Turning Wastewater Into Fertilizer: David Gory on Algae, Farmers, and the Water Problem AI Is Making Worse

Regardless of how many robotics and space and AI companies we have, the people who are running those still need to eat and drink water. Amazon was, they had their data center, they were taking water from the aquifer, using evaporative cooling, and sending the rest of the water down to the lagoon. The state had a process where they take the lagoon water and give it to the farmers for them to utilize to grow their crops, not knowing that the data center's concentrated effluents was polluting that water. So the farmers used that and a bunch of people got cancer. Amazon lost a 20 million dollar lawsuit. They were joined by David Gordy, founder and CEO of Airbnb and the Forbes 30 under 30 honoree, whose startup uses microalgae to treat wastewater and generate energy at the same time. David's path started in Nigeria, where he grew up relying on well water because the natural sources around him were too polluted to trust. An experience he carried with him when he immigrated to the United States at the age of 16. This episode will dig into how the technology actually works, what sets it apart from other approaches in this space, and why data centers, the engines behind AI, running into serious trouble over water usage. This is Bay Area Innovators and I'm your host, Steve Esposito. David, welcome to Bay Area Innovators. Thank you. I'm glad to have you here. You're in Portland, Oregon, which is at least on our same side of the coast here. So you have a company called AirBuilt. You're a co-founder, you started it, you've been involved with it, it's your baby. Tell us about what your company does. What's the main thing that it does? Of course. So AirBuilt is turning wastewater treatment plants into fertilizer microfactories. We recover the pollutants from wastewater, specifically the excess nutrients in nitrogen and phosphorus, and we embed that into a product that farmers currently purchase as fertilizer. Got it. Now, is that something common? Are you the only one doing it or there's other companies doing it? How unique is this process? There are a lot of companies that are doing this because fertilizer is very much needed for agriculture and we need food for survival. And there are companies that are doing this in a variety of ways. We are just one process that's tackling both. Walk us a bit about the steps you're going to accomplish this. You have something called biopods, right? Tell us how it actually works. We have our proprietary solution, which is the biopod. It's an off-grid, autonomous greenhouse that houses microalgae and a consortium of bacteria. And those are the weapons that we utilize for the nutrient recovery. So we deploy that next to polluted beds of water, polluted rivers, polluted lakes, municipal sewer lagoons, industrial sewer lagoons, data centers, large agricultural farms, food and beverage processing plants. We take their wastewater, send it through our system where the microalgae and bacteria recovers the nutrients with third party verified 89% efficiency. We then send the treated water off for further processing before it can either be discharged, reused by the facility or sent to the farmers for irrigation. What comes out of our process is the algae biomass itself, which is carbon and nutrient rich. We then mix that with local organic waste, run that through a pyrolysis system. And what comes out is our algae infused biochar, which has higher nutrient contents than your traditional char, while also storing carbon for over a thousand years. How is your company different than something like Climeworks, which I guess has a similar kind of a goal in mind, right? To reduce the pollution? Yeah. So when you look at companies like Climeworks, Heirloom, and those that are operating in the direct air capture space, they are currently taking an electrochemical process. So they have large fans that blow ambient air in. They have filters or scrubbers. It can be chemical or mechanical that separates the carbon from the other particulate matter in the air. They have an exhaust that blows that out and the carbon is stored either in limestone or stored underground through some of their own proprietary processes. Our system is more biomechanical. We chose to take out all the complexities to reduce the operational expense. So we utilize nature. What typically happens today is we have algae that's growing everywhere. If you have a pool, you have algae that's growing. And the algae growing there is growing because of the access to nutrients as well as the sun. And just like a plant, it's breathing in carbon and releasing oxygen. It's actually stated that biomass is responsible for 50% of the carbon capture on the planet as we know it today. So what we are doing is scaling this low-cost approach in a biomechanical solution. So that's really how we differ from the direct air capture folks of the world. Their solution is very much needed, but there is a huge space for ours because ours is cheaper to deploy, cheaper to operate. Like I said, we're fully off-grid so we do not tap into grid energy. And then we also have the co-benefits of water and the co-benefits of fertilizer. We can also be decentralized and embedded into cities to improve the air quality in those cities. We're seeing what's going on with the wildfires right now and how that's impacting air quality in certain places. We're also seeing droughts like the Great Salt Lake drying up and how that's releasing asbestos that's messing up the air quality. Our solution can be deployed in cities to improve the air quality in that environment. So that's how we differ. So you have more of a natural solution versus more of an artificial solution in some way. Now you said the other ones like Climeworks is also needed. Why is that? If your approach would be scaled by a lot, why wouldn't that work versus their approach that Climeworks has? Simply because it's not a one-size-fits-all. The planet is very hot right now. We're seeing more wildfires. We're seeing higher highs and lower lows. We need to aggressively reduce the temperature. So we need multiple solutions that are being deployed in a variety of different ways, in a variety of different places to truly cool down the planet. Now you mentioned these other companies get huge amounts of funding in billions of dollars. How do you get your funding and how are you making income? What is your model, your financial model for sustaining this? So we are pre-revenue right now. We are still in the demonstration phase of our solution. We've been able to demonstrate the biopod in Green River, Utah. We took water from the river, treated the water, sent it back. Last month we started taking water from the actual municipal lagoon. So really, poop water. And we've treated that water, third-party verified, we're sending the water out, we've made our fertilizer. So we're still in the early stages of our solution. And some of those solutions that have raised, you know, centimillions and billions of dollars are more proven. And that's where we're hoping to get to. Right now, we raised our pre-seed round and we're currently raising our next round of funding to continue fine-tuning our solution to get to that commercial readiness that's needed for scale. Do you expect to have a part of your revenue come from the fertilizer that's going to be given to farmers? Yes. So we have three revenue streams that we're operating with right now and a fourth that's in the works. So we sell this solution, we sell the biopods to cities, to industries, to data centers for their compliance, because they have to be compliant with the new trend standards. The EPA has passed down laws tightening new trend standards. The San Francisco Bay Area has released about $6 billion for nutrient reduction in wastewater facilities before the water is discharged to the Bay. Where, you know, they're seeing that toxic algae blooms that are in Lake Erie, the toxic algae blooms that are in Lake Mead, and they don't want that in the Bay, which is very smart. So they are tightening the new trend discharge laws so that these facilities can discharge less and less. And to discharge less and less, you need to recover them or destroy them. So that's where our solution comes in. We sell it to industries, we sell it to cities for their compliance. We then step in under an O&M model, so operation and maintenance, to operate and maintain these facilities. And if we keep these facilities running, every year we're making fertilizer, we're capturing carbon and locking it for thousands of years, verified with isometric. So that's recurring revenue that comes that can either be profit shared or we could have a subscription model where we get paid to run the facility by our other customer. On the other side, there is a push right now for recycled water. We're seeing droughts, we're seeing the Colorado Basin drying up, and that's where a bunch of rely on for water. Arizona, California, Nevada, you know. So now we're seeing that push for industries that are saying, you know what, can you treat your tertiary water? Can you treat your wastewater and give that to us? And we would then utilize that for our own industrial use. So that's the fourth revenue stream that we're working on right now, that's still very early. But states like California have already passed laws about recycled water due to the fact that we're always in droughts. Now, you grew up in Nigeria. You came here when you were 16. Tell us a bit about what motivates you to do this work. I mean, clearly Nigeria, the water quality is probably not very good, right? Yes, that was a part of it. There were phases in my life where we had to drink water from wells because our natural water sources were polluted, and I'm talking still wells. And that kind of shaped me as a young kid. I came to the U.S. at 16 for college, got my undergrad in mechanical engineering, my first master's as an MBA, and my second master's degree in cybersecurity. So having all that knowledge and that experience kind of shaped who I am now and my motivation to solve this problem globally. Now, why did you leave Nigeria for college? But tell us more about what it's like over there. Was it difficult to leave? How is life in Nigeria? It was beautiful. Nigeria is very tropical. I am an only child, and my parents happily sent me away. So that in itself should give you a glowing recommendation. But my cousin was in Cleveland. She was working in Cleveland at the time. Her husband was doing his residency in Cleveland Clinic. And my parents just wanted the best for their kid. They wanted the best quality education they could possibly get. I decided I wanted to be in the sciences, and they wanted me to be the best engineer I could possibly be. And it made sense to send me here for studies. Now, you've also been named Forbes 30, Under 30. Tell us about that. Tell us what that means to you in your work and in your personal life. I mean, it is incredible. If anybody had told me when I was still running around in Nigeria that I would be honored with that accolade and that feather in my hat, I would have said, you're lying. It's something that I did not see coming. I am very grateful to the Forbes team for the selection team that selected me. I'm grateful to the people who nominated me for it. The work we're doing is very impactful. 2.4 billion people lack access to clean water, and it's not getting better. The UN has reported that we're already in a water bankruptcy. We're seeing so many stories about people that are dying from lack of access to water. So the work we're doing we know is very much needed. We've lived these problems, and hopefully we are going to be one of the solutions to provide water for people and improve their quality of life. Now, let's talk a bit about data centers. You mentioned that your company is going to be able to help with the data center's consumption of water in some way. Can you explain that more? How the data centers use the water, what happens to the wastewater, and how you're treating it? Our role with data centers is more about treating the effluents. The way your data centers work, especially the ones that do not use closed-loop cooling, which most of them do not right now, they still use evaporative cooling. The way that process works is they take water from the aquifer, which is on the ground, or they take water from the river. They utilize that water to cool their chips. If you've boiled water before, you know that most of it evaporates as vapor. That's really what's going on. They are taking the cool water, using it to cool their chips. The chips are hot, so the water is evaporating. Energy can change its form, but it can be created or destroyed. What happens is 80% roughly of that water evaporates, but that water already has nitrogen and phosphorus in it. It already has nutrients and other pollutants in it. So, what's left? That 20% of water is now very concentrated with those pollutants. If that gets discharged, that's a problem because now you are five times over the nutrient limits that should be released into the waterways. So, what typically happens is those data centers, they release those into lagoons. They send it to cities for their treatment. We're seeing more and more of these data centers go to small to mid-sized cities for cheaper land and cheaper energy. Small to mid-sized cities do not have up-to-code water treatment facilities because they're smaller and they just can't afford it. So, when that happens, you're putting a strain on those constituents. Look at what happened in Port of Morro in Port Manorio. Amazon had their data center. They were taking water from the aquifer using evaporative cooling and sending the rest of the water down to the lagoon. What typically happens when a city is in a drought is the farmers are the first people to lose access to their water rights. It's going on in Utah right now. Now, when that happens, the state had a process where they take the lagoon water and give it to the farmers for them to utilize to grow their crops. And that's the process that was happening not knowing that the data center's concentrated effluents was polluting that water. So, the farmers used that and a bunch of people got cancer. Amazon lost a 20 million dollar lawsuit. But if Airbnb's biopod was there in between the lagoon and the farmers, we would have stepped down that solution and treated that water to irrigation quality and recovered the valuable nitrogen and phosphorus to support the farmers while they grow their crops. That is our play with data centers. That's a pretty amazing story. We recently covered the opening of a data center here in San Jose. It's a partnership between Microsoft and the city of San Jose. And these things are only going to get bigger. There's going to be data centers all over and they're only going to get more of them. And if this problem exists where this polluted water goes back into the system, that's a big problem. Are you addressing this directly? Are you involved with the data centers to get involved and help them out? We're having early conversations. We're also looking to talk to more data center developers and really tie our story and our product in. So we're in the validation point of that right now and doing that discovery. Our deployment right now is currently a municipal deployment, but we're also talking to industries. We're talking to farmers. We're talking to food processing plants. We had a conversation with a company that washes eggs because when you wash eggs they are very rich in the water that comes out is rich in nitrogen and phosphorus. So we're really talking to these industries and understanding more about how they operate and how our solution can be plugged in in a non-invasive way to solve their problem. What do you look forward mostly when you go to work every day? What is kind of your dream as you go forward with your company? I really look forward to our impact. We've been really blessed to be supported by some incredible impact and mission-oriented organizations from World Economic Forum to Keeling Curve to Forbes to NASDAQ and it's been really incredible for us. We want to continue telling the story of what we're building because we know that it's very much needed. Everyone is feeling the impacts of water right now. Everyone's feeling the impacts of air quality. Wildfires are everywhere. We're seeing prices of everything go up primarily because farmers are closing shop because they can't afford fertilizer. So being at the intersection of water, air and the soil is a very very safe spot to be in. So when I go to work every day I talk to my co-founder. I talk to our CTO and my entire team. Everybody's very excited about the impacts that we're creating because we know fully well that impact and returns are not mutually exclusive and that's what we tell our backers and our backers and our funders are very excited to have us on this journey and it takes a community. That's the most important part. We're grateful for the people who are standing up for us and standing with us while we try to make this impact. David, what was that aha moment when when you started the company with your partner? What was the trigger that made it happen? I met my co-founder John through a mutual friend. John is this incredible human being who's aggressively driven. So he started, he had the idea that he was going to decentralize carbon capture, didn't know how, created an LLC and put a job posting on LinkedIn to find people to compute this with him. He's not an engineer by the way so he's just this business guy who had this vision. So he started that, put a LinkedIn post. My close friend who I was in engineering school with, Himanshu Mohare at Cleveland State University at the time, reached out via LinkedIn, got connected with John. So they were still very early in the ideation process and Himanshu brought me in because I already had my engineering degree and I was getting my MBA at the time to be that liaison between the business and the engineering side which is exactly what I envisioned for my career. So he brought me on to join and I spoke with John. We had a few meetings and the synergy was there from day one. The mission that he was talking about related to what I planned with my life during my MBA because I knew I wanted to start something as opposed to you know go out and get a job but I also knew I needed to get that experience. So during my MBA I was the second hire for a virtual reality company that was selling VR solutions to for kitchen care also to equipment manufacturers and maintenance but the second I had a conversation with John the synergy was there. So three of us started the company in 2021. We went through a very long ideation phase. By 2022 we had brought on Dr. Richard Marita to come join the team because he's a PhD holding microbiologist from Kenya who has also lived the water crisis. So the synergy was there. The big aha moment for us that we were onto something was when our first prototype worked and we were able to leverage that to get into Techstar San Diego in August 2023. So that kind of just catalyzed and motivated us to keep pushing. We did lose some co-founders along the way because entrepreneurship is not an easy journey but now they are just people who support you know our mission and what we're building because we are a very impact and mission led team. Well first of all I want to say that I attended Cleveland State University as well a long time ago. No way. But you know that's a great school. I'm glad to hear that you know other people went How about what's most rewarding for you as far as something that happened already? Give us some rewarding moments you went through. So I'm going to give two answers. I'm going to give the personal and I'm going to give the professional. The personal for me was when my face was on NASDAQ billboard in Times Square which again is something that I never saw coming. To state a line that I stated before if you had told me that my face would be on NASDAQ Times Square billboard I would have said why? Am I a wanted man? But it did happen when I was being honored by NASDAQ milestone makers for graduating their program and I am you know so I feel so blessed you know for that opportunity. Send that to my family and everyone that knows me and it's it's still an incredible story that's being told. And professional. Professionally it was the moment we got our water quality data because we spun this out of a lab collaboration with the University of Massachusetts although we do own full IP we're not licensing. When we had our first real world deployment in Green River Utah there was that fear of we're going from a smaller system to now a very large demo. Can we make this work? Will this really hold the impact numbers that we're looking for? Are we going to have the higher nutrient recovery or is it going to be lower where we have a higher ramp up to fine tune? And that was a very big fear for us but the second our water quality data came out last month and we hit 89 percent nitrogen recovery that was a very big pivotal moment for myself and my team and we're still riding that high today. Fantastic. Tell us about challenges hurdles in getting to where you'd like to be. I mean where their entrepreneurship is really a life of navigating barriers and hurdles. If you talk to any entrepreneur I believe the first thing they will tell you is funding. We we live in a in a space right now where if you're not data centers energy or AI it's you know it's a it's an uphill battle and that's a battle that we are dedicated to fighting and we're making some progress. We have some incredible funders you know on our team. On the other side we're also navigating the tech integration but that's where if you have a solid team you know you can overcome that and we've proven time and time again that we can overcome all the technical hurdles that in front of us from the water quality to the fertilizer quality to the fertilizer data to building out this system in Green River Utah. So I have full confidence in my team that we can overcome the technical hurdles and we're also bringing on smart people who are talented and have knowledge who want to learn more about our industry to come on and join our team as we speak. And in in many ways it's so refreshing to see a company that's not just focused on AI. Here in the Bay Area we have the vast majority of companies startups are looking into AI but you're doing something tangible on the ground that's actually you know having results. David again thank you so much appreciate your time. Oh thank you. I mean my one line is regardless of how many robotics and space and AI companies we have the people who are running those still need to eat and drink water so we see ourselves as very important for you know the survivability on the planet. Great point, thanks. Thank you for watching another episode of Bay Area Innovators. If you enjoyed this episode and you know someone who should be on our show please send us an email at sfbay at epochtimes.com We would love to hear from you. Thank you and see you next week.