On May 24-25th 2023, members of the 8 Rivers team convened in London for Innovation Zero. The inaugural edition of the UK largest climate and clean tech congress was sponsored by the UK Government, demonstrating their resolve and commitment to Net Zero targets. For 8 Rivers, Innovation Zero offered an important opportunity to reinforce our message that there is an urgent need for industry-wide collaboration towards deploying decarbonization technologies and solutions across sectors. 

Check out a short highlight reel of the 8 Rivers team involvement at Innovation Zero below.

Climate Tech Innovation: Challenge Breeds Opportunity

Nearly 10,000 people attended the first ever Innovation Zero, and the atmosphere was incredible! Across the main stage and six industry-specific theaters, Innovation Zero featured government, industry, and financiers all talking about sustainability and how to achieve Net Zero.

Thought leaders across sectors outlined how, with brilliant ideas and collaborative execution, we can combat climate change and use the push for Net Zero as a chance to make a better world for everyone.

For 8 Rivers, our days were jam-packed with presentations and panels as well as numerous opportunities to present our suite of ultra-low carbon technologies to policy makers, investors, and industry collaborators across the UK and beyond.

This year, we also shook up the typical conference formula of speaker podiums and basic booths with a first-of-a-kind mixed-reality experience called Climate Pioneers.

Designed to excite, educate, and engage attendees on how clean fuels, clean power, clean industry, and carbon removal are essential to meeting our Net Zero goals, the experience guided visitors through a series of actions to deploy decarbonization technologies across sectors to “Save London 2050.”

During the experience, vivid illustrations and informative dialogue effectively portrayed the tangible impacts of deploying technology which is necessary to ensure a positive climate future. Our exhibition informed participants, in a unique way that was fun while still telling a serious story, the critical measures we need to take in order to replace ominously polluted clouds with clear blue skies.

Technology to Policy – Some 8 Rivers Standout Moments

The biggest highlight of Innovation Zero 2023 was having Chief Inventor Rodney Allam MBE unveil our latest innovation: 8RH2 Gen 2 and the innovative CO2 Convective Reformer (CCR).

8RH2 is an ultra-low carbon intensity hydrogen production process that presents a game-changing opportunity for decarbonizing transportation, agriculture, and energy, all hard-to-decarbonize sectors where hydrogen and ammonia play vital roles.

With the unique ability to capture more than 99% of direct carbon emissions, 8RH2 shines in comparison to the 90-96% capture rate by other carbon capture technologies. The oxy-combustion method provides scalability and cost-effectiveness unmatched by other decarbonization solutions.

Also on the Energy Stage, Steve Milward, our SVP of Engineering and Operations, along with representatives from the Energy Systems Catapult, Ceres, and Circular Fuels Ltd., sat on an executive panel title “UK Energy: Secure & Sustainable.”

During their discussion, they touched on several key challenges and opportunities in creating a secure and sustainable energy system such as:

• scale of needed government investment
• impacts of the US Inflation Reduction Act on UK business decisions
• growing imperative of Net Zero workforce development
• the future role of nuclear fusion  

You can hear Steve’s input to these topics and others below on YouTube.

In the exhibition space, we also had a handful of special guests stop by the 8 Rivers booth to meet with our team, including: 

• Graham Stuart, Minister of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
• David Livingston, the U.S. Department of State’s Senior Advisor & Managing Director of Energy & U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate
• Rodney Berkeley, Director for Sustainability and Infrastructure at the UK’s Department for Business and Trade

Climate Pioneers Collaboration – a Model for Climate Action

By coaching participants through spinning DAC fans, sequestering carbon underground, electrifying buildings, and reducing sea level rise – all representative of tangible decarbonization actions – our Climate Pioneers exhibit, like the conference as a whole, emphasized the real-world imperative that energy transition is multifaceted.

From agriculture to industry, energy to clothing, we need to hit all sectors. While each sector requires different approaches, what they all have in common is they require collaboration. “Saving London 2050” is not just the inspiration for a mixed-reality learning experience; it is a real-world necessity, and no one entity can decarbonize a sector alone.

Government officials, including UK and US representatives, emphasized this point across their speeches. They see Net Zero as an opportunity to catalyze economic growth and invest in human potential.

The massive energy transition can be an opportunity to train the world’s citizens for the long-lasting, family-sustaining jobs needed to achieve our net-zero economy. It’s an opportunity to improve the efficiency of our industries. And it’s an opportunity to make the world cleaner, from the water in our streams to the air we breathe.

A New Age, A New Emphasis

To get there, we’ll need action – and we’ll need to act together. 

The innovators who filled the floors and graced the stage at Innovation Zero need supportive policies from the government, investments from finance, and partnerships with industry peers.

Over the past years, we’ve made tremendous strides in climate innovation, both here at 8 Rivers and across the conference’s six industries.

And over the next few years, we will continue to innovate rapidly. However, we are now reaching the age of deployment in our climate journey. In this time of execution, collaboration will be utterly essential to unlock the potential of our innovators’ ideas.

Will you join us? Reach out to see how can work together today.