The output of the Huntingdon prototype plant was certified “End of Waste” by the UK’s Environment Agency, which is a high-level recognition of the quality of the gas that we are producing. But we recognised the technology, the plants, and the output all needed to be commercially viable. This has meant attracting first class manufacturing partners, supply chain partners and contractors that are fundable, and that’s what we’ve spent the last few years doing. We’d already invested around £30m developing the technology. Then In 2021, we raised £17.6m from a small group of family offices and private investors to begin the building of our final product: the SG100, which can process 40,000 tonnes of waste a year, and produce roughly one megawatt-hour of energy per tonne. In other words, we can produce around 40,000 megawatthours of energy per year – which is significant. It’s enough to power 10,000 homes. Having raised the new funds, we began manufacturing in June of last year, and we’re now close to finishing that SG100.01, with a view to commissioning and testing it before moving into a multiple rollout deployment phase. We’re already holding very exciting discussions with some of the world’s biggest corporate organisations, too. This is where significant potential lies. Because we aren't burning the waste (we're just drawing the gas away from the solid), we’re effectively removing carbon from the atmosphere as part of our process, as we are capturing physical, solid carbon. Following a successful study with the University of Edinburgh, we’re now conducting studies with concrete and cement companies to explore potential in using this carbon in concrete as a binding agent, which would be deemed 1,000-year carbon sequestration. Depending on the waste feedstock processed, the SG100 can also remove up to 16,000 tonnes of carbon, which is what about 5,000 cars emit in a year. In fact, we had a number of third-party specialists – Columbia University, Cranfield University, and the environmental consultant South Pole – review our technology and judged it carbon-negative. It’s really exciting.

That there’s a better way of processing waste and plastic than burning, burying, or just dumping it. The Net Zero ambitions of countries and companies underline the need for a better, cleaner way of treating waste to recover the value it contains. Even the waste companies are open to this. We’re not saying that we have to replace landfill or incineration, though we’d like to. But in the medium term, we can support the transition from burying and burning waste with a better, complementary option. But I do believe we have the scope to really help decarbonise the ‘hard to abate’ industries such as cement and concrete, commercial transportation, including shipping, and steel - those energy-intensive heavy industrial sectors that are struggling to reduce their intentions carbon emissions. Given the carbon-negative nature of our energy-generating technology, we believe our solution is something they'll all want to know about.