Why steam is the hidden white whale

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Industrial heat powers half of manufacturing - and almost no one is talking about it.

What if one of the biggest supply chain emissions problems has been hiding in the boiler room all along?

In this episode, I’m joined by Addison Stark, CEO and co-founder of AtmosZero, to tackle one of the most overlooked risks in industrial sustainability: steam. A 160-year-old technology that still delivers roughly half of all industrial heat, quietly underpinning food, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, brewing, and more.

We explore why industrial heat is routinely labelled “hard to abate” and why that label may be more habit than reality. You’ll hear how electrified, drop-in steam boilers can replace combustion without forcing factories to redesign their operations, and why productised solutions matter more than bespoke decarbonisation projects if we want scale.

We break down why heat pumps can outperform resistive electric boilers by a factor of two, how ignoring waste heat can actually accelerate deployment, and why engineers and plant managers, not press releases, ultimately decide what technologies make it into supply chains. You might be surprised to learn how Europe’s energy volatility and policy certainty are reshaping the economics of industrial heat, and why steam decarbonisation could follow a very different curve from solar or EVs.

This is a conversation about resilience, risk, and the unglamorous infrastructure that keeps global supply chains moving. Hidden systems. Real impact. No hype.

🎙️ Listen now to hear how Addison Stark and AtmosZero are re-engineering industrial heat for resilient, sustainable supply chains.

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