In this episode of the Energy Perspectives Podcast, recorded at the Carbon Solutions Forum in San Diego in February 2026, Trevor Best (CEO, Syzygy Plasmonics) and Kevin Norfleet (Global Sustainability Director, Celanese) join Elias B. Hinckley (Partner, Baker Botts) to examine what it takes to turn carbon capture and low-carbon fuel technologies into bankable projects.

Best shares how Syzygy Plasmonics secured a 100% offtake with Trafigura for its first commercial sustainable aviation fuel plant and the technology pathway to competing with traditional jet fuel on cost at scale. Norfleet describes Celanese's experience building one of the first large-scale CCU-to-methanol facilities, the voluntary demand landscape for low-carbon materials, and the certification infrastructure gaps the industry still faces.

Key Themes:

• Offtake as the decisive hurdle for project finance

• Building a CCU facility before customer demand is proven

• The gap between fuel mandates and voluntary materials markets

• Scaling technology to compete with traditional fuels on cost

• The missing carbon accounting infrastructure

Chapters

• 0:00 Introductions

• 1:23 Celanese's CCU-to-Methanol Project

• 2:15 Building the Business Case for CCU

• 3:49 The Primacy of Viable Offtake

• 5:16 Selling into Mandate Markets

• 6:17 Voluntary Demand in Materials Markets

• 8:25 Building Before Demand Is Certain

• 9:31 The Certification Infrastructure Gap

• 10:43 Financing the Next Facility

• 13:31 Finding Long-Term Investors

• 14:14 Internal vs. External Capital

• 15:01 One Lever to Fix Carbon Markets

• 17:17 Closing

Learn more about the Carbon Solutions Forum: https://energy-dialogues.com/events/carbon-solutions-forum/

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