Partner Profile: Arno Zimmermann | |
"Seeing the sunset and sunrise also reminds me to be humble and think beyond myself. There have been many generations before us, and there will be many more after us. Let's leave them a planet that they also can live on."
This newsletter issue features Dr. Arno Zimmermann, Spark e-Fuels Co-Founder.
(Photo courtesy of juliantse.com.)
Dr. Arno Zimmermann is passionate about creating cleantech products. He has been working on sustainable chemistry, and energy technology products for global corporations, start-ups and academia. He earned his engineering PhD from Technische Universität Berlin, where he analyzed the techno-economics of using CO2 as a resource. Zimmermann co-founded three sustainability start-ups and was named one of Forbes 30 Under 30. In his spare time he DJs, produces techno house music, and organizes electronic music events around Berlin.
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Sustainability and product development are two main themes of your activity. How did you become interested in these topics?
I think it really goes back to how I grew up. I was a child in the 1990s, in East Germany. A lot of transitions at the time were economic, but you could see the impacts of the East German economy on the environment.The river was a bit smelly from acidic rain and some parts of the nearby forest were destroyed. I could see with my own eyes the impact of Germany being a heavily industrialized and densely populated country and I knew that I had to get involved.
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When I was a young student, I went to the Copenhagen Climate Conference and I saw the amount of people involved and the activism around sustainability. I also learned about the difficulties of making sustainability change happen. The fact that it's not easy actually motivates me–we have to reinvent all these things which have already been invented. From an engineering perspective, this is a really cool opportunity. Before it was more about optimizing, i.e., making things cost less or work better. But now, it's really about fundamentally changing things and doing so quickly.
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Can you tell me about your Forbes 30 under 30 award?
My team and I were so honored by this award because we were a really small team with a very early stage product at the time, but we believed passionately in the mission of Coolar, i.e. making vaccine refrigeration. We had this technology of cooling with solar heat, which we came up with by revamping technologies that we were introduced to from other contexts. We got a lot of traction–a lot of people wanted to get involved and help us.
When we were invited to go to the award event, I remember thinking “we're never going to make it. So I'm going to go to this event just to connect with the people there.” And then at the event, they announced that everybody who was there was listed. That was a very, very good night for us for sure.
It was also the first European 30 under 30 list. We were so grateful for the opportunities that the 30 under 30 award gave us. It helped us to connect to other entrepreneurs and learn how to build companies and products. We were so inspired by the other people we met then! It is really important to connect with other like minded people who are in a similar space in order to learn and grow.
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What appeals to you about the entrepreneurial space?
It's kind of like a blank sheet of paper on which you can start a drawing. It's a very creative environment, but also a fast paced, dynamic environment. There’s a lot of learning from mistakes. Unfortunately, it's also high risk, which doesn’t bother me too much because I’m fairly optimistic. But you need to be willing to sacrifice your savings and give up financial stability. Many entrepreneurs will tell you that they didn’t even have a salary for a long period of time.
You also need to push boundaries a little bit, and not accept everything that's been said to you about how things work. You really need to be able to challenge some existing rules, which to be honest, is something I really like about it.
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Can you describe Spark e-Fuels*?
At Spark e-Fuels, our goal is to turn green electricity into fuels–specifically aviation fuel. There's a huge interest in using sustainable fuels in aviation, because aviation fuels account for so much of air travel’s carbon footprint. Biofuels have been around for a decade or more, but have never really taken off because, in the past, there was no mandate to use them. However, now we see Germany and other European countries mandating biofuel usage more and more. Now you can also see a huge increase in investments in the biofuels industry–billions of US dollars are flowing into this sector. However, we know that biofuels will be limited, so e-Fuels will be necessary. We saw a gap and we intend to fill it.
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What is different about Spark e-Fuels?
Many start-ups are developing certain technologies to convert A to B or to improve a certain specific reactor step. But Spark e-Fuels wants to actually get into the implementation side of things. We ask questions like “How can we build things faster? How can we use electricity more efficiently? How can we systematically reduce cost?” We have these systematic, engineering approaches, where we integrate existing and new technologies to create plants, which are bankable and more easily financed, and can be built and deployed really quickly. There's a whole ecosystem of players that is necessary to make this happen, because it's a gigantic transformation. We want to be part of that; we want to put our little Lego piece in the huge picture of that transformation
What is the latest news from Spark e-Fuels?
Spark is currently looking for partners for building e-Fuel projects, perhaps partners from energy, hydrogen or fuel offtake. We are also looking for engineers to make things happen–process engineers, energy engineers, etc. Lastly, we are starting to raise money for our seed rounds, so we are excited to talk to any curious investors.
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What are some of the obstacles that you've had to overcome in your work?
The biggest challenge as a startup is getting funding for something that doesn’t yet exist. You get funding if you can demonstrate that something can exist, but you cannot demonstrate that it could exist if you do not first get funding. It's like the chicken and egg conundrum; which comes first if each cannot exist without the other? This is one of the biggest issues in any tough tech or hardware type of startup. It’s wonderful if you can find really visionary private investors to support these types of technologies, but many times, we will also need public money. Luckily, the policy side of things is moving to create a price on CO2. The lack of a CO2 price was one of the biggest hurdles for any sustainability or CCU type of startup. Now that the market is clearer, you can see the money starting to flow in; people are willing to bet on technologies and on teams.
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Has your past experience with startups helped you better navigate this process?
Being involved with a bunch of early stage startups projects has helped to some extent. Spark is already reaching the next phase of getting significant investment and being involved with a bunch of partners. We've already learned that we can't do everything ourselves.You need to reach a certain speed, you need to get the right people with the right types of knowledge involved. If people are interested in getting to know how startups work, it's a good idea to join an existing startup to learn the ropes. It's possible to successfully launch a start-up without experience, but it’s also hard; the learning curve is even steeper.
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What gives you hope or inspires you?
Many things inspire me, from really simple things to some bigger things. On a bigger scale, this younger generation is even more adamant about demanding change than my generation was. In addition to Greta Thunberg, we also have very vocal climate activists in Germany now, advocating for a nuclear exit and a coal exit, and really the whole transformation of transport systems. These young people speaking at global forums, like the World Economic Forum or the United Nations, have really caught the world’s attention. We can see the outcome of their efforts. These days there's a huge budget for sustainability in companies as well as a transformation towards circularity and towards more green energy. We are also seeing more world leaders taking responsibility for creating green policy and we are seeing a lot more aggressive climate neutrality targets. Twenty years ago, no one would have thought this possible. It gives me hope for what is possible in the future. The ongoing pressure of these youth activists, who sometimes seem very idealistic, is necessary for us to be able to think about how it should be. Once we understand how it should be, then we can come up with the procedure to get there.
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On a smaller scale, when you walk around at sunset or sunrise, it's so simple, but so overwhelming at the same time. We shouldn't get so engaged in work that we forget to enjoy our lives. Seeing the sunset and sunrise also reminds me to be humble and think beyond myself. There have been many generations before us, and there will be many more after us. Let's leave them a planet that they also can live on.
| *e-Fuels are produced with the help of electricity from renewable energy sources water and CO2 from the emission sources or ambient air. In contrast to conventional fuels, they do not release additional CO2 but are climate neutral in the entire balance thanks to their compatibility with today's internal combustion engines. | |
Utilizing captured CO2: the path to achieving its potential. Report launch webinar.
September 22, 2022
Which carbon capture and utilization technologies will deliver the highest climate benefits and yield a profit? Among those, which are ready for deployment now? The Global CO2 Initiative will releasing a research report and holding a webinar to summarize key findings. Watch our social media and website for more information.
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Innovations in Climate Resilience
March 28-30, 2023
ICR23 continues the mission of leading innovations in climate resilience with the theme “Bold Leaps and Action.” The focus areas of the conference include restoring our ecosystems, enabling adaptation of our built infrastructure and societies, improving human health, boosting national security, securing the food supply, and dramatically reducing the trajectory of causative factors.
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