CarbonLab began with a simple observation: the ships that will burn green methanol are already on the water — the fuel to supply them is not yet built. This is the story of the company built to change that.
Every conventional green methanol plant is built on the same assumption: haul low-value biomass, at high cost, to a billion-dollar fixed site. CarbonLab's founders inverted it.
If the reactor could be containerised — built fast, built cheap, and built to move with the feedstock — then New Zealand's forests, ports, and methanol-industry skills could supply the fuel the global fleet is desperate for, at a fraction of the cost and timeline of any competing plant. The mechanisms already existed in the peer-reviewed literature: methanol synthesis driven by light and sound at low pressure. Nobody had engineered them into one commercial system. That system engineering is CarbonLab's contribution.
Green methanol is the new oil of the 21st century, and the Modular Methanol Reactor is our modern-day oil rig. Where our rig differs is what it drills.
CarbonLab's story isn't a straight line — and we tell it that way on purpose. The willingness to act on evidence rather than defend a fixed plan is what makes the ambition credible.
Greg Evans and Jason Lopas founded CarbonLab Group Limited, joined by Cameron on engineering and fabrication. Bootstrapped from day one — founders on partial salaries, capital preserved for the build.
A containerised unit built to prove methanol could be produced from biomass. Stainless steel imported from China, local contract fabrication, a light-box synthesis chamber — and a target of 36 tonnes a day.
Activating the catalyst meant holding just over 190°C. Three weeks of heat mats and improvised heaters couldn't do it, and half the carbon monoxide imported from Germany was gone. We stopped, and reassessed from first principles. Two lessons: welded stainless fabrication doesn't scale, and heating can't be retrofitted onto an enclosure never designed for it.
Both lessons fed straight into the second-generation design: no offshore materials, no contractor timetables, heating rebuilt from scratch. The result is a layered photosonic cell architecture — methanol made with light and sound — with parasitic load down to roughly 3%, against ~50% for the plants it replaces.
The benchtop reactor is built and in testing, with first methanol expected this month. The first commercial-scale unit is being commissioned at the Canterbury Woodchip Supplies yard at Arundel — backed by a verbal offtake commitment from Ixom, and by independent due diligence from Harvey, former CEO of Methanex NZ.
From Arundel to Taranaki's methanol-grade port infrastructure; from New Zealand's 75,000-tonne domestic market to the global fleet; from one site to a network reaching the Baltic and Australia. The runway is domestic. The destination is not.
CarbonLab has been built to its current position by a small founding team, a network of specialist subcontractors, and focused independent expertise — a capital-conserving posture that has carried the company to a working benchtop reactor without heavy dilution. Hiring scales with milestones, not with hope.
Leads strategy, capital, and the commercial relationships — from the CWS feedstock partnership to the Tier 1 shipping engagement plan.
Architect of the MMR's technology programme: the synthesis mechanisms, the gasification pathway, and the testing regime behind them.
Shareholder-employee through the technology development phase, responsible for turning designs into working hardware.
Former Managing Director of Methanex NZ, conducting independent due diligence on CarbonLab's technology and commercial position.
Manages all of CarbonLab's stakeholder relationships, including offtake agreements and shareholder communications.
Brings decades of experience in the marine industry to the team, focused on gasification and site commissioning.
When the first-generation reactor showed us how not to build, we pivoted in weeks — and carried the lessons forward rather than working around them.
Valuation moves only as each of 33 defined milestones is independently verified. Investors are asked to price proof, not faith.
For every critical-path commitment — sites, feedstock, funding — a viable alternative is maintained in parallel. No single point of failure.
A verbal commitment is called verbal. An exploratory conversation is called exploratory. The honesty is the credibility position.