Innovating Climate Solutions

Hi! My name is Sol Walker and I am a rising senior with the class of 2025 at Whitman. I’m finishing up my combined degree in History and Environmental Studies, and I have been spending the second half of the summer with a climate technology company called Ebb Carbon. 

Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, the company is an emerging startup in the carbon sequestration/climate change mitigation industry. Ebb is currently developing and scaling technology for electrochemical seawater processing, which runs water through a series of ion membrane stacks and creates a more alkaline product to be returned to the ocean locally, with the ultimate goal of removing gigatons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere via deacidification and the utilization of the ocean itself as the world’s largest natural carbon sink. The company primarily operates in the carbon credit market, but is also in communication with several corporations who are interested in the acid and base reaction byproduct. Investors and partnerships around the world, including the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Port Angeles, WA, are bringing a lot of different opportunities to the table as this young but exciting company continues to navigate financial, political, chemical, and industrial challenges. I have had the opportunity to sit in on meetings with the policy and market development team, but much of my focus has been with the mechanical engineering team in the company warehouse. We are currently building one iteration of the deacidification system while designing models for a larger iteration, on trajectory to be implemented in the near future. 

The market for climate tech is developing quickly but is still not mature, meaning that many firms in the field linger in the startup phase (and some never make it out). There are unexpected obstacles all the time, and I have learned that the team requires absolute cohesion and clear communication. We work under the same roof and have all-hands meetings at least three times a week. Sometimes strategic goals change, and everyone is brought up to speed. For example, the current permitting process in Washington state, something Ebb is working through, simply does not have any option for firms that are releasing deacidified seawater back into the ocean—so we have to approach the process as a designated “polluter.” Hopefully, running the science will yield positive results that confirm we are in fact achieving our goals of cleaning up the ocean and the atmosphere, and in the meantime there are market and climate policy experts on board to streamline everything, from congressional testimony to desalination plants in the UAE to treaty law with the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe on the Olympic Peninsula. 

My day-to-day responsibilities have been in line with the engineering teams, plumbing systems and installing sensors and containerizing equipment, but this tightly knit dynamic has given me a deeper understanding of the company and its mission. There are a lot of environmental protections being threatened during the election this November, and it is important to remember how much hangs on the line when it comes to rolling forward climate change reversal and reinforcing all these fledgling systems for carbon tax and corporate accountability. Ultimately, working for a startup has demands that might be unconventional

compared to established firms, but I think I have found something irreplaceable about working with a group of passionate and creative nerds who are trying to save the planet. Independent, creative thinking is never a skill to sell yourself short on. I am very grateful to WIG for making this possible, and to the folks at Ebb Carbon for going out of their way to offer so much learning in such a short time. 

(Photo: installing steel panels onto the containerized system. These shipping containers will house the entire electrochemical system when it reaches its final home by the sea, with small holes for PVC connection between modules.)