Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is the most vital way of protecting and ensuring the quality of life as a result of climate change. Companies like
FuelPositive Corp. (TSXV:NHHH, OTCQB:NHHHF, Forum) are at the forefront of providing sustainable clean energy solutions across a broad range of industries and applications.
Stockhouse Media’s Jocelyn Aspa recently spoke with FuelPositive CEO Ian Clifford to discuss what the company’s been up to and what investors can look forward to as 2022 approaches.
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TRANSCRIPT BELOW
SH: Can we first start off with you providing a brief overview of yourself and the company?
IC: Sure. Well, FuelPositive in its current incarnation was founded in January of 2021. We're a very, very new company in this context. Prior to FuelPositive, we went through a number of different iterations starting as a small electric car company then looking at battery technology and now of course looking at a combination of energy storage but also green ammonia generation, which is our current and cornerstone technology. in the last year, we've gone everywhere from acquiring a key technology to raising well over 12 million through private placement and warrant exercise. We've filed a very significant provisional patent that covers the core technology that we're working on today and we're building an amazing team. I can't even believe it's not even a year yet, but it feels like it feels like we've done a tremendous amount in in a relatively short period of time. We are really, really happy with where we are today.
SH: The company’s solutions include carbon-free ammonia — what makes the company’s green ammonia system production system unique?
IC: Well, it's really our approach to the market. So traditional ammonia today what's called gray ammonia is produced utilizing fossil fuels. It is one of the most carbon intense manufacturing processes on the planet. It's been around for about over a hundred years now, the technology to create ammonia utilizing hydrogen and nitrogen but historically it's always been manufactured in very, very large refinery type environments. These are huge, centralized plants, very often adjacent to the source of fossil fuel, be it coal or gas or other fossil fuel materials. Our approach is really totally the opposite. We're saying that green ammonia that is fully sustainable and I'll talk about that in a second can be produced where it's needed. So, you eliminate the supply chains, you eliminate uncertainty for the end user in terms of cost and you allow the end user to produce green ammonia right where it's needed.
It's a paradigm shift if you will in the industry and interestingly it's recognized as a very important change, decentralization of course being a theme around the world today as we are all vulnerable to various uncertain supply chains. Our systems which are built on a 20-to-30-foot container platform are designed to take air and water and a sustainable source of electricity and within this little plant in a box, if you will, we produce green ammonia without any carbon footprint that allows end users to utilize this incredibly important molecule in ammonia for various uses. Right now 80% of the ammonia that's produced on the planet is used in agriculture. So, ammonia, which the chemical name is NH3 has a huge nitrogen molecule surrounded by three hydrogen molecules and the nitrogen, which is essential for the growth of any plant growing on the planet today, is utilized as a fertilizer. It's a very, very vital part of feeding the planet but to date has been extremely heavily responsible for pollution and agriculture and other industries that utilize ammonia. We're really focusing on changing that entire paradigm through a modular, scalable onsite production of green ammonia.
SH: FuelPositive announced in November a corporate update and timeline for its green ammonia production system — what are some of the key takeaways from this announcement investors should know?
IC: Well several very, very important ones. I mean, first of all, we've built an incredible team, as I mentioned earlier in a very, very short period. Nelson Lee joined us as a Chief Operating Officer, responsible for getting our production systems built. He's built automation systems for the likes of Toyota and Tesla and specializes in automated mass production, which of course to make our system successful. We've got TO be able to build them in extensively and deploy them around the world effectively. What we did announce on November 18th was the ability for us to produce green ammonia at a cost that is highly, highly competitive with the highly polluting gray ammonia that it's replacing and this is really, really important when you look at end users like farmers. A farmer in Manitoba for instance, over the last six months, the price of hydro ammonia, which what they use for fertilizer has gone from $600 a ton to over $1,200 a ton and that's in six months.
A lot of that is due to supply chain issues and the cost of raw material going into the ammonia and also short supply. So that same farmer can have their own FuelPositive system on farm and produce their own green ammonia for their own use and have a very steady cost and supply, which for agriculture is virtually unheard of. There's so much vulnerability in the agricultural sector that what we're providing for is this baseline security when it comes to their fertilizer needs. The other thing that we talked about is the viability of ammonia, not only as a fertilizer but also as a fossil fuel replacement. Ammonia is a fuel and many people don't know that it can replace gasoline or diesel or even jet fuel as a combustion fuel.
You can take your tractor or your combine or your generator or even ultimately your car or your airplane and you can convert that internal combustion engine burning fossil fuel to operate on ammonia and with green ammonia that makes a virtually emissions free internal combustion engine. So that's very, very exciting as well. We talked about price, we talked about the range of markets, and we then also talked about the delivery timeframe. Our plan is to have a number of our demonstration systems in pilot projects throughout to 2022 with the first systems hitting the ground probably in the March, April timeframe of next year and those will go into high profile initially agricultural settings because farmers know how to use ammonia. They've been using it for decades. So that's where we're starting. We've got some incredibly environmentally conscious farmers who are really interested in decarbonizing farming, which is essential of course, and will be utilizing our systems in that context. So those demonstration projects are taking form right now and we'll be announcing those of course early in 2022.
SH: The company is on track to launch real world demonstration projects to showcase its technology over the course of 2022 — what will this entail and how it will it position the company as a green ammonia leader?
IC: Well, I mean, there's first mover advantage obviously involved here and there is very, very little co competition today in a small modular green ammonia system. We think that we will have a tremendous advantage being first out to market proving the viability of the technology. So that's a really, really important point. We're also going to be demonstrating the performance cost of this system to ensure that our measurements today are in fact replicated and improved on in real world settings. So that's going to be a really, really important part of it as well. The other thing too is that it'll allow other potential companies and individuals who want to utilize our systems, the opportunity to see them in operation, right. So actually, kick the tires if you will, in terms of making sure that this type of a system is viable. At the same time, we're going to be commercializing the technology in parallel with the demonstration projects. Our intention is to go into serial production later in 2022 with commercial production at much larger scales in 2023. It's an aggressive timeframe but as I said at the outside, we've achieved an awful lot in a very short period and we're well positioned to move all of it forward throughout 2022.
SH: Are there any other catalysts next year that investors should be watching for?
IC: Well, interestingly, we expect that given the meetings that we've had on the government relation side we expect that we're going to have a lot of interest and support both federally and provincially in Canada, not to mention all the programs that exist now for sustainable fuel generation for sustainable agriculture that exist around the world. We're tapping into those opportunities on a daily basis. In Canada, we work with the Sussex group who are based in Toronto and in Ottawa on the government affairs side of things and they're getting us into the meetings with essential stakeholders in this space. Interestingly ammonia is a pretty new phenomenon. There's a learning curve here but we're well on our way to ensuring that that key stakeholders are well informed and really understand of what it is that we're doing and the imperative nature of what we're doing as well.
SH: Is there anything I’ve missed that you’d like to cover?
IC: Think we've covered pretty well. Most of it, I think really in 2022 the proof is the proof is in delivery. I'm at the point in my career now where I'm under promising and over delivering. So this is all about ensuring that we meet our timelines, that we get our technology out there operational, and expand on our intellectual property as well. There's a lot of other adjunct technologies that are attached to our core technology. Also, throughout 2022, I think you'll see a lot more announcements from the company in terms of supportive technologies that will make our systems more efficient, more cost effective and broaden the application dramatically. A lot's going to be happening next year and hopefully, a lot of interest will continue to grow on the story and our shareholder base will increase and we'll have a very, very successful year next year.
For mor information on the company, visit
fuelpositive.com.
FULL DISCLOSURE: This is a paid article produced by Stockhouse Publishing.