By Jim Kinney | jkinney@repub.com
HOLYOKE — Sublime Systems will pause work on its Holyoke plant and cut its workforce by 10%.
Sublime Systems, the Somerville and Holyoke startup planning to revolutionize cement making, and do it in the Paper City, made the announcement Thursday, seven months after the Trump administration yanked a $87 million U.S. Department of Energy grant.
The federal money promised by the Biden administration was to fund 50% of the Holyoke plant, the company said.
“We are actively working through a robust set of alternative scale-up plans and have several exciting options to bring our first commercial plant online,” the statement read. “We also remain in ongoing dialogues with the Department of Energy to demonstrate how scaling our efficient, next-generation cement technology will (return) manufacturing of critical building material, reducing our reliance on imports and increasing quality jobs for Americans.”
Holyoke Mayor Joshua A. Garcia, still dealing with the aftermath of two devastating fires earlier this week, said he learned Wednesday night of Sublime’s decision to scale back.
“We got Trumped,” Garcia said, laying the blame at the White House. “A big missed opportunity.”
It’s a big missed opportunity for Holyoke and also for the country, he said as Sublime’s technology promises real environmental benefits. “It’s a good story. But it is not a story that aligns with this current federal administration,” Garcia said.
Sublime is not, at the moment, answering questions beyond presenting a media statement. And the company did use the verb “pause” with reference to its Holyoke plans.
But Garcia is not hopeful that Sublime will revisit its Holyoke project.
“It’s not like they are using sight of their mission,” he said.
But having lost $80 million in federal funding, “I don’t see a lot of light for Holyoke,” Garcia said.
He knows Gov. Maura T. Healey’s administration in Boston tried to close the gap.
And he said Sublime talked for a time after the federal funds were lost on a scaled down version of other project that would have been on a smaller lot adjacent to the Water Street site.
But as he learned Wednesday, there was just no way to fill the funding gap, Garcia said.
U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal, D-Springfield, lamented the loss of nearly 100 good-paying jobs.
“I could not be more disappointed with today’s news that Sublime Systems has paused work on the construction of its Holyoke plant,” Neal said in an emailed response to questions. “When the Inflation Reduction Act was drafted in the Ways and Means Committee under my chairmanship, these are exactly the kinds of projects we intended to support.”
Neal has appeared with Garcia at Sublime announcements at the canal-side site. He’s also been there for test-pours of the company’s concrete meant to show off the technology.
“Whether the president wants to acknowledge it or not, climate change is happening and technologies like the one championed by Sublime Systems are the future,” Neal said. “Rather than turning our backs on innovation and our obligation to confront the climate crisis head-on, we should be capitalizing on the opportunities before us. The bottom line is that the loss of these jobs falls squarely at the president’s feet.”
It’s a setback for Western Massachusetts, but for the entire clean energy sector.
“The stakes are too high, which is why I have no intention of giving up on this,” he said.
Sublime said it’s been an honor to work with Holyoke.
“We recognize the pain and challenges that this shift of direction will cause,” the statement read.
Sublime — co-founded by a Canadian chemist and an MIT professor — already had been doing sitework for a $150 million plant at an old paper mill site at 14-26 Water St. in Holyoke’s historic Flats neighborhood.
It’s already lined up customers, including Holyoke-based DOC and its supplier, Chicopee Concrete, but also a deal to sell 623,000 tons of cement products to Microsoft over six to nine years.
The company had planned to employ 70 to 90 people in addition to the 250-or-so who were to work in construction. It was to have opened in 2027.
At the end of May, the DOE canceled funding for 24 projects nationwide, including Sublime. The grants totaled $3.7 billion.
Sublime then said it would still move forward with its plans to open a plant in Holyoke, seeking funding from other sources despite the loss of federal investment.
The company said it also would lobby to get the grant reinstated, saying its technology allows for the environmentally friendly manufacture of a basic building material domestically. “Reshoring” of manufacturing is a stated goal of the Trump administration.
Sublime chose Holyoke in part because of its hydroelectric power, the same engine that drove its rapid industrial growth in the 19th century.
Leah Ellis co-invented Sublime’s foundational technology with Professor Yet-Ming Chiang at MIT, where she studied as a Banting postdoctoral fellow.
They created a way of making cement through an electrochemical process instead of using heat. The high temperatures needed in cement making means that it accounts for as much as 5% of worldwide manmade emissions of carbon dioxide. Most of the carbon dioxide comes from the limestone instead of from the fuel burned to heat that limestone.
Sublime’s electrochemical process does not release the carbon dioxide.
There is already a small demonstration system set up and test pours, both indoor and outdoor.
At one point, there were announced rounds of fundraising, which garnered $40 million and $75 million. Sublime also achieved $47 million in federal tax credits, $1.05 million in state tax credits and $351,000 in property tax incentives from the city.
Garcia said he will talk with the owners of the Water Street site about new development opportunities. The factors that made Holyoke a good location for Sublime — green hydroelectric power, transportation, available sites, an industrial workforce — are still in place.
