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Justin Brady: From the Jet Roses Barbecue Studios, this is the Iowa Business Podcast. I, of course, am Justin Brady. Water and quality issues just don’t go away. They’re, they’re a very pesky problem. The more you know about the tech and the more you know about where these issues are coming from, the more you realize it’s a very, very hard problem to solve. But Iowa’s, IEDA is. Putting $1 million. This is in addition to other funding this organization has had into, is this algae? Is that, is that right? Yeah. Algae. Yeah. Yeah.

Martin Gross: Algae stuff that grows in the ponds. Yeah.

Justin Brady: Martin Gross, of course, the CEO of Gross Fund Technologies joins us. You may be familiar with that name. Your, your 10 year anniversary was last year, I

Martin Gross: Yeah. Yeah. I’ve been around for 10. Yeah.

Justin Brady: Basically using algae to solve the world’s problems. I’m gonna just from the whole show today, call you Captain Algae or Captain America Algae or something. Before we get into that, everybody, um, we of course appreciate Denton Davis Brown for collaborating with us on this show. And of course, click Kaley Blaik. Rajo was in the studio talking about immigration law, and of course, H one B visas the a hundred thousand dollars. How to get around that. Why Iowa is very uniquely positioned to grab talent due to our low cost of living. A super clever strategy she has. And of course, even if you’re like above board compliant, everything’s all perfect in a bow, ice still might knock at your door. Of course, she has strategies on that too. Definitely not a political show, just all data and all information for Iowa business owners. So go to Iowa podcast.com/business to check that out. Martin, like I said, thank you so much for coming in here. I, have been familiar with gross wind technologies. Okay. Like, very familiar with it for years, but I probably, like most people, even in the tech space and entrepreneurial space, didn’t quite understand the zoom in. I don’t like to generally go broad at the open and most interviews, but I think it’s important here. Can you give like a very 30,000 foot view. On what the approach is and how you’re, you’re basically targeting phosphorus and nitrogen and removing them from wastewater. Is it, is that as simple as it is?

Martin Gross: got it. You got it. So, you know, the way that I usually explain it is the way that nature deals with nitrogen and phosphorus is it grows algae. So essentially what we do is we don’t allow that nitrogen and phosphorus to get into the environment to grow the algae and cause. Eutrophic zones and some of the toxic algae blooms that you maybe have heard of. We grow the algae in a controlled way at the wastewater plant before it actually enters into the environment. So exactly that. We, we basically industrialize the way that nature deals with nitrogen, phosphorus, uh, with our unique way to grow algae.

Justin Brady: So I guess the one, the one thing is like you, you mentioned this is a natural process. Um, obviously you found ways to engineer it and speed it up a little bit, but why not leave it natural? Like, ’cause I, I know the answer to this, but some people might not. Like, who cares? Just what are you actually solving?

Martin Gross: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if, if, if nitrogen phosphorus gets into the environment, toxic algae bloom happens. And, and the problem with that is if, if algae grows uncontrolled in the environment, you can’t collect the algae. You can’t harvest the algae is too spread out. So what that means is that algae will grow, that algae will then die. And then when that algae dies, it releases these toxins, it causes the oxygen to be depleted in waterways and, and causes issues. So it’s just a really, uh, uh, the, the problem we solve in that sense is we grow it concentrated. So you can harvest it, you can remove it from the system versus what naturally happens in the environment.

Justin Brady: So there are a few layers here. It sounds like, again, correct me if I’m wrong ’cause you’re definitely the expert, but it sounds like phosphorus and nitrogen good, good for nature. Yep. We love them, but just like anything, too much of a good thing becomes bad. So if we have too much phosphorus, too much nitrogen going into the environment, too much. CO2, going into the environment. This is when we get what you called a toxic algae bloom versus just normal, healthy growing

Martin Gross: absolutely. absolutely. Algae is the, the a, a key part of any healthy, you know, aquatic environment. Algae is a key component of it. You grow too much, you cause issues. You know, actually, you know, think about what algae does is algae creates all the oxygen that we breathe or a majority of the oxygen that we breathe in the world. It’s produced by algae. You know, everyone? thinks about Plants. Trees. Yeah. but that’s actually algae is the, the dominant oxygen creator. So it’s, it’s important to have algae in the environment. It just, when it gets too concentrated, it grows too much in any given location. That’s where these, these, these algae blooms happen, that most people think of them as bad things, um, because they, they have these negative health consequences and toxins that are produced and, you know, fish kills. Um, but yeah, it’s, it’s a natural process. It just needs to be under control.

Justin Brady: So when you’re with your like family, friends or colleagues and you like drive by like a swamp or something, are you the one nerding. Out and saying, that’s a beautiful thing guys. Are you

Martin Gross: No, no. Now, now, now my friends will be like, oh, Martin, look at that algae. ’cause they know I’ve got the reputation But yeah, I, I try to distance myself outside of work away from the algae story, but it always comes back

Justin Brady: that it’s always gonna come back to hunch it. So tell me why, uh, a million bucks for algae, like, why are we putting a million dollars into algae?

Martin Gross: Yeah. It’s, I mean, it, it’s, I, I think it’s a phenomenal story. So our core business is nitrogen phosphorus removal with our algae system. So our business, what we do is we sell an a, a, a piece of equipment that removes nitrogen, phosphorus with water by growing algae. But when you grow algae, there’s this other benefit. You have algae, biomass that you produce. So usually the way, you know, maybe just kinda zoom out a bit. Usually the way you would treat water to remove nitrogen phosphorus is you would grow bacteria or you would use chemicals. Neither of those approaches you create chemical sludge, bacterial sludge. That’s a cost to dispose of. But now if we think about what we do, we use algae to treat the water. Now we produce algae biomass. I’m not calling it a sludge, it’s not a waste product. It’s a value stream. So when we grow algae, clean the water, the byproducts, algae, biomass, and we want to create the most value outta that algae as we can. So our primary product is a, a fertilizer product that you can, you can buy and put it on your turf. So your home, your business, you can, your parks, you can use this algae, recover, reuse that nitrogen, phosphorus to, you know, uh, for beneficial reuse. So take it from a place where it’s not wanted. Put it to a place where it is wanted. But really where this million dollars is, is largely being spent is we’ve been developing a product called an algae based soil amendment. So fertilizer means you’re putting nitrogen phosphorus on, uh, for us it’s turfgrass. Um, soil amendment’s, all about soil health, and the focus of that is to put it on corn alpha, alpha wheat, potatoes, and actually improve yields by improving soil health. So we’ve been developing this over two years now. Developing the Soil Amendment product. Two years of field trials shown that we can improve yield in those crops by 10%. Okay? So that’s really, that’s really valuable to a farmer where they can have the same input costs, produce 10% more yield. Um, so it’s a great opportunity for us, but to develop that product, it takes additional field trials, additional, you know, hires and support to, to make that happen. And that’s really where a bulk of that money is going, is to actually develop this new innovative product, soil amendment product using the algae.

Justin Brady: So I want to go later. I’m going to go into, I’m gonna ask him, of course, everybody, um, about. How this works. Um, why, like how you actually treat wastewater. And it sounds like you’re even, there’s a, I don’t know if you’re currently doing this, but you’re treating carbon dioxide emissions with the algae as well, how that works, why it works, scale, all that kind of stuff. But you bring up the, I think the, the most important thing to discuss here is that you’re using, I would assume this concentrated algae. You, I know that the. Past process, pelletized it in some way. You’re probably drying it out and using, but it sounds like this new process you’re developing is going to be kind of a fertilizer replacement, a nitrogen replacement, a cover crop replacement, or is it a supplement to all that?

Martin Gross: Yeah, it’s, it’s truly a supplement to it. Um, so our, our first product, this granulated pelletized fertilizer, it, it’s, it’s about delivering fertilizing qualities to, to, to turf. Um, so that’s delivering nitrogen, phosphorus. When you talk about soil amendment, you’re really talking about, uh, creating a healthier soil around where the plant’s growing to make it, make the plant grow better. Um, so you still are adding fertilizer. You may be able to reduce the fertilizer. We’ve demonstrated that. Mm-hmm. Um, but you’re actually just creating a healthier environment for the plant to grow and thus improve improving the yields.

Justin Brady: You mentioned around, um, I don’t know if that’s in on, if you use that word on purpose, but you, so we’re not applying it to crops. We’re kind of making a barrier around them. How does this

Martin Gross: Yeah. Yeah. No, so, so when we think about soil amendment. We’re really targeting the delivery of this right next to where the plant’s growing. So what I mean by that is you’re actually adding it in the furrow when you plant. So right next to the seed to stimulate the health around the seed. Just close proximity to where that plant’s growing. You could put it across the entire field and get the benefit, but then you’re wasting some of the products. So it’s more of a targeted delivery right next to the plant itself.

Justin Brady: yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s a, basically waste is what you’re trying to, it’s not, it’s not gonna be unhealthy for the soil. It’s just you don’t want people blowing cash on something.

Martin Gross: Exactly. Exactly. It’s, you wanna have that the right price point, so it’s not a big increase in input cost for the, for the farmer. So you target delivery Right where it’s needed, where it has the best impact.

Justin Brady: You do mention it could cut down, uh, this, this, this, uh, I don’t even, is there a new name for it? It’s

Martin Gross: Yeah. Like, so, so, so, um, what we cut down is

Justin Brady: but I mean, is there a new name for the product though? Like, it, it’s algae, but do you call it a certain thing on soil? Like, uh, I think you soil amendment.

Martin Gross: Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s called a soil amendment, right?

Justin Brady: that, wait, is this a your term or

Martin Gross: No, this is the, field. So there’s soil amendments that a farmer could add in. So this is, this is so, it’s not, it’s not the nitrogen phosphorus fertilizer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know we’re kind of going circles a little bit, but not, it’s not the fertilizer. Plants need nitrogen, phosphorus, you’re still gonna add those, but there’s other products on the market that have had really good success with farmers called soil amendments. It’s all about improving soil health, not delivering nitrogen phosphorus. Yeah. But when we apply it, one of the studies that we did this past year for corn is when we applied it, we applied it. Um, and then asked the, the, the trial to put less nitrogen down at our, at our product, less nitrogen, and we were able to still increase the yields. What that showed is now you can deliver less nitrogen to the soil and still have the, the same yield you were going to have, but less input cost for nitrogen.

Justin Brady: So this stuff is also fertilizer. So if I’m looking 10, 20 years out here, I’m saying, okay, if we’re using algae as a soil amendment, um, from gross end technologies and we’re applying this, um, are we basically cutting down on our need for. Fertilizers. We’re cutting down our need for nitrogen, we’re cutting down our need for synthetic fertilizers. We’re cutting down our need for all that

Martin Gross: That’s absolutely, that’s possible for sure. I mean, that’s what our trial showed, and again, we’re two years in and, and some of these products need. Multiple years to validate that, but that’s absolutely what we’ve demonstrated so far.

Justin Brady: So this is interesting because you, um. I, I was actually gonna try to do a punt here, but I think everybody will be like, come on man, but I, you know what? I’m gonna do it. anyway. I’m gonna do it anyway. You’re right. Now you’re a downstream solution, right? Because you’re, you’re filtering the wastewater, you’re filtering the byproducts that are coming out of manufacturing industry, whatever, or agriculture. You’re going upstream in this solution, right? You’re going all the way upstream in both in technology and process. And so, see what I did there, everybody. So you’re basically going to the root of the problem with your solution rather than treating it after you’re going all the way up to where it starts to begin with.

Martin Gross: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, if, if you think about, you know, where nitrogen, like the, the problem we’re solving is nitrogen, phosphorus, pollution. Where does nitrogen, phosphorus pollution start? Well, certainly at municipalities that are, have sewer that are going into the environment, industries that are putting this environment, cities, streets, you know, runoff, um, whether it’s agriculture or cities, these are all sources of the nitrogen, phosphorus pollution issue that causes the toxic algae blooms our core technologies. Trying to find where those pipes go into the environment, cleaning it there before they go.

Justin Brady: Oh,

Martin Gross: But it’s really, really difficult to try to do these non-point source areas, street runoff, agricultural fields. Some of the nitrogen, phosphorus comes from there. Now our product can come back, help make, uh, make agriculture more sustainable, less runoff, less nitrogen input. And that actually helps on the front end as well.

Justin Brady: Because these are very, very big problems that I know that not just the state of Iowa, but surrounding states and ag states are trying to figure out. Because we have farmers that are like, dude, we’re not gonna just stop spraying fertilizers and spraying nitrogen on the crops. If we do, we go outta business and there’s no food. So we need better solutions if y’all are gonna complain about it, like then give us better solutions, and this is what you’re working on.

Martin Gross: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I, I think that the, you know, the, the ag community has done a lot of great solutions over the, over the years. You know, whether it’s these buffer strips or, you know, controlling the amount of nitrogen, phosphorous. That they’re applying to the field, so there’s less runoff there. These things are happening already. This is just another tool in the tool bag for them to reduce the amount of nitrogen. Also, there’s, there’s issues with fertilizer supply in the us There’s the global conflicts that impact, you know, nitrogen, phosphorus prices, phosphorus limiting, uh, availability. And you know, there’s continual effort to try to be more efficient with the amount of nitrogen phosphorus we have. This just helps us do that even better.

Justin Brady: What’s interesting about these problems is that it’s a matter of resource allocation, not resource scarcity, and is what you’re in the middle of. Because pe, you know, on one hand people are like, we need phosphorus and nitrogen over here. But then on the other side, people are like, well, we have way too much of it over here, and it’s creating a problem. So your technology is essentially reallocating critical resources into the right spots and getting them out of the wrong spots. Is that a fair

Martin Gross: That’s exactly right.

Justin Brady: So the method is interesting because when a lot of people think of wastewater, they think of their municipality, and that’s where they’re, that’s kind of where the conversation ends. It’s like, okay, we got it. So gross wind technology is probably working with water plants and they’re filtering. What a lot of people don’t know is that when you, I think this is right when you take a shower, you’re also, when you use soap, you’re also putting phosphorus, I think, into the wastewater supply, right? So. Uh, this scales, a lot of wastewater is, um, has the issue of phosphorus and nitrogen. They’re injecting into the system so.

Martin Gross: Yep.

Justin Brady: Is this a co-location type of technology? Because, uh, I want you to briefly go through just a broad 30,000 foot of how the technology works. If someone was in one of your, your greenhouses, I think that’s what you call them, what would they see and how are you locating this to areas that have, uh, carbon dioxide problems and uh, nitrogen, phosphorus pro? How are you getting it to these locations because you’re not centrally locating these in just wastewater plants.

Martin Gross: Yeah. Yeah, actually, so that is where we locate ’em. So we will be co-located at wastewater treatment plants. So like the, the idea of treating wastewater as always, you know. Has existed for centuries, right? So we, we have to clean the water before we go in the environment or the environment’s toxic. And guess where we get our drinking water? Well, we don’t want polluted drinking water. So oftentimes you’ll have a wastewater plant. Nearly every city in the state of Iowa, most cities across the world have a centralized wastewater plant where all your shower water, all your toilet water, all that ends up at a facility gets treated. So what what we’re doing is we’re removing nitrogen and phosphorus. Well, guess what? Historically, a lot of these plants only removed something called their organic carbon or in the, in the field we call it BOD, from the water. So they have a infrastructure in place to remove solids and BOD and organic carbon. Well, these as more and more nitrogen phosphorus go into the system. Now guess what? These systems need to do more than just remove the solids and the carbon. They need to remove nitrogen phosphorus, So. that’s where we come in. So a lot of treatment plants are designed only for solids organic carbon. Now, as they see these downstream impacts of the toxic algae blooms and that issue, now they need to upgrade those facilities for nitrogen phosphorus removal as well. So that’s where we come in. We’re just a retrofit solution. Keep your existing infrastructure in place that’s there doing the job it was designed to, but now since you have a new regulatory permit, you need to clean that water. Better add our system in to remove that nitrogen phosphorus.

Justin Brady: So you are co-locating these things. Again, it’s not the wastewater. Plants aren’t packaging, packaging the water or shipping it to you in some capacity and you’re shipping it back. You’re co-locating your solution inside. Only wastewater plants. I guess. I thought you were gonna co-locate these in like major industrial plants as well, but only wastewater solutions. Yeah.

Martin Gross: Yeah. Well, well, so yes, so primarily at wastewater plants, but industries have wastewater plants as

Justin Brady: Oh, got

Martin Gross: yeah, yeah. So

Justin Brady: not just government municipalities, but also private wastewater pan.

Martin Gross: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, so, so municipalities is kinda how we segment our businesses like government agencies, municipal wastewater, as well as industries that have wastewater plants on site. Some industries need to treat that water to a certain level before they send it to the environment. Other industries need to clean it to a certain level before they send it to the municipality. Right? That’s where, yeah, so we’re located at those as well.

Justin Brady: Right, because there are various regulations on, uh, various organizations and in, in industries have to have the, the wastewater treated to a certain point before it leaves the facility. The wastewater facilities in various communities aren’t just magic, right? They, they treat a lot of stuff and if you are giving them a raw or wastewater to above a certain threshold, that’s considered pollution.

Martin Gross: Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Justin Brady: So yeah.

Martin Gross: Yeah.

Justin Brady: So, um, no, it is really interesting the now are you also partnering then? ’cause one of the things you talk a lot about is being able to pull carbon dioxide out of the air as well. So are you also strategically locating these things with, um, manufacturing plants that have high carbon problems as well?

Martin Gross: Yeah. Yeah. So in in two different ways. So municipalities as well as industries have greenhouse gas emission avoidance goals, carbon footprint reduction goals, and they actually value that. So first thing our customers value is how can they remove. Those pollutants at the best price point possible. That’s usually the primary driver. But in addition to that, some have, uh, motivations and targets and goals where they want to lower their carbon footprint of their facility. How do you lower your carbon footprint? Usually people think, oh, I could use less energy. I can, uh, you know, change my process to emit less. Well, those only go so far at a certain point. Um, there’s only so much low hanging fruit to reduce your carbon footprint. So when that happens, you can look at a solution like ours. So think about what we do. We use algae, algae’s, a microscopic plant. As algae grows, it’s consuming carbon dioxide out of the air producing oxygen, right? So if you use our system, we capture CO2. If you use a bacterial system, they’re actually taking carbon and releasing CO2. It’s just like a plant is producing oxygen, eating. CO2 a human is consuming oxygen, releasing CO2. So when you use algae or our system, we’re actually doing that paradigm shift. We’re consuming CO2 during the treatment process. So if you are a client of ours that has a, uh, nitrogen, phosphorus need, for sure, that’s the primary driver. But if you also are interested in reducing your greenhouse gas emissions, reducing your carbon footprint, our solution will have a big impact on your, uh, carbon footprint scoring.

Justin Brady: So is. Is this, like you’re putting your facility, I know your facilities, facilities, your technology’s kind of mobile a little bit like you, so is this a matter of

Martin Gross: Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.

Justin Brady: there’s, a technic, there’s like a little detail there. Um, probably another show, but. Is this a matter of you co-locating your solutions next to the plants? Or is this a matter of you selling carbon credits? Like they’re, they’re putting too much carbon in the air and you’re the carbon offset solution. So you’re like, Hey, we’re, we’re pulling that much carbon out of the air over here in Iowa or over here a couple miles away. So is it a carbon credit thing or is it a co-location thing for the CO2?

Martin Gross: Yeah, it can be either. It can be either. So, so, so the, the carbon, the offset value could be realized locally at that plant specifically, or We can actually, we actually have, uh, we got an approval for, um, a pathway to monetize our carbon offsets as

Justin Brady: Nice. Okay.

Martin Gross: so any given plant, when you install our system, you are reducing your carbon intensity by a certain, you’ll say a hundred tons of CO2 a year, for example. Well, if that’s valuable to that given client, they can realize that car carbon offset. Alternatively, if they don’t care, and some of our clients don’t care, they’re just in the business of, I don’t know, making cheese or something. Right. So, um, but if they don’t care, we can actually, uh, have an, we have an accounting and an auditing platform now that’s approved where we can track those greenhouse gas emission offsets and they can be monetized through carbon credits. Yeah. For people that do want to buy them from offsite.

Justin Brady: Wow. That’s, I mean, so like, this is something that some of these solutions ’cause like, uh, you could, there’s a really, a global. Opportunity here, because especially I think of company countries like India and China that traditionally have struggled with air quality. So you could very like effectively, well, I guess I’m gonna ask this in a question ’cause I don’t know the answer. Could you put and co-locate a bunch of your, uh, algae solutions in greenhouses? Like smacked, like put a half a, like a dozen of them in the middle of deli and actually affect air quality?

Martin Gross: Um. You know, I, I don’t know if I’d make the claim that we can improve deli’s air quality, but you know, Marginally. Right, right. But I think marginally, yeah, yeah. Like marginally absolutely. You are going to improve air quality. Is that gonna be the level that, you know, the, the people that are living want it to be? Maybe

Justin Brady: well

Martin Gross: but it’s, But it’s it’s incrementally getting better For sure.

Justin Brady: because there are a lot of factors there. You obviously can’t control, but theoretically it would have a positive impact.

Martin Gross: It, it’s not even theoretical. It will be a positive impact. Right. It’s just a matter of, you know, is it gonna be at the scale that it, you know, it’s gonna make a real

Justin Brady: Yeah. ba. Right, right. So it’s basically like there is a number, we don’t know what the number is, but there’s a number whether if they put enough of these greenhouses in Delhi or in somewhere that has a pollution problem, that even if industry stays the same, whatever they’re doing over there, the air quality does start to improve. There. There’s some number. It’s just like, yeah, to do the research to figure out what that number it would be, and then track air patterns and weather is, is a whole nother. Caboodle.

Martin Gross: Yeah. So you know that that’s one thing that’s difficult for, for us to, to talk about. It’s like, well, what’s, what’s the impact? How do you think about a ton of CO2? What does that mean to you? What does it mean to us?

Justin Brady: Hard to visualize.

Martin Gross: yeah, so like, the way that we visualize this and obviously our, our, our audience here is largely Iowa, so I’ll use an Iowa example here. So if you look at our pipeline of projects that we’re developing right now. Um, and if we are successful on all of these projects, first of all, it’s hundreds of millions of dollars in opportunity for selling our equipment, which is great, but if you think about it from a carbon footprint, impact, those, those projects in our pipeline, if they converted the amount of carbon dioxide that we would be offsetting every year is equal to the entire state of Iowa covered in forest. So if you took the state of Iowa, a desert, covered it with forest, that’s how much we’re doing with the pipeline of projects that we have right now. So think about that. That’s that’s huge impact on greenhouse gas emissions for sure.

Justin Brady: Yeah, because algae is just that much more efficient

Martin Gross: So much

Justin Brady: CO2 removal. Goodness gracious. So like the technology, and I’m gonna butcher it completely, but the technology is essentially vertical treadmills that dip a little bit into water, and you’ve created these ideal conditions to grow algae. That algae extracts phosphorus and nitrogen. It also eats CO2 for breakfast. It eats a

Martin Gross: And lunch and

Justin Brady: And lunch and

Martin Gross: through the night. Yeah.

Justin Brady: and midnight

Martin Gross: Yeah. Yeah.

Justin Brady: Um, that’s great. Um, so a lot of people hear that and they kind of think this is a big problem you guys are tackling.

Martin Gross: Mm-hmm.

Justin Brady: global CO2 emissions, phosphorus and nitrogen in the water, cleaning the water. How, how does that scale? That sounds like, it’s like, well, we’re gonna, we’re gonna put this treadmill and there’s a, there’s a mouse that runs on a wheel and it’s gonna rotate this thing slowly and in a couple hundred years we’re gonna pull out a half a ton of CO2. You know, that’s kind of what it sounds like. So how is something like this, this, technology. Well, I guess I should ask, is this technology really scalable to that degree and how

Martin Gross: Yeah, so probably attack that in a couple different answers. Right? So, so first of all, like if you look at our equipment, we, we designed it to be modular. So think of like, it’s like Lego blocks, you know? So some of our projects need one module to achieve the treatment target others need. 30 modules to achieve a treatment target. Those modules are all the same. It’s that same Lego block, so you’re just adding the same piece of equipment over and over again to, to achieve the treatment goals that you’re after. And when I say treatment goals, I’m really talking about how much nitrogen and phosphorus does that client need removed. A client’s, you know, a customer, whether it’s a municipality or industry, is only gonna size their wastewater treatment system to meet a regulation. What’s the regulation? How do you need to remove a thousand pounds of nitrogen today? Maybe you need 13 of our modules, if you’re gonna remove that much.

Justin Brady: That’s it.

Martin Gross: Well, these modules are also, they’re roughly 20 feet wide, 20 feet tall, and a hundred feet long. Okay.

Justin Brady: not that big if you’re moving. How much you, that seems like that seems like these things scale quickly.

Martin Gross: They can scale, but it’s all driven by what’s the regulation. So, so really, you know, the greenhouse gas offset, the algae production, that’s all, that’s all realized because people need, or these companies and, and cities need nitrogen phosphorus removal. It’s driven by the regulation. Some regulations are more lenient, some regulations are more strict, and that’s what drives the adoption of, of our technology. But with regards to like, does it scale to commercial scale? We’ve been selling commercial systems for over five years now. Like it’s, it’s scaled. It’s just a matter of how many you need for a certain site,

Justin Brady: So do these things right now, it sounds like you have these things in contained, uh, units. Uh, like I’m, I don’t know if there are a dozen conveyor belts in one greenhouse or if it’s 24 of these things, or.

Martin Gross: 10. These belts per

Justin Brady: They’re huge. Yeah. Yeah. Um, do these things scale on the side of buildings then? Like, are we gonna eventually see these in, on the side of skyscrapers in Des Moines or even Chicago and these, some of these places that really do need, like you mentioned, cities kind of need this stuff. So do we start to see you distribute this more evenly into cities and working them into the landscape?

Martin Gross: So where, where we fit is at the wastewater plant. So there’s there’s other treatment required before it gets to our system. So we really need to be located at the wastewater plant. So the reality though, is some wastewater plants have a lot of space available. Other space, other wastewater plants had no space available. So we did a project in Singapore a few years ago and you know, land is incredibly scarce in, in Singapore, and the last thing they want to do is use their valuable land for wastewater. Well, in that scenario we could fit, but guess what? We had to be on top of a building. But that’s what these people from Singapore do really well is put greenhouses on buildings. So, you know, so it does fit. Um, but it, it is really one of the constraints of our system is you need the land area at your wastewater plant to, to put our system. And if it’s not available, then maybe a different solution’s best for you.

Justin Brady: This is the, the traditional method. I’m not gonna spend too much time on this ’cause I also want to ask about, um, biofuels, but the traditional method of treating wastewater is people dump a bunch of. Chemicals, a sludge raises to the surface, they can scrape that off and they get it mostly good. And then they dump more chemicals to sanitize and they flush it down the river essentially. So, um, in the, that sounds gross, but the traditional wastewater practice is that the water you, you, uh, flush down the river is ideally cleaner than when it came in. I think That’s generally the practice they use. Um, but. The, the, the biomass thing. Now, if I’m wrong on that, correct? Me,

Martin Gross: it is largely correct. Yeah. yeah.

Justin Brady: I’m not a scientist, everybody, that’s why I bring them into the studio. Um, but the scale thing for the biomass and biofuel is also fascinating because I know that, um, you can make jet fuel off this stuff are, again, this is another question, like I think it, uh. A jet, a commercial airliner that we’re most ly familiar with is burning about a gallon of fuel a second, uh, when it takes off. And then of course when it’s, you know, actually cruising is a lot less. But suffice it to say jets are burning a lot of fuel very quickly all around the world. Can you make a dent in that kind of industry and have enough product by, ’cause you, you take the algae off these belts, eventually you repurpose it and sell it as biofuel, fertilizers, other

Martin Gross: Yep.

Justin Brady: Can you make a dent in that market to a degree where it can actually be profitable?

Martin Gross: Yeah, so it’s a great question. Ultimately, that’s where we want to get to as a business, right? So, um, why am I, what’d you call me an algae geek, or, I can’t remember how we kicked this thing off,

Justin Brady: Oh yeah. Captain Al or

Martin Gross: Algae. Yeah. Why, why is Martin Captain Algae? And like, your question actually like is the start of, I guess, captain Algae Martin. Um, so I was, I was getting my undergraduate degree and this is in like 20 2009 or so. And at that time there was a lot of interest. Peak oil, oil prices are high, you know, how are we gonna produce our own energy transportation fuels in the US and all signs pointed towards algae. Algae is a, is a crop, you know, so there’s only how many, how many, so many acres of fertile land to grow soybeans or corn, um, or other crops. But guess what? Algae doesn’t need fertile soil.

Justin Brady: Oh,

Martin Gross: You could grow algae in the middle of the desert, and now in an area where you had no crop that you could grow, now you can grow algae well. So all the oil and gas companies invested heavily in algae to fuels. Well, guess what they found? They found that algae’s expensive to grow and a lot of the, that effort at that point just went by the wayside because oil prices came back down. Now, this doesn’t make sense and this is kinda cyclical issue, but the reality is, is algae can be grown in the middle of the desert. And, you know, that’s not what our business does today. Our business is driven by the value of nitrogen, phosphorus removal, and then the algae is a byproduct that we produce, and it could go to fuel. We have a, we have a partnership with one of the largest, uh, oil and gas companies in the world, taking our algae, developing it, uh, the processing required to make it into fuel. But at the end of the day, we need to treat the water to justify the production of the algae. For now. Exactly. For now. But, but that’s, but the future and what we’re driving to is further improve our costs of producing that algae, you know, so you don’t have to be co-located with this, this wastewater plant.

Justin Brady: Interesting. So in the future there’s an argument for we’re just gonna set up a whole bunch of these things in completely useless or land that people can’t build on. For whatever reason, we’re just gonna eat a whole bunch of CO2 outta the atmosphere. We’re gonna create algae and biofuel and sell it all over the place for fertilizer and jet fuel or

Martin Gross: Absolutely. I mean, that’s, that’s the vision for the future. Price points aren’t there yet, but that’s, that’s what we’re shooting

Justin Brady: So it sounds, the way you describe it, it sounds like it’s a very real possibility that this process, um, is a lot more scalable than corn or soybeans. No, no offense to corn and soybeans are gonna always have their place. It’s just gonna be a diverse option, assuming that the rotating of these treadmill things probably don’t, they probably don’t take that much energy, I would

Martin Gross: no, no, it doesn’t. No, it doesn’t. And, and, and it’s using electricity. It’s not, you know, so what’s finite? It’s, it’s really the amount of biomass, whether it’s corn, soybean, or any of these ag products. The world can only produce so much of those products, right? Only so many acres of farmland can have, can be put into, uh, production.

Justin Brady: Not to mention if you’re putting these in the middle of deserts that are kind of useless space, um, you can put, obviously solar panels be pretty efficient out there and you’re gonna have those pa you know, and obviously solar. Technology’s another thing that we’re looking forward for those costs coming down in the future as well. It’s still a little bit prohibitive. Uh, Martin Gross, the CEO of Gross Wind Technologies. Congrats on the million. Uh, I know it’s gonna make a, maybe a tiny dent,

Martin Gross: yeah, it’s incremental for

Justin Brady: um, we’re really happy that you’re here and we’re, we’re happy that you’re doing this in Iowa. Of course. And, you know, captain Algae, thank you for coming in the studio. What is the best website if people are excited about this, uh, wanna learn more about it? Are you taking investment consideration right now as well? If people have a big check, they wanna write and maybe get a return. Where do people reach out?

Martin Gross: Yeah, well we are raising our series B right now, so we have the lead investor locked in and we’re finishing the, uh, the round out.

Justin Brady: Can you talk about who that is?

Martin Gross: Uh, soon.

Justin Brady: Okay. All right. I tried everybody.

Martin Gross: yeah, yeah, it’ll come out soon. But, uh, you know, these large corporates they control on when, you know, the messaging. I don’t know what that’s

Justin Brady: Yeah. Yeah. Those PR

Martin Gross: yeah,

Justin Brady: Um,

Martin Gross: exactly. yeah, So we are fundraising, so if, yeah, if you’re interested, uh, our website is just algae.com, so A LGA e.com. There’s an info section, so shoot me a note and, uh, we’d be get back to you.

Justin Brady: What’s the series B? Target

Martin Gross: So we’re raising 20 million. and we have, uh, about 14 million. Uh, committed already.

Justin Brady: Committed already. Really all you need to do is is you’ll get that. You’ll get there. You’ll get there in three months. Cool. Um, Martin Gross, CEO of Gross Wind Technologies. Thank you so much for coming on the Iowa Business Podcast.

Martin Gross: having me.