Green Coke company half-way home

Green Coke company half-way home in equity crowd-funding bid

November 24, 2014: CarbonScape’s equity crowd-funding offer has raised more than half its $400,000 target capital – after only 12 days.

The Marlborough carbon products company’s offer on the Snowball Effect platform passed the $200,000 mark today.

CarbonScape holds an international patent on a revolutionary method for the production of products such as carbon-neutral Green Coke. Produced from waste wood, Green Coke can replace the climate-destroying coking coal used in the steelmaking process.

The microwave technology has been proven in the company’s Blenheim laboratory, and the new investment will be used to build a pilot plant to supply the New Zealand Steel mill, south of Auckland.

The company has a conditional agreement to supply the mill with 9000 tonnes of Green Coke, and has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with New Zealand Steel owner BlueScope, providing potential access to world steel-making markets.

The offer invites the public to invest amounts from $1000, and has a target of $400,000 and a cap of $1.5 million. While it is a 45-day offer, it will close sooner if it reaches the cap before then.
Executive director Tim Langley says that the company is pleased with the response so far.
“We have been contacted by some well-resourced international investors, looking to take around $1 million each,” he said.
Investors he has spoken to are excited by the potential to do good while making money, he says.
CarbonScape’s Green Coke is carbon-neutral, because instead of releasing carbon stored underground millions of years ago, it is produced from carbon taken from the atmosphere by trees, and which would be released back into the atmosphere as the trees decompose.

CarbonScape’s offer comes as a synthesis report by the International Panel on Climate Change, released this week, warns the world that it must stop burning fossil fuels altogether in order to avoid irreversible climate damage.
Mr Langley says that if applied to the steelmaking industry alone, CarbonScape’s technology has the potential to cut global greenhouse gas emissions by three per cent a year.

“People get it,” Mr Langley said. “They understand the cycle, and they appreciate a product which basically leaves ancient carbon in the bank.”
CarbonScape is the third crowd-funding project to use the Snowball Effect platform. The company’s head of pipeline and services, Shaun Edlin, says that New Zealanders are getting behind the offer.

“There are some exciting developments taking place in the fossil fuel industry, and we are thrilled that we can facilitate New Zealanders in having an opportunity to participate from those changes,” he said.

CarbonScape’s other products include activated carbon (used for purifying food, air and water), chemicals and syngas.

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