8 Rivers Capital, LLC announced a USD$100 million investment from SK Group, along with the establishment of an 8 Rivers-SK joint venture to focus on decarbonization of Korean and key Asian markets. This investment establishes 8 Rivers as the premier Net Zero solutions company globally for industrial decarbonization, offering innovative solutions that are deployment-ready today and will help drive global decarbonization through 2050. This represents one of the largest single private investments in a carbon capture solutions provider to date, and was announced at S&P Global’s CERA Week by IHS Markit.
SK’s investment will enable 8 Rivers to expand its world-class innovation and execution team and will accelerate the deployment of 8 Rivers’ clean technologies at the pace and scale that customers and governments are now demanding globally. As a leading South Korean industrial and high-tech conglomerate, SK’s technological and engineering capabilities will serve as a force-multiplier for 8 Rivers, while SK will leverage the partnership to deploy clean projects for its domestic and foreign operations.
The 8 Rivers-SK Asia Joint Venture will combine 8 Rivers’ technology with SK’s regional footprint to deploy clean hydrogen and zero-emissions power projects across major energy centers in the Asia-Pacific region —a region that currently emits more carbon each year than the rest of the world combined, and which is central to the world’s economy and Net Zero goals.
“Decarbonizing the global economy is both a multi-trillion-dollar business opportunity and, more importantly, an environmental and social necessity,” said 8 Rivers CEO Cam Hosie. “I can imagine no better partner than the SK Group to accelerate gigaton-scale deployment of 8 Rivers’ clean, net-zero technologies, helping drive economic and social development globally.”
8 Rivers is a world-leading developer of innovative decarbonization technologies which span hydrogen, power, direct air capture, and biomass carbon removal, including invention of the 8RH2 clean hydrogen technology and the paradigm-changing Allam-Fetvedt Cycle power generation system. 8 Rivers is developing marquee zero-emissions projects in the United Kingdom and the United States, with a strong pipeline of global prospects.
“SK looks forward to accelerating the deployment of 8 Rivers’ technologies across the global energy market by combining SK’s domestic and foreign energy infrastructure, business capabilities, and 8 Rivers’ world-class portfolio of clean technologies and projects,” said Young Wook Lee, President, of SK Inc. Materials, “and the launch of our Asian joint venture with 8 Rivers is a key initiative that cements SK’s position as an energy transition leader in the region.”
Also, Lee added that “SK is actively investing in eco-friendly business to achieve a ‘Zero Carbon Footprint,’ and SK is looking forward in order to reduce 200 million tons of CO2 through 2030. This deal with 8 Rivers is also aligned with SK’s goal for SK to be the leader in accomplishing Net Zero and to also lead the global carbon reduction business with 8 Rivers and their innovative carbon capture technology”
SK Group, the second largest conglomerate in South Korea with its largest businesses primarily involved in energy industries, is committed to build sustainable clean energy value chains in Korean and Asian markets. As such, SK Group is a highly attractive strategic capital investor and partner for 8 Rivers’ clean technology portfolio.
In order to accomplish Net Zero by 2050, production of renewable energy and green hydrogen is inevitable, and needs to form part of a comprehensive ‘all-of-the-above’ approach with a broad suite of technologies that account for investment efficiency, space for installment, and supply stability, in order to make global decarbonization a reality.
In reflecting on the importance of the SK partnership, Bill Brown, co-founder and Executive Chairman of 8 Rivers Capital, noted that: “Partnerships are precious. At the simplest level, they are about compatibility of execution, but more importantly, they are about the compatibility of vision. Of all the potential investors that approached 8 Rivers over the last 15 years, SK was the first that fully shared our vision of a whole ESG system. To get to Net Zero, McKinsey has estimated the world needs to spend $25 billion per day for 30 years. No single company today is suited for that scale. SK and 8 Rivers know and understand that we need a new business model that does not trace its existence to any single company today. Instead, that model will be an amalgamation across silos—much like Amazon. Since the expansion of decarbonization technologies including carbon capture is imminent, both 8 Rivers and SK are focusing on the energy system and on the customers, and not on just one technology. That combination is what will allow our two firms to create the premier global net-zero company that will lead the world’s clean technology future.”
