Helin Cox, Chief Technology Officer at Climeworks, discusses the cost and scale-up of direct air capture on Episode 33 of Scaling Green Tech, a podcast by Adopter.

Cox breaks the cost of direct air capture into three parts: site selection, plant operations and maintenance, and the technology itself. Within the technology, cost comes down to how much CO2 a plant captures per year for a given investment, and how much energy that takes. Both are governed by the sorbent, which is why Climeworks runs a 30-person team on material synthesis and modification, and why sorbent life matters as much as sorbent performance. Climeworks tests those materials against real site conditions in Zurich, in a mid-scale rig that conditions air from 40 degrees Celsius at 15 per cent humidity down to minus 25, and in a mobile testing unit shipped to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where Riyadh reaches 45 degrees at under 10 per cent humidity. Cox places direct air capture against roughly 40 gigatonnes of annual fossil fuel emissions, of which she says 80 to 90 per cent must be dealt with through emission reductions, leaving carbon removal for hard-to-abate sectors.

This episode is relevant for carbon removal buyers, CDR and DAC project developers, climate hardware founders scaling first-of-a-kind plants, and deep tech investors assessing risk-adjusted returns.

Guest profile

Helin Cox is Chief Technology Officer at Climeworks.

Cox’s early career was spent at Honeywell UOP, working first as an R&D development engineer and then in the field, starting up first-of-a-kind industrial plants and learning where laboratory results fail in operation. She went on to commercialise new technologies at UOP and eventually ran its new product portfolio for renewable and sustainable technologies, covering green hydrogen, blue hydrogen and long-duration energy storage. At Climeworks, she leads a technology organisation of more than 100 people across materials, equipment, process design and testing.

Climeworks is a Swiss carbon removal company founded in 2009 that develops direct air capture technology, develops and operates carbon removal plants, and sells carbon removal to corporate buyers. The company runs an innovation centre in Zurich housing wet chemical labs, a maker space and mid-scale testing, operates the Mammoth plant in Iceland, and has opened a project development office in Calgary to assess opportunities in Canada. Alongside direct air capture, Climeworks offers a portfolio of carbon removal that includes nature-based solutions and biochar.

Company website: https://climeworks.com/

Find Helin Cox on LinkedIn

Topics covered

• Explaining direct air capture

• Where Climeworks sits in the carbon removal market

• Inside the Climeworks innovation centre in Zurich

• The direct air capture cost stack: site, operations, technology

• Sorbent performance, sorbent life and energy demand

• Mid-scale rigs and the mobile testing unit for real site conditions

• Voluntary buyers, offtake agreements and risk-adjusted returns

• Regulation, 45Q and Canada's investment tax credit

• The lift-off price and what solar cost reduction actually came from

• Fail-fast culture, the maker space and the stage-gate process

• Generation 3 structured sorbents at Mammoth

• Advice for founders scaling first-of-a-kind technology

Declan McEvilly, Co-Founder of OnePlanetCapital, discusses efficiency investing and what makes early-stage climate technology investable on Episode 32 of Scaling Green Tech, a podcast by Adopter.

McEvilly argues that climate technology should be reframed as efficiency investing, on the basis that the technologies worth backing make an end user measurably more efficient, with carbon reduction following as a consequence. He contrasts this with what OnePlanetCapital call voluntary contribution businesses, meaning companies that ask a consumer or corporate to pay a premium for a sustainable option, a category that has struggled through higher interest rates and a cost of living crisis. The fund screens every opportunity against three carbon tests and requires each portfolio company to agree on a measurable KPI before investment is completed. Across six years and around 60 investments, McEvilly reports on portfolio trends and performance.

This episode is relevant for pre-seed and seed climate technology founders preparing an EIS or SEIS raise, angel and retail investors evaluating climate funds, and B2B marketers working on investor-facing messaging and pitch deck narrative for deep tech companies.

Guest profile

Declan McEvilly is Co-Founder of OnePlanetCapital. He has worked in venture capital and private markets for close to 15 years, focused on helping private companies fundraise and grow. He co-founded OnePlanetCapital six years ago after identifying a gap in UK private market investment schemes, which at the time offered investors little climate-focused exposure. As Sales Director, McEvilly manages OnePlanetCapital's relationships with financial advisers, intermediaries and investors.

OnePlanetCapital is a specialist climate technology investor backing UK businesses from seed to pre-Series A. The fund invests under the Enterprise Investment Scheme and Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme across energy, transport, construction, packaging, and waste and recycling. It has made around 60 investments. The fund was originally the OnePlanetCapital Sustainable EIS Fund and now operates as the Climate Change EIS Fund.

Company website: https://www.oneplanet.capital/

Find Declan McEvilly on LinkedIn.

Topics covered

• Explaining a climate VC fund to a five-year-old

• OnePlanetCapital's investment thesis and the three carbon scopes

• Reframing climate technology as efficiency investing

• Repositioning a fund from sustainable to climate technology

• Three value drivers for retail climate investors

• Hardware versus SaaS in climate portfolios

• Runway, burn rate, and why startups actually fail

• UK startup infrastructure and the scale-up cliff edge

• Raising in the US and the valuation trap

• What makes a good pitch: problem, solution, traction

• Content, thought leadership, and selling trust

• Climate adaptation and grid transition as growth sub-sectors

Will Tope, CEO of LiNa Energy, discusses low-cost sodium batteries and how deep tech companies find product-market fit on Episode 31 of Scaling Green Tech, a podcast by Adopter.

Tope explains that LiNa Energy did not invent a new chemistry. The company revived the ZEBRA battery, a sodium-based design from the 1980s that is inherently safe and heat-tolerant but historically too expensive to manufacture. LiNa's contribution is the electrolyte: a ceramic component that once had to be baked slowly in thick tubes, now re-engineered as a thin layer around 60 microns thick and produced through a faster, lower-energy process. That change brings the battery cost close to the price of its abundant raw materials. It positions salt batteries as a low-cost option for long-duration storage in hot markets such as India and the Middle East, where lithium-ion systems struggle.

This episode is relevant for energy storage founders, deep tech CEOs, grid infrastructure investors, and commercial leaders working on go-to-market strategy, business development in long sales cycles, and marketing for hard tech companies.

Guest profile

Will Tope is the CEO of LiNa Energy. He trained as a chemical engineer and began his career as a process engineer at the Fawley Refinery near Southampton. He then spent over ten years on the commercial side of oil and gas, covering energy origination and mergers and acquisitions, including sell-side work in Aberdeen and buy-side work in the United States. Towards the end of that period, he was chief of staff for a new trading group at ExxonMobil, where a focus on power first led him to grid-scale batteries. He joined LiNa Energy in 2021 and later stepped up to CEO.

LiNa Energy is a Lancaster-based company developing solid-state sodium batteries, also described as salt batteries, for long-duration and grid-scale energy storage. The company runs two laboratories and a pilot manufacturing site in Lancaster, and has run pilot projects in India with Tata and testing in the Middle East. Its technology targets hot climates, where conventional lithium-ion systems carry higher real-world cost.

Company website: https://www.lina.energy/

Find Will Tope on LinkedIn.

Topics covered

• Explaining LiNa Energy and salt batteries to a five-year-old

• The elevator pitch and reviving the 1980s ZEBRA chemistry

• The electrolyte bottleneck and why the old design was expensive

• Manufacturing the thin ceramic electrolyte

• From individual cells to container-scale battery systems

• Commercialisation stages and the Lancaster pilot manufacturing line

• From oil and gas at ExxonMobil to climate founder

• Business development versus sales in deep tech

• Escaping the pilot graveyard

• Finding product-market fit in hot markets: India and the Middle East

• Customer signals versus investor advice on data centres

• Marketing, "external eyes," and what is next for LiNa Energy