Bluelotus.solutions

Globally, over 5 billion tons of crop residues are generated every year, and only within India, nearly 300 million tons of agricultural waste are generated annually, but inefficient management of them is resulting in severe air pollution. For instance, stubble burning in neighboring states around Delhi, the capital of India, accounts for nearly 20% of its air pollution. This further adds up to our global greenhouse gas emissions resulting in severe climate change and environmental impacts in these ecosystems.

We are in the midst of a global CLIMATE CRISIS and the key culprit behind this crisis is human-induced CO2 emissions. The global strategy is to reach NET ZERO by scaling EMISSION REDUCTION solutions while removing vast quantities of CO2 from the atmosphere i.e. EMISSION REMOVALS. Removing CO2 from the atmosphere (Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR)) is critical to our climate goals [IPCC AR6 Report] and we are required to reach a scale of >10 billion tons of carbon removals every year by 2050. In 2023, just over 5 million tons of carbon removal was documented [CDR.fyi] and the market is required to scale rapidly by 2050 to sustain our climate targets.

We are developing modular pyrolysis reactors and converting these waste biomasses into stable forms of carbon (Biochar & Bio-oil) over large time scales. These stable forms of carbon are permanently stored by either adding/burying them in soils or injecting them underground, thereby creating the net carbon removal impact.

Our systems are designed to be modular with plug-and-play deployment, optimized for flexible operations with customization feasible for different biomass wastes, and can be scaled rapidly due to easy and low-cost operations. Our strategy is to build low-cost, rapidly scalable systems that can tap into this ecosystem faster and have the potential to go for both centralized and de-centralized deployments. In the near term, we aim to integrate them with mobile platforms for flexible deployments, which will help us manage and support diverse ecosystems much more efficiently. Our vision is to deliver solutions and strategies that will disrupt the Biochar carbon removal ecosystem, similar to SpaceX disrupting the space industry.

The key idea behind our solutions and strategies is to unlock the potential of biomass wastes by reusing and processing them for other suitable applications and needs in their ecosystems. The additional value and job creation from this strategy will push the circular economy model and sustainable goals further.

Biochar is a great soil amendment that provides a myriad of benefits when applied in agricultural practices. Inoculated Biochar added with compost forms a great Biofertilizer that boosts crop yields, improves water and nutrient retention, etc. We aim to provide this biofertilizer as our secondary product to essential farming communities at marginal cost, driving greater yields and aiding in decarbonization within the agricultural sector. So, apart from the greater carbon removal effect, we are aiding in emission abatement, decarbonizing the agricultural sector, and providing support and opportunities to critical communities.

Our goal is to provide >100,000 tons of durable carbon removals while supporting ~30,000 low-income farmers and restoring >10,000 acres in the coming 3 years.

We are an early-stage company building solutions that can be deployed rapidly at scale and create sustainable impact globally. The majority of our team members come from low-income farming families and we have seen firsthand, the practices of farming in India over the decades and the current scenario of farming devastated due to climate change. The ecosystem we began our operations, our beachhead ecosystem, is the Godavari-Krishna River Delta Region from Andhra Pradesh, India, which is referred to as The Rice Bowl of India. We have greater access to crop residues and agricultural wastes and significant potential to deploy our solutions starting from this ecosystem.

We are currently working on our pilot centralized production facility (12,000 tons/year) and in addition to the carbon negative impact, we are aiding in emission abatement, decarbonizing the agricultural sector, and providing support and opportunities to low-income and marginal communities. We are delivering our inaugural 6,000 tons of carbon removal by 2024, aim to deliver >100,000 tons in the coming years, and are on track to achieve the Megaton (first million tons) scale by 2030.

To reach our target milestones, we are raising our pre-seed funding round and are also seeking suitable guidance and mentorship to sustainably build and scale our solutions on a global level. We believe with the Solve program, we can expand our network and build new partnerships and support that will transform our journey to a much greater level.

We studied and researched the Biochar CDR ecosystem and realized that the majority of the systems utilized are Kiln reactors (batch operation), which are low-tech open-burning units and have the risk of methane leakage. On the other end of the spectrum, some players are utilizing high-tech reactors (continuous operation), which need a huge upfront expenditure requiring technical operators and are constricted to production facilities only. But, biomass sources are non-uniform, and in many cases, they are widely distributed across diverse landscapes.

We are building high-tech and low-cost modular reactors (semi-continuous operation), which integrate best of both these scenarios. Also, they are plug-and-play systems that can be utilized for centralized, decentralized, and mobile deployments. Our strategy is to develop an integrated network of such deployments that enables the greatest carbon removal potential for our systems. The features of our novel systems are:
Faster production and operational cycles
Can be operated & utilized by the masses
Drawing down costs rapidly
Greater RoI within shorter timelines
Flexibility in operations & processing
Network of coherent systems to scale
Also, we are integrating digital MRV for greater transparency, targeting inertinite production (>550°C) for high quality and greater permanence, and we are focusing on flexible deployments and diverse biomass processing for greater capacity (>0.5 Gt/year).

By utilizing the crop residues and agricultural wastes, which would otherwise be burnt or decayed to release emissions, we are converting them into stable forms of carbon via pyrolysis, and by either adding/burying them in soils or injecting them underground, we are creating the net carbon removal impact.

In the IPCC AR6 report, it is mentioned that Carbon removal is now essential to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees C. So with our solutions, systems, and approach, we are aiming to deliver this impact while supporting diverse applications and ecosystems.

Our goal is to provide >100,000 tons of durable carbon removals with our solutions and deployments across India while supporting ~30,000 low-income farmers and restoring >10,000 acres in the coming 3 years. We are on track to deliver our first million tons of carbon removal by 2030, thereby leading the wave of the carbon removal ecosystem.

Our core technology is Pyrolysis: The process of thermal decomposition of organic materials in an oxygen-free environment under the temperature range of 250−900 °C. This process is an alternate strategy for converting the waste biomass into value-added products like biochar, syngas, and bio-oil.

4 - full-time staff (including founders)

2 - part-time staff

We are a 9 months old startup and have been working on this solutions and this ecosystem for the past 2 years.

We are a diverse group of individuals coming from engineering, operations, finance, management, and farming and are mentored by leading scientists and researchers across India.