Why did Remora expand from semi-trucks to locomotives?

Remora started with a focus on carbon capture for semi- trucks, and received overwhelming demand from the rail industry over the last few years.

Locomotives also have longer lives, meaning that a retrofit solution is even more important to avoid prematurely retiring the asset.

CO₂ offloading and transportation logistics for rail are easier due to the larger amount of CO₂ captured from each locomotive.

Taken together, these factors led Remora to expand its focus to rail.

WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE TRUCKING AND RAIL OPPORTUNITIES?

In the United States, the trucking industry is roughly 10x the rail industry, but even if Remora only deployed in a rail application, it could increase the world’s carbon capture capacity by 50% while generating billions in annual revenue.

Rail generates $100 billion in annual revenue, while trucking generates $1 trillion in annual revenue.

In the United States, there are 26,000 locomotives emitting 35 million MT of CO₂ per year, and there are 2 million semi-trucks emitting 340 million MT of CO₂ per year.

For reference, there are only 45 carbon capture facilities
in operation worldwide, capturing 50 million MT of CO₂
per year. In 2023, Tesla’s impact was 20.4 million MT of CO₂ avoided per year.

Does Remora plan to work with semi-truck and locomotive manufacturers?

Remora is working closely with major manufacturers to ensure that the carbon capture system integrates seamlessly with their vehicles.

In the future, Remora may work with manufacturers to provide a combined solution off the line in addition to a retrofit solution.

Does Remora plan to sequester captured CO₂ in EPA-certified wells?

Remora is starting with a focus on selling the captured CO₂ to end users, but plans to sequester CO₂ in EPA-certified Class VI wells in the future.

Remora has signed a term sheet to sequester up to 1 million metric tons of CO₂ per year with a leading developer of Class VI wells.

Does Remora plan to expand beyond North America?

Remora is starting with a focus on the United States and Canada and plans to expand to other geographies in the future.

What are other potential applications for Remora’s technology?

Remora’s technology is designed to work in many other applications, including ships, data center generators, cement kilns, and power plants burning natural gas or coal.

Remora’s technology is modular, so it can be scaled simply by parallelizing multiple truck- or train-scale systems.

Why is Remora initially focused on mobile carbon capture instead of stationary?

Speed to Market: Mobile carbon capture is cheaper and
smaller than stationary, allowing for faster iteration and
go-to-market.

Modular and Repeatable: The most scalable technologies are modular and repeatable (solar, wind, lithium-ion batteries), and mobile carbon capture is more modular and repeatable than stationary.

Construction vs. Manufacturing: Manufacturable technologies like mobile carbon capture are scalable and move rapidly down the cost curve with volume and iteration. Construction projects like stationary carbon capture are slow, costly, and not scalable, especially in the United States.

Transportation: Heavy-duty vehicles are durable, challenging, large sources of emissions, and vehicles and their engines are more uniform than stationary sources, making them more scalable platforms for carbon capture.

CO₂ Deserts and Reliability: Mobile carbon capture allows captured CO₂ to be offloaded in CO₂ deserts where prices are highest and market is most supply-constrained. Distributed capture across vehicles also provides end users with a more reliable supply.

Why not hydrogen?

Availability: There are only 59 hydrogen refueling stations in the US, compared to approximately 57,000 diesel refueling stations. There is no hydrogen refueling infrastructure for rail.

Cost: Hydrogen currently costs 6.6x the price of diesel.

Carbon Intensity: 95% of the world’s hydrogen comes from a process that produces nine parts CO₂ for every one part H₂.

Green hydrogen is just 0.04% of the world’s hydrogen, and is more expensive.

Leakage: Due to its small molecular size, hydrogen is prone to leaking. Just 10% leakage could negate the benefit of using green hydrogen.

Storage: Hydrogen is explosive, and requires 7-8x the storage volume. It must be stored at high pressures or cryogenic temperatures.

Why not battery electric?

Semi-Trucks: Electric semi-trucks are part of the solution, but it’s more challenging to electrify longer routes. Electric semi-trucks can travel relatively short distances and haul less payload due to their heavy batteries. Even if they were available today at scale, they would require big, expensive charging stations, and take hours to charge on a grid that’s still majority fossil fuels.

Locomotives: Battery electric locomotives are simply not feasible for line haul, which constitutes most rail emissions. A single locomotive would require 750x the batteries of a car to replace its diesel fuel tank. This volume of batteries would not fit on the locomotive, or even on multiple tenders, and creates safety and durability issues. The charging time and infrastructure would also be prohibitive.

Why not catenary electric?

Semi-Trucks: Catenary electric would not be feasible for semi-trucks due to the number of miles the infrastructure would need to cover.

Locomotives: Rail is more concentrated than trucking, but catenary electric infrastructure is expensive. Electrifying CalTrain in the Bay Area cost $47 million per mile, and $12 million per mile for the catenary alone. Even at $2-$4.5 million per mile (achieved in other countries), installing catenary across 140,000 route miles in the United States would cost around half a trillion dollars. The Association of American Railroads estimates that installing overhead catenary in the United States would cost $1.1 trillion.

Additionally, every locomotive would need to be replaced, an expensive and wasteful exercise for assets that can last over 50 years.

Why not renewable diesel?

Remora’s technology pairs with renewable diesel, so the two solutions are complimentary rather than competitive.

Renewable diesel is an important part of the solution, reducing carbon intensity by 71%. However, it only reduces pollutant emissions like NOₓ by 11% and PM by 37%.

Remora can reduce NOₓ and PM emissions by 85%, and paired with renewable diesel, carbon capture can make a train carbon negative.

Together, these solutions can remove CO₂ from the atmosphere and deliver a cheap, scalable new approach to carbon removal.