Miguel Sierra Aznar’s Journey from Lab Rat to Climate Tech CEO
I remember hearing Miguel Sierra Aznar’s name for weeks before meeting him. The finalist event for Cohort 2018 was coming up, and my Activate coworkers mentioned him often—they were very enthusiastic about his chances. After having applied for the fellowship twice before, Miguel and his co-founders had refined their technology and were ready to launch Noble Thermodynamics as a solution for decarbonizing utility-scale power generation.
He made a big impact on the fellowship community from day one. Gregarious and big-hearted, he always made time for connecting with other fellows and helping them whenever possible. Miguel has also been very open about the real struggles he has faced as an entrepreneur and the work involved in transforming himself from a “lab rat” to a founder and leader.
A native of the Canary Islands, the Spanish archipelago off the northwest coast of Africa, Miguel is passionate about many things, including his family, building community, and making paella. But his drive to become an engineer—and in particular, his interest in combustion and developing zero-emissions engines—propelled him on his academic and then entrepreneurial journey.
Miguel contributed his culinary skills to an Activate staff retreat last fall, cooking up hearty, delicious paella (traditional and vegan versions). Afterward, I sat down with him for an open conversation about his transformational journey. The transcript below is an excerpt of our conversation, edited for concision and clarity.
-MC O’Connor, editorial director
Miguel Sierra Aznar cooked hearty, delicious paella (traditional and vegan versions) for the Activate Staff retreat in fall 2021. Photo: Calvin A. Cupini
Explain your path to Activate. It wasn't exactly a slam dunk, correct?
No, it wasn't. We applied twice before we got in, and it was definitely a lifeline for us. I finished my Ph.D. in 2018 but I’d been focused on entrepreneurship since 2015 when I patented my Ph.D. research. You have to hustle, right? I was just like, "Okay, I need to pay rent, I need to make sure I finish my Ph.D. And I need to find money for this humongous power plant I want to build. It's gonna cost me a ton. Where the heck do I get the money from?"
“I always had my eyes on the prize. I was going to build Noble Thermodynamics into something.”
At that stage, you feel really tiny in the big scheme of things. You're this researcher, nobody knows you, especially compared to your P.I. [principal investigator] at the lab. You’re just a lab rat. Nobody knows about your work except for, like, four guys at the conference you go to every year! And so yeah, I went through my Ph.D. then a postdoc, and I was like, “how the heck am I gonna do this?” But I always had my eyes on the prize. I was going to build Noble Thermodynamics into something.
Miguel Sierra Aznar, Cohort 2018 Fellow and Noble Thermodynamics co-founder and CEO.
Can you give a little primer on your technology, the argon power cycle? How does it work and why is it poised to make the world better?
I think we have a big part to play in the decarbonization of our energy system. We are making a zero-emission power plant—something no one has done before. And we think we can get into the market to support solar, wind, and other renewables. I think solar is fantastic. I think wind is fantastic, and same goes for geothermal—I think what Fervo Energy [Tim Latimer and Jack Norbeck, Cohort 2018] is doing with geothermal is amazing. But we still very much rely on combustion, and we can make combustion very clean.
It seems like combustion has become a dirty word—sometimes, I think maybe I’ll start calling it “energy conversion technology with an oxidizing chemical molecule” [laughter]. But the reality is combustion happens all around us. Even in California, 60 percent of our energy is powered by natural gas. Our Argon Power Cycle is a closed-loop reciprocating engine. It recycles a noble gas working fluid, which increases efficiency. And it captures all air pollutants, including carbon dioxide. We can run it on either natural gas or hydrogen.
Best of all, we're on our path to our first commercial, half-megawatt pilot this coming summer.
[An update since this interview took place in late 2021: The pilot is set to launch by the end of August.]
“I needed to learn how to turn my science into something that people could understand and would be willing to get behind...The beginning of that journey was Activate for me.”
I think anyone who has known you since when you were a fellow would say that you have transformed into such a capable leader. Looking back on that transformation, what sticks out to you?
I come from the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa. So it's like BFN as they say. [laughter] So nobody would imagine… My P.I., the first thing he said when I joined the Ph.D., he's like, why the heck are you here? You come from that tropical island and all that. Why the heck are you here? Well, I do want to do work. And kudos to America. There's a ton of opportunity for people who want to do work and intellectual work. Coming from academia, that is a world of papers, papers, papers. In entrepreneurship, that isn’t as useful. Finding funding and networking is useful. But networking was unnatural for me.
I used to spend all my time in the lab, not talking to anybody. Then you start to realize, well, that's not gonna get you anywhere. But I needed to learn how to talk to people, believe it or not. It sounds silly, but I needed to learn how to turn my science into something that people could understand and would be willing to get behind—and I don’t just mean investors, I also mean partners and employees. If they don't know what the heck you're doing or why it matters, why will they quit their current job and join you?
The beginning of that journey was Activate for me. It was Activate that taught me how the heck to get there. It was Activate where I got to know a great community and it was Activate that gave me a blank canvas.
“It was Activate where I got to know a great community.”
Want to join Miguel and Noble Thermodynamics in the mission to decarbonize our energy system? Check out these open positions. Keep up with Noble Thermodynamics news on LinkedIn.
Noble Thermodynamics is driven by its mission to radically and quickly reduce the world’s carbon emissions and accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels. It is bringing to market its breakthrough in power generation technology offering zero-carbon, dispatchable, and affordable power.