This Gates-backed startup uses super hot bricks to run factories with zero emissions.

Fighting Climate Change With Hot Bricks, Factory by Factory.

Batteries that store and release heat at times of demand dominate federal awards of $300,000.

Industrial heat consumes a huge proportion of global energy. Rondo Energy says its brick-toasting heat storage device is so cheap and efficient that it makes decarbonization an instant no-brainer across a huge range of industries. Bill Gates agrees.

Led by FLSmidth, the global ECoClay partners include the Danish Technological Institute, US-based industrial heating expert Rondo Energy, cement producers Vicat from France and Colombia-based Cementos Argos, and the Technical University of Denmark.

See the full list of honorees of Fast Company’s 2022 World Changing Ideas Awards in the energy category.

Rondo Energy is partnering with FLSmidth, Vicat, and Cementos Argos to form ECoClay, a consortium with the goal of reducing emissions from cement production.

This startup made a heat battery using old-school materials.

A series of demonstration projects set to launch this year in Kern County will help test the commercial viability of a thermal energy storage technology designed to put renewable electricity to use powering high-heat industrial processes.

Rondo Energy Inc. is taking on two problems complicating the shift to renewable energy: figuring out how to power heavy industry without burning fossil fuels and what to do with the surplus electricity weighing on prices when wind and solar power is abundant.

A Bill Gates-backed startup is betting that renewables can serve as the foundation for low-carbon cement and be more than a clean resource for cars, buildings and power generation.

In climate circles we spend a lot of time talking about manufacturing and power generation in the effort of cutting CO2 emissions. It’s pretty rare that I get a whiff of a company that has a clear path toward cutting global carbon emissions by a full percent — but that’s what Rondo Energy pitched to its investors and customers, raising $22 million and setting some very excited environmentalists’ hearts a-flutter in the process.

Investment from Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Energy Impact Partners enables Rondo Energy to deploy its zero-carbon Heat Batteries to cost-effectively slash industrial emissions

A Bay Area startup says it has a new solution for one of the most stubborn problems in the transition to clean energy: replacing the fossil fuels burned for high-temperature cement production with a climate-friendly alternative.

Watch Rondo CEO John O’Donnell’s presentation, “A viable pathway to zero-carbon, continuous process heat”