Graphitic Energy's graphite byproduct is worth 20x its thermal BTU value
Zach Jones · The rogue idea that saved a hydrogen startup · Aug 13, 2025 · at 6:50
Zach Jones is the CEO of Graphitic Energy, a startup using methane pyrolysis to co-produce clean hydrogen and synthetic graphite.
0:00 / 0:16exact quote · 16.8s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“We remove the carbon As a graphite powder, and for the markets that we have lined up for that, it's worth 20 times its BTU value, so 20 times the amount of money you'd get just for burning that carbon and making CO₂ when we extract it as graphite.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Zach Jones
Graphitic claims its process yields the cheapest non-SMR hydrogen at scale
“I mean, it's still, even without any carbon value, if you build a big plant, this is still, we think, the cheapest sort of non-SMR-based hydrogen that you're going to be able to produce.”
Graphitic Energy produces clean hydrogen for $2 to $3 per kilogram
“You know, I thought that decarbonized hydrogen had to come from an electrolyzer and cost, you know, six or nine dollars a kilogram. You guys can do this for two to three?”
Graphitic Energy sees customer demand for 300,000 tons of carbon annually
“So we think that based on conversations we've had with specific customers that we have demand for 300,000 tons a year as produced from our process going directly into their processes and their customers end uses downstream. First of a kind plant will produce a…”
The hydrogen market decline is almost entirely confined to electrolysis
“I think that there's no doubt that there's maybe been a decline in a hydrogen interest, but That's really almost entirely hydrogen from electrolysis.”
Graphitic's pyrolysis concept required no novel balance-of-plant systems
“And out of that, Came an idea by our technical director of R&D, Sam Shainer, that solved all the challenges of this in a way that required no firsts from a balance of plant perspective.”
Methane pyrolysis only became viable after the 2015 fracking boom
“Methane pyrolysis is only interesting if you have low cost natural gas, which hasn't always been the case, and if you are concerned about CO two emissions. And both of those factors really only started in about 2015 or so, once the fracking revolution took off…”