a lime plant. The remainder comes from burning fuel. 

Further advances in Calix’s LEILAC Technology, such as the ability to electrify the whole of the heating requirement, and power it from renewable energy, means that zero-emissions lime manufacturing can be achieved. 

“The current objective facing the lime industry and governments is threefold: to maintain economic prosperity, meet lime market demand, while dramatically lowering CO2 emissions. Calix (LEILAC) aims to meet this global challenge as quickly as possible.” Comments Adam Vincent, General Manager Lime Decarbonisation. 

Find out more: https://www.calix.global/industries/industry-lime/ 

 SaltX Technology is a Swedish renewable tech company that has set out to solve the problems of renewable energy supply, demand and timing. SaltX’s grid-scale energy storage solution uses abundant, recyclable and energy dense nanocoated limestone-based materials. The thermochemical storage is charged with renewable energy and can be dispatched when needed, as steam or electricity. Many industries are trying to decarbonise traditional heating processes. Efficient, low-cost energy storage systems are needed to accelerate the decarbonisation of electricity network and are a fast-growing, multi-billion market. In 2021, Calix and SaltX combined their technology to develop a potential chemical energy storage solution. They built an electric powered direct separation reactor in Sweden to be used as part of a process for storing and dispatching renewable energy. The reactor will use excess renewable energy during the day to power the reactor to heat, charge and dehydrate salt. Then, when energy is needed, the salt will be recombined with water to produce heat and power. Andrew and Corey discuss how the collaboration between Calix and SaltX came about, why the two companies decided to work together, how they developed the project, and it’s results.” 

In the fourth Episode of INNOVATING FOR THE EARTH, innovation expert and radio and TV presenter James O’Loghlin talks with Simon Thomsen, Project Engineer at Calix and responsible for the R&D on the LEILAC 2 project about how LEILAC Carbon Capture technology is applied to the cement industry. 

The LEILAC technology is based on Calix’s Direct Separation technology, which aims to enable the efficient capture of the unavoidable process carbon emissions, derived from its original application in the magnesite industry. Applying and scaling up the technology to the cement industry carries a large number of risks. To quickly and effectively apply this technology, the European-Australian collaboration LEILAC projects include consortia of some of the world’s largest cement, and lime companies, as well as leading research and environmental institutions. 

LEILAC will deliver a stepchange in the efficiency of capturing CO2 emissions. See www.project-leilac.eu for more information and follow it on twitter under ‘ProjectLEILAC’. 

Simon Thomsen has taken on a multitude of roles as required by the varying needs of a fast growing company. These have included project managing periodic upgrades of the CFC15000 facility, managing the delivery of services for high value customers such as Melbourne Water and most recently, held a pivotal role in completing the engineering on the pre-FEED study for the LEILAC project before moving to Europe full time in 2017 to work on the project full time. With the LEILAC 1 project now successfully completed, he has transitioned into the LEILAC 2 project to manage the research and development program, which needs to resolve the remaining scale up and integration technology challenges. The LEILAC 2 project has now successfully completed its pre-feasibility study and is progressing with Front End Engineering Design. 

 In the third Episode of INNOVATING FOR THE EARTH, innovation expert and radio and TV presenter James O’Loghlin talks with Daniel Rennie, the General Manager of Cement Decarbonisation at Calix about how Calix Carbon Capture technology is helping reduce carbon dioxide emissions. 

To respond to the threat of climate change, and reach the EU’s target of reducing carbon emissions by 60% by 2030, and becoming carbon neutral by 2050, carbon capture technologies will need to be applied to most European cement plants to ensure that carbo dioxide is not released into the atmosphere. 

James and Daniel discuss how Calix’s LEILAC project is capturing carbon dioxide emissions more efficiently, and dramatically reducing process-related emissions in the cement industry, and how this pioneering work might be applied more widely across the industry to reduce emissions and help Europe achieve its’ carbon reduction targets. 

Daniel Rennie is the coordinator of the LEILAC project, which started in January 2016 and is led by Calix. He enjoys working with the dedicated and enthusiastic staff within Calix and project partners, which include leading industrial, engineering, R&D and consulting organisations. LEILAC will deliver a stepchange in the efficiency of capturing CO2 emissions. 

See www.project-leilac.eu for more information and follow it on twitter under ‘ProjectLEILAC’. 

Welcome to the second Episode of INNOVATING FOR THE EARTH, with innovation expert and radio and TV presenter James O’Loghlin and Phil Hodgson, Managing Director and CEO of Cailx.

In this podcast we’re exploring some new technology developed by Calix. 

In ep 1, we heard Mark Sceats tell us about the history of Calix, and how a simple idea became a global company.

In this second episode, we take a closer look at the technology, to understand how the Calix calcination process can be used to develop environmentally friendly solutions to protect  crops, treat wastewater, and reduce the amount of carbon produced in industrial processes.

Phil Hodgson is the Managing Director and CEO of Calix. He joined Calix as CEO in 2013, and became a Director in 2014. He previously worked with Shell, then ran his own consultancy in areas such as Biofuel, Clean Coal, Geothermal Energy, and Logistics.

Welcome to the first Episode of INNOVATING FOR THE EARTH, with innovation expert and radio and TV presenter James O’Loghlin. 

We live in a time of great change. Hardly anyone does things the same way as they did them 20 years ago, even 10 years ago, and the pace of change isn’t slowing down. Climate change will bring huge change to many industries, especially energy, and the drive to operate sustainability will intensify. This podcast is going to examine what one company, Calix is doing to identify and meet some key challenges that have emerged in the last decades. 

Calix uses patented technology they developed to provide industrial solutions that address global sustainability challenges. Their technology is being used to develop environmentally friendly solutions in areas that include crop protection, aquaculture, water and wastewater, advanced batteries and carbon reduction, and we are going to find out how their complex technology went from being just an idea to becoming a thriving international business, how the technology works and what it does.

Mark Sceats was there from the beginning. He’s a physical chemist with 40 years’ experience. In 2005 he founded Calix, and today is a Director. Prior to 2005 Mark had worked at the University of Chicago, the University of Rochester in New York, and then at the University of Sydney in the School of Chemistry. He’s published over 140 academic papers in physical chemistry, and - Get this - is an inventor of 36 patented inventions. 

In this episode we will hear Mark answer the following questions: • How did the Calix journey begin? • What were you hoping to achieve with the technology? • Where did you start testing? • What were the early findings? • What followed this test unit? • So by this point you had a technology demonstrated at small scale – how did you take this to the market? • How did such a small company complete such an ambitious project? • What happened after you turned the reactor on for the first time? • How did you feel that day? • Were there any challenges with this first of a kind plant ? • Were there moments when you thought it was never going to happen? • How did you get through those tough times? • What did you learn in those periods? • What would you have done differently? • What do you think you did really well in this period?