Keeping up with Climate Tech vol. 10

India’s steel industry is both an engine of growth and one of the country’s most carbon-intensive sectors, responsible for roughly 12% of national emissions. Undergoing an industrial boom, India’s steel sector is on track to add 100 million tons of new capacity by 2030, 90% of it coal-based. 

For an industry that imports 85% of its coking coal, the Russia–Ukraine war is truly a wake-up call: PCI coal prices doubled overnight, gutting steelmakers’ margins. Add to that the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, which will begin taxing Indian steel exports in 2026, and domestic mandates under India’s Carbon Credit Trading Scheme…and the search for a domestic, scalable, and sustainable fuel is no longer optional.

“That was probably the worst period of time for all the steel companies on a P&L level,” Shaurya Sharma, co-founder and COO of Climitra, told the Harvard Technology Review. “They had to cut down on capacity. That’s when we realized this isn’t just about sustainability. It’s also about cost and energy security.”

From Carbon Removal to Industrial Fuel

Sharma founded Climitra with brothers Shubhankar Mihir Seth and Aryaman Mihir Seth. All three came to Climitra with shared frustrations in the carbon dioxide removal (CDR) space. Before 2025, Sharma had worked at several biochar-focused startups, where waste biomass was converted into stable carbon for agricultural soils. The science behind all these companies’ efforts was sound, but the economics faltered. 

“The basic problem with the carbon removal space is that the demand is pretty intermittent,” Sharma said. “Even for biochar-based CDRs, there are only a handful of American companies which commit to long-term, consistent orders. The rest of the demand is centered around Europe and very sporadic.”

The result was a stop-start market that left Indian operators carrying costs while intermediaries abroad captured most of the upside. For Sharma, the mismatch suggested a bigger opportunity in hard-to-abate sectors like steel and cement.

“On that end of the spectrum, specifically steel and cement, there was no feasible solution to do decarbonization at scale,” he explained. “CCUS requires hundreds of millions in capex and raises operating costs by 10 to 15%. Businesses can’t afford to operate on negative margins.”

Climitra’s Proposition: Biochar as a “Perfect Coal Alternative”

Climitra’s bet is simple but ambitious: engineer biochar so precisely that it can act as a drop-in replacement for PCI coal in blast furnaces — no costly retrofits required.

The process begins with collaboration. 

“We start with working with the customer. We understand their requirements, the kind of coals and mixes that they’re using,” Sharma explained.

Leveraging his experience at Schlumberger right out of college, he and his team built a biomass atlas using AI, satellites, hyperspectral imaging, and LIDAR.

“We’ve begun replicating an idea that’s quite common in oil and gas,” he said. “After engaging with the customer, we go back to a database we have built to assess what kind of biomass is available in certain regions of India, and how, when processed under certain conditions, it can give me a certain output. From there, we figure out the perfect mix of biochar.”

This allows Climitra to tailor fuel blends to each plant’s unique requirements. And the demands are exacting. 

“We only thought there were four or five important factors,” Sharma said. “But they gave us a comprehensive list of 20–25 parameters, and they don’t have a tolerance for more than 2–3% deviation. That was a big learning experience.”

The implication: Climitra isn’t just supplying a commodity fuel, but an engineered industrial input held to the standards of a specialty chemical. Unsurprisingly, the adoption curve is slow. 

“The blast furnace is the heart of a big integrated steel plant,” Sharma explained.  “These plants themselves are like entire cities; they have their own rail lines, for example. And they need to be very careful with what they use, so steel companies are very particular with what they allow into plants.”

Hence, the incubation period for Climitra’s product is long, from lab test to batch trial to a large-scale contract. 

“This is not SaaS where you just sell a platform. You have to become their partner,” Sharma said.

Compliance Built In

Climitra is also positioning itself as more than a fuel provider. Its integration platform links directly to compliance systems, providing emissions dashboards aligned with CBAM, India’s CCTS, and emerging “green steel” procurement policies. For steelmakers facing rising regulatory pressure, the promise is clear: reduce emissions, stay audit-ready, and preserve export competitiveness.

Mapping India’s Untapped Biomass

Scaling biochar requires more than industrial integration — it requires secure, long-term feedstock. Sharma had already seen India’s “biomass paradox” up close: massive amounts generated, but little of it harnessed productively.

“Initially, my thought process was that only Punjab had a biomass problem with stubble burning,” he said. “But when I went to different regions, I realized every state has biomass which is either burnt or left to decay, whether it’s Andhra Pradesh in the south or Odisha in the east.”

In Gujarat, Climitra found an especially striking resource: Prosopis juliflora, an invasive tree that has overtaken nearly 3 million hectares, replacing native grasslands and depleting groundwater. 

“I was just blown away to realize the scale of the problem, and that this invasive tree, and others like it, could actually become part of the solution,” Sharma explained.

Climitra’s first project in the arid Kutch region of Gujarat will harness this invasive biomass to produce biochar for a nearby plant operated by one of the world’s top three steelmakers. Its village-level biomass atlas helps ensure that facilities won’t run dry after just a few years of operation.

Scaling Responsibly: A Decentralized Approach

For Sharma, scaling is the biggest challenge — and one that India’s biofuel sector has historically failed to overcome. 

“Government support for biofuels has been strong for over a decade, but most solutions haven’t scaled,” he noted, pointing to compressed biogas plants set up by Indian billionaire Gautam Adani. “Adani announced plans to put up 500 to 1,000 units, but I’ve seen their CBG plants not operating at full capacity. In fact, many are running at just 20 to 30%.”

The flaw, he argues, is treating biomass like oil and gas. Conventional economies of scale don’t apply to a resource that is inherently distributed. Large centralized plants often collapse when feedstock prices spike or farmers realize operators can’t relocate and exploit their dependence.

“You set up a big project, but then you can’t secure the raw material, or the price jumps the next year,” Sharma said. “That becomes a huge hindrance to scaling biofuels.”

Climitra’s alternative is decentralization: modular facilities tailored to the biomass profile of each region. This approach not only reduces feedstock risk but also integrates farmers and local actors as partners, rather than treating them as mere suppliers of raw materials. 

“The next big move is organizing the value chain so there is enhanced value for everyone — from the farmer to the middleman to the producer to the end buyer,” Sharma said. “The farmer should not just feel like a supplier of raw material.”

If successful, Sharma sees biochar and biomass as central to India’s future energy mix. 

“These solutions can support 15 to 20% of India’s energy needs; but that can only happen when you have the buy-in of the communities and farmers on the ground,” he concluded.

What’s Next

Sharma told the HTR that Climitra raised a total of $1.8M in pre-seed funding in June 2025, a tidy sum for India’s venture capital market. The company is now scaling projects across India. After its first facility in Kutch, the company is preparing projects in Punjab, where it will convert rice stubble into biochar for both decarbonization and carbon credits, and in Uttarakhand, where the focus will be carbon removal rather than steel integration. Longer term, Climitra is targeting India’s eastern steel belt — the country’s densest cluster of plants.

By 2035, the company projects 7 million tons of CO₂ removed, 4 million tons of coal replaced, and 100,000 rural livelihoods created.