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.

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.

System-level Perspective on DRI Green Steel

Clean Energy and Water Technologies Pty Ltd (CEWT) System-Level Perspectives on Hydrogen-Based DRI A Midrex-Aligned Engineering Framing Purpose This note presents a system-level engineering perspective on hydrogen-based direct reduction of iron (DRI), aligned with publicly stated Midrex design and safety considerations. It is intended to support constructive technical dialogue without challenging hydrogen decarbonisation objectives or proprietary process designs. Shared Starting Point The global steel industry is accelerating toward lower-carbon ironmaking. Hydrogen-based DRI is a critical pathway, and recent Midrex technical publications provide a transparent account of the engineering realities associated with high-hydrogen operation. CEWT fully aligns with this framing: the challenge is not ambition, but system realism at industrial scale. What the Engineering Evidence Shows Increasing hydrogen concentration introduces non-linear system effects, including hydrogen embrittlement and permeation, increased leakage risk due to low molecular weight, accelerated refractory degradation, compression penalties, higher gas flow requirements, and expanded safety controls. These effects are central to long-life, continuous industrial operation. Reframing the Core Challenge From a system perspective, the issue is not hydrogen as a reductant, but the interaction between very low-molecular-weight gases, dense iron ore solids, continuous high-temperature operation, and long-life materials constraints. A System-Architecture Insight Historically, hydrogen-rich syngas has succeeded in DRI as an engineering solution—balancing reducing strength with thermal stability, controllable flow behaviour, and materials robustness. CEWT’s work focuses on architectures that preserve hydrogen effectiveness while maintaining molecular balance and long-term operability. Complementary, Not Contradictory CEWT views its Carbon Recycling Technology (CRT) platform as complementary to the Midrex roadmap. Both approaches respond to the same physical realities with the shared objective of delivering net-zero ironmaking solutions that are robust, scalable, and commercially durable. Clean Energy and Water Technologies Pty Ltd (CEWT) Carbon Recycling Technology (CRT) – System-level architectures for continuous, net-zero industrial energy

Power is the missing piece in the climate debate!

Power Is the Missing Piece in the Climate Debate Clean Energy and Water Technologies Pty Ltd (CEWT) Re‑engineering power for a net‑zero future Much of today’s climate discussion focuses on end uses — electric vehicles, green steel, hydrogen, carbon removal. Yet one question remains surprisingly under-addressed: How do we decarbonise power generation itself — at scale, continuously, and reliably? Electricity is rapidly becoming the backbone of industry, transport, digital infrastructure, AI, desalination, and synthetic fuels. If power is not clean, nothing downstream truly is. The Constraint We Rarely Acknowledge Renewables are essential — but they are inherently variable. Batteries help — but they do not yet scale economically to cover long-duration, industrial-grade power needs. The challenge is not choosing renewables versus non-renewables. The real challenge is system design. A New Power Generation Paradigm Carbon Recycling Technology (CRT) integrates renewable electricity, existing thermal power infrastructure, and captured carbon dioxide into a closed-loop power system in which carbon is recycled rather than emitted. Why This Matters Now As electricity demand accelerates, decarbonisation cannot succeed if power generation itself remains the blind spot. Power is the foundation. If we fix power, everything else becomes possible.