Myno Carbon‘s leader calls his team “committed climate warriors.”
But it wasn’t always that way.
“You’ll have to forgive us for this, but we’re ex-oilfield people largely by background,” said Thor Kallestad, CEO and co-founder of the climate tech startup. As Kallestad and his friends became parents they were eager to change gears. That led to the launch of Myno in 2020.
The Seattle startup is commercializing biochar — a substance akin to charcoal that traces its roots to ancient civilizations in the Amazon and beyond.
Biochar is typically made through a process called pyrolysis where organic material is heated to a high temperature in a low-oxygen environment, creating a high-carbon material. Biochar was used historically to enrich soil, making it more fertile for crops.
“What attracted us to biochar is that it’s the lowest-cost way to remove carbon,” Kallestad said.
In Myno’s application, the production of biochar ticks multiple environmental boxes.
- It uses timber and agricultural waste to make biochar, which holds on to carbon instead of releasing it into the atmosphere.
- The biochar will be sold as low-carbon fertilizer and a soil enhancement for crops.
- Biochar can be added to animal feed and has been shown to reduce methane from cow burps and manure.
- Myno is pairing biochar production with clean energy generation.
The 10-person company raised about $5 million from friends and family to get off the ground. The company’s name came from Kallestad’s daughter, Ella, who while learning to talk created the word “myno” to express happiness.
Washington’s Department of Natural Resources is one of Myno’s partners, and Hilary Franz, the commissioner of public lands, is a supporter.
“Producing biochar from forest waste is a critical means to reduce wildfire risk and protect our forests and communities. Biochar also increases the productivity of agricultural lands and fights climate change by capturing carbon in soils,” Franz said via email.
Biochar has been growing in popularity as a carbon technology, and was approved by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as a climate solution.
The challenge, said Kallestad, has been figuring out how to scale the technology from the organic material supply side as well as finding customers of the biochar and associated products. Their solution is to create carbon removal facilities in partnership with existing infrastructure.
The first location will be Kettle Falls, a small town in the northeast corner of Washington state. Myno is building its technology alongside an existing biomass and gas power plant operated by Avista Utilities. Myno will use 183,000 tons of timber waste per year as feed stock, diverting some of the waste that was being burned for power. That material will undergo pyrolysis, annually producing 40,000 tons of biochar as well as 18 megawatts of steam power at Avista’s plant.
The startup aims to raise outside investment to help fuel construction of the Kettle Falls facility and to get other projects moving. The company says it has 10 other potential sites in Washington, Oregon and California.
The goal is to flip the switch on the Kettle Falls facility by the middle of 2025.
Kallestad said the site’s biochar production will remove 100,000 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent each year. Myno has a corporate buyer of the carbon offsets, but has not disclosed who it is.
“The fossil fuel industry should transition. And there’s really no two ways about it.”
The facility’s pyrolysis technology does create some emissions and Myno is working with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Washington State University to test a carbon capture technology to reduce its impact.
An early misstep in Myno’s journey was pursuing undeveloped “green field” sites for the facilities, Kallestad said. Partnering with existing operations saves time in permitting and provides access to a power plant that’s already plugged into the electrical grid.
Before Myno, Kallestad was co-founder and CEO of DataCloud, a company that helped miners assess rock quality. An Australian company acquired DataCloud’s mining software in 2021.
The experience he and some of his co-founders gained in petroleum engineering roles is useful at Myno, Kallestad said — namely the ability to manage big, high-capital, high-risk projects. That said, he’s not carrying a torch for the sector.
“The fossil fuel industry should transition,” Kallestad said. “And there’s really no two ways about it.”
