Keeling Curve

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Project Summary / Description:

Opus 12 was formed when its founders met during graduate school and bonded over a mutual interest in addressing climate change. Dr. Kuhl and Dr. Cave studied CO2 electrocatalysis in Prof. Tom Jaramillo's group at Stanford University, the world leader in the field. They developed flagship reactor designs for the study of CO2 electroreduction and were inspired to found Opus 12 to translate their discoveries into an industrially-scalable system. They teamed up with Nicholas Flanders, who was completing a joint M.S. in engineering / MBA at Stanford after scaling a previous startup and had experience in McKinsey‚ cleantech practice.

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Best Estimate of GHG Avoidance/Reduction of This Project (Tonnes CO2 Equivalent/Year):

Impact on Underrepresented Groups:

Across all levels of the technical organization, the Opus 12 team is currently 50% women. We have taken specific steps to ensure that our job descriptions and interview processes are not biased towards specific genders.

Diversity in thought, as well as background, is important to our team -- and thus we have hired from a diversity of universities, not just elite schools, spanning 15 campuses. We hire entry-level people without prior work experience to provide an opportunity to work and grow within our company. Many of our staff are right out of college, in addition to our more senior staff. We have also recently hired our first office manager, an eager young woman who wanted to transition from working in the food service industry into technology.

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Mission Statement:

Opus 12 is developing a device that recycles CO‚ÇÇ into cost-competitive chemicals and fuels. Our technology bolts onto any source of CO‚ÇÇ emissions, and with only water and electricity as inputs, transforms that CO‚ÇÇ into some of the world's most critical chemical products. We can reduce the carbon footprint of the world‚ heaviest emitters, while creating a new revenue stream from what is discarded today as a waste product.