AI-driven solar energy outfit 'Heliogen' goes public
"Heliogen" CEO Bill Gross discusses the company's new IPO, as well as its use of mirrors to store the sun's energy as heat for use throughout the night.
Video Transcript
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- I'm going to say the newest player, they are not new. They've been around for a couple of years now. But the newest player in the public markets when it comes to clean energy production and future growth, Heliogen, started trading publicly today. And we're going to talk about them in the context of their stock being up 44%. That became public via SPAC. And we want to welcome into the stream right now their founder and CEO Bill Gross. Congratulations on that.
We were talking by the way, everybody, Bill and I during the commercial break, and he was commenting about the discussion we had with Bob Giacchino just a few minutes ago regarding Nat gas. I want you to finish what you were saying because you're a clean energy play. And some people don't consider Nat gas necessarily clean. So what was the point you were making to me in the commercial break?
BILL GROSS: Well there is a huge energy transition going on right now. Think of the Industrial Revolution, the digital revolution, and now the renewable revolution. This is probably the biggest of all of them.
And all of the customers that we're selling to, the heavy decarbonization challenging companies, the mining companies, the steel companies, cement companies, they use 36% of the world's energy and make 36% of the world's emissions. And they burn fossil fuels. And they burn natural gas.
So when natural gas goes up, it makes them even more interested in switching to renewable energy because they can lock in prices now for 20 years, they can make their own energy from the sun to replace burning fossil fuels, they can reduce their CO2 emissions, it's just win-win-win. And I think that's the wind at our backs right now that's propelling us.
- So let's talk about what your company does. And when you point out that 3/4 of carbon emissions come from non electricity sectors, manufacturing of glass and cement, plastics, how does Heliogen help clean the world, but also provide the necessary energy input for those kinds of manufacturers?
BILL GROSS: I think people don't realize how all the materials in our life, the materials in our iPhone, the materials in our cars, our homes, our roads, all come from energy. The energy that is input into those comes from fossil fuels. We can replace that.
So how do we do that? We concentrate sunlight with thousands of AI and computer controlled mirrors to a very, very high temperature. Over 1,000 degrees centigrade, almost 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. We then take that thermal energy and deliver it to these customers who need that energy to make the materials that we live with.
And by replacing the burning of stuff with the concentrating of sunlight, we can do it completely carbon free. That is why this is so big right now. All of these companies have made commitments to reduce their carbon emissions.
Some say 30% by 2030 or 40% by 2040. Well after they make those commitments, they look for a way to do it, and then they reach out to us because we're the solution. We're not burning fossil fuels to achieve that.
- This is a Luddite beginner's question for you, but we have very cool video we're showing. I want to ask the tech team to run that video that shows the mirrors that reflect the sun onto the tower which controls, is it nitrogen? Or is it some other kind?
Is it helium that you heat to an incredible degree? And then how do you turn that now heated element into energy? And the other part of that question is, do I have to set one of these things up next to my manufacturing plant? Or do you generate electricity that you can then send to these facilities?
BILL GROSS: So the mirrors are concentrating the sun's rays from hundreds of acres to that single spot on top of the tower. At that point, we make very, very hot air or hot rocks or hot sand. And that so we can store that energy in basically a thermos, a large tank.
We store that energy so we can produce energy at night because all of our customers run 24/7. Big problem with renewable energy is it's intermittent. We solve that intermittency problem by having storage.
But then to give the customer the heat the way you ask, we have a heat exchanger that then takes the thermal energy that we've stored and delivers it directly to their industrial process. So we locate these facilities right on their premises, we call it behind the meter. It's behind, it's right on their location.
Or we can make green hydrogen with this energy. And once you make green hydrogen, you can transport it. And that's really exciting for the future to be able to make energy where the sun is good and transport it to where the sun isn't. Very exciting.
- Yeah, the emission from hydrogen, if I'm correct, correct me if I'm wrong, it's water. So.
BILL GROSS: Yes.
- What I'm thinking though, looking at what you're doing, if I'm a manufacturer, this is going to be a boom for places like Arizona, desert climates. Or it's the kind of thing you could put in upstate New York.
BILL GROSS: We can put this anywhere, but of course it's more cost effective where the sun is stronger. So we're focused on the Southwest United States and Western Mexico. We're very focused on Australia, which has a huge amount of sunshine and a huge amount of land and is really excited about exporting green hydrogen. And also Chile. Chile has the best sunshine on Earth. But eventually we'll move to South Africa, North Africa, Middle East and even to New York.
As we work our way to places with lower and lower sunshine the cost goes up ever so slightly. But we have so much land available, millions of square miles available where the sunshine is incredible and the energy demand is high.
- Marilyn McCoy in the Fifth Dimension let the sun shine. And you are capturing it and making that a hit again. Bill Gross, the founder and CEO of Heliogen, all the best to you in the coming year. And congratulations on becoming a public company, one of the milestones of 2021.
