Page 27 - DAIS - DAISPORA ISSUE04

FORBES 30
UNDER 30
KRISH MEHTA
Class Of 2014
From DAIS to Entrepreneur
My journey to sustainability began while participating in The Village Project during
the IB: while working in Pathalganga, we saw firsthand how drought had devastated
the village. I understood then that the impacts of climate change disproportionately
affects those most in need, and made it my mission to lower CO2 emissions.
Believing that a dual business and technical perspective was required, I pursued
degrees in business and engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. This
interdisciplinary education taught me the importance of communication and
collaboration, which led me to McKinsey's Sustainability practice. There, when
leading teams to develop impactful climate solutions, I realized CO2 emissions are a
physical problem and therefore require physical solutions. This understanding led
me to Tesla, where I was responsible for scaling operations for the Model 3.
70% of CO2 emissions have no existing solutions. Motivated to address this gap, I
attended Stanford University as a Knight-Hennessy Scholar, earning an MBA and a
Master’s in Sustainability, with the explicit goal of starting a company to tackle
emissions from industrial sectors like cement.
Cement is a "hard-to-abate" sector
Cement is a “hard-to-abate” sector that is responsible for 8% of global CO2
emissions, equivalent to all passenger vehicles combined. While each ton of cement
emits a relatively low 0.6-0.9tCO2, the real challenge lies in the industry’s scale,
economics, process, business models, and regulation:
Scale: A staggering 600kg of cement is produced per person per year, and
concrete, the end-product of cement, is the most consumed material on the planet.
Economics: Priced as low as 2,500 rupees /ton in India, cement is remarkably
affordable, leaving a very low margin for innovation.
Process: Cement is traditionally manufactured by taking limestone (Calcium
carbonate) and breaking it down with heat (usually coal) to form Calcium Oxide
and CO2. Thus, decarbonizing cement means addressing both the challenge of
lowering emissions from breaking down calcium carbonate and from energy
consumption.
Business models: Cement production is a local monopoly due to transportation
costs, yet only a few firms can operate on the massive scale required creating
national oligopolies.
Regulation: Cement is crucial to building our homes, hospitals, and bridges. It’s a
safety critical material governed by stringent regulations that are challenging to
change
From ASH to CASH
There are 25 billion tons of coal ash in landfills around the world, representing a
waste stream four times the size of plastic waste. At PHNX Materials, we have
developed a solution to process landfilled coal ash into a cement replacement while
extracting critical rare-earth metals and aluminum.
PHNX Materials decarbonizes cement by refining landfilled
coal ash
Coal ash is a promising solution to these challenges. Today, ash is used to
substitute up to 30% of cement in concrete mixes, helping bind sand and gravel to
create durable structures. In the US and EU, coal power plants have been shutting Vision for the Future
While we are currently based in San Francisco, less than 10% of cement is consumed
down causing a decline in the production of fresh coal ash. This has created a in the U.S., and E.U, with India consuming the 2nd most cement in the world after
shortage, leading concrete customers to use more cement thereby increasing cost
and emissions. We believe we’ve identified the perfect solution: there is 3 billion China. As coal plants shut around the world, our solution becomes increasingly
tons of coal ash sitting in U.S. landfills. These sites present an opportunity as an valuable.
almost infinite reservoir of material that can be transformed into high-quality
Our vision is a net-zero world where development is both cost-effective and
cement replacements and sources of critical metals.
sustainable. By creating this world, we can support communities like the Pathalganga
PHNX Materials processes landfilled coal ash using proprietary technology to strip village we visited during my time at DAIS.
away impurities and create ASTM-grade cement replacements. Our innovation also
extracts rare-earth metals, aluminum, and titanium, adding economic value while
addressing environmental concerns. By turning waste into resources, PHNX can
replace cement to lower the cost of concrete and reduce global CO2 emissions by
0.7 gigatons.