Agora CO2 Redox Battery Wins Global Deeptech Competitions & Has 1 Year ROI
Agora Energy Technologies just won the 2021 Keeling Curve Prize for Capture & Utilization, sharing it with another firm this year. Earlier this year, it won first prize in the Hello Tomorrow global deeptech competition against 5,000 entrants from 128 countries. Agora’s technology is revolutionary, and the awards are well deserved. They picked up the Asian Alibaba Entrepreneur Fund Award in 2020, and the CEO, Christina Gyenge, PhD, is one of three 2021 Fellows in the Cartier Women’s Initiative science and technology global competition as well. As a result, they’ve been talking to global technology firms, and Canadian trade ambassadors for France and Hong Kong among others.
So, what is their award-winning technology, and what’s so great about it? For those interested in the deep electrochemistry, I recommend reading their peer-reviewed paper on their approach, The carbon dioxide redox flow battery: Bifunctional CO2 reduction/formate oxidation electrocatalysis on binary and ternary catalysts published May 31st, 2021 in the Journal of Power Sources (Impact factor: a very respectable 8.87 in 2021), but otherwise, here’s the low down.
Agora’s technology is a redox flow battery. That tech has been around for a while. NASA was working on them in the 1970s. The first one was stood up at the University of New South Wales, Australia in 1984, using the metal vanadium as a core component of its electrolyte. Commercial variants started appearing in the past decade, all using metals as the basis of their electrolytes. Bill Gates has invested in an iron-based one via Breakthrough, and it’s one of the few of his investments in climate solutions I consider to be a decent choice.
Where do redox flow batteries fit? I have an opinion, having gone deep on energy storage over the past few years, including a series on closed-loop, pumped storage hydro and looking at lithium-ion battery futures with a PhD student of Stanford’s Mark Z. Jacobson, as well as talking with Professor Jacobson directly about storage. In my opinion, lithium-ion in its various incarnations will deal with a lot of 4-8 hour demand management and ancillary grid balancing requirements, including some duck-curve issues. Redox flow batteries will compete a bit for same day storage, depending on the technology, and extend out for 1-3 days or even longer up to several weeks. Closed-loop, pumped hydro storage will mostly take over after 2-3 days and extend out to 2-3 week storage. A lot less storage is required than many people assert, but still a great deal of storage is required, and the solutions will overlap. In other words, redox flow batteries will be a big part of a big market.
Lithium-ion batteries are limited to short-term storage because their energy and power attributes scale in lockstep. The more MWh a lithium-ion battery can store, by definition the more MW it supplies. There are some hacks you can do with that, but effectively you get to a point where you don’t need that many MW at a time, so lithium-ion is unwieldy in the system. Great for demand management with the likely 20 TWh of lithium ion batteries in electric vehicles in the US alone by 2050 by my estimation, but that won’t help much for next day or next week storage.
Redox flow batteries dodge this. They use big tanks of chemicals separate from the bits that transform one type of chemical into another, storing the energy, or transforming it back or into something else, releasing the energy. That separates the power and energy attributes of the battery. You can scale up the MWh storage of the battery as much as you want, while maintaining the same MW of electricity capacity. They share that benefit with closed-loop, pumped storage hydro, but without the necessity to put 30-foot diameter tunnels through miles of rock.
Think of it like a car engine and a gas tank. The gas tank is the energy store, and determines how long you can drive for. The engine provides the horsepower, which says how much work you can do. Energy is MWh. Horsepower is MW. Lithium-ion batteries put both in a single package, and to get more energy, you have to add lots of both energy and power, meaning you end up with too much power a lot of the time. But redox flow batteries separate the gas tank and the engine, just like in car. That means you can get as much energy as you need, with only as much power as you need. And because they are stationary, you can make the gas tank as big as you want.
Not All Redox Flow Batteries Are Created Equal
Most of the technologies were patented decades ago. Except for Agora’s, they all use metals, often toxic ones, and usually expensive ones. They have weaknesses in terms of energy density or durability. The metals used for electrolytes and the semi-precious metals used for catalysts make them capital intensive. Many of the technologies have unsolved challenges. They are batteries, and that’s all they are. Many are good, but aren’t amazing. And they are comparatively expensive.
Then there’s Agora’s solution. First, the team.
The co-founders are Christina Gyenge and Elod Gyenge, both PhDs. Christina is CEO and in addition to her chemical engineering PhD has done post-doctoral work at Stanford and multi-disciplinary work across biology and biological systems chemical and energy engineering. Elod is the President of the company and CSO as well as a professor of chemical engineering at UBC. He is a leader in electrochemical engineering research and has been recognized with numerous international awards and honors. Elod has extensive industrial experience and has collaborated with Ballard and Fortune 500 companies on chemical engineering around fuel cells and related technologies. The Director of R&D at Agora is Dr. Pooya Hosseini-Benhangi. Pooya obtained his PhD at UBC in Elod’s group and has also spent time applying electrochemistry to gold mineral processing as a post-doctoral fellow. The core redox flow battery innovations are protected by patents in various stages of finalization in 52 countries, with the Israeli patent just awarded. Several electrochemical and chemical engineers round out the mix.
Christina and Elod started working in this space in 2012. They have three primary innovations that are unique as far as I am aware.
The first is that they are using gaseous CO2 in the charging phase in a hybrid gas-liquid redox flow battery. Reversing it in the closed-loop model produces CO2 again, unpacking the energy. A major advantage of this is that CO2 and the other chemicals are cheap, non-toxic and common, unlike the metal-based electrolytes of vanadium and other metal-based redox batteries. As with many fields, paradigms are hard to dig out of, and batteries being metal-based is one of those tough paradigms. The closed-loop battery model doesn’t consume the CO2, but CO2 is very cheap by the ton, $30-$100, making the economics of this approach better than metal-based batteries, where the metals often cost thousands or tens of thousands of dollars per ton. Their work on CO2 gas diffusion exchange is cutting edge, well ahead of most others, and a massive technical differentiator as well as a strong value add.
The second deep insight is their catalyst. It’s a core part of their intellectual capital that they are protecting for a simple reason. The catalyst is a cheap and common substance, overcoming a different challenge for many other flow batteries and fuel cells, which typically use semi-precious metals such as platinum, which typically range from $30 – $60 per gram. While little of the precious metals is used per cell, when you start multiplying by thousands of cells, it starts to add up quickly.
But the biggest one in my opinion is the open-loop model. A closed-loop model transforms the CO2 from one chemistry to another, and then back. In the open-loop model when the energy is extracted, the CO2-based chemicals are transformed to carbonates or bicarbonates.
Why is that important? Well, there are a few reasons. The first is that carbonates and bicarbonates are big business. My assessment sees a $44 billion annual market for the chemicals that Agora’s tech can produce from waste CO2 and clean electricity. The second is that this displaces the Solvay process. I’ve looked at that industrial process, just as I’ve looked at cement production, and Agora’s approach is so much cleaner it’s painful. The Solvay process produces a net 2.74 tons of CO2 per tons of bicarbonates produced in the 1870s chemical process involving ammonia, heating with natural gas, and cooling in different steps. Every box of baking soda you’ve ever bought comes with an invisible 3 boxes of CO2 by mass, in other words. More on this in the next article.
In Agora’s process, lower-cost renewably generated electricity flows in at night or other times of day when it happens to be cheap, the process runs at room temperature, and no ammonia is involved. You could put Agora’s tech in a light-industrial building downtown and no one would notice. The third is that it consumes waste CO2, instead of producing a lot of CO2 as the Solvay process does. This is one of the few carbon usage models that makes fiscal and technical sense, and fits as an industrial component of the future. I know, I’ve spent a lot of time assessing carbon capture and industrial processes’ CO2 footprints.
Lazard unsubsidized levelized cost of storage with Agora’s technology annotated
But it’s the combination that’s key. It’s a battery. Shove renewable electricity into it, and get clean electricity back. Lots of tech does that. However, Agora’s tech has excellent energy density, and great durability too. It can store a lot of electricity for the mass and cycle it a lot of times. Using CO2 instead of metals makes it a lot cheaper. And their catalyst being cheap due to the chemistry makes it even cheaper.
Relative ROI for different battery technologies by author
Those basic factors make it cheaper than most other forms of storage automatically. Cheaper to build. Cheaper to operate. Lower cost storage. Agora has done four fiscal case studies with LafargeHolcim for the technology applied to wind energy grid balancing and an integrated low-carbon cement plant of the future, so the numbers have been scrubbed backward and forward.
And the kicker is the carbonate and bicarbonate production. It consumes waste CO2. It produces useful chemicals. Bicarbonates are in lots of things. Food. Toothpaste. Antacids. And they are worth from $200 – $600 per ton, depending on the chemistry and the purity. Imagine a battery that lasts a long time, eats CO2, and produces useful industrial chemicals. It’s a trifecta.
Chart of relative carbon neutrality of different battery technologies chart by author
These battery technology comparison charts are early and indicative, not late, based on rock solid numbers, or seriously reviewed. I pulled them together based on discussions, but they haven’t been validated. My gut tells me that they are close to right in terms of scale, but there’s more work to do on them. And more variants of these assessments to produce. No wonder Hello Tomorrow, the Keeling Curve Prize Team and the Cartier’s Womens Initiative picked Agora. I saw this 20 months ago. The Agora team saw this close to a decade ago.
Their solution isn’t a thornless bed of roses, of course.
The CO2 is transformed into an acid on the way through the process into the storage medium, so that requires care in handling. The set of chemicals include bromine variants. While bromine is an essential trace element in human biology, as with dihydrogen monoxide too much is lethal. The toxicity of the bromine is a concern that must be managed. Other alternatives are less efficient.
Technology readiness levels courtesy NASA
They are at lab efficiency levels right now. While projections indicate that they will get over 80% in terms of round-trip storage, this hasn’t been demonstrated. They are at the MVP stage or technology level four, and need to build a scaled prototype. That’s going to take 2-3 years, and another few million dollars.
They aren’t a manufacturing and distribution firm or a chemical commodity firm, but a technical innovation firm. They need a global manufacturing partner and a chemical commodity partner. Firms like that have been knocking on their door a lot in the past couple of years, and a lot more with the various prizes this year.
Agora’s CO2-based redox flow batteries will be a core technology assisting us to bend the Keeling Curve back down. Hello Tomorrow indeed.
Full disclosure. I have a professional relationship with Agora as a strategic advisor and Board observer. I did an initial strategy session with Agora about their redox flow battery technology in late 2019 and was blown away by what they had in hand, and my formal role with the firm started at the beginning of 2021. I commit to being as objective and honest as always, but be aware of my affiliation.
The Honda Ruckus has earned cult status thanks to its minimalist styling, exposed frame, and seemingly endless customizability. The scooter, also known in international markets as the Honda Zoomer, has spent years being seen as a blank canvas for scooter tuners, urban commuters, and anyone who just wanted something simple, small, and kind of weird to zip around town. A few years ago, Honda finally answered the call for an updated version by announcing and producing the “Zoomer e:”, which was an electric version of the Honda Ruckus. So where is it?
When Honda launched the all-electric version of the Ruckus, the Zoomer e:, back in 2023, many fans hoped it was only a matter of time before we saw it quietly glide onto U.S. streets.
But two years later, there’s still no sign of a stateside release, and no indication that Honda plans to change that anytime soon.
The Zoomer e: was first introduced in China in early 2023 alongside two other retro-inspired electrics: the Cub e: and Dax e:.
The Zoomer e: keeps the stripped-down, industrial look of the classic gas-powered Ruckus, but swaps the 49cc engine for a 400W rear hub motor and a 48V 24Ah battery (around 1.15 kWh).
It was originally given a top speed of a mere 25 km/h (15.5 mph) to keep it street legal as an electric bicycle in its first market of China, where it also came with functional but stubby pedals so riders could pretend it was actually pedalable.
The first version of the electric scooter claimed a range of up to 80–90 km (50–56 miles) from its removable lithium-ion battery, depending on conditions.
We’ve since seen the performance bumped up to 40 km/h (25 mph) top speeds when the scooter was introduced into the Philippines market, where the local L1B classification allowed for higher speeds. It’s fairly obvious that the performance can be software-tweaked by Honda depending on the market, though likely to a limit. To achieve speeds much higher than 25 mph, a motor and controller swap may be required, though neither would be complicated.
In other words, the electric Ruckus’ debut revealed an ultra-lightweight, street-legal runabout designed for countries with expansive low-speed e-bike laws. But in the U.S., these types of quasi-e-bikes that are actually scooters are few and far between. The same performance can be had from a $1,000 electric bicycle, and in fact, Class 3 e-bikes in the US can go nearly twice as fast as the original electric Ruckus.
So Honda obviously hasn’t been in a rush to bring its low-spec version of the bike to the US market, where it would be a slower and heavier competitor to the wide range of cheap imported electric bicycles. However, its iconic design and cultural legacy have kept enthusiasm up for riders who have managed to privately import their own models. One Redditor appears to have imported two Honda Zoomer e: models in parts to assemble in the US, while someone else posted a YouTube video of his completely assembled Honda Dax e: model that was launched along the Zoomer e:.
Despite clear consumer interest and a growing market for low-speed electric vehicles, as well as Honda’s own proven interest in growing its electric scooter market, the company hasn’t made any moves to release the Zoomer e: in the US. That’s not surprising since America still lacks a robust electric scooter culture (or even a gasoline scooter culture, for that matter), and anything motorcycle-shaped that doesn’t hit 30+ mph tends to get passed over by mainstream buyers.
But perhaps that could change one day. Technically, bringing the Zoomer e: to the US wouldn’t be a monumental task for Honda. The U.S. is a self-certify country, meaning Honda could design a version that meets federal vehicle safety standards, beef up the motor and controller for higher speeds, and sell it as either a Class 2/3 e-bike, or perhaps more appropriately, as a low-speed motorcycle with a top speed in the 35-45 mph range (55-70 km/h).
With the rise of micromobility, electrification, and growing frustration with car-centric cities, now might actually be the perfect time for a reborn electric Ruckus to hit US roads. But until Honda decides to take that step, American riders will have to keep dreaming – or start importing.
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BMW Motorrad’s futuristic electric scooter just got its first real refresh since beginning production in 2021. The BMW CE 04, already one of the most capable and stylish electric maxi-scooters on the market, now gets a set of upgraded trim options, new aesthetic touches, and a more robust list of features that aim to make this urban commuter even more appealing to riders looking for serious electric performance on two wheels.
The BMW CE 04 has always stood out for its sci-fi styling and high-performance drivetrain. It’s built on a mid-mounted liquid-cooled motor that puts out 31 kW (42 hp) and 62 Nm of torque. That’s enough to rocket the scooter from 0 to 50 km/h (31 mph) in just 2.6 seconds – quite fast for anything with a step-through frame.
The top speed is electronically limited to 120 km/h (75 mph), making it perfectly capable for city riding and fast enough to hold its own on highway stretches. Range is rated at 130 km (81 miles) on the WMTC cycle, thanks to the 8.9 kWh battery pack tucked low in the frame.
But while the core performance hasn’t changed, BMW’s 2025 update focuses on refining the package and giving riders more options to tailor the scooter to their taste. The new CE 04 is available in three trims: Basic, Avantgarde, and Exclusive.
The Basic trim keeps things clean and classic with a Lightwhite paint scheme and a clear windshield. It’s subtle, sleek, and very much in line with the CE 04’s clean-lined aesthetic. The Avantgarde model adds a splash of color with a Gravity Blue main body and bright São Paulo Yellow accents, along with a dark windshield and a laser-engraved rim. The top-shelf Exclusive trim is where things get fancy, with a premium Spacesilver metallic paint job, upgraded wind protection, heated grips, a luxury embroidered seat, and its own unique engraved rim treatment.
There are also a few new tech upgrades baked into the options list. Riders can now spec a 6.9 kW quick charger that reduces the 0–80% charge time to just 45 minutes (down from nearly 4 hours with the standard 2.3 kW onboard charger). Tire pressure monitoring, a center stand, and BMW’s “Headlight Pro” adaptive lighting system are also available as add-ons, along with an emergency eCall system and Dynamic Traction Control.
BMW has kept the core riding components in place: a steel-tube chassis, 15-inch wheels, Bosch ABS (with optional ABS Pro), and the impressive 10.25” TFT display with integrated navigation and smartphone connectivity. The under-seat storage still swallows a full-face helmet, and the long, low frame design means the scooter looks like something out of Blade Runner but rides like a luxury commuter.
With these updates, BMW seems to be further cementing the CE 04’s role at the high end of the electric scooter market. It’s not cheap, starting around €12,000 in Europe and around US $12,500 in the US, with prices going up from there depending on configuration. However, the maxi-scooter delivers real motorcycle-grade performance in a package that’s easier to live with for daily riders.
Electrek’s Take
I believe that the CE 04’s biggest strength has always been that it’s not trying to be a toy or a gimmick. It’s a real vehicle. Sure, it’s futuristic and funky looking, but it delivers on its promises. And in a market that’s still surprisingly sparse when it comes to premium electric scooters, BMW has had the lane mostly to itself. That may not last forever, though. LiveWire, Harley-Davidson’s electric spin-off brand, has teased plans for a maxi-scooter-style urban electric vehicle in the coming years, but as of now, it remains something of an undefined future plan.
Meanwhile, BMW is delivering not just a concept bike but a mature, well-equipped, and ready-to-ride electric scooter that keeps improving. For riders who want something faster and more capable than a Class 3 e-bike but aren’t ready to jump to a full-size electric motorcycle, the CE 04 hits a sweet spot. It delivers the performance and capability of a commuter e-motorcycle, yet with the approachability of a scooter. And with these new trims and upgrades, it’s doing it with even more style.
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If you’ve ever wondered what happens when you combine a fruit cart, a cargo bike, and a Piaggio Ape all in one vehicle, now you’ve got your answer. I submit, for your approval, this week’s feature for the Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week column – and it’s a beautiful doozie.
Feast your eyes on this salad slinging, coleslaw cruising, tuber taxiing produce chariot!
I think this electric vegetable trike might finally scratch the itch long felt by many of my readers. It seems every time I cover an electric trike, even the really cool ones, I always get commenters poo-poo-ing it for having two wheels in the rear instead of two wheels in the front. Well, here you go, folks!
Designed with two front wheels for maximum stability, this trike keeps your cucumbers in check through every corner. Because trust me, you don’t want to hit a pothole and suddenly be juggling peaches like you’re in Cirque du Soleil: Farmers Market Edition.
To avoid the extra cost of designing a linked steering system for a pair of front wheels, the engineers who brought this salad shuttle to life simply side-stepped that complexity altogether by steering the entire fixed front end. I’ve got articulating electric tractors that steer like this, and so if it works for a several-ton work machine, it should work for a couple hundred pounds of cargo bike.
Featuring a giant cargo bed up front with four cascading fruit baskets set up for roadside sales, this cargo bike is something of a blank slate. Sure, you could monetize grandma’s vegetable garden, or you could fill it with your own ideas and concoctions. Our exceedingly talented graphics wizard sees it as the perfect coffee and pastry e-bike for my new startup, The Handlebarista, and I’m not one to argue. Basically, the sky is the limit with a blank slate bike like this!
Sure, the quality doesn’t quite match something like a fancy Tern cargo bike. The rim brakes aren’t exactly confidence-inspiring, but at least there are three of them. And if they should all give out, or just not quite slow you down enough to avoid that quickly approaching brick wall, then at least you’ve got a couple hundred pounds of tomatoes as a tasty crumple zone.
The electrical system does seem a bit underpowered. With a 36V battery and a 250W motor, I don’t know if one-third of a horsepower is enough to haul a full load to the local farmer’s market. But I guess if the weight is a bit much for the little motor, you could always do some snacking along the way. On the other hand, all the pictures seem to show a non-electric version. So if this cart is presumably mobile on pedal power alone, then that extra motor assist, however small, is going to feel like a very welcome guest.
The $950 price is presumably for the electric version, since that’s what’s in the title of the listing, though I wouldn’t get too excited just yet. I’ve bought a LOT of stuff on Alibaba, including many electric vehicles, and the too-good-to-be-true price is always exactly that. In my experience, you can multiply the Alibaba price by 3-4x to get the actual landed price for things like these. Even so, $3,000-$4,000 wouldn’t be a terrible price, considering a lot of electric trikes stateside already cost that much and don’t even come with a quad-set of vegetable baskets on board!
I should also put my normal caveat in here about not actually buying one of these. Please, please don’t try to buy one of these awesome cargo e-trikes. This is a silly, tongue-in-cheek weekend column where I scour the ever-entertaining underbelly of China’s massive e-commerce site Alibaba in search of fun, quirky, and just plain awesomely weird electric vehicles. While I’ve successfully bought several fun things on the platform, I’ve also gotten scammed more than once, so this is not for the timid or the tight-budgeted among us.
That isn’t to say that some of my more stubborn readers haven’t followed in my footsteps before, ignoring my advice and setting out on their own wild journey. But please don’t be the one who risks it all and gets nothing in return. Don’t say I didn’t warn you; this is the warning.
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