Cobalt Water Global

Cobalt Water Global, Inc. is a climate technology company focused on decarbonizing the water sector, serving water utilities and industrial operators of water systems. Its flagship product, the N2ORisk DSS, is an AI/ML decision support platform for accounting, reducing and monitoring nitrous oxide (N2O) process emissions from wastewater treatment. The company positions wastewater N2O process emissions as among the most tractable greenhouse gas reductions available to water utilities and states it has achieved up to 90% reductions in N2O.

The platform is structured around a three-step workflow. First, accounting and assessment: users upload site-specific process data and the system applies machine learning to estimate emissions and knowledge-based AI to produce a dynamic risk profile explaining why N2O is being produced, allowing prioritization of sites for measurement. The company argues that generic IPCC-style emission factors and uncalibrated mechanistic models cannot capture site-specific reactor conditions. Second, measurement and reduction: selection of field measurement methods and monitoring locations, implementation of recommended control actions, and training of a site-specific machine learning model on measured N2O data. Third, ongoing monitoring: after roughly a month of physical measurement, the trained model is used to monitor predicted emissions and risk on a weekly basis, with monthly emissions reports generated to track progress toward net zero.

Beyond N2ORisk DSS, the company offers water utility carbon accounting and analytics services, machine learning-based forecasting to compare N2O against a utility's broader emissions profile, and a beta version of the Novedar_EDSS, an expert-reasoning tool that scores conventional and innovative treatment technologies on technical, economic, environmental and social criteria with user-defined weightings.

Founding story

Cobalt Water Global was started by Jose Porro in 2014 as a consultancy applying expertise in water management, nitrous oxide emissions and carbon accounting, and was incorporated as a technology company in 2020 as demand grew for scalable climate-impact solutions. Porro worked over 20 years in the water industry as a consulting environmental engineer on drinking water and wastewater treatment design, distribution system hydraulics and water quality modelling, and wastewater process modelling in the US and internationally. He began water utility GHG accounting in 2008 on projects with NYCDEP and NYSERDA, founded the IWA Task Group on GHG Modelling in 2010, and served as technical expert for the IWA/German Government WaCCliM Project (2014-2019) and technical lead for the ECAM tool. The N2ORisk DSS derives from his PhD research integrating AI and mathematical modelling to minimize N2O emissions from water resource recovery facilities.

Business model

The company sells software on a subscription basis to water utilities and industrial water system operators, supplemented by impact-based GHG reduction fees and advisory services such as carbon accounting guidance and support with field measurement of N2O emissions.

Subscriptions to the N2ORisk DSS and other GHG management solutions, combined with impact-based greenhouse gas reduction fees; the company describes its offering as affordable relative to alternatives in the market.

Traction

The company states it has achieved up to 90% reductions in N2O with its solution. A Techstars job board profile lists the company at 1-10 employees. The company and its CEO were featured in a Global Water Intelligence Magazine article on nitrous oxide in the water sector.

Latest developments

The company is promoting the N2ORisk DSS across the full accounting, measurement and monitoring workflow and offers a beta of the Novedar_EDSS for evaluating wastewater treatment technologies and associated GHG emissions. Its team includes research engineer Dr. Yuge (Rica) Qiu, whose doctoral work at the University of Bath addressed N2O mitigation at water resource recovery facilities, and carbon data analyst Xinxin (Nicole) Zhang, who works on the computational frameworks behind the platform's predictive analytics.