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Saturday, February 7, 2026
CRT platform for Aluminium Decarbonisation.
Step-by-step platform logic (steel → aluminium → desal → chemicals)
Step 1 — The shared constraint
Baseload / firm power is the unlock.
Steel, aluminium, desalination, and chemicals are continuous-process industries. They don’t just need energy; they need uninterrupted energy. If energy is intermittent, you either:
• oversized storage (costly), or
• curtail production (kills economics), or
• fall back to fossil “insurance” (undermines decarbonisation).
So the common logic is:
Firm energy first. Everything else becomes possible.
Step 2 — CRT’s role
CRT functions as firm-energy infrastructure with embedded carbon control.
That means CRT isn’t “a steel solution” or “an aluminium solution” — it’s the system that keeps an industrial site running without relying on fossil backup.
Step 3 — Why aluminium + CAPZ + desal is a
high-value
cluster
You’re right to highlight aluminium as the best “platform proof” because the value stack is naturally integrated:
1. Alumina/aluminium needs large, continuous electricity (electrolysis load).
2. It also needs caustic liquor (NaOH) in the Bayer process (upstream alumina refining).
3. A CAPZ-style precinct can co-locate:
o firm power supply
o caustic/soda chemistry loops (where applicable)
o desalination to secure process water
o shared utilities and carbon management infrastructure
So the message becomes:
In an aluminium precinct, CRT doesn’t just supply firm power — it supports the entire operating ecosystem (power + water + process chemistry), improving reliability and lowering system cost.
Step 4 — Desalination and chemicals fit without stretching
They fit because they share the same requirement:
• 24/7 operation
• high energy intensity
• high penalty for interruption
Desalination and chemicals are not “adjacent markets”; they are the same problem class: continuous industrial loads that require firm energy and stable utilities.
Baseload power is the key that unlocks decarbonisation across multiple industrial sectors. Steel, aluminium, desalination and chemicals are continuous processes — they require uninterrupted energy, not just low-carbon energy. CRT is positioned as enabling infrastructure: it provides firm, dispatchable power with carbon control so industries can decarbonise without sacrificing throughput or relying on fossil backup. In aluminium precincts, the platform value increases further when combined with CAPZ and desalination, because aluminium and alumina operations are both power-intensive and dependent on stable process utilities (including caustic liquor and water). CEWT can address these as an integrated system rather than isolated technologies.
CEWT's Equity Investment Thesis
Equity Investment Thesis (Infrastructure-Aligned)
135 MW Renewable Baseload Power Asset – Western Australia
ASSET OVERVIEW
Clean Energy and Water Technologies Pty Ltd (CEWT) is developing a 135 MW firm, dispatchable, zero-emissions renewable power asset based on its proprietary Carbon Recycling Technology (CRT).
The project is conceived and structured primarily as long-life renewable baseload power infrastructure. Industrial applications such as steel, cement, and other continuous-process sectors are treated as downstream offtake options rather than as the defining factor in the investment case.
CRT delivers continuous power by converting renewable electricity into recyclable molecular energy within a closed carbon loop, enabling >95% availability without reliance on long-duration energy storage or ongoing fossil fuel inputs.
INVESTMENT RATIONALE
• Long-life physical power asset (25–30+ years)
• Baseload, dispatchable output suitable for grid and industrial offtake
• Predictable operating profile aligned with infrastructure underwriting
• Low merchant exposure once contracted
• Designed to attract senior debt and concessional capital
TARGET RETURNS
• Target Equity IRR: Low-to-mid teens (unlevered, base case)
• Infrastructure-style yield with long-duration cashflows
• Upside from industrial replication and licensing excluded from base case
CAPITAL STACK (INDICATIVE)
• Senior Debt: Majority of total CAPEX (commercial and concessional)
• Equity: Minority layer focused on risk absorption and alignment
• Public Capital / Grants: Catalytic and non-dilutive
DOWNSIDE CASE
Base downside assumptions exclude carbon credit revenue and policy-driven upside.
Under downside conditions, the asset remains cash-positive due to firm baseload power value, high availability, and absence of long-term carbon liability.
RISK MITIGATION
Technology: Proven industrial processes integrated at system level
Construction: EPC alignment and performance guarantees
Operations: Continuous baseload design (not cycling-dependent)
Market: Power-first offtake with optional industrial demand
Carbon: Closed-loop recycling eliminates liability
Stranding: Asset remains relevant in high-renewables systems
PLATFORM UPSIDE
The 135 MW project serves as a commercial reference asset for replication across power markets.
Integration with steel, cement, and other hard-to-abate industries represents upside optionality and is excluded from base-case underwriting.
INVESTMENT THESIS
CRT delivers infrastructure-grade renewable baseload power with returns driven by reliability, continuity, and downside resilience — not commodity volatility.
Friday, February 6, 2026
Nature, Human Intellect and Carbon Paradox.
Clean Energy and Water Technologies Pty Ltd (CEWT)
Carbon Recycling Technology – Foundational Reflection
Nature, Human Intellect, and the Carbon Paradox
Ahilan Raman
Managing Director
Clean Energy and Water Technologies Pty Ltd (CEWT)
Nature absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and converts it into carbohydrates using sunlight and water. Hydrogen is sourced biologically, activated through exquisitely tuned enzymatic pathways. This process — photosynthesis — has sustained life on Earth for billions of years.
Human beings, observing this elegance, attempted something superficially similar: capture CO₂ from the atmosphere and convert it into hydrocarbons to satisfy energy needs. Yet despite decades of effort, this pathway has not succeeded at scale. The reason is not a lack of intelligence or technology, but a fundamental misunderstanding of how Nature works.
Nature does not fight thermodynamics. It flows with it.
Photosynthesis operates using low-grade, continuous solar energy. It is slow, distributed, and patient. Its objective is not energy production but structural creation — building sugars, biomass, and ultimately ecosystems. Carbon fixation is a means to sustain life, not an attempt to store fuel for later combustion.
Human systems copied the chemical form but missed the system context. We rely on concentrated, high-grade energy sources, isolate hydrogen as a discrete molecule, compress it, transport it, and attempt to recombine it with carbon. In contrast, Nature never produces free hydrogen gas. Hydrogen exists transiently as protons and electrons, transferred with precision and minimal loss.
Time-scale arrogance further compounds the problem. Nature operates across seasons, decades, and evolutionary time. Human systems demand immediacy — dispatchability, quarterly returns, and instant scalability. What Nature achieves patiently, we attempt to force violently.
At the deepest level, the failure arises from a reversal of causality.
Nature moves from energy to structure to function. Humans move from energy to fuel to combustion to waste. Carbon, in human systems, is treated as a consumable. In Nature, carbon is a carrier — endlessly cycled, never destroyed.
Partial technological successes exist: electrolysis, methanation, Fischer–Tropsch synthesis, catalytic CO₂ reduction. Yet each remains energetically expensive and economically fragile because they are component solutions. Nature never isolates components; it closes loops.
The correction emerges when the question itself changes. Instead of asking how to make fuel from CO₂, we must ask how to keep carbon within the system. When carbon is confined and recycled, and hydrogen is recognized as the true energy vector rather than a fuel, human technology begins to align with Nature’s wisdom.
Nature is not smarter than humans. It is wiser.
Human intellect excels at acceleration, optimization, and decomposition. Nature excels at integration, balance, and continuity. Success will not come from imitating photosynthesis molecule by molecule, but from adopting its underlying philosophy — designing energy systems that respect thermodynamics, embrace circularity, and preserve equilibrium between system and surroundings.
Thursday, February 5, 2026
Retaining the BF–BOF Core While Closing the Carbon Loop
Retaining the BF–BOF Core While Closing the Carbon Loop
CRT allows BF–BOF steel plants to retain their core process while closing the carbon loop: off-gas carbon is recycled into fuel, enabling zero-emission operation and surplus power generation, without disrupting continuous steelmaking.
For most integrated steel producers, the greatest barrier to deep decarbonisation is not ambition, but risk. Blast furnaces and basic oxygen furnaces are capital-intensive, long-life assets designed for continuous operation. Any pathway that requires dismantling, wholesale replacement, or prolonged shutdown is economically and operationally unattractive.
CRT addresses this reality directly.
Rather than attempting to replace the BF–BOF route, CRT is designed to wrap around the existing process, treating steel off-gases not as waste to be flared or diluted, but as recyclable carbon streams. Carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide contained in blast furnace gas, converter gas, and associated flue gases are captured within the system boundary and converted into reusable fuel.
This approach preserves what already works:
• the metallurgical function of the blast furnace,
• the productivity and reliability of the BOF, and
• the continuous nature of steelmaking operations.
At the same time, it fundamentally changes the role of carbon. Instead of leaving the plant as an emission, carbon is retained inside the system and recycled repeatedly as an energy carrier.
A key advantage of this architecture is that thermal and power demands are addressed together. Recycled fuel produced via CRT can be used to meet internal steel plant heat requirements first — hot blast stoves, reheating, and auxiliary loads — ensuring process stability. Where recycled fuel production exceeds internal heat demand, the surplus can be used to generate dispatchable baseload power via gas turbines or combined-cycle systems. The carbon dioxide from that power generation is then captured and returned to the CRT loop, maintaining a closed system.
The result is not just lower emissions, but a structural shift in plant energy balance:
• emissions are internalised,
• fuel security is improved, and
• power becomes a by-product of decarbonisation rather than an external dependency.
Critically, this is achieved without interrupting steel production. CRT does not require changes to burden chemistry, furnace operation, or steel quality. It is implemented as an integrated energy-carbon platform operating alongside existing assets, allowing staged deployment and risk-managed scaling.
For BF–BOF operators, this reframes the decarbonisation question. It is no longer about abandoning proven processes or waiting for uncertain alternatives to mature. It becomes a matter of closing the carbon loop around assets already in place, transforming emissions into value while maintaining operational continuity.
In this sense, CRT is not a transition away from BF–BOF steelmaking. It is a pathway to make existing steel plants compatible with a zero-emissions future — while delivering additional power, resilience, and optionality along the way.
Daecrbonisation is not a technology problem- It is a System problem.
Decarbonisation Isn’t a Technology Problem — It’s a Systems Problem
Across steel, glass, desalination, chemicals, and industrial power generation, the challenge is strikingly similar:
• Continuous 24/7 operation
• High-temperature, energy-intensive processes
• Embedded, unavoidable CO₂
• Water and chemical intensity
• A need for reliability that is bankable — not theoretical
These are not problems that electrification alone can solve.
What we are seeing globally is a convergence of constraints. Industries are discovering that treating energy, carbon, and water as separate optimisation exercises leads to fragmented and fragile solutions. The real bottleneck is no longer ambition — it is system architecture.
Over the past few years, CEWT has taken a different approach: designing integrated platforms that address energy, carbon, and water together, rather than optimising one variable at the expense of the others. The focus is not on chasing a single technology, but on building systems that work continuously, at scale, under real operating conditions.
This system-level thinking is now resonating across multiple sectors, including:
• Gas-based iron and steelmaking
• Continuous glass manufacturing
• Seawater desalination and water infrastructure
• Caustic soda, soda ash and chlor-alkali industries
• Energy-intensive industrial power users
In all of these sectors, the question has shifted. It is no longer “what technology should we choose?” but rather “how do we design an integrated system that delivers zero-emission outcomes without breaking industrial reliability?”
The next phase of decarbonisation will not be driven by slogans, single molecules, or one-size-fits-all solutions. It will be driven by architecture — by platforms that recognise where electrons work best, where molecules are unavoidable, and how carbon and water must be managed inside the system boundary.
For organisations facing these realities, the conversation is changing — from technologies to systems, from pilots to platforms, and from promises to performance.
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