In the tenth episode, Tobenna chats with Paul Gross, Co-Founder and CEO of Remora. Remora is building a device that captures the carbon emissions from a semi-truck. They sell the captured carbon dioxide to concrete producers and other end-users, helping fleets earn new revenue while meeting their climate commitments.

In today’s episode we cover:

• Paul Gross’ background and journey to Remora
• The Remora Mission
• The carbon emissions market as it relates to innovative carbon solutions and the trucking industry
• What were trucking companies doing to address the climate crisis before Remora?
• What value do companies like Ryder, Cargill and Werner hope to gain from partnering with Remora?
• How the Covid-19 pandemic shaped the operational challenge of running Remora
• What advice Paul has for founders looking to build a climate first company

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Tobenna Arodiogbu: Talk to us about Remora, what exactly does the company do?

Paul Gross: Remora is a 207 person company in Detroit and we've built a company that captures the carbon emission from the semi-trucker.

So our device, you can picture it like this big box that goes on the back of the tractor — right between the tractor and the trailer — and it attaches to the tractor tailpipes and it captures at least 80% of the tractor’s emission. The driver offloads the carbon dixoide while they refuel at the truckstop and then we take the carbon dioxide and we sell it to concrete producers and other end-users and we are able to share the revenue from the CO2 with the owner of the truck.

So we can help folks dramatically reduce their carbon emissions and earn new streams of revenue from the carbon dioxide at the same time.

‍Tobenna Arodiogbu: So, what are the trucking companies doing today to address the climate crisis/carbon emissions?

Paul Gross: Unfortunately, there is not a lot that they can do to address carbon emissions. The main regulations we've seen so far are focused on pollution and criteria pollutants and so it's really important to distinguish between these buckets of concern.

The particulate matter, the NOx and the SOx (the criteria pollutants) that are coming out of these trucks that's creating pollution, that makes the air quality worse, it hurts peoples lungs, it makes people sick. That's a really big problem and that's something the government has stepped in to fix. That's what the DPF, and the STR on some of the newer trucks are for that are designed to decrease emissions.

But, that's not addressing the CO2 thats coming out of the truck. And CO2 doesn't contribute to pollution, it's not a pollutant, it's odourless, it's clear, but it contributes to climate change. And it's contributing to these extreme weather events that we are seeing all over the world.

That's why we need to develop a complementary system to the stuff that the government is already requiring to decrease carbon emissions and that's the goal of the Remora Unit.

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Truckers & Nerds is hosted by Tobenna Arodiogbu, CEO and founder of CloudTrucks.

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