Climate entrepreneurs are coming for Europe's money - E&E News by POLITICO

Climate entrepreneurs are coming for Europe’s money - E&E News by POLITICO

BRUSSELS — Stefan Borgas already runs a multibillion-dollar Austrian company that supplies iron and steel factories. But that’s not exactly why he was in Brussels.

Borgas was in the capital of the European Union seeking millions for a pet project that doesn’t yet exist: solid carbon.

The 60-year-old industry titan has become an evangelist for a new technology that, he claims, will trap carbon emissions into solid form, storing away the planet-warming gases before they hit the atmosphere.

The upside could be massive — if the product works, that is. The world is saddled with carbon-belching factories that can’t easily switch to renewable energy alternatives, creating a demand to capture the gas instead. Yet thus far, no product has hit the scale, price point or effectiveness needed to develop a true market.