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FounderArbor EnergyAmerican

Brad Hartwig

Founder & CEO, Arbor Energy

About

Brad Hartwig founded Arbor Energy in 2022 to apply rocket-engine principles to baseload power, building an oxy-combustion supercritical CO2 turbomachine that turns forestry residue into carbon-negative electricity, water, and stored CO2. Before Arbor he was a manufacturing engineer on the Crew Dragon engines at SpaceX, a test pilot for Kitty Hawk's all-electric Heaviside eVTOL, and Chief Propulsion Engineer at the USC Rocket Propulsion Laboratory. Hartwig has positioned Arbor's system as a 'vegetarian rocket engine' to power data centers and the grid, with Frontier signing a $41M carbon removal contract for early offtake. The company captures 99% of CO2 from its combustion process, materially above the 90% benchmark for conventional carbon capture.

Previous roles

  • Manufacturing Engineer, SpaceX (Crew Dragon engines)
  • Test Pilot, Kitty Hawk
  • Chief Propulsion Engineer, USC Rocket Propulsion Lab

Notable work

  • Arbor Energy
  • Carbon-negative power
  • Oxy-combustion
  • Supercritical CO2 turbomachinery

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