Inside a high-tech cement laboratory
The next step for the startup is to build a demonstration facility producing around 100 tons per day. “That’s the size where you’re no longer invisible to the cement world,” Ellis says. The current goal is to have that facility running in 2025. After that, there’s yet another step: commercial scale, at about a million tons a year.
The world has a huge appetite for cement, and Sublime is working to scale its production to meet it. While the material is basically invisible to us today, its climate impact is huge, and only likely to grow. “Everybody uses and owns cement, but they don’t see it,” Ellis says. So keep your eyes peeled, both for the cement around you and for more on this topic from me.
Related reading
For more on the technical details of electrochemical cement making, along with another route that involves injecting carbon dioxide into the material, check out this newsletter from earlier this year.
Leah Ellis was on our list of 35 innovators under 35 in 2021. You can read more about her work here.
Another Boston-area startup wants to bring electricity to heavy industry, but its target is steelmaking. Read more about Boston Metal here.
Another thing
Lab-grown meat was just approved for sale in the US. In theory, that should be a huge win for the climate.
But there are still many, many questions remaining about just how much cultivated meat is going to be able to help cut emissions from our food. For these new products to be a climate solution, companies making them will need to scale up production and find ways to avoid expensive, energy-intensive processes.
You can dive into the details of what we know about lab-grown meat and climate change in my latest story.
