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Len Rosen's picture
Principal Author and Editor, 21st Century Tech Blog

Futurist, Writer and Researcher, now retired, former freelance writer for new technology ventures. Former President & CEO of Len Rosen Marketing Inc., a marketing consulting firm focused on...

  • Member since 2018
  • 206 items added with 192,157 views
  • Mar 21, 2023
  • 335 views

What can the petroleum industry do other than turn its product into fuels to burn? In Alberta, the first baby steps include a competition to turn byproducts of its oil sands production into carbon fibre products that can compete with materials such as steel, aluminum, concrete and plastic. The challenge is not just developing a clean process, but also one that makes carbon fibre price competitive. The Carbon Fibre Grand Challenge aims at rewarding a group or individual who can demonstrate the ability to make carbon fibre at less than $9 USD per kilogram or $4 a pound. And from there be able to scale production to drop the price even further.

Discussions
Matt Chester's picture
Matt Chester on Mar 21, 2023

Making lemonade out of lemons, it sounds like!

Len Rosen's picture
Len Rosen on Mar 22, 2023

Hi Matt, Lemonade from lemons may not be an apt analogy. What it can be is a lifeline for an industry that may find itself holding enormous volumes of stranded assets that because of the relentless rise in atmospheric temperatures will never be used for their original purpose. Currently, holders of oil sands projects have described their industry as a license to print money with oil at $70 USD a barrel. They aren't admitting to seeing the writing on the wall and are taking their profits while they can.  

Mark Silverstone's picture
Mark Silverstone on Mar 22, 2023

«Reducing the cost of carbon fibre by 50% and ramping up production capacity could begin to make the material more competitive with high-end steel products. Getting the cost to be 80% less would make carbon fibre a game-changer.»

 What an exciting development.  Please let us know the results of the challenge.

Len Rosen's picture
Len Rosen on Mar 22, 2023

I intend to follow Phase 3 of the competition to see what the contestants are capable of doing. Based on the timelines we won't see the results until 2026.

Len Rosen's picture
Thank Len for the Post!
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