Gregory Constantine, co-founder and CEO of carbon utilization firm Air Company, joined Cheddar News to discuss its agreement with the U.S. Air Force to create sustainable aviation fuel.

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Brooklyn, NY Startup Air Company Inks $65M With Defense Dept.

Air Company is a carbon utilization firm creating consumer and industrial products from carbon dioxide. The Brooklyn based startup says it turns co two into eco friendly products like perfume, vodka, and hand sanitizer. And the company also recently awarded a $65 million contract from the Department of Defense to help the US Air Force develop sustainable aviation fuel. Well, joining me now is Gregory Constantine, co founder and CEO of Air Company, Gregory. Thanks so much for coming on the show here. Give me some more details about your contract with the defense department and how your firm is working with the Air Force to turn co two into aviation fuel. Yeah, thank you for having me. Um Yeah, it's been a, it's been a great process to be able to work with, you know, obviously the United States government and the US Air Force in, in, in our effort to create, you know, sustainable aviation fuel directly from carbon dioxide. You know, when you've got a group like the US Air Force that's coming in to help, you know, fund the research and development uh of a fuel uh made directly from carbon dioxide. Uh It's a phenomenal step in the right direction in order to help decarbonise. Um you know, one of the toughest industries, you know, to decarbonise being aviation at a phenomenal mark for our company, um you know, working with the government in that respect. So Gregory give me some statistics here just in terms of how effective you expect this partnership to be, especially when it comes to the climate and I'm sure your business model. yeah, aviation makes up around 2 to 3% of global CO2 emissions. Um So you're talking, you know, someone of that spent 4 to 5 billion tons of co two emitted on an annual basis. Um You know, the benefit of of our technology is that we actually remove or utilize um you know, more co two than we put out in the entire production process. So from a, from a carbon perspective, we're actually carbon negative in the production process itself. So the impact it can have from a climate perspective is, is definitely a great one and then the ability to actually go and deploy technology in really remote locations given that we have an abundance of our feed stock, which is carbon dioxide and renewable plant power allows us to really displace a lot of the um a lot of the emissions from transportation and the logistics of that as well, which is obviously something that's really interesting to the US Air Force. How does this surprise announcement over the weekend? Gregory, these OPEC plus nations, Saudi Arabia, Russia deciding to cut oil output even further. Certainly, it will provide inflationary pressures and help Russia continue to fund its ongoing war in Ukraine. How does that impact what you are doing at your company? Yeah, so, so we, we don't do anything with fossil fuels. So, you know, from a cost perspective that you mentioned, you know, we're actually only incumbent on the cost of carbon dioxide and renewable electricity. So there are no other inputs to our technology. So a kind of benefits from that respect. Um you know, and then obviously we're really just focused on growing technology and seeing it applied in every industry vertical that it can be, can be so that we stay true to the mission of the company, which it is actively helping prevent climate change, which is exactly what our business does. So it sounds like because you're not at the behest of oil prices, perhaps that perhaps this could benefit your firm. Is that right? Yeah, absolutely. In the future, you know, the the, you know, the the the the prices around, you know, the oil and the, and the logistics of that uh has the ability to be displaced with the work that we do as a firm. OK. So I see your products also include vodka, hand sanitizer and perfume. Explain that to me. Yeah, so we've always decided to monetize our research and development on a pathway towards scale So some of the uh some of the output of our, of our, you know, technology is the alcohol that goes into things like the consumer products that you see being per perfume and vodka and sanitizer. And if we stay true to our mission, where we have the ability to make the largest amount of impact at scale, that's going into some of these really large industrial markets like aviation. However, the pathway towards getting towards those really large output markets is is a long one. So we decide, let's monetize our research and development on a pathway towards that scale. And that's some of those incredible consumer products that you see in market that are really fantastic proof of technology, right, Gregory, Constantine co-founder and CEO of Air Company Gregory. Thank you.