Canoo (NASDAQ: GOEV) is an exciting EV automaker, priced as if it will fail, but that has an ambitious management team and enormous shareholder base all betting the Company will win. Currently trading at a $300 million market valuation, Canoo went public in a $2.4 billion SPAC deal at the height of the EV boom in late 2021 but has lost over 90% of its value as the market doubted the Company’s ability to enter mass production. Canoo however, has positioned itself to prove them all wrong and when it does so later this year, the market will be forced to revalue the Company’s valuation which trades at a fraction of most of its EV competitors that trade at billion dollar market valuations.
Recently, Canoo secured a 500,000 square ft Vehicle Manufacturing Facility in Oklahoma City where it is currently installing equipment. Management has planned the start of production for November 17 and plans to quickly scale up to 40,000-vehicle next year. As soon as Canoo’s EV’s begin rolling off the production line, the Company will be reporting revenues as Canoo already holds $2.8 billion in preorders.
Canoo’s new Oklahoma City Manufacturing Facility will support a full general and final vehicle assembly line, state-of-the-art robotics, a body shop, paint shop and automated paint line including e-coat and sealing, quality control, complete vehicle testing, validation and more. The existing commercial site has a lot of room for expansion on more than 120 acres and is located within easy proximity to road, rail, and waterways. Oklahoma has promised Canoo with up to $400 million in incentives to build there and has also agreed to buy 1,000 Canoo EVs fromm the Company. The Company also has a battery module manufacturing facility at MidAmerica Industrial Park in Pryor, OK.
Canoo also has major orders from fleet customers, including from Walmart, Kingbee, and Zeeba who have already ordered 17,000 Canoo LDVs, with the option for an additional 16,200 units. Canoo also recently got a contract from the DoD’s Innovation Unit to supply battery modules for analysis, demonstration and advanced testing. The award supports the U.S. Department of Defense focus to incorporate scalable and adaptable capabilities in tactical environments. Canoo was also selected by NASA to provide crew transport for Artemis lunar exploration launch and recently delivered its first vehicle, the LTV – to the US Army.
Canoo’s mission is to bring EVs to Everyone. The company has developed electric vehicles that are reinventing the automotive landscape with their pioneering technologies, unique design and business model that spans multiple owners across the full lifecycle of the EV. Canoo’s proprietary self-contained, fully functional rolling chassis houses the most critical components for operation of the EV, including it’s in-house designed proprietary electric drivetrain, battery systems, advanced vehicle control electronics and software and other critical components, which all have been optimized for functional integration. Canoo’s management team is led by its CEO Tony Aquila and the Company’s EV’s include its Lifestyle Delivery Vehicle, the Multi-Purpose Delivery Vehicle, and the Canoo’s Pickup.
It was an exciting time when Canoo first came out with its Lifestyle Vehicle, designed off the original idea of the Volkswagen Bus but with a modernized electrified power plant. The Electric Van features a skateboard platform with “vehicle top hats” that replaces traditional bodies and vehicle structure allowing new owners to modify the vehicle body and interior design to suit their individual needs. The Lifestyle Vehicle, can be used both as a people-carrier or a delivery van and it has a range of about 400 kilometers built on a chassis integrating the battery and driving elements in a single “skateboard”. The Electric Van is both spacious and performance-oriented and offers up to 350 HP/257 kW, and carries more than 1,464 lbs (664 kg) of payload. The vehicle is equipped with a drive-by-wire system, eliminating the need for mechanical connections like a steering shaft and allowing for a greater flexibility in designing the cabin and starts at $34,750.

BioLargo – OTCQB:BLGO

BLGO represents the majority of my portfolio. My first shares were purchased on March 1, 2021 and I have consistently bought shares throughout the last 27 months.
BioLargo is an environmental engineering company. There are 5 divisions of the company. 2 of them (BLEST and BioLargo Water) focus primarily on water treatment. ONM Environmental focuses on odoVOC control in both the industrial sector and as a wholesale distributor for a consumer pet odor control product. BETI is new in 2023 and is developing sodium-sulfur battery technology. Clyra is a medical subsidiary that develops products based on a copper-iodine chemistry that has safe but incredibly powerful oxidation capabilities for infection control in surgical settings.
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Currently pushed up against the \"ceiling\" of the Oct 2022-Present compression. Still have to shake the 2019-Present compression (top red line). 2008-September 2022 \"Ceiling\" was broken out of. Green floor has been firm and rising since 2021.
2023 Q1 10-Q Filing 2023 Q1 Earnings Call Recording
Market Cap: $55M ($0.19/share)
Total Outstanding Shares: 284M Outstanding Options: 30M options outstanding ($0.12-$0.43 exercise price, $0.19 average price) Outstanding Warrants: 52M warrants ($0.13-$1.00 exercise price, $0.26 average price)
2022 Revenue: $5.88M (132% YoY growth) 2023 Q1 Revenue: $3.74M (78% QoQ growth vs. Q4 ’22) 2023 Q1 Losses: ($494k) Cash on Hand: $3.26M Debt: Roughly $500k
CEO: Dennis Calvert
Losses are decreasing. Growth is primarily from ONM Environmental.
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ONM Environmental generating more cash-flow, bringing company close to profitability despite being the only division with positive cash flow.
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Debt is basically gone.
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SG&A has remained consistent as revenue has grown across recent years.
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Net Stockholder’s Equity has steadily risen. $5M net stockholder equity is required for listing on the Nasdaq.
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ONM Environmental – VOC/Odor Control

ONM Environmental Website - CupriDyne Website
ONM Environmental (“Odor No More) is the original division of the company. The flagship product is CupriDyne Clean which is a copper-iodine complex that oxidizes odor and VOC. It is sold in the industrial sector to landfills, waste transfer stations, US Air Force Bases, wastewater treatment plants, automotive manufacturers, marijuana growing facilities, animal processors etc. Overall, industrial sales of CupriDyne have been underwhelming from my POV, but the underlying technology has found homes elsewhere, making the asset and the division successful for BioLargo.
ONM Environmental has partnered with an advertising firm (Ikigai Holdings) and launched a consumer pet odor control product (POOPH) for household use. Pooph Website/Commercial. One of selling points for CupriDyne/POOPH is its safety. In the commercial, the product is sprayed directly into the host’s mouth to demonstrate its safety. The product uses the same baseline chemistry as CupriDyne Clean.
BioLargo serves as manufacturing and wholesaler for Ikigai who is in control of the marketing and selling of the product. BioLargo receives a 6% royalty on Ikigai’s sales of Pooph and receives revenue from acting as the supplier for Pooph. Overall, BioLargo receives about 25% of Pooph’s total sales.
POOPH is being sold direct-to-consumer, on Amazon, on Chewy.com (largest online pet supply), and is stocked in about 60% of Walmart locations. POOPH is consistently in the top-50 for pet products on Amazon.
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From the LinkedIn page of Jordan Stanley, one of Ikigai’s co-founders:

“Over the following 10 years, I earned the reputation of an undisputed leader in Direct Response TV, producing such well-known campaigns as Billy Mays’ OxiClean, Procter& Gamble’s Tide, Febreze, and Downy brands. Throughout that time I have continued writing and producing winning commercials through Blue Moon Studios and Concepts for Doggie Steps (Telebrands), Finishing Touch (IdeaVillage), and Snuggies (Allstar). Out of 45,000 commercials in the Procter & Gamble database dating back over 60 years, the commercials I have written, directed and produced have achieved "highest-scoring, best-performing commercials" for Downy, Febreze, Dryel, Ivory Snow laundry products and have the distinction of being the "#1 best-performing 2-minute spot". I have the distinction of having 2 spots in the top 10 as measured by ASI/Ipsos. Using my method, about $3 Billion of revenue has been generated to date.”

Ikigai’s goal is to generate $100M+ in annual sales and then seek a brand sale of 3x-7x of annual sales ($300M-$700M). Ikigai has done this before with products like Finishing Touch/Flawless, which is a beauty-care product line that they sold for $900M. That brand sale was valued at 5x annual sales. Flawless/Finishing Touch Brand Sale
The estimated payout to BioLargo if/when the brand sells is $100M. As of Q1 2023, BioLargo is receiving roughly $1M/month from Pooph sales. That means Ikigai is at roughly $50M in annual sales rate after less than 18 months since first sales of the product. Ikigai has stated their expectations for 20% QoQ growth for POOPH. If that holds true, they will be at a $100M annual run-rate by Q1 2024.
ONM Environmental was the only profitable division in 2022, generating $1.13M in operating income from $4.37M total revenue. This was primarily revenue generated from POOPH, with 86% of total BioLargo 2023 Q1 revenue being POOPH revenue.
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BioLargo Engineering, Science, and Technologies Inc. (BLEST)

BLEST is the most diverse and exciting part of the company to me. The core of the group is a half dozen engineers who were brought on in 2017 after CB&I laid off their entire unit during some turmoil for the company. They were working with BLGO at the time, and Dennis pitched to them that they form BLEST and continue working as the unit that they had been for 20-30 years in their previous role, but with more freedom and flexibility working for an emerging company rather than a giant company like CB&I. They agreed and are based out of Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
BLEST is led by Randall Moore. Randall has a 30+ year career in environmental engineering, leading over 1000 employees at times in his career. He has done 1000s of projects. Randall assisted the US Post Office during the Anthrax Crisis. He helped to design and implement the efforts to pump out New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. He helped during the BP Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico. He worked on the aftermath of the Fukushima Disaster. He designed and built the largest dioxin remediation facility in the world. Randall has worked professionally on a diverse set of projects at the highest caliber. He and the rest of the BLEST team are essential to the ability to execute stated goals, continue product development, and complete project design work.
BLEST serves 3 roles. They are here to invent new technologies. They are here to support the engineering and design work for other divisions. They are here to complete engineering work for clients.
BLEST Technologies and Projects: Aqueous Electrostatic Concentrator (AEC) for PFAS remediation, Minimal Liquid Discharge (MLD) Systems via Garratt Callahan partnership, engineering and design work for what (if goes to full scale) will be the largest waste-to-energy facility in the world, engineering and design work for Ultra Safe Nuclear Company (USNC) for their fuel production system for micro-modular reactors.
The above technologies will be discussed later. AEC, Waste-to-Energy, and USNC projects have all been engaged by clients, with the initial phases completed and the second phases scoped . Each have a proposal in the client’s hands, awaiting approval. Many technologies or projects seem very close to strong adoption or progression to future stages, but none of them have really gotten fully there. If the technologies gain more consistent traction, BLEST’s headcount will have to grow, as will their revenues.
BLEST incurred a loss of $425k in 2022 on total revenue of $1.94M.
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BioLargo Water

BioLargo Water does research and development of the Advanced Oxidation System (AOS) which is a water disinfection and micropollutant destruction technology. The division is headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta and gets quite a bit of their funding and support via the Canadian government.
AOS has been used in pilot projects for stormwater treatment, brewery wastewater treatment, poultry water treatment, pharmaceutical/micropollutant removal in Montreal’s municipal facility. They have submitted a proposal to the Alberta EPA to validate the technology for use in poultry water treatment in the province, however, not much has been said since that was made public in June 2022.
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AOS provides disinfection of E coli and other microorganisms. AOS also destroys tough contaminants like pharmaceuticals and micropollutants like benzene.
AOS is hard to pin down. Technically, it’s unique and very capable It has been in development for almost a decade and is yet to find a reliably commercial home. For now, it’s just been pilots and peer-reviewed journal articles published in scientific journals. My science brain loves AOS. My finance brain hates it. The company isn't churning through resources to try to commercialize, so it's not killing the company, but the combination of duration of development, unique and high level technical function, and lack of commercial success is a confusing one.
AOS Product Brochure - Quebec Pilot - Sunworks Poultry Pilot
BioLargo Water did not generate revenue in 2022 and incurred $714k in losses in 2022, which was primarily R&D budget.
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BioLargo Energy Technologies Inc. (BETI)

BETI is a new subsidiary in 2023. BioLargo owns 97% of BETI with a small group of investors holding the remaining 3% of shares. The capital was raised at a valuation of $20M for BETI.
Its purpose is to commercialize sodium-sulfur battery technology. One of the original inventors (Mario Caja) of the technology has been brought on to see that through as a member of the BETI team. He has been working on molten salt battery technology for 30 years. Presently, the company is putting the capital that they raised into building small manufacturing capabilities in their Oak Ridge, Tennessee facility.
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May 9, 2023 Interview Transcript
Regarding lithium and sodium ion batteries, Dennis Calvert – CEO:

“Those are exotics, lithium, cobalt, nickel, those are rare earth elements that are really mined in offshore. So foreign supply's a big problem. That's one issue. The other is, of course, they're rare, so the price is going crazy, and then the other is efficiency. Lithium has efficiency issues. It only lasts 6, 7, 8 years. Everybody's working on that. They get 80-20% efficiencies, they can't charge to 100%, it builds up dendrites. So the world's looking for a better battery for certain locations.
So our battery checks the box on a number of those long lasting domestic supply, no rare earth, 100% efficiency. We've even got an energy density that's 2.9 times that of lithium, which means a lot of power in that battery.
It's a little heavier, and it's really not designed to be in a mobile situation. It's more of the fixed site that would go adjacent to solar, like a EV charging station or solar power generation operation or grid balancing. So long-term energy storage is really where we're focused. And that's a void in the market because as, you know, JP Morgan was quoted recently saying that, ‘the battery industry would surpass that of the chip industry in the next decade.’"

On the last quarterly call (May 18), Dennis stated that they expect to be able to sell any and all batteries that they bring to market that meet the claims they have made. He said that within 4-6 months, they expect to have built a small battery facility in Oak Ridge and prototypes. On May 24, 2023 (Sequire Presentation) Dennis stated that revenue can start to be substantial in 6-9 months.
In late 2022, BioLargo added Christina Bray to their board of directors. She is the CEO of an electric vehicle charging company (BlueDot Energies). Christina Bray PR
BETI is very new and the available proven details are relatively sparse compared to some of the other parts of BioLargo's portfolio. Seems like a lot of potential, but more must be shown.
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Clyra Medical

Clyra Medical is a bit surprising on the surface. What is an environmental engineering company doing in the medical field? The original inventor at the company (Kenneth Code) sought to create a chemistry that would help be helpful in infection control, as that was something his father was struggling with at the time. The result was a copper-iodine complex, which is very similar to the baseline chemistry that ONM Environmental uses for CupriDyne Clean in the ONM Environmental division.
Clyra Medical was formed so that the subsidiary could raise its own capital, independently of BioLargo. It is an asset that is 58% owned by BioLargo. Recently, Clyra has been selling shares to fund production of their first product that has 510k clearance from the FDA, BioClynse. BioClynse Product Brochure
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BioClynse produces a very strong oxidation reaction, much like how CupriDyne does for odoVOC control. BioClynse is for use during surgery for infection control and can be used after the fact if a knee or hip replacement gets infected following a procedure. The product is gentle enough to be left in the body when the patient is sewn up and provides lasting infection control, including disruption of biofilm. No rinse is required, which is unique.
Other products that came to market and were successful across the last decade are starting to come into question because of toxicity concerns to tissue. The company believes that not only has the wound irrigation market expanded dramatically and will continue to, but that it is no longer being met by incumbent products.
Regarding BioClynse Efficacy and FDA Point-Of-View:

"The questions they asked us were 'You must be lying, because this has never happened before.' When we finally got through, it took us another $1.8M and about 2 years from that first moment, the reviewer said 'This is the lowest concentration of antimicrobial at this level of performance that the agency has ever seen.' And therein lies the special thing that we've been talking about since we started this company (Clyra), and it's now finally positioned to be in a very significant commercial role."

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BioClynse is expected to begin selling more substantially to orthopedic surgeons in Q2 and Q3. They have entered into a production agreement and are in negotiations with distribution partners (Clyra Production Agreement). Capital is being used to fund production. They have spent 2022 and the first parts of 2023 building out a sales rep network and “showing off” the product at industry events with significant positive response according to the company.
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Clyra Medical’s goal is to build up the company and to be spun off with the sale of Clyra to a larger medical company. Recently, capital has been raised around a $32M valuation (Reported during Q2 2022 Earnings Call, so may have changed a bit since then). As a subsidiary with just the very beginnings of commercial activity, I don’t anticipate that any spin-off would happen anytime soon, but if 2023 is the year they go commercial with a high margin product like BioClynse, that clock should begin and become less of a theory than it has been.
Regarding Future Product Development and Coronavirus Allowance:

"We were given notice of allowance for use of Clyra against coronavirus. Coronavirus is a very broad category, not just Covid, it's Middle-Eastern, SARS, it's everything, probably 300 different variations of upper respritory infections and lung disease. That opens up the pathway for us to pursue drug applications for nebulizer therapy, inhalant therapy, nasal sprays, throat sprays, and have good IP coverage. This is good IP coverage. We were denied 4 times. We kept going back and fighting for this, and finally the patent office said: You know what, you got it. They gave us a very broad allowance, and we're going to continue to expand on that. That has major implications in a drug pathway for these Clyra products, which we've always believed the tough part wasgetting the patent done, but we have that."

Clyra Medical added 2 members to their board in 2022. Clyra Board Additions. Nick Valeriani spent 34 years at Johnson and Johnson, particularly with wound control (Neosporin). Nick serves on the board of $50B-valued Edwards Lifesciences ($EW). Linda Park is the Senior Vice President, Associate General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary for Edwards Lifesciences. She also joined as a member of the BioLargo board. It has been stated that Linda has been brought on partially for her expertise and guidance as BioLargo seeks to uplist in future to a national market like the Nasdaq.
Clyra Medical incurred a loss of $1.38M in 2022, bringing in just $56k what was essentially a few initial users of BioClynse in a professional setting.
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BLEST Technologies and Projects

Garratt-Callahan – Minimal Liquid Discharge (MLD) Devices
In 2021, BioLargo announced that Garratt Callahan (largest private water company in North America) approached them to ask for help finalizing the design of their Minimal Liquid Discharge technology. GC MLD Announcement BioLargo helped them finish the design and will serve as the manufacturer of the product. The product has patent coverage through Garratt Callahan. GC MLD Patent
The MLD systems are water reuse devices that take the mineral content out of water streams for use in things like cooling towers. The devices allow for an industrial water user to stretch their water budget significantly further, bringing value to clients in both reducing their water costs, but also allowing them to continue their planned operations in an environment where water availability may fluctuate based on hydrologic/drought conditions. Potential clients would be data centers, energy generation, and industrial water users.
BioLargo will make money from the manufacturing and sale of the unit (approximately $500k per unit), while Garratt Callahan will make their money from the operation of the machines.
It was expected that these units would begin being sold in 2022, however that did not happen. A factory acceptance test was successfully completed in February of 2022 ("FAT" Acceptance) , however contracts have not been announced BioLargo maintains confidence in the future of these devices and states that they are involved with a dozen or more negotiations and design work for potential projects. If those projects are confirmed, GC MLD devices can be a strong revenue stream through an established water treatment company.
GC maintains that 30-50 units can be moved annually, but that is hard to predict when the first one will be sold and if 30-50 per year is a reasonable expectation given the delayed rollout. If they can accomplish that, however, it would bring in $15M-$25M annually.
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Garratt Callahan has also agreed to sell AEC for PFAS remediation (discussed below). BioLargo has stated that a few of their potential PFAS remediation projects expected to move forward soon are ones that GC brought to the table.
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Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation – Fuel Production Design Work
Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation (USNC) is designing micro-modular nuclear reactors. Part of that design is a new fuel system (FCM/TRISO-fuel). They have contracted BioLargo Engineering to help design their fuel production facility in Oak Ridge, Tennesse (also where BLEST is headquartered) which opened in August 2022. Fuel Production Facility - USNC/BLEST Collaboration - Pilot Fuel Manufacturing Facility Opens - FCM/TRISO Fuel Information
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Phase 1 of the project was completed. Phase 2 has gotten a verbal “yes”, but a signed contract has not been announced officially yet.
April 24, 2023 Prospectus

"In the second quarter of 2022, BLEST was contracted by Ultra Safe Nuclear to assist in producing the first prototype fuel production systems for their new nuclear reactor called the Micro Modular Reactor (MMR®). Ultra Safe Nuclear is a Seattle-based nuclear energy company that has invented a “fission battery” - a fourth generation modular nuclear reactor – that can deliver safe, zero-carbon, cost-effective energy anywhere. The MMR® uses ceramic-encapsulated nuclear fuel – Fully Ceramic Micro-encapsulated (FCM+++) – an extremely rugged and stable fuel with high temperature stability. BioLargo has been retained to provide engineering design support, fabrication, and integration for the company’s prototype fuel production systems. Because of the success of the early phase of the project, this project is expected to expand over the coming months in scope and significance to BioLargo, making them an important customer for BLEST."

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Waste to Energy – Design Work
BioLargo was contracted to begin design work on a waste to energy conversion project in South America. The facility being designed would be the largest waste-to-energy conversion plant in the world if it goes to its full scale. The project has 10 years of planning and preparation behind it. The project would be 6 phases, and the company has estimated that all 6 phases would be around $50M in design work.
Waste to Energy PR
The first phase was a feasibility study and was completed. BioLargo has given a proposal for Phase 2 and is awaiting the green light from the client. The timeline to begin Phase 2 has been slower than originally expected (as seen in June 2022 image below). On the last call, there was mention of political instability in South America giving some pause to decision-making at this time, but the BioLargo continues to maintain that they are in good standing with the client and the project is in good standing overall. The client has brought 4 more projects to BioLargo in Southeast Asia.
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“This developer has actually brought us 4 more projects. This one has moved from Phase 1 to Phase 2. Phase 2 will push over $1 million. Phase 3 will probably be in the $7.5 million range.”

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“In April 2022, our engineering subsidiary was hired by a Southern California based sustainable energy services company to conduct a comprehensive project plan (i.e., “feasibility study”) for a waste-to-energy (WTE) conversion plant in South America – one of multiple projects in planning stages by the company. Our engineers completed the initial feasibility study and have delivered a proposal for the next phase of the project (front end engineering design, aka FEED). The client has also requested feasibility studies and a FEED proposal for WTE plants in Asia.”

From June 2022 Annual Shareholder's Meeting - note: Stage 1 is complete. Stage 2 has not begun.
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PFAS Remediation:

The Aqueous Electrostatic Concentrator (AEC) is likely the biggest opportunity in the BLEST portfolio. BioLargo has one active project that has been contracted for PFAS remediation. They are awaiting approval from the client to begin the next phase and scale towards a full installation. During a May 24, 2023 (day of making this post) presentation with Sequire, Dennis mentioned that Phase 1 is complete and they are expecting to move to Phase 2 in the near future. Phase 2 would be $500k-$1M and would take 6-9 months. Phase 3 to go to full scale would be a $15M-$20M in expected revenue. It would also provide a full-scale installation to lean on for proof of function and scaling for clients to have confidence in.
AEC is a PFAS collection technology. PFAS “Forever Chemicals” are compounds that are designed to not break down through natural processes. The EPA is in the process of setting drinking water standards for PFAS that would impact 65,000 drinking water systems across the country. Incumbent technologies (Granular Activated Carbon and Ion Exchange Resin) face performance and regulatory challenges moving forward as the EPA’s proposed regulations come closer to taking effect.
In March 2023, they proposed federal drinking water standards of 4ppt for PFOS and PFOA (the two main compounds), and a combined weighted limit for 4 other PFAS compounds based on their health advisories. The regulations are expected to firm up in the coming months after necessary comment periods and EPA process etc. Federal Proposal
PFAS waste is on a trajectory to be designated as HazMat under CERCLA (HazMat Classification). When used for municipal drinking water remediation, incumbent technologies produce several tons of PFAS-laden carbon or PFAS-laden resin. Recently, Cape Fear removed almost 200 tons of PFAS-laden carbon waste from their facility (Cape Fear Waste). Cape Fear is a very large system, but even a mid-size municipal system ends up having to consider the liability of that amount of HazMat waste on a recurring basis. That “changeout period” becomes more frequent when the drinking water standards get lower.
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At 9.6ng/L, the data in the right column has too high PFAS concentration to pass proposed federal limits. 4ng/L and the detection limit are very similar levels of PFAS contamination (1-2ng/L is consistent detection limit usually). 2.7-7.1 Month range for GAC and IX technologies (standard incumbents). Lower regulatory standards will require more frequent changeout of media.
The media used for GAC projects can be regenerated. Ion exchange media cannot be regenerated. GAC waste can only be regenerated for future use in some parts of the United States. The legality of that process has come into question due to concerns about releasing PFAS emissions into the air (DoD Incineration/Regeneration Ban). Some users continue to regenerate the material while the EPA goes through the process to regulate PFAS.
If regeneration is not allowed, the material will end up requiring HazMat landfilling and not be able to be regenerated for future use. That will make remediation with GAC much more complicated and expensive. It will increase the total cost of changing out carbon material by requiring more new material to be used, but also increasing disposal costs of waste. Several tons of waste (200 tons in Cape Fear) now need to be sent to a HazMat landfill.
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How Many Municipal Drinking Water PFAS Remediation Projects Will be Necessary?: West Virginia recently tested 37 water systems. 19 of them would be out of federal compliance if the proposed federal standards were implemented (WV PFAS Testing). 37 systems is not a huge sample size, but this is reasonable when compared to what I have found when looking at other state-level data across the country.
If 50% of systems require remediation, that is around 32k projects just for drinking water. For reference, if there are 32k projects for half of the US population that require remediation, the average number of residents served by a system is just over 5,000, though that number will have quite a large range with some water systems serving hundreds of thousand residents..
PFAS Remediation Project Examples: In Dover, New Hampshire, a 1.1M gallon per day facility was approved for $13.9M. This was for the treatment of half of the water supply for a population of 33,000 residents. (Dover Project Details)
The project for Wausau has a cost estimate of $23M (Wausau Cost Estimate). Wausau Water serves 16000 customers (40,000 residents) and treats just over 4M gallons of water per day (Wausau Customer and Daily Flow).
Cape Fear, NC has $43M up front costs with $5M annual costs to operate (Cape Fear Costs). The facility is 44M gallons per day (Cape Fear - Size).
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Municipal Water PFAS Remediation Cost Estimate: Municipal drinking water projects are generally $5-$50M caliber projects. Small town projects can be $1M-$5M, and the largest projects will end up being over $100M.
Before the federal Orange County Water District (1% of the population of the United States) estimates a total of $1B will be required for the remediation of their water systems (OCWD Estimate). That is a figure from 2020 and is expected to have increased since then.
If you use Orange County’s estimate across the United States, it will cost over $100B for municipal drinking water.
The EPA estimates that PFAS remediation will cost between $769M and $1.2B annually (EPA Estimate). American Water Works Association (AWWA) estimates up to $2.9B annually (AWWA Estimate).
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What About PFAS Remediation Outside of Municipal Drinking Water? I won’t attempt to do the same thing for other water treatment sectors. You'd probably stop reading if you don't already want to. It is important to note that drinking water is only part of what will require PFAS remediation projects.
Industrial water users (landfills, oil/gas, papepulp production, metal processing/finishing, wastewater treatment facilities) will require remediation equipment.
Groundwater remediation takes place when there is a contaminated aquifer due to a spill or through things like spreading biosolids from wastewater treatment plants on farmland. If the biosolids have PFAS in them (which many do), then the groundwater is contaminated because the PFAS has been applied across the soils.
Surface water remediation can be required if high levels of PFAS are found. It isn’t clear what the EPA is planning to do with surface water, but some states have attempted to set concentration limits.
Many of the specifics still need to be firmed up by the EPA, but in general it is safe to assume that the estimated $769M-$2.9B that is estimated for PFAS remediation of municipal drinking water annually will not begin to represent the total cost of PFAS remediation in the United States.
Any company that has leading PFAS remediation technology has the opportunity to tap into a gigantic emerging market that is going to be backed by federally enforceable drinking water standards.

Aqueous Electrostatic Concentrator (AEC):

AEC Product Video - BioLargo's PFAS Website - AEC Product Brochure
AEC functions by running water across (not through) a membrane while applying electric charge. PFAS compounds are fused to the membrane and removed from the water supply. AEC only removes the PFAS compounds, which is unique for collection technologies. Materials like granular activated carbon remove all contaminants, meaning that it is very inefficient for PFAS removal since PFAS is found in such low concentrations. This is important because remediation using GAC will produce much more waste than it will with AEC (up to 1000x depending on specific water chemistry). A user of AEC doesn’t have to worry about managing several dozen tons of waste every changeout period.
Tonya Chandler on AEC Footprint and Waste Production vs. Incumbent Technologies:

How do we measure up size-wise? Well, fairly similar to a GAC system. The difference is that when you see all of our frames, I don’t need to be skidded. I could line the walls with those frames. I can drop those frames – we’ve got one customer that wants to drop them into a pit that’s in their system that they don’t use anymore. I can stack them on top of each other to create space. As long as I have maintenance room around them, I’m pretty flexible on the layout. But you’ll see I produce much less spent (media). Now, also note that that GAC number that I’m giving you there is a single pass. I’m not considering a lead-lag in that number.

GAC vs AEC Waste and Footprint Comparison – note: AEC changeout period is expected to be longer than GAC changeout period. Disposal when spent does not represent the same period of time.
Orange County Water District - AEC can produce \"Non-Detect\" results all 27 tested PFAS compounds.
Tonya Chandler on AEC Origin, Design and Function:

“The AEC stands for the Aqueous Electrostatic Concentrator, and they decided that they wanted to use the polarity of the PFAS against it. The hypothesis was that if they created some chambers that had a series of electrodes and some specialized membranes, they might be able to pull the PFAS out and create a concentrated stream. The goal was to produce a stream that met the standards. They thought, ‘well if we did multiple stages, we could probably create DI-water. They wanted to stay low energy, and they wanted the cost to be affordable.
What they found was not what they expected. When we did the initial testing on this, they found that no concentrated stream existed, although we were removing the PFAS, we weren’t finding it in the anode stream. They were able to remove 99% of the PFAS in a single pass through the system. They got a side benefit of low-energy desalination in all of this, and they got their low cost at about 30 cents per 1000 gallons.
The biggest concern for us was why we didn’t create a concentrated stream. What we found was that we were literally ripping the PFAS out of the water, and when they came in contact with the membrane that we have in there, it fused to the membrane, and once it fused to the membrane, PFAS fuses to itself, so we were able to create a system that all of the PFAS stayed on the membrane but we were able to get very high concentrations of PFAS on the membrane before it was spent.”

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From September 2022 Tonya Chandler Presentation to Wisconsin Engineers
From 2023 10-Q Report:

“We have successfully validated the AEC as an effective system to selectively extract and collect PFAS chemicals from contaminated water including performance testing that shows “non-detect” levels of removal, which meets new EPA standards. We have demonstrated more than nine months of continuous operation showing no materially significant degradation of the AEC system’s components or performance over time. As a modular system, we believe the AEC is scalable to a commercial scale, and we believe that our engineering team has the experience to deliver systems to meet the needs of a commercial installation."

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Dennis on Small Commercial-Scale AEC units:

"These are new – we have three of these. We just got – just built and what will happen with these machines is they go out into the field where we go through early testing program. We identify a spot, where we can work with a client the customer, and we say, let's as an additional step just to make sure, let's bring one of these out, park it into their location for three or four weeks, run some samples, run some tests and show our customer, our prospective customer that says that, the device can be well suited for the custom circumstances that surround that customer's water source.”

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