In the United States (US), Rimere, a climate solutions company with proprietary plasma technology, has announced the closing of a US$10 million strategic investment from compatriot Clean Energy Fuels Corporation.
The funding will accelerate the development and field testing of Rimere’s two independent devices, the Reformer and the Mitigator, that reduce climate change emissions and enable the use of natural gas to accelerate the transition to a clean hydrogen future.
The world continues to consume more natural gas annually for everything from producing electricity to heating our homes. However, this globally abundant, low-carbon, and affordable resource can also pose greenhouse gas emissions challenges from pipeline transmission, storage, and other operations. Importantly, Rimere’s technology not only cleans up the infrastructure but also repositions and revalues natural gas reserves as a vital solution for climate change and our clean energy future by producing both zero-emission hydrogen and valuable graphene. This investment by Clean Energy enables us to accelerate the development of these proprietary technologies that could have an immediate impact on the world’s effort to address climate change, said Mitchell Pratt, CEO of Rimere.
Deconstruct methane without carbon dioxide emissions
Rimere’s patented and patent-pending technologies deconstruct methane (CH4) at a molecular level first exciting it to an ionized state, and then high voltage and high-frequency arcs are used to crack the ionized gas under an induced electromagnetic field.
The Reformer uses proprietary sequential hybrid plasma technology to transform natural gas into clean hydrogen and high-quality graphene, without creating any carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
When renewable natural gas (RNG) is used as the feedstock, hydrogen produced by Rimere’s Reformer can achieve a negative carbon-intensity rating, making it substantially lower-emission than even renewable electrolysis.
The Mitigator is a plasma thermal oxidizer that reduces the greenhouse gas (GHG) potency of fugitive methane emissions.
It offers a low-cost solution for abating methane emissions that escape from the natural gas infrastructure, particularly compressors and pneumatic controllers located along natural gas pipelines.
A game-changer for natural gas
Rimere’s Reformer and Mitigator provide important solutions to change the long-term outlook for natural gas by leveraging a cleaner extensive infrastructure to deliver clean hydrogen and graphene to end-user customers.
Clean Energy has always been striving to address environmental issues since it was founded over 26 years ago. First, it was to reduce harmful and unhealthy pollutants caused by large vehicles operating on diesel. More recently, we saw the opportunity to turn fugitive greenhouse gas emissions at agricultural facilities into an ultra-clean transportation fuel. It is a logical next step to make this investment in Rimere which is tackling the challenges facing the natural gas and hydrogen industries to produce cost-effective solutions without emissions, said Andrew J. Littlefair, President and CEO of Clean Energy Fuels.
Rimere is currently an equity method investee of Clean Energy and has raised US$18.25 million of committed capital to date since its formation in 2020.
