Carbon capture device which also emits oxygen.
Posted on 06/15/2024 8:02:03 AM PDT by Steven Scharf
Portland Press Herald
Portland startup that became global leader in capturing carbon shuts down, lays off all staff
Running Tide, which raised more than $50 million from private investors since it was founded in 2017, fell victim to a collapse in voluntary carbon market prices, its CEO says.
June 15, 2024 Kelley Bouchard, Staff Writer
A Portland-based startup that pioneered ocean carbon-removal technology, and sold credits to offset the emissions of major clients such as Microsoft, shut down and laid off its last employees on Friday because it could no longer sell enough carbon credits to survive, its CEO said.
Running Tide, which had more than 120 workers at its peak, laid off its remaining 32 U.S. employees on Friday, most of whom were based in Portland, CEO Marty Odlin said. Fifteen workers in Iceland, near one of the company’s carbon sequestration sites, also lost their jobs.
Friday’s layoffs, which culminated with a final morning staff meeting at the company’s buoy engineering facility on the Portland Fish Pier, followed several rounds of layoffs that started in November, Odlin said.
“It’s a sad day,” he said in a phone interview. “We built incredible technologies, but the voluntary carbon market just got a lot smaller in the last nine months. We were building this for a growing market and all of a sudden it was shrinking. There isn’t enough demand right now.”
Founded in 2017, after Odlin sold his family’s groundfishing fleet, Atlantic Trawlers, Running Tide had raised more than $50 million in private investment as a trailblazer in the battle against climate change.
It developed technology to deploy pucks of limestone-coated wood waste and balls of kelp in the ocean, where they would capture carbon and sink to the seabed or be eaten by marine animals. It also built and deployed 546 sensors off the Maine coast to monitor environmental impacts in the ocean and operated an oyster hatchery in Harpswell for nearly four years.
Having removed the equivalent of 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide and delivered 21,000 credits since its founding, Running Tide had become the largest company in the world to trap carbon without taking it directly from the air or point of emission. It had 30 academic and commercial partners, 25 enterprise customers, including Microsoft and the e-commerce platform Shopify, and 12,000 total purchasers, according to its website.
Odlin said the collapse of the carbon market became obvious last September. By January, carbon offset prices had tumbled more than 80% over the previous 20 months and the market was suffering from declining confidence and weakening demand, according to CarbonCredits.com.
“This price decline reflects the broader challenges facing the voluntary carbon market, including questions about the actual environmental impact of the credits and the integrity of projects claiming to offset emissions,” the industry analyst reported.
Odlin said a lack of support and investment from the U.S. government kept Running Tide from growing beyond a research-sized enterprise into the massive program needed to offset carbon emissions and claw back climate change.
“We’ve really been let down by our government,” Odlin said. “We did our jobs. We fulfilled our contracts. We brought a lot of money into the Maine economy. But this was still at research scale. This needs to be a thousand times larger at industrial scale and it’s going to take a ton of government leadership to get us there.”
Running Tide employees declined to speak with the Press Herald as they left Friday’s final meeting. However, a human resources email provided by one employee showed that Friday was the final payday and they would not be getting severance.
Odlin declined to discuss the company’s exit package but said he reported the layoffs to the Maine Department of Labor, which confirmed it will be helping the workers with job searches and retraining.
Odlin said he’s confident that his employees “will land on their feet” and find new jobs quickly, possibly in the same or a related field.
The company will vacate its leased facilities in Portland, he said, including the buoy engineering shop at the Marine Trade Center on the Portland Fish Pier, now-empty offices at 30 Danforth St. and laboratory space on outer Congress Street.
DISAPPOINTMENT
“Losing Running Tide in the Marine Trade Center is disappointing,” said Bill Needelman, waterfront coordinator for the city of Portland. “We wish the best to their employees. They should reach out to us if they need anything.”
The engineering space in the trade center is next door to the Portland Harbor Master’s offices.
“They brought a lot of vitality to the pier in the last two years,” said Maya Howard, assistant harbor master. “They had a lot of young people working with them, conducting experiments, monitoring tanks, collecting data.”
Running Tide had inked a new agreement with Microsoft in March 2023 to remove the equivalent of 12,000 tons of carbon dioxide over the next two years.
Shopify purchased credits from Running Tide as part of a $5 million annual effort to support entrepreneurs working to reverse climate change.
Odlin notified both companies that Running Tide is shutting down, he said. A spokesperson for Microsoft declined to answer questions about the company’s closure. Shopify could not be reached for comment.
Odlin said he’s proud of Running Tide’s accomplishments and he believes the technologies it developed will contribute to continuing efforts to control carbon emissions.
“It’s incredible that this started here in Maine, ” he said. “This work is going to continue. I have a lot of hope.”
My place is loaded with walnut trees. Squirrels are constantly planting more. I don't want anymore. I have too many.
We have reached Peak Climate Change Superstition.
I wish.
You mean to tell me that retards are still buying “carbon credits”? I thought that was a 90s scam.
Ultimate not so underlying point of this article is that Carbon Credit payments (see Amtrak for their page on this additional charge! Which noone who takes the train can afford over the already gubmint subsidized fares!!)
That Carbon Credit payments should be universally mandated— everyone have it tagged to every purchase.
SOCIALISM is Theft. It has to be. Because it runs out of other people’s money real quick for the re-distro— back to the Socialist playing “companies” . Note the commentary within the article. Someone will have to pay this stupid company’s rent. They probably got a subsidy to move in and start up.
"...fell victim to a collapse in voluntary carbon market pricesWhat a blood-sucking rent-seeker. Blames all of his incredibly stupid decisions and failures on the government. You live by the government, you die by the government. It's a fickle mistress and can change its desires in a heartbeat.By January 2024, carbon offset prices had tumbled more than 80% over the previous 20 months and the market was suffering from declining confidence and weakening demand.
Odlin said a lack of support and investment from the U.S. government kept Running Tide from growing beyond a research-sized enterprise into the massive program needed to offset carbon emissions and claw back climate change.
“We’ve really been let down by our government,” Odlin said.
A "VOLUNTARY carbon market" -- what a joke. It is created by government and coercive. There IS NO "voluntary" carbon capture market. It only can exist because of burdensome government policy.
Better Mr. Odlin ran a business producing products that people actually want to buy. Maybe he could buy a fleet of fishing boats and deliver fish to market. I'll bet his family is really happy he sold the family fishing fleet in 2017 and pissed all the money away (assuming, of course, he didn't pocket a lot of the $50 million investment he Hoovered up from the rubes).
Reminds me of an old bachelor when I was growing up, Rich Sweppe, planting walnuts at age 85.
My place is loaded with walnut trees. Squirrels are constantly planting more. I don’t want anymore. I have too many.
Carbon capture device which also emits oxygen.
Breaking News...
The greatest minds in science have discovered self-replicating carbon absorbers which require little to no maintenance. They’re calling this new find “trees”
Ponzi scheme.
They got their fortune off suckers using the biggest lie in the history of modern Man by tweaking guilt, gaslighting, virtual signal projection and a massive host of other psychotic maneuvers.
What technology gets carbon not out of the air, what from solid waste-algae sea scum? Tanks monitored filled with what- co2 adsorbant?
The poor dumb schlubs who pay voluntarily carbon “credits” (debits from them tacked on to purchases)— ran into the massive inflation caused by re-distribution of money the “government” never had in the first place. A good amount of “green” re-distro subsidies... bit this “industry” in the tail.
Note the company execs are not talking about their severance— cause they get one in the governance papers— should be available public info, WSJ etc. This is just like Solyndra and obama’s payola scheme which lined his own pockets for doling out our money.
Has the cow fart racket been played out?
The greatest minds in science have discovered self-replicating carbon absorbers which require little to no maintenance. They’re calling this new find “trees”
Ever wonder why there isn't a massive crater around the base of large trees? It's because almost all the tree is the carbon of carbon dioxide extracted during photosynthesis.
Experiments.
Sure.
“Running Tide” .... ran out! LOL. Then whine about it. Employees in Iceland? What would that cost in payola to the Socialist in Iceland who are largely energy independent anyway (steam vents, volcanic, hot water exchange plants, etc.). Taxes in Iceland are not low either.
Looking for a tsunami replacement. Fisherman will tell you money does not grow in the ocean- you have to go make it from Nature.
Some years we are overrun with the tree rats and some years hardly any. I notice the more hawks we have in the area, squirrels get scarce. I have a large walnut tree that has a large hawk nest. We got two youngsters this year. Meaning off and on, there's four hawks roaming the skies and creek. Rats, squirrels and snake numbers are in decline with that crowd around. I'm okay with that.
Solyndra does carbon.
Do the companies pay for the “carbon credits” up front? So what happens when the supplier goes out of business?
So that’s what happened! I thought the world seemed a little warmer today than it should be. Now I know why!
If your business is dependent 'on a ton of government leadership', i.e., MONEY, you do not have a legitimate business. This sounds like a total climate change scam which ended as all scams do. But I bet Mr Odlin came out of it well off.
Wondering that myself...
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