Emin Askerov
Cleantech FOAK Advisor

“Things that people assume are going to be easier are often way harder than they think.” If there was one quote about #FOAK, this would probably be it. And it doesn’t matter what you are building - an #SMR or a FOAK chemical plant. The assumptions you make about some steps being easy always come back and kick your ass. The quote comes from Kairos Power CEO Mike Laufer, in a podcast episode of The Green Blueprint. Mike and his team are currently building Hermes-2 - a 50 MW SMR

A downloadable 5-step framework for finding clients for your FOAK startup

Your FOAK supply chain doesn’t start when you place the first order — it starts when you design your pilot. Miss that moment, and delays, overruns, and “unavailable parts” will follow. In my new post, I go through five steps to build your supply chain before your FOAK becomes real.

Alternative business model for a battery factory

The humble transformer is at the heart of the electric grid. And for decades, it’s been a tailor-made marvel. Engineers loved the craft, utilities loved the high price that they passed on to consumers, and factories loved having “just the right” unit. But times changed, and the transformer industry didn’t. Until now. Meet One Power, a U.S. company taking the most boring, glacial, and conservative part of the grid… and flipping it on its head. Not by reinventing the tech, but

My full breakdown is now live: What’s working, what’s missing, and what scaleups, especially in cleantech and manufacturing, can do today without waiting for Brussels.

Would you consider using second-hand equipment for your pilot/demo/FOAK?

How to transform from project to product.

They IPO’d before raising VC. Here’s why that was genius. ATOME Energy didn’t follow the usual startup playbook. No pre-seed. No seed. No “100-slide deck for Sand Hill Road.” Instead, they went public. Early. That’s not just bold - it’s strategic. 💡 Why? Because in capital-intensive, FOAK-scale cleantech, your biggest bottleneck isn’t idea validation. It’s credibility. To secure $400M in project finance, off-take agreements, and long-term power deals in emerging markets… You

Off-takes are the holy grail of climatetech FOAKs. Conditional off-takes are the norm. Is there another way?

Don’t play with the government. That’s a rule my father taught me. He built his business in the 90s and early 2000s in Russia. He knew first hand that the government will screw you over faster than your private sector partner and in worse ways. For a long time, I thought that this rule applied only to authoritarian states like Russia, where the law is weak. The current passing of the “Big Beautiful Bill” in the US now shows that it is true for the West as well. The Inflation

Hear Olivier Mussat, the CEO and founder of ATOME, about the role of fertilizers.

Airbus just quietly moved the launch of its hydrogen-powered plane from 2035 to 2045. In corporate speak, that’s not a delay—it’s a polite way of pulling the plug without admitting failure. After €1.7B spent, even Airbus is starting to realize that hydrogen aviation may be a science project, not a business. I called this a year ago, when Universal Hydrogen filed for bankruptcy after burning through $100M. That was a 20-minute or $100M crash course in hydrogen physics. Airbus

Your First-of-a-Kind (FOAK) project is where your climate tech startup is a startup no more. Investors, customers, and even your own team won’t fully believe in your technology until they see it in action at scale. So, how do you get it right? 𝟭. 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗨𝗻𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗱 Murphy’s Law is real. FOAK projects never go as planned - delays, supplier failures, site issues, regulatory holdups. How do you prepare? • Use real-world data: Look at similar completed proj

A Pilot is your first real-world test—where you prove that your technology works outside the lab.

A 3-step framework for scaling-up to FOAK

De-icing a frozen water tower in the middle of nowhere is not on anyone’s job description. However, this is a reality that you can come up against when you are scaling up your climate tech and building your FOAK.  Most climate podcasts focus on finance, policy, or shiny new tech. But real stories of scaling climate hardware? Rare. That’s why The Green Blueprint episode, “𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱’𝘀 𝗕𝗶𝗴𝗴𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗗𝗔𝗖 𝗙𝗮𝗰𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆,” caught my attention. Host L

The best guide so far on scaling up climate tech from Breakthrough Energy Catalyst

𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗺𝘂𝗰𝗵 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘀𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗿𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗶𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲?

Main FOAK risks