industrial-heat
(5)
The Battery That Sells Steam
Antora Energy packed a South Dakota field with more than 200 boxes of hot carbon. The surprise is not the heat. It is the contract, the utility rate, and the factory that made continuous industrial energy possible.
Kieran Furlong Is Building a Star in an Old Hot-Dog Factory
The Irish chemical engineer spent a career turning laboratory ideas into businesses. Now he is betting that a straight magnetic bottle, Wisconsin manufacturing, and patient capital can make fusion useful.
The Fusion Bet That Looks Like a Barbell, Not a Donut
Most fusion companies bend plasma into a ring. Realta Fusion is betting that a straight magnetic bottle - built for industrial heat first - can make the economics less contorted.
Zero Industrial Inc.
Zero Industrial is a Charleston, South Carolina developer that decarbonizes industrial heat using thermal energy storage (TES). Instead of burning gas, oil or coal to make heat and steam, its systems charge on cheap off-peak or curtailed clean electricity and discharge it as high-temperature heat. The company finances, builds and operates each project itself, then sells clean heat or steam to factories under long-term Heat-as-a-Service contracts with no upfront capital required from the customer.
Ted Kniesche
Ted Kniesche is the founder and CEO of Zero Industrial, a Charleston-based startup decarbonizing industrial heat by deploying commercially available thermal energy storage systems and selling clean heat and steam under long-term Heat-as-a-Service contracts. After two decades in clean energy development - including 13 years co-founding and building business development at Fulcrum BioEnergy - he launched Zero Industrial in 2024 with Jim McDermott and closed a $10 million Series A in April 2025 led by Evok Innovations.