The Energy Test Framework

A climate tech idea that needs more energy than it saves? That’s not innovation. That’s a waste.

During a recent advisory project on the hydrogen economy, one question kept bugging me: Where is all the clean energy supposed to come from? And at less than 1.5 cents per kWh?

Then I revisited Michael Liebreich’s writings on hydrogen, and it clicked. Instead of burning gigawatts of clean power to make hydrogen, why not just use that same energy to push coal out of the system?

Seems obvious, right?

This week, while digging into the Climeworks saga and the DAC sector, another piece fell into place.

There’s a blind spot in climate tech investing: input energy and its opportunity cost.

I am specifically focusing on investing, not startups - they’re supposed to test the wild ideas. But for investors, failing to vet energy inputs is inexcusable.

Look at where we are today: DAC, hydrogen, SAF—all on shaky ground. Not always because of bad science or bad engineering, but because we forgot the basics. How much clean energy do you need - and what else could that energy be doing?

So I’m adding another checkpoint to my FOAK strategic planning framework - The Energy Test Framework:

🔹 Estimate total energy inputs at scale

🔹 Model worst-case scenario

🔹 Ask: Could this clean power displace coal instead? And would the CO2 savings be greater?

🔹 If yes, maybe your tech isn’t the best use of clean energy

It’s simple. But it’s missed far too often.

Before we back the next DAC or hydrogen moonshot, let’s be clear-eyed about what the energy math tells us.

We don’t have time or clean terawatt-hours to waste.