Courtesy of Brad Carl.
When mechanical engineering Professor Todd Bandhauer walked into Colorado State University’s Powerhouse Energy Campus for the first time, he smelled diesel fuel, heard pipe wrenches on metal and saw welding sparks pop against concrete floors.
“I knew that was where I wanted to be,” Bandhauer said.
Thirteen years later, that has become the backdrop for work that landed him on the TIME100 Climate list, a recognition he described as “unexpected” but rooted in a team effort that spans CSU labs, a Fort Collins startup and an overlooked climate problem hidden in plain sight: steam.
Bandhauer is the chief technology officer and co-founder of AtmosZero, an American boiler-manufacturing startup. The company spun out of Bandhauer’s research at CSU, during which he’s spent more than a decade studying thermal energy systems with the mission to electrify industrial steam.
“Steam, it’s about 8% of all the world’s energy consumption, burning fuels to make steam for industry,” Bandhauer said. “We’re talking on the same order of magnitude of driving cars and flying planes.”
According to data compiled by AtmosZero using International Energy Agency and Renewable Thermal Collaborative reports, industrial heat comprises about 20% of global energy use, with steam generation alone accounting for roughly 8% of that total — almost all of it still produced by burning fossil fuels.
Most people recognize heat pumps as the system that warm homes in the winter. AtmosZero’s system works the same way, only on a much larger scale.
“We have built and are manufacturing a super powerful heat pump,” Bandhauer said. “We take heat from the air and we use electricity in that heat pump, and we generate steam.”
A traditional electric-resistance boiler turns one unit of electricity into one unit of heat. AtmosZero halves that, resulting in the most affordable electrified boiler solution currently available for the industry.
“Work very hard on something that’s impactful. And do something for real. Don’t just make a PowerPoint presentation and try to get rich. The point is to do something for real and develop a core expertise.” -Todd Bandhauer, CSU mechanical engineering professor
The unit is designed as a drop-in replacement for the fossil fuel boilers found at larger sites. At New Belgium Brewing in Fort Collins, which was AtmosZero’s first pilot site, the installation was incredibly simple.
Interest and demand have “skyrocketed,” Bandhauer added, with inbound requests now coming from across North America, Europe and Asia.
The technology behind the system traces back nearly a decade to Bandhauer’s research group at the Powerhouse Energy Campus’s REACH CoLab. The facility, once Fort Collins’ power plant, now serves as an industrial research hub. It’s where AtmosZero built and de-risked their first prototype, and it’s where many of Bandhauer’s students received the training that later brought them into the company.
“A quarter of AtmosZero is former students of mine,” Bandhauer said. “The best students are the ones that teach me things.”
Bandhauer emphasized the team atmosphere the company has developed.
“I’m the CTO, but I can’t actually physically put compressors together,” Bandhauer said. “I can’t physically connect all the electrical wires and the heat exchangers together. We need people who are highly skilled. … It’s my job to organize that and to drive that towards a common goal. So it’s exciting to have these students that now they’re way better than me at doing things.”
“Impact,” Bandhauer said, is what keeps him motivated. He can walk 10 minutes to the New Belgium pilot site where the company’s heat pump produces “clean steam” that replaces gas-fired boiler use. Seeing that real-world change, he said, makes the work feel tangible.
“They want to see the physical impact,” Bandhauer said. “And this is why I became a mechanical engineer.”
The biggest challenge now is cost-effective scaling: designing a system that’s efficient, durable, manufacturable and easy to install.
“It’s not a simple thing to do,” Bandhauer said. “But … that integration and basically operating everything in synergy is the foundation of our company.”
For people outside of the industrial world, steam can feel distant. But it’s not.
“So why should they care?” Bandhauer said. “Because steam, it’s used everywhere, including heating all the buildings on campus.”
This universality is partly why TIME took notice. Electrifying steam doesn’t just tackle emissions; it changes something very fundamental about how industry operates.
Bandhauer didn’t seek out awards. He said he spent his time “grinding away” with students, building hardware in that diesel-scented lab. He offered advice to students interested in climate and energy.
“Work very hard on something that’s impactful,” Bandhauer said. “And do something for real. Don’t just make a PowerPoint presentation and try to get rich. The point is to do something for real and develop a core expertise.”
He also emphasized sacrifice and patience.
“Make … friends with people who are competent, want to work hard and are mission-driven and have the right expertise,” Bandhauer said. “Develop that expertise so that you can be a good, valuable team member. It’s so critical. And just be patient. It takes a long time to develop your craft and do something authentic. I’d say that would be the most important thing that I would encourage: Work hard when nobody’s looking.”
Reach Maci Lesh at science@collegian.com or on social media @RMCollegian.