The scale of our climate challenge is staggering: humans have pumped 1.6 trillion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the air and oceans since 1750, and we're adding another 40 billion tonnes every year. Even with dramatic emissions reductions, we're still on track to blow past 1.5 degrees of warming, the Paris Accord target first breached in 2024. Tune in to a conversation with Dr. Julio Friedmann, Chief Scientist at Carbon Direct. This carbon management company partners with Fortune 500 companies such as Microsoft, JPMorgan Chase, and American Express to transform net-zero commitments into science-backed action plans. After a career that began as a researcher at ExxonMobil and included service at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Columbia University's energy policy center, and running advanced energy programs in the Obama administration's Department of Energy, Julio brings unique expertise to the intersection of massive climate challenges and current technological capabilities.
As companies work toward 2030 and 2050 carbon goals, the question isn't whether we'll need massive carbon removal—it's whether we can deploy it fast enough and fairly enough to matter. The recent $100 million XPRIZE Carbon Removal awards highlighted the diversity of approaches being pursued, with natural solutions like enhanced rock weathering using basalt and azomite soil, and biochar applications to farmland dominating the winners. But how do these technologies stack up against the hype? Friedmann provides a realistic assessment of where Direct Air Capture, ocean alkalinity enhancement, and other carbon removal approaches stand today. Carbon Direct's team of 70+ scientists changes the conversation with corporate clients about their carbon strategies, providing the scientific firepower to offer hard feedback about what's needed to preserve the markets, supply chains, and revenue streams companies depend on. You can learn more about Carbon Direct's work and explore their library of climatetech reports at https://www.carbon-direct.com/
As companies work toward 2030 and 2050 carbon goals, the question isn't whether we'll need massive carbon removal—it's whether we can deploy it fast enough and fairly enough to matter. The recent $100 million XPRIZE Carbon Removal awards highlighted the diversity of approaches being pursued, with natural solutions like enhanced rock weathering using basalt and azomite soil, and biochar applications to farmland dominating the winners. But how do these technologies stack up against the hype? Friedmann provides a realistic assessment of where Direct Air Capture, ocean alkalinity enhancement, and other carbon removal approaches stand today. Carbon Direct's team of 70+ scientists changes the conversation with corporate clients about their carbon strategies, providing the scientific firepower to offer hard feedback about what's needed to preserve the markets, supply chains, and revenue streams companies depend on. You can learn more about Carbon Direct's work and explore their library of climatetech reports at https://www.carbon-direct.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you
are on this beautiful planet of ours. Welcome to Sustainability
in your Ear. This is the podcast conversation about accelerating
the transition to a sustainable carbon neutral society, and I'm
your host, Mitt Trackcliffe. Thanks for joining the conversation today.
It's good to be back after our summer recording hiatus.
(00:29):
Humans have pumped one point six trillion tons of carbon
dioxide into the air since seventeen fifty, when the Industrial
Revolution began, and we're adding another forty billion tons every year.
Even with dramatic emissions reductions, we're still on track to
blow past the Paris Accords one point five degrees centigrade
of warming limitation, which we first actually breached in twenty
(00:52):
twenty four. Our guest today is doctor Julio Friedman. He's
spent his career at the intersection where these massive challenges
is collide with the capabilities of current technology. Julio is
the chief scientist at Carbon Direct, a carbon management company
that works with Fortune five hundred organizations like Microsoft, JP,
Morgan Chase, and American Express to turn their net zero
(01:14):
commitments into science backed action plans. Julio developed his expertise
in direct air capture and carbon storage technologies on an
unusual career path that began as a researcher at Exonmobile
and include service at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Columbia
University's Energy Policy Center, and a stint running advanced energy
(01:35):
programs in the Obama Administration's Department of Energy. As companies
work to meet twenty thirty and twenty fifty carbon goals,
the question isn't whether we will have massive carbon removal,
it's whether we can deploy it fast enough and fairly
enough to matter. We'll explore the best investments to accelerate
the path, not just a net zero, but beginning to
(01:56):
actually draw down that two hundred and seventy five years
of industrial emission that's necessary to bring the climate back
into the sweet spot environmentally and climate speaking for human prosperity.
You can learn more about carbon directs work at carbondirect
dot com. We're going to get to the conversation right
after a brief commercial break. Stay tuned. Welcome to the show, Juleo.
(02:25):
How are you doing today?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
I'm doing fabulously.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Thank you well, great to have you here. Thank you
so much. You know, I'm really impressed with what carbon
Direct does. It works on such a vast range of
project But can you briefly explain the carbon direct approach
to supporting a company's carbon management goals?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Absolutely, Ultimately, the world is people doing things. We help
people do things, and specifically we bring deep technical expertise
to these very challenging problems. Our only goals are real,
valid reduction of emissions, removals of emissions, and making clean products,
(03:04):
and we bring our scientific expertise to help our clients
and customers make those real.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
You have a team of seventy scientists, You're doing a
lot of very interesting work. And your background at Exxon
and the Department of Energy and so forth gives you
a unique perspective on where we are in the progress
toward restoring the environment. How would you characterize where the
United States is today in terms of that progress and
(03:32):
its commitment to climate change?
Speaker 2 (03:36):
So the United States is not one thing. The United
States is many things. At the national level, we are retreating,
no doubt about that. We are in fact worse than that,
we are surrendering advantages that we have as a country.
At the national level. Advance that we are surrendering our
leads in technology development and innovation and science, are abandoning
(04:01):
market opportunities that could position us better for competitiveness. So
it goes at the state level many different stories. Actually,
at the case of California and California continuing to put
money to work and generally speaking pushing hard on climate
reductions and removals, there's important legislation that's coming forward this year,
(04:23):
for example SB six three as one example, which is
aimed at sort of setting targets and spending money on removals.
You could also look at a state like Texas and say,
while the policies in the state are weird, but the
state's leading on solar, it's leading on wind, it's doing
a bunch of interesting things.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Well. And that's what's so unique about this moment is
that we, on the one hand, have this kind of
political discussion about this. On the other there is a
great deal of progress and as you point out, a
lot of money to be made in the long run
by getting to a green, regenerative economy.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
One of the ways in which Carbon Direct views the
world in this context is we view what our customers
are doing as well, and in general, companies are not
backing down, They're doubling down. They're doing more. And if
they can deploy renewables to save money, or if they
can deploy carbon capture to reduce their emissions, or if
(05:21):
they can buy clean products for their corporate reporting, they're
going to do it. And we're seeing actually growing sophistication
in their purchases. We are seeing growing commitments in terms
of money, they are adding ambition in terms of the
range of things they're taking on. And all that's happening
in the United States too.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
How does that scientific firepower that you bring to those
discussions change the conversations with these companies. Are you able
to give them the hard feedback that not enough is
being done to preserve their markets and supply chains and
the revenue that they depend on today, And how do
they react to that?
Speaker 2 (05:57):
So let's start by saying we don't use the scientific
expertise to give them that message. They already have that message.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
You really, do they really get it? Or are they
know they really sting towards a future?
Speaker 2 (06:10):
So no, they really get it. And when I say they,
I mean many different kinds of customers and many different
kinds of sectors Let's start with a fairly obvious thing.
Most of these companies are not really US companies. They're
really multinational companies. So they have to work in Japan,
they have to work in Europe, they have to abide
by all the laws in these countries. Second of all,
(06:32):
most of them are making long term investments. They're making
investments for a twenty or a thirty year horizon, which
means they can't be thinking about short term politics at all.
They really have to be thinking about how do we
avoid losing money over that kind of park. Where is
the market going to go? They all believe that clean
markets are their future, and so they can't just abandon
(06:53):
that as a matter of the sensibility. They have to
sort of think about what is prudent investment. This is
actually where the scientific firepower of a company that carbon
direct is useful. They could say, hey, we need to
buy sustainable aviation fuels. Great, what's a good one? How
do we know what a good sustainable aviation fuel is?
(07:15):
If the politics in Europe change, and if the policies
in Europe change, are we going to suddenly have bad fuel?
How do we hedge against the future. How do we
know that the supply chain for sustainable aviation fuels is
sustainable that they're not destroying land up stream or causing
water problems. There's actually very cheap technical stuff on all
of these topics. How do you think about getting clean fuels?
(07:38):
How do you think about what is a valid and
durable removal of greenhouse gases? What's the best investment to
reduce the most emissions? A levelized cost of carbon abatement
kind of sensibility that actually requires real in depth expertise.
If you're going to de carbonize an existing asset, if
you're going to enter a new market, you need more
(07:59):
than just archetology. You need the science too.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Well. You know, we recently had the X Prize Carbon
Removal team on the show and they were announcing that
the winners of their their one hundred million dollar contest,
and their solutions that dominated were those natural solutions like
enhanced rock weathering and biochart I'm wondering we could just
walk through a few of these technologies and get your
opinion on them. So let's start with enhanced rock weathering.
(08:25):
How significant is that as a potential lever in the
fight against climate change?
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Right? So, before I say something let me say something. Sure,
like any prize, the X Prize is designed, and so
the part the solutions they selected reflected the design of the.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Prize absolutely their process, and they called that out did
not really give the DAC companies as much time as
they needed to achieve the same thing that the enhanced
rock Weathering did.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Not just time that I think quite reasonably, the prize
people said, Hey, we want something that can scale, and
we want something that can scale quickly, and we want
something that can scale at modest cost. Ye, and that
was part of the design as well. In that context,
enhance rock Weathering would score well. So let's talk about
ERW and hance rock weathering as a thing. So for
(09:16):
starters like I'm glad that this technology is finally having
a moment. It's been kind of underloved for a long time.
We've known that we could grind up minerals and put
them on land and get a bunch of benefits out
of it, including climate benefit. We've known that for a
long time. What has become clear now is that there's
a market that did not exist ten years ago to
(09:37):
actually pay for this. That's part of the reason it's
sort of burst on the same scene on the last
couple of years. One of the things that we have
learned is that it can have a big impact at
modest cost, and it could scale quickly around the world.
Part of the reason was because it makes use of
existing infrastructure. Corey, with grinding material, you already got ninety
(10:00):
percent of what you need. If you have something that
spreads fertilizer on the field, you have kind of the
rest of it. And we already have these things in
most places. There's things that we are also learning as
we go that shouldn't surprise anyone either one. Not all
minerals are created equal, not all basalts are created equal.
I was interested in looking at a set of projects
(10:21):
in Sub Saharan Africa. The company involved looked at eight
different basalt quarries and found out that only one of
them would deliver any abatement.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Really, I'm curious why the chemical composition of the salt.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
The composition of the basalt, and actually the structure of
the basalt as well. Resalts when they first erupt our glass,
and glass reacts more rapidly. After a very short period
of time, it actually forms microminerals, which react more slowly,
but there's also the composition of the basalt, how much
iron and magnesium is really in it, And these are
(10:56):
not all created equal either. So there's a volume and
a time dependency in just the mineral feedstocks. And you
can get perhaps better production of removals through something like olivine,
but olivine is much more scarce. And even then, what
kind of olivine is it? Fosterite or failite? Is it?
(11:17):
You know, like what other minerals are in there with it? So,
even just at the very most basic level, we're learning stuff.
Second thing we're learning is it's really hard to monitor.
The X prize people didn't really take that fully into
their consideration, but a corporate buyer does. Buyers like, well,
(11:38):
how do we know this has been delivered? Right?
Speaker 1 (11:42):
And so by contrast, director capture, which you measure in
terms of the tonnage of CO two captured, is very material.
You can measure that interestingly compared to rock.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Right.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
When you think about that as an abatement strategy for
a client, do you then do a blend of these
options in their plan or what's the criteria for putting
together a solution for a Microsoft or a JP Morgan?
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Sure? So, let's start by saying that ninety six percent
of what's in the market we consider to be not
high quality. Right, And again that's the science speaking, and
we have very clear reasons why we believe that. Every
year we publish a status on voluntary carbon markets and
we have a conclusion about what's in there. We also
publish every year with Microsoft criteria for what our quality,
(12:33):
just so that people understand what we're talking about in
that context. Again, our buyers are quite sophisticated. So for
a very large company, it could be a tech company,
it could be a bank, it could be an investment company,
could be a government. In any of these cases, these
guys will say a couple of things repeatedly. We want
to manage risk. We want to make sure that the
(12:56):
thing we're doing has value period, and so things like
the monitoring technology become really important. So they might be
interested in enhanced rock weathering. But even though it's cheap
and scalable, they're like, well, we won't want to put
everything into that. There's risks. So they want to manage risk.
That's reputational risk, that's performance risk, that's contract risk. The
second thing they're saying is we want to manage costs.
(13:19):
Direct air capture is awesome for a whole bunch of reasons.
I've written and spoken lovingly about that for a long time.
Cost is not one of them. Super expensive, so you
get clarity, but cost is a challenge. The other thing
that they will say is we want to make sure
it has impact, not just climate impact. We want companies
(13:39):
to grow, we want there to be new jobs, we
want there to be many kinds of options for us
in the future, and so they will always say, can
you bring us a portfolio of stuff? And there will
be portfolios across the different things, so enhanced rock, weathering, biomass, biochar,
(14:00):
other kinds of mineralization, direct air capture. Usually they'll say, hey,
can we also have trees in there? We like trees.
Can we have mangroves, Can we have soils? What are
the things that we can do? They will also have
multiples within each of those. They're like, we don't want
just one biochart company that exposes us to risk. We
want to have multiple kinds of biochar, multiple geographies, multiple
(14:23):
conversion technologies, so that in the future we know we'll
have the thing we need.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Now you mentioned biochar, and biomass. Where do you think
they are in terms of the development of the necessary
capacity and efficiency that we're looking for?
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Right, So, first of all, pretty good. I'm just going
to give you the like it's pretty good. It's pretty
good on a lot of fronts. One, it's pretty good
on durability. If you do biochart correctly, you can have
more than two hundred years durability with confidence. Second, pretty
good in terms of sustainability. There's a lot of waste
biomass out there that you can turn into biochar, and
(15:00):
it's a relatively well understood technology. Pretty good on cost,
it sort of falls in between the costs of something
like trees and direct air capture, and we're starting to
now scale production in a useful way. I will say that,
like everything else, there's hair on biochar. There's questions about
durability and how you measure it. There's questions about how
(15:21):
you monitor this stuff. The machines that make biochar a
kind of finicky. They break a lot, so I do
actually get the supply in the field. So I think
all of these technologies end up filling in a particular
kind of gap. It's part of the reason why we
think it's useful to have a broad portfolio, and when
(15:43):
most of our customers buy a broad portfolio, they want
something that everybody's got.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Does she direct air capture on a cost curve that
will resemble other advanced technologies or are we still struggling
to find that catalyst for true scaleability?
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Yes, I do. I do see us on a trajectory
of price reduction and profound price production and profound price
reduction in a reasonable timeframe. So I will start by
saying this industry was unduly optimistic about how quickly they
could scale and how quickly the cost will come down.
(16:20):
Most groups have increase their cost estimates with reason.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Every startup industry goes through this. We lived with the hype.
Now we have to get to the reality.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
What is the reality? So the reality today is we're
still in sort of four hundred to one thousand dollars
per ton. That's really the range. We're going to have
a real clear signal enter the market shortly, and that
is when the Stratos project turns on. This is the
one point five project in No Trees, Texas, and the
(16:53):
town of No Trees is very happy to have this
project that's going to come in at a surprisingly low
cost many people, and I don't know the exact cost,
and I don't want to share contractual information and stuff,
but it's going to be way below a thousand. It's
going to be much more at the price that people
are like, oh, well, that's kind of in bounds. And
it's still the first of a kind. So even the
(17:16):
first of a kind project is going to come in
at an interesting cost range. Second of all, when I
say a reasonable timeframe, what I mean is like, by
twenty forty, I think there's good reason to believe we
will be well below three hundred dollars a ton.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Given that price, what volume do you think we can
reasonably expect to draw down using DS?
Speaker 2 (17:36):
I'm still optimistic that by the end of this decade
we will be in the million ton of year range. Okay,
we can probably be well beyond that. I'm cautiously optimistic
we can have two million tons of active direct air
capture running by the end of this decade by twenty
forty at that kind of a price range, contingent on
(17:57):
a gazillion things. Blah blah blah, let's say fifty to
one hundred million tons, So long.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Way from where we need to be. How do we
how do we accelerate that? Do you have thoughts on them?
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Yes, this is what I call Ohm's law of finance.
Money is like voltage. It overcomes resistance. The question is
entirely who pays? Yeah, and we are seeing that the
foundations of the who pays questions in a rational context.
(18:27):
So a couple of examples, one of them SB six
forty three that I just mentioned a moment ago, the
California lockdown, the California law. It will set a target
and it will provide money. Great, like, that's a good
way to do it. You must have two percent of
the emissions by this date, and we will provide fifty
(18:49):
million dollars a year as a starting point, and we
will include director capture in that. Will all fifty million
dollars go to director capture? No, one hundred percent not.
It will go to many different kinds of things. But
that's not chump change. That's like a reasonable purchase. We've
already seen companies like air Bus and Microsoft and JP
Morgan make large purchases for director capture, So we're seeing
(19:13):
this kind of stuff. The most important piece is actually
around a compliance market. So something like CORSA, which is
the International Civil Aviation Organization at KO, they have a
standard for emissions for aviation. One hundred and seventy countries
have signed. We are facing one hundred million ton shortfall
by twenty thirty. Okay, it's a mandate, thou shalt at
(19:39):
that point. The question is what can you buy? And
they'll be buying some trees, they'll be buying some bio energy,
they'll be buying sustainable aviation fuels, and they'll still have
a fifty million ton shortfall. So how these things get
incorporated into compliance markets will start to answer the who
pays question?
Speaker 1 (19:58):
So we don't need a serve show or bullet. We
need a quiver of solutions.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
It's always the case. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
One more technology i'd love to learn a little more
about your thoughts on is ocean alkalinity enhancement, which has
been very controversial, the idea of sheeeding the ocean with
various chemicals. There's been experiments that also that caused the
bloom of algae that draws down CO two.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
So you just describe two very different things. Actually, I'm sorry.
One of them is ocean iron fertilization. Yeah, okay, iron
fertilization is not ocean alkalinity enhancement, but it is still
an attempt to harness natural systems to draw down greenhouse gases.
The challenge with iron fertilization is it doesn't work. We've
(20:46):
actually run a bunch of tests. It doesn't do the job.
It does cause algae to bloom. We see the algae
blooms immediately. What it does not do is draw down
CO two. Those algae stay in the upper ocean, they
don't sink. So what all you end up doing is
having a lot of air surface ocean exchange of greenhouse gases.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
So there might be some more fish eating the algae,
but other than that we don't get much benefit.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Correct now, if the goal is to feed whales, awesome,
If the goal is to draw down CO two, not
so much. And again there should be more experiments on this,
We should keep working it. I am always in the
position that we should learn more before we make categorical
announcements of stuff. But so far, iron fertilization, it is
controversial with good reason, but it also doesn't work, so
(21:31):
we don't have to work on it a lot. In contrast,
ocean alkalinity enhancement is quite different. Think about it, like
putting a big thumbs in the ocean, which are typically
doing is adding either carbonate or bicarbonate. Now, this is
much less controversial, first of all, because the ocean has
so much by carbonate in it already that you can't
move the needle. In terms of natural systems. You can't
(21:54):
perturb the natural system in a realistic way, so you
end up focusing on sort of what are the local
consequences of what you Also, most people don't even understand
what by carbonate is, So when you're like, oh, you're
taking a dissolved ion, like, they glaze over immediately. They're
like like, come back to me later. Mostly what you're
talking about here is, in fact, stuff like grinding up
(22:16):
minerals of various kinds that have a high alkalinity content
and adding them to the ocean where they dissolve and
that pulls CO two out of the air. It's actually
if I were a mad scientist and I were saying,
how would I fix this problem? This is exactly how
I would do it. I would say, grind up a
bunch of stuff and put it in the ocean. It
will be cheap. It's scalable. It's fast. Big problem with
ocean akalinity enhancement. It's illegal. The London Convention prohibits dumping
(22:40):
in the ocean right now, you can't do it.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Well in that case, bro, if it is a local intervention,
why should it be illegal? Who who could possibly regulate it?
Speaker 2 (22:54):
So if you dump it in the open ocean, it's illegal.
In order for ocean A kalinity enhancement to scale, that's
what you need to do. You could today do this
in territorial waters, so you can do this within the
first two hundred kilometers of a continental shelf in most
countries or something there though, immediately you run into reasonable concerns.
(23:16):
And when I say reasonable concerns, most people have a
deep attachment to the ocean. They are very emotionally bound
to it. And it's not just that they like whales.
It's a primordial kind of sensibility. And the first question
that people will ask is we've screwed up the air,
are we going to fix it by screwing up the ocean?
And it's hard to counter that argument. You end up
(23:37):
if your response to that as well, we're going to
talk about carbonate chemistry. Like immediately people are like, why
are you doing this really? And so the right answer
in the near term is to help companies do pilots,
to really instrument the hell out of these things so
that we learn everything we link to learn, that you
have a relatively transparent data share kind of sensibility around it,
(24:02):
that environmental management agencies are engaged, et cetera. If you try, though,
to educate communities and say we're going to do this,
the community will just shut you down. They were like,
we don't want to be the people who do this.
We don't want this in our backyard. So activating is
the hard part in oceanaw kalinity enhancement.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
We've laid a solid foundation for the rest of this conversation.
We need to take a quick commercial break. We're going
to be right back, and we are back. I hope
you enjoyed those commercials. Let's continue the conversation with doctor
Julia Friedman. He is chief scientist at carbon Direct. It's
(24:41):
a carbon management firm that has partnered with companies like Microsoft,
American Express, and others to develop carbon reduction strategies. Julio,
carbon management is an interesting term. Are we headed for
a future in which for a lack of a better
way of describing it, humanity manages global carbon levels like
a play planetary air conditioner. What is this industry's role
(25:03):
in our future? How will we think about it?
Speaker 2 (25:06):
A friendly modification here as a planetary thermostat. Okay, is
perhaps a better way to think about it. Let's start
by saying, we have a carbon problem. Here's an idea.
Why don't we manage that. We think of this commonly
as an energy problem or as a money problem, but
(25:26):
energy and money are not carbon. Too much CO two
in the atmosphere is the issue. We got to manage that,
and we usually think about it exclusively. Is we got
to reduce the amount of CO two that goes into
the air. It's like a rule of wholes thing. That's
not crazy, But it's not even the big problem. The
big problem is we still have one point seven trillion
(25:46):
tons of CO two in the atmosphere and oceans that
we didn't really mean to put there. Carbon management should
be thought of in the same kind of sensibility as
waste management. We no longer throw trash on the street,
We no longer vent sewage into rivers like we actually
manage those wastes because we understand the health implications of them,
(26:09):
So we're really talking about a planetary health issue and
managing that is basically like managing a thermostat. We're like, well,
we can at some point say well where do we
want to put the dial? And we're far from that,
but that's where we're going to end up. When oh,
(26:30):
this is going to be like in a twenty one
hundred kind of timeframe, we have to have a whole
basket of technologies well assessed, well fielded. We have to
have industries and money in place just to even manage
the climate obligations we've already made. We need to see
a to removal industry that is twice as big as
(26:50):
the oil and gas industry, Like, it's going to take
some time to build that and a lot of money.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Well, and your idea of the thermostat, I think is
apt because what we're talking about is thinking about carbon
not as a linear problem, but as a circular problem.
How do we keep it flowing through our environment in
the appropriate levels that we need it for our genetics?
Spot on the path to that reality in twenty one hundred,
(27:17):
the big challenge is going to be making and keeping
promises in a transparent way. How does carbon Direct address
your client's concerns about being perceived as greenwashing as they
make progress towards something which is still an imperfect solution.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Right, I'm pleased to say that they really care about this.
This is not just some corporate box checking thing, like,
they really want to make sure they're doing the right
thing all of our customers. I can also add that
they're not just thinking about this as reputational risk. They
could get sued in a Dutch court. There is new
international law that suggests that this is a global obligation.
(27:54):
So they're thinking about this in terms of legal as
well as perception sort of things. And in that context though,
they also don't want to just like bi a certificate
and say, well, the other people said it was fine.
They really want to understand and make sure they're doing
the right thing. That's where the science comes in. So
(28:14):
if let's say that they are reforesting part of the Congo,
like they want to invest in a project where they
create a new forest that didn't exist before. They want
to make sure that it actually does the things it
says it does, that it doesn't impact communities negatively. Quite
the opposite, They wanted to compact communities positively. They want
(28:35):
to make sure that it's durable. If they're buying a
thirty year contract for trees, they better get thirty years
of abatement. How do you know that? Like, so all
these things like feed into it. But the same thing
is true if they're buying bio energy with ccs from
a waste to energy facility in the Nordic countries, they're like, well,
what's the real supply of this stuff? How long is
it going to stay underground? What's a reasonable price to pay?
(28:57):
And then to your question, what claims can can we
legitimately make against it?
Speaker 1 (29:03):
So what role is transparency and very clear storytelling play
in talking about carbon in an environment where it has
become a component of the culture war? I mean, that's
it's about grounding us in progress and the opportunity for
greater prosperity. How would you characterize that?
Speaker 2 (29:20):
So wonderful question, Thank you. Let me say that carbon
has become weaponized on both edges of the dumbbell, Like
there are a huge number of organizations out there that
are just waiting to hold people's feet to the fire,
that are willing to say, like you stepped over this line,
(29:41):
We're going to sue the pants off of you. Like,
that's not going to build the world we want. There
are also really terrible forces that are like this is
all a HOOKX. We don't know to spend any money
on this. We just need more money and more energy
for everybody. Like that's also wrong, like categorically wrong. So
the good news is that the heavy lifting gets done
(30:02):
in the middle of the dumbell. Most actors, and I
when I say most actors, I mean most governments, most investors,
most corporations. They all want to do the right thing,
they just don't know how. So they want transparency, but
they want to use that transparency to good effect. They
don't want it to be gaping. They don't want this
(30:25):
to be like a queriable ledger that will just lead
to lawsuits all the time. But they really do want
to make sure that the public is engaged, that the
public is informed, that agencies can do their job avoiding
bad outcomes, And so they want the right level of transparency.
Even that is a scientific question, not only like what
is the right stuff to share? Like like are you
(30:47):
sharing biochemical data from soils as part of an enhanced
rock weathering project, Like, how do you do that? Really?
Like what kind of stuff should you share?
Speaker 1 (30:54):
How do you tell the story too?
Speaker 2 (30:55):
How do you tell the story? But also how do
you even federate that data? How do you how do
you gather it? How do you share it in a
way that everyone can use that scientists can use, that,
environmental groups can use that, regulators can use How do
you even do that? That is also a deep technical question.
At the end of the day, these things are not
about principles. They start with principles, that's the right way
(31:16):
to start thinking about it. But very quickly you need standards,
you need protocols, you need data centers, you need all
these things working together to do the job. And most groups, governments, investors,
civil society and corporations know that.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
You've collaborated with Microsoft, as you mentioned earlier, to establish
criteria for assessing the quality of carbon credits, and the
most recent report was released in June. What criteria do
you check to establish the carbon credit is high quality
in twenty twenty five?
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Sure, we use six criteria. Actually, first one is additionality.
Is the purchase actually changing anything or are you just
lining someone's pocket? Yeah, you have to show that you're
doing something that not automatically happen in nature or not
autogomatically happen in a market durability, are you actually getting
(32:07):
the thing you bought for the term you did So,
if you're buying biochar for three hundred years, will that
actually last three hundred years? If you're putting co two hunderground,
is it going to stay there geologically forever or are
you going to leak it in some future? If you're
buying forests, are they gonna get chopped down in ten
years or burned down?
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Burn?
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Third is monitoring against a baseline really important. So if
you're doing a soil intervention, you need to measure the
soils beforehand to know the curb in content, and then
you need to monitor it to show that it's actually happening. Right,
So this is this is an important one, and if
you don't have that monitoring against a baseline, you're kind
of not doing anything. Use two that are not specific
(32:52):
sort of scientific questions but are important for quality. One
of them is are you causing environmental harms or are
you creating environment benefits? Like you need to know that.
One of the challenges, for example, with enhanced rock weathering,
is there's a risk of ecotoxicity. You could be having
heavy metals to food and soils. Okay, nobody wants to
(33:13):
do that and call it a quality removals. So you
need to guard against that as well, and you want
to make sure the farmers are maintained and supported and
so forth. And then there's questions of sort of equity
and justice. Are you adding environmental burdens to people who
shouldn't have environmental burdens for whatever reason. So these are
the kinds of quatria that we use to do that.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
That kind of information is accessible for a large organization
that can gather this information and process it. Is this
kind of carbon credit available to the typical consumer who
might be seeing these pitches. I mean, our readers asked
this question, I mean, this is this true? Can I
really make a difference? So can they?
Speaker 2 (33:57):
So it is a question of the design discerning buyer.
The short answer is, yes, you can make a difference.
Yes you can get this stuff. Yes you can figure
it out. It is not easy. This is the reason
our company exists is because separating sense from nonsense is
often hard. There's a lot of hip, slick and jive
(34:18):
stuff in the market and people are like, we have
the best quality, you know, come to rapid Eddy's, you know,
CO two removal, Like this is this is the kind
of thing that's out there, you know, And it's if
most people don't want to have to become a scholar
to sort this out anymore than most most people don't
(34:39):
want to do this with their electricity either. They're like,
can somebody just tell me my electricity is clean and cheap, like,
then I'll buy it. So two things that I should say. One,
we have offerings. Carbon Direct has looked at hundreds of
projects around the world. Out of those hundreds of projects
around the world, we have selected what we think are
the thirty best projects and we may those available. We
(35:01):
don't make those available to individuals today, like we don't
have individual purchase capabilities on that portfolio. But if you're
a small company you want to buy a thousand tons
instead of twenty million tons, like you can come to us.
We can help you out. There are also guides out there.
There are now a whole bunch of organizations that rate
(35:22):
projects that are basically like bond rating agencies B zero,
SILVERA or examples where they just go out there and say, like,
we rank these things so you don't have to if
you want to know if this project is good, or
if this organization is good then or this platform is good,
we have opinions and you can go out there and
look at those things.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
There are a variety of industries where we know there's
an immense problem aviation, shipping, concrete, productionist steel. Which of
these sectors are going to depend more on carbon draw
down technologies than reduction in their initial impact? What do
you think the most promising solutions for them are.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
So let's start by saying that all of them should
be doing reductions for real, and most of them are.
If you're a steel company, you're looking at hydrogen, you're
looking at biocoke as a reduction agent. If you're a
shipping company, you're looking at emethanol and biomethanol and ammonia.
(36:24):
Like they're really looking at all these things as reductions first,
and that's good because that does two things. One it
gives them control over their supply chains and their products,
and two it allows them to make good decisions. The
fact that they're educating themselves on this allows them to
start comparing these things realistically. None of these companies. I
(36:47):
should repeat, none of these companies have come to us
and say we just want to buy a bunch of
cheap credits and get on with business as usual. Like,
no one's doing that.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Not just checking the box. It's making a difference.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
Well, but not just that. They all know that this
is part of their future, that they can't dodge this bullet.
It's coming their way. So they just want to make
sure that they are educated and capable, that they have
the teams in place to make smart decisions, that they
put the internal corporate policies in place to gather the
money and make smart investments. Like they just want to
(37:18):
do all this stuff. I think that there are going
to be a bunch of industries where they have to
do removals to balance the books. They just have to.
I think aviation is a good example of this. They
will buy as much sustainable aviation fuel as the world has.
That is good, and maybe that will cover thirty percent,
maybe it will cover fifty percent, but it will never
cover one hundred percent at some point. Also, sustainable aviation
(37:42):
fuels are like two thousand dollars a ton for abatement.
They're really expensive. At some point they're like, why are
we spending two thousand dollars a ton. Director captures already
six hundred dollars a ton. Let's do that instead, we'll
save some money, or even better, we'll do other kinds
of removal and spend less than six hundred dollars. For
steel companies, it's going to be a little harder. People
(38:03):
don't really have this in their minds. Steel companies have
very tiny margins. They're globally traded commodities. It's super hard
to remove and reduce the emissions they are eight percent
of global emissions. Steel is more than cars. Steel is
basically more than cars plus aviation. So like when you
put those numbers together, it's like, well, how do you
(38:24):
actually do it? They're gonna have to do some removals
and they know it. Yeah, but who's going to pay
them to do that? Who's going to mandate them to
do that? They just can't start doing that on their
own nickel. If they do, they will get pushed out
of the market immediately on cost. So they have a
very tricky thing to manage. They understand that they want
help choosing the good stuff and planning for the right future.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Given that, what role should government play in accelerating carbon
removal deployment. What kind of incentives can we put in place,
whether they're cartso.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
Sticks, sure, So let's start by the easy stuff. They
should actually set targets for removals the same way they
set targets for everybody else. They have clean power targets. Great,
they should have clean steel targets. We will buy a
certain amount of clean steel, and this is the date.
By twenty forty ten percent of the steel in the
(39:21):
world must be clean. And they have a real lever
on this as governments. Governments buy twenty percent of the
steel in the world. They buy fifty percent of the
concrete in the world. If they set a clean standard,
they can pay for it because it's their business actually,
and having that clear signal date, certain volume, certain will
(39:43):
help the same way that renewable portfolio standards worked. Clean
buying standards can help. They can also just start paying money.
Governments can do what they do for everything else. They
buy paper clips. Okay, great, we'll buy CEO to removal
because this is part of our net zero commitment, right
and we're seeing that happen in Canada and the United States.
(40:05):
It started in California this is the builder discussing, but
in parts of Europe they're digging in and saying, all right, well,
I guess what is it. The UK just announced they're
going to do a fifty pound purchase or something like that,
like okay, well that's a good start. That sends clarity
to the market, that helps these companies. They also can
work with regulatory and standard bodies like the International Maritime
(40:26):
Organization and say, hey, if everybody knows that we need
to have a certain amount of carbon footprint by twenty
thirty five, the whole world is buying that same standard.
Everyone's got it to you. And how do we then
compete as a nation. If we're Denmark, we want to
make clean fuels. If we're Indonesia, we want to make
clean fuels, and we can also offer removals as part
(40:47):
of that package.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
You also mentioned environmental justice a few moments ago, and
let's take sustainable aviation fuel. About forty percent of the
corn grown in the United States goes to creating ethanol
rather than feeding people. How do we how do you,
as carbon direct advise companies to think about those kinds
of trade offs between human impact and climate impact.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
Sure, so let's start by saying we live in a
world of abundance. We actually have abundant energy, we have
abundant food, we have abundant money. The discussion around ethanol
and feeding people is the wrong discussion, Like, well no,
but I mean, if there are people who are hungry,
(41:34):
it's not because we're growing corn for fuel, Like that's
not the.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
Reason, absolutely, given our ability to want to have is
buried limited.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
Well sure, but I do want to focus on your
question of justice, like how do you think about these
trade offs for real, because there are real issues in this.
We've created this unfortunate term environmental sacrifice zone. It's real.
We got to do this. We have chlorine tanks in California.
They have to go somewhere, Like that's an environmental sacrifice zone.
But you really don't want frontline communities groups disadvantage minorities,
(42:10):
Like you don't want these groups to pay an undue
environmental burden. That's just wrong, right, And we have an
environmental justice practice. We also think that we have to
build our way to the future we want. If we
want sustainable aviation fuel, we're gonna need a bunch of
sustainable aviation fuel plants. We're gonna need more sugarcane, ethanol,
corn ethanol. We're gonna need a bunch of stuff. We're
(42:32):
gonna need turn waste and garbage into jet fuel, like
we're gonna need some kind of harsh supply chains to
make that happen. That's true on the supply side and
on the manufacturing side. Those things end up in communities always.
So you need a practice that engages communities and said,
what do you really care about? What is okay and
(42:53):
what's not okay? How can we help you get to yes?
How do we know when to cut bait? Because as
you say, no, these are nuanced discussions. This is not
cookie cutter, like, go through it and answer it. And frankly,
we need to get away from a litigious sensibility around
this and start thinking about how do we build together.
(43:16):
Generosity is what's going to deliver the future we want.
Cooperation is going to deliver the future we want. We
are not going to litigate and shame our way to zero.
We need a community of people who build things.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
I hope people take that to heart. Given what you
just said, what is your advice to a business leader,
or a policymaker or even an individual listening to this
show that wants to contribute to scaling carbon removal solutions fast?
What should they do?
Speaker 2 (43:47):
A handful of things. First of all, acknowledge that it's
got to be done. There's still a huge industry out
there of people who just say, like it's a moral hazard,
we should never do it. No, the science is pretty
we cannot balance the climate books without huge amounts of
COO to removal. And you don't get to pick your
favorite one and declare it like the only thing we
(44:09):
need to do. Just like everything else in different markets
and in different ecosystem we're going to do lots of
different stuff. So acknowledge that you need it and keep
an open mind about what you got to do. Second thing,
there's no reason not to be educated on this topic.
You have the entire world's database at your fingertips, literally,
and don't just go to the you know, clickbait. Take
(44:31):
a little time educate yourself on what carbon dioxide removal
is and isn't. Okay, it is not actually a ploy
by oil companies to destroy the world. It is not that. Like,
educate yourself a little bit. Third thing, and this is
the easiest part, start talking about it. If you're in
(44:51):
civil society, be civil about it. I've heard about COOTI removal.
What do you guys think? What do you know? Like,
start the conversations going. And if you're a company, educate
yourself is job one because you're gonna be spending money
on this for sure. There is no world in which
you are not spending money on this. So you want
to spend money, well, like any other corporate engagement, you
(45:13):
want to spend that money well, learn what's reasonable, decide
what your policies should be, figure out what's good. It
sounds simple, but it's not, and it takes time and effort.
I've been surprised a lot of companies who come to us.
They're like, oh, our whole sustainability desk is two people.
It's a big company, it's like a half a billion
(45:35):
dollar or a twenty billion dollar company. But they're like,
a sustainability desk is two people, and they do water,
they do trash, they do supply chains and do all
this stuff. Like, so you're gonna have to staff up.
You're gonna have to spend money to educate yourself, training sessions,
hiring people, investing in whatever you need to do to learn.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Well, one of the ways they can keep up is
with carbon Direct. What how can folks follow your work
learn from what you're discovering in your process as well?
Speaker 2 (46:04):
That's my second favorite question. Thank you. I'm pleased to
say that we have improved our website so it is
easier to figure out what we do. One of the
first things you can do, of course, is subscribe to
our newsletter and you will get information in your inbox.
It tells you recent blogs, what's a big report, when
(46:24):
we have one of these major things coming out, if
we're doing a webinar, what is latest on our website.
You can find all that in our subscription newsletter. You
can also just regularly go there. We have a page
that's called Carbon Direct slash Insights. You go to the
insights page every time we put out a blog or
a report or a position piece. You can figure out
something there that's useful. It could be on policy, it
(46:48):
could be on a specific kind of pathway like biochar
director capture. It could be on what is quality, it
could be on environmental justice, and we have all of
these things on our website. We'd encourage people to to
go there. We've tried to make it easy. For every
big Honkin report, there's always a seven hundred word blog,
so people can just be like, what am I really
(47:08):
trying to figure out? And how do I learn about it?
Speaker 1 (47:11):
Pick which big Honkin report you want to really dig into,
And I think that's the right way to, as we
were talking about before, surface the information in a way
that becomes consumable, but then give people the direct access
to learn the deep knowledge that they need to understand
if they want to go deep exactly.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
So if you want to read the thirty five page
report that we did on what is high quality criteria,
you can do that. If you want to read the
guidelines for sustainable biomass harvesting, we got that. If you
want to read our big report on sustainable aviation fuels
or natural gas with carbon capture, we got these things.
So you can choose, like, well, do I want to
(47:49):
learn this topic or not? But that's up to you
because everyone's not going to know everything. I'm pretty smart,
but I'm not as smart as the whole earth. So
like it's worth like figuring out where you want to
actually learn something and then take a little time.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Well, we all have the choice to take those steps
or not, and I hope we all do. Julio, thanks
so much for spending time with us today.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
It's been fascinating, Mitch, it was a real joy. Thank
you again.
Speaker 1 (48:20):
You've been listening to my conversation with doctor Julio Friedman,
chief scientist at the carbon management company carbon Direct, and
you can learn more about their work and dig into
that library of reports that they publish at carbondashdirect dot com.
That's carbondashdirect dot com, not one word with no space,
no dash. Julio's comment that the question is who will
(48:43):
pay for cleaning up the atmospheric mass created by two
hundred and fifty years of extractive industrial activity and the
single year society it has produced in the early twenty
first century is precisely what we need to be asking
right now. Unfortunately, the federal government is plugging its ears,
looking away and jabbering yan yan, yeah, whenever the issue
(49:05):
of climate is raised. And to echo Julio again, the
first step toward climate progress is to acknowledge that the
job needs doing. That's a scientific, not a religious position.
But back to the question, who's going to pay for
carbon removal? And the answer is all of us, and
if not us our children, our grandchildren, and if there
(49:26):
are future generations after that with the capacity to earn
in a scorching hot world, those people that we call
our future are going to pay our bills. So let's
have the buck stop with the generations living right now.
By tackling the challenge together with transparent, science based but
easily understood data about the environmental impact of products and services,
(49:48):
each of us can make decisions that contribute to progress. Look,
let's take the Republican Party at their word and value markets. Markets,
which are the most effect mechanism for exerting our influence
at a time when gerrymandering and censorship characterize our politics.
Depend on complete and accurate information. We should reinforce regulations
(50:11):
that require clean air and set goals as a country
and as individual states if the FEDS won't step up.
But we can't do any of that if we don't
actually have the data and can understand and trust it.
Carbon removal is at that awkward early teenage stage when
it must try so many things and it's going to
make a lot of mistakes. Taking an adversarial approach to
(50:34):
the companies and nonprofits trying to make a positive difference
can be counterproductive at a time when early experiments have
begun to provide a path, albeit an expensive one, out
of the crisis. Let's get more information out there. Today
was the first time that I've heard, during more than
a half dozen conversations on the show about enhanced rock weathering,
that the chemical and crystalline structure of basalt impacts the
(50:57):
efficacy of this carbon removal strategy. But were the earlier
guests over simplifying claims or just lying about enhanced rock
weathering's eficasy saying that basalt works.
Speaker 2 (51:07):
No.
Speaker 1 (51:08):
The first time that research was published was in Applied
Geochemistry in twenty twenty one, and the insights into a
wider variety of basalt types appeared only just this year
in the journal Energies. So we're still just learning how
to repair our environment. We must embrace being a learning
society together and that will give us the path out
(51:30):
of the climate crisis. So we'll continue to share what
we learn here and please stay tuned. And would you
take a moment to consider any of the more than
five hundred episodes of sustainability in your ear to share
with friends or your family. Writing a review on your
favorite podcast platform will help your neighbors find us. Folks,
you're the amplifiers that can spread more ideas to create
(51:52):
less waste. So please tell your friends, your family, your coworkers,
the people you meet on the street that they can
find sustainability in your ear on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Audible,
or whatever purveyor of podcast goodness that they prefer. Thank you,
folks for your support. I'm Metracliffe. This is sustainability in
(52:12):
your Ear and we will be back with another innovator
interview soon. In the meantime, take care of yourself, take
care of one another, and let's all take care of
this beautiful planet of ours. Have a green day.
Hello, good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you
are on this beautiful planet of ours. Welcome to Sustainability
in your Ear. This is the podcast conversation about accelerating
the transition to a sustainable carbon neutral society, and I'm
your host, Mitt Trackcliffe. Thanks for joining the conversation today.
It's good to be back after our summer recording hiatus.
(00:29):
Humans have pumped one point six trillion tons of carbon
dioxide into the air since seventeen fifty, when the Industrial
Revolution began, and we're adding another forty billion tons every year.
Even with dramatic emissions reductions, we're still on track to
blow past the Paris Accords one point five degrees centigrade
of warming limitation, which we first actually breached in twenty
(00:52):
twenty four. Our guest today is doctor Julio Friedman. He's
spent his career at the intersection where these massive challenges
is collide with the capabilities of current technology. Julio is
the chief scientist at Carbon Direct, a carbon management company
that works with Fortune five hundred organizations like Microsoft, JP,
Morgan Chase, and American Express to turn their net zero
(01:14):
commitments into science backed action plans. Julio developed his expertise
in direct air capture and carbon storage technologies on an
unusual career path that began as a researcher at Exonmobile
and include service at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Columbia
University's Energy Policy Center, and a stint running advanced energy
(01:35):
programs in the Obama Administration's Department of Energy. As companies
work to meet twenty thirty and twenty fifty carbon goals,
the question isn't whether we will have massive carbon removal,
it's whether we can deploy it fast enough and fairly
enough to matter. We'll explore the best investments to accelerate
the path, not just a net zero, but beginning to
(01:56):
actually draw down that two hundred and seventy five years
of industrial emission that's necessary to bring the climate back
into the sweet spot environmentally and climate speaking for human prosperity.
You can learn more about carbon directs work at carbondirect
dot com. We're going to get to the conversation right
after a brief commercial break. Stay tuned. Welcome to the show, Juleo.
(02:25):
How are you doing today?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
I'm doing fabulously.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Thank you well, great to have you here. Thank you
so much. You know, I'm really impressed with what carbon
Direct does. It works on such a vast range of
project But can you briefly explain the carbon direct approach
to supporting a company's carbon management goals?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Absolutely, Ultimately, the world is people doing things. We help
people do things, and specifically we bring deep technical expertise
to these very challenging problems. Our only goals are real,
valid reduction of emissions, removals of emissions, and making clean products,
(03:04):
and we bring our scientific expertise to help our clients
and customers make those real.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
You have a team of seventy scientists, You're doing a
lot of very interesting work. And your background at Exxon
and the Department of Energy and so forth gives you
a unique perspective on where we are in the progress
toward restoring the environment. How would you characterize where the
United States is today in terms of that progress and
(03:32):
its commitment to climate change?
Speaker 2 (03:36):
So the United States is not one thing. The United
States is many things. At the national level, we are retreating,
no doubt about that. We are in fact worse than that,
we are surrendering advantages that we have as a country.
At the national level. Advance that we are surrendering our
leads in technology development and innovation and science, are abandoning
(04:01):
market opportunities that could position us better for competitiveness. So
it goes at the state level many different stories. Actually,
at the case of California and California continuing to put
money to work and generally speaking pushing hard on climate
reductions and removals, there's important legislation that's coming forward this year,
(04:23):
for example SB six three as one example, which is
aimed at sort of setting targets and spending money on removals.
You could also look at a state like Texas and say,
while the policies in the state are weird, but the
state's leading on solar, it's leading on wind, it's doing
a bunch of interesting things.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Well. And that's what's so unique about this moment is
that we, on the one hand, have this kind of
political discussion about this. On the other there is a
great deal of progress and as you point out, a
lot of money to be made in the long run
by getting to a green, regenerative economy.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
One of the ways in which Carbon Direct views the
world in this context is we view what our customers
are doing as well, and in general, companies are not
backing down, They're doubling down. They're doing more. And if
they can deploy renewables to save money, or if they
can deploy carbon capture to reduce their emissions, or if
(05:21):
they can buy clean products for their corporate reporting, they're
going to do it. And we're seeing actually growing sophistication
in their purchases. We are seeing growing commitments in terms
of money, they are adding ambition in terms of the
range of things they're taking on. And all that's happening
in the United States too.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
How does that scientific firepower that you bring to those
discussions change the conversations with these companies. Are you able
to give them the hard feedback that not enough is
being done to preserve their markets and supply chains and
the revenue that they depend on today, And how do
they react to that?
Speaker 2 (05:57):
So let's start by saying we don't use the scientific
expertise to give them that message. They already have that message.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
You really, do they really get it? Or are they
know they really sting towards a future?
Speaker 2 (06:10):
So no, they really get it. And when I say they,
I mean many different kinds of customers and many different
kinds of sectors Let's start with a fairly obvious thing.
Most of these companies are not really US companies. They're
really multinational companies. So they have to work in Japan,
they have to work in Europe, they have to abide
by all the laws in these countries. Second of all,
(06:32):
most of them are making long term investments. They're making
investments for a twenty or a thirty year horizon, which
means they can't be thinking about short term politics at all.
They really have to be thinking about how do we
avoid losing money over that kind of park. Where is
the market going to go? They all believe that clean
markets are their future, and so they can't just abandon
(06:53):
that as a matter of the sensibility. They have to
sort of think about what is prudent investment. This is
actually where the scientific firepower of a company that carbon
direct is useful. They could say, hey, we need to
buy sustainable aviation fuels. Great, what's a good one? How
do we know what a good sustainable aviation fuel is?
(07:15):
If the politics in Europe change, and if the policies
in Europe change, are we going to suddenly have bad fuel?
How do we hedge against the future. How do we
know that the supply chain for sustainable aviation fuels is
sustainable that they're not destroying land up stream or causing
water problems. There's actually very cheap technical stuff on all
of these topics. How do you think about getting clean fuels?
(07:38):
How do you think about what is a valid and
durable removal of greenhouse gases? What's the best investment to
reduce the most emissions? A levelized cost of carbon abatement
kind of sensibility that actually requires real in depth expertise.
If you're going to de carbonize an existing asset, if
you're going to enter a new market, you need more
(07:59):
than just archetology. You need the science too.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Well. You know, we recently had the X Prize Carbon
Removal team on the show and they were announcing that
the winners of their their one hundred million dollar contest,
and their solutions that dominated were those natural solutions like
enhanced rock weathering and biochart I'm wondering we could just
walk through a few of these technologies and get your
opinion on them. So let's start with enhanced rock weathering.
(08:25):
How significant is that as a potential lever in the
fight against climate change?
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Right? So, before I say something let me say something. Sure,
like any prize, the X Prize is designed, and so
the part the solutions they selected reflected the design of the.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Prize absolutely their process, and they called that out did
not really give the DAC companies as much time as
they needed to achieve the same thing that the enhanced
rock Weathering did.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Not just time that I think quite reasonably, the prize
people said, Hey, we want something that can scale, and
we want something that can scale quickly, and we want
something that can scale at modest cost. Ye, and that
was part of the design as well. In that context,
enhance rock Weathering would score well. So let's talk about
ERW and hance rock weathering as a thing. So for
(09:16):
starters like I'm glad that this technology is finally having
a moment. It's been kind of underloved for a long time.
We've known that we could grind up minerals and put
them on land and get a bunch of benefits out
of it, including climate benefit. We've known that for a
long time. What has become clear now is that there's
a market that did not exist ten years ago to
(09:37):
actually pay for this. That's part of the reason it's
sort of burst on the same scene on the last
couple of years. One of the things that we have
learned is that it can have a big impact at
modest cost, and it could scale quickly around the world.
Part of the reason was because it makes use of
existing infrastructure. Corey, with grinding material, you already got ninety
(10:00):
percent of what you need. If you have something that
spreads fertilizer on the field, you have kind of the
rest of it. And we already have these things in
most places. There's things that we are also learning as
we go that shouldn't surprise anyone either one. Not all
minerals are created equal, not all basalts are created equal.
I was interested in looking at a set of projects
(10:21):
in Sub Saharan Africa. The company involved looked at eight
different basalt quarries and found out that only one of
them would deliver any abatement.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Really, I'm curious why the chemical composition of the salt.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
The composition of the basalt, and actually the structure of
the basalt as well. Resalts when they first erupt our glass,
and glass reacts more rapidly. After a very short period
of time, it actually forms microminerals, which react more slowly,
but there's also the composition of the basalt, how much
iron and magnesium is really in it, And these are
(10:56):
not all created equal either. So there's a volume and
a time dependency in just the mineral feedstocks. And you
can get perhaps better production of removals through something like olivine,
but olivine is much more scarce. And even then, what
kind of olivine is it? Fosterite or failite? Is it?
(11:17):
You know, like what other minerals are in there with it? So,
even just at the very most basic level, we're learning stuff.
Second thing we're learning is it's really hard to monitor.
The X prize people didn't really take that fully into
their consideration, but a corporate buyer does. Buyers like, well,
(11:38):
how do we know this has been delivered? Right?
Speaker 1 (11:42):
And so by contrast, director capture, which you measure in
terms of the tonnage of CO two captured, is very material.
You can measure that interestingly compared to rock.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Right.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
When you think about that as an abatement strategy for
a client, do you then do a blend of these
options in their plan or what's the criteria for putting
together a solution for a Microsoft or a JP Morgan?
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Sure? So, let's start by saying that ninety six percent
of what's in the market we consider to be not
high quality. Right, And again that's the science speaking, and
we have very clear reasons why we believe that. Every
year we publish a status on voluntary carbon markets and
we have a conclusion about what's in there. We also
publish every year with Microsoft criteria for what our quality,
(12:33):
just so that people understand what we're talking about in
that context. Again, our buyers are quite sophisticated. So for
a very large company, it could be a tech company,
it could be a bank, it could be an investment company,
could be a government. In any of these cases, these
guys will say a couple of things repeatedly. We want
to manage risk. We want to make sure that the
(12:56):
thing we're doing has value period, and so things like
the monitoring technology become really important. So they might be
interested in enhanced rock weathering. But even though it's cheap
and scalable, they're like, well, we won't want to put
everything into that. There's risks. So they want to manage risk.
That's reputational risk, that's performance risk, that's contract risk. The
second thing they're saying is we want to manage costs.
(13:19):
Direct air capture is awesome for a whole bunch of reasons.
I've written and spoken lovingly about that for a long time.
Cost is not one of them. Super expensive, so you
get clarity, but cost is a challenge. The other thing
that they will say is we want to make sure
it has impact, not just climate impact. We want companies
(13:39):
to grow, we want there to be new jobs, we
want there to be many kinds of options for us
in the future, and so they will always say, can
you bring us a portfolio of stuff? And there will
be portfolios across the different things, so enhanced rock, weathering, biomass, biochar,
(14:00):
other kinds of mineralization, direct air capture. Usually they'll say, hey,
can we also have trees in there? We like trees.
Can we have mangroves, Can we have soils? What are
the things that we can do? They will also have
multiples within each of those. They're like, we don't want
just one biochart company that exposes us to risk. We
want to have multiple kinds of biochar, multiple geographies, multiple
(14:23):
conversion technologies, so that in the future we know we'll
have the thing we need.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Now you mentioned biochar, and biomass. Where do you think
they are in terms of the development of the necessary
capacity and efficiency that we're looking for?
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Right, So, first of all, pretty good. I'm just going
to give you the like it's pretty good. It's pretty
good on a lot of fronts. One, it's pretty good
on durability. If you do biochart correctly, you can have
more than two hundred years durability with confidence. Second, pretty
good in terms of sustainability. There's a lot of waste
biomass out there that you can turn into biochar, and
(15:00):
it's a relatively well understood technology. Pretty good on cost,
it sort of falls in between the costs of something
like trees and direct air capture, and we're starting to
now scale production in a useful way. I will say that,
like everything else, there's hair on biochar. There's questions about
durability and how you measure it. There's questions about how
(15:21):
you monitor this stuff. The machines that make biochar a
kind of finicky. They break a lot, so I do
actually get the supply in the field. So I think
all of these technologies end up filling in a particular
kind of gap. It's part of the reason why we
think it's useful to have a broad portfolio, and when
(15:43):
most of our customers buy a broad portfolio, they want
something that everybody's got.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Does she direct air capture on a cost curve that
will resemble other advanced technologies or are we still struggling
to find that catalyst for true scaleability?
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Yes, I do. I do see us on a trajectory
of price reduction and profound price production and profound price
reduction in a reasonable timeframe. So I will start by
saying this industry was unduly optimistic about how quickly they
could scale and how quickly the cost will come down.
(16:20):
Most groups have increase their cost estimates with reason.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Every startup industry goes through this. We lived with the hype.
Now we have to get to the reality.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
What is the reality? So the reality today is we're
still in sort of four hundred to one thousand dollars
per ton. That's really the range. We're going to have
a real clear signal enter the market shortly, and that
is when the Stratos project turns on. This is the
one point five project in No Trees, Texas, and the
(16:53):
town of No Trees is very happy to have this
project that's going to come in at a surprisingly low
cost many people, and I don't know the exact cost,
and I don't want to share contractual information and stuff,
but it's going to be way below a thousand. It's
going to be much more at the price that people
are like, oh, well, that's kind of in bounds. And
it's still the first of a kind. So even the
(17:16):
first of a kind project is going to come in
at an interesting cost range. Second of all, when I
say a reasonable timeframe, what I mean is like, by
twenty forty, I think there's good reason to believe we
will be well below three hundred dollars a ton.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Given that price, what volume do you think we can
reasonably expect to draw down using DS?
Speaker 2 (17:36):
I'm still optimistic that by the end of this decade
we will be in the million ton of year range. Okay,
we can probably be well beyond that. I'm cautiously optimistic
we can have two million tons of active direct air
capture running by the end of this decade by twenty
forty at that kind of a price range, contingent on
(17:57):
a gazillion things. Blah blah blah, let's say fifty to
one hundred million tons, So long.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Way from where we need to be. How do we
how do we accelerate that? Do you have thoughts on them?
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Yes, this is what I call Ohm's law of finance.
Money is like voltage. It overcomes resistance. The question is
entirely who pays? Yeah, and we are seeing that the
foundations of the who pays questions in a rational context.
(18:27):
So a couple of examples, one of them SB six
forty three that I just mentioned a moment ago, the
California lockdown, the California law. It will set a target
and it will provide money. Great, like, that's a good
way to do it. You must have two percent of
the emissions by this date, and we will provide fifty
(18:49):
million dollars a year as a starting point, and we
will include director capture in that. Will all fifty million
dollars go to director capture? No, one hundred percent not.
It will go to many different kinds of things. But
that's not chump change. That's like a reasonable purchase. We've
already seen companies like air Bus and Microsoft and JP
Morgan make large purchases for director capture, So we're seeing
(19:13):
this kind of stuff. The most important piece is actually
around a compliance market. So something like CORSA, which is
the International Civil Aviation Organization at KO, they have a
standard for emissions for aviation. One hundred and seventy countries
have signed. We are facing one hundred million ton shortfall
by twenty thirty. Okay, it's a mandate, thou shalt at
(19:39):
that point. The question is what can you buy? And
they'll be buying some trees, they'll be buying some bio energy,
they'll be buying sustainable aviation fuels, and they'll still have
a fifty million ton shortfall. So how these things get
incorporated into compliance markets will start to answer the who
pays question?
Speaker 1 (19:58):
So we don't need a serve show or bullet. We
need a quiver of solutions.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
It's always the case. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
One more technology i'd love to learn a little more
about your thoughts on is ocean alkalinity enhancement, which has
been very controversial, the idea of sheeeding the ocean with
various chemicals. There's been experiments that also that caused the
bloom of algae that draws down CO two.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
So you just describe two very different things. Actually, I'm sorry.
One of them is ocean iron fertilization. Yeah, okay, iron
fertilization is not ocean alkalinity enhancement, but it is still
an attempt to harness natural systems to draw down greenhouse gases.
The challenge with iron fertilization is it doesn't work. We've
(20:46):
actually run a bunch of tests. It doesn't do the job.
It does cause algae to bloom. We see the algae
blooms immediately. What it does not do is draw down
CO two. Those algae stay in the upper ocean, they
don't sink. So what all you end up doing is
having a lot of air surface ocean exchange of greenhouse gases.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
So there might be some more fish eating the algae,
but other than that we don't get much benefit.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Correct now, if the goal is to feed whales, awesome,
If the goal is to draw down CO two, not
so much. And again there should be more experiments on this,
We should keep working it. I am always in the
position that we should learn more before we make categorical
announcements of stuff. But so far, iron fertilization, it is
controversial with good reason, but it also doesn't work, so
(21:31):
we don't have to work on it a lot. In contrast,
ocean alkalinity enhancement is quite different. Think about it, like
putting a big thumbs in the ocean, which are typically
doing is adding either carbonate or bicarbonate. Now, this is
much less controversial, first of all, because the ocean has
so much by carbonate in it already that you can't
move the needle. In terms of natural systems. You can't
(21:54):
perturb the natural system in a realistic way, so you
end up focusing on sort of what are the local
consequences of what you Also, most people don't even understand
what by carbonate is, So when you're like, oh, you're
taking a dissolved ion, like, they glaze over immediately. They're
like like, come back to me later. Mostly what you're
talking about here is, in fact, stuff like grinding up
(22:16):
minerals of various kinds that have a high alkalinity content
and adding them to the ocean where they dissolve and
that pulls CO two out of the air. It's actually
if I were a mad scientist and I were saying,
how would I fix this problem? This is exactly how
I would do it. I would say, grind up a
bunch of stuff and put it in the ocean. It
will be cheap. It's scalable. It's fast. Big problem with
ocean akalinity enhancement. It's illegal. The London Convention prohibits dumping
(22:40):
in the ocean right now, you can't do it.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Well in that case, bro, if it is a local intervention,
why should it be illegal? Who who could possibly regulate it?
Speaker 2 (22:54):
So if you dump it in the open ocean, it's illegal.
In order for ocean A kalinity enhancement to scale, that's
what you need to do. You could today do this
in territorial waters, so you can do this within the
first two hundred kilometers of a continental shelf in most
countries or something there though, immediately you run into reasonable concerns.
(23:16):
And when I say reasonable concerns, most people have a
deep attachment to the ocean. They are very emotionally bound
to it. And it's not just that they like whales.
It's a primordial kind of sensibility. And the first question
that people will ask is we've screwed up the air,
are we going to fix it by screwing up the ocean?
And it's hard to counter that argument. You end up
(23:37):
if your response to that as well, we're going to
talk about carbonate chemistry. Like immediately people are like, why
are you doing this really? And so the right answer
in the near term is to help companies do pilots,
to really instrument the hell out of these things so
that we learn everything we link to learn, that you
have a relatively transparent data share kind of sensibility around it,
(24:02):
that environmental management agencies are engaged, et cetera. If you try, though,
to educate communities and say we're going to do this,
the community will just shut you down. They were like,
we don't want to be the people who do this.
We don't want this in our backyard. So activating is
the hard part in oceanaw kalinity enhancement.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
We've laid a solid foundation for the rest of this conversation.
We need to take a quick commercial break. We're going
to be right back, and we are back. I hope
you enjoyed those commercials. Let's continue the conversation with doctor
Julia Friedman. He is chief scientist at carbon Direct. It's
(24:41):
a carbon management firm that has partnered with companies like Microsoft,
American Express, and others to develop carbon reduction strategies. Julio,
carbon management is an interesting term. Are we headed for
a future in which for a lack of a better
way of describing it, humanity manages global carbon levels like
a play planetary air conditioner. What is this industry's role
(25:03):
in our future? How will we think about it?
Speaker 2 (25:06):
A friendly modification here as a planetary thermostat. Okay, is
perhaps a better way to think about it. Let's start
by saying, we have a carbon problem. Here's an idea.
Why don't we manage that. We think of this commonly
as an energy problem or as a money problem, but
(25:26):
energy and money are not carbon. Too much CO two
in the atmosphere is the issue. We got to manage that,
and we usually think about it exclusively. Is we got
to reduce the amount of CO two that goes into
the air. It's like a rule of wholes thing. That's
not crazy, But it's not even the big problem. The
big problem is we still have one point seven trillion
(25:46):
tons of CO two in the atmosphere and oceans that
we didn't really mean to put there. Carbon management should
be thought of in the same kind of sensibility as
waste management. We no longer throw trash on the street,
We no longer vent sewage into rivers like we actually
manage those wastes because we understand the health implications of them,
(26:09):
So we're really talking about a planetary health issue and
managing that is basically like managing a thermostat. We're like, well,
we can at some point say well where do we
want to put the dial? And we're far from that,
but that's where we're going to end up. When oh,
(26:30):
this is going to be like in a twenty one
hundred kind of timeframe, we have to have a whole
basket of technologies well assessed, well fielded. We have to
have industries and money in place just to even manage
the climate obligations we've already made. We need to see
a to removal industry that is twice as big as
(26:50):
the oil and gas industry, Like, it's going to take
some time to build that and a lot of money.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Well, and your idea of the thermostat, I think is
apt because what we're talking about is thinking about carbon
not as a linear problem, but as a circular problem.
How do we keep it flowing through our environment in
the appropriate levels that we need it for our genetics?
Spot on the path to that reality in twenty one hundred,
(27:17):
the big challenge is going to be making and keeping
promises in a transparent way. How does carbon Direct address
your client's concerns about being perceived as greenwashing as they
make progress towards something which is still an imperfect solution.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Right, I'm pleased to say that they really care about this.
This is not just some corporate box checking thing, like,
they really want to make sure they're doing the right
thing all of our customers. I can also add that
they're not just thinking about this as reputational risk. They
could get sued in a Dutch court. There is new
international law that suggests that this is a global obligation.
(27:54):
So they're thinking about this in terms of legal as
well as perception sort of things. And in that context though,
they also don't want to just like bi a certificate
and say, well, the other people said it was fine.
They really want to understand and make sure they're doing
the right thing. That's where the science comes in. So
(28:14):
if let's say that they are reforesting part of the Congo,
like they want to invest in a project where they
create a new forest that didn't exist before. They want
to make sure that it actually does the things it
says it does, that it doesn't impact communities negatively. Quite
the opposite, They wanted to compact communities positively. They want
(28:35):
to make sure that it's durable. If they're buying a
thirty year contract for trees, they better get thirty years
of abatement. How do you know that? Like, so all
these things like feed into it. But the same thing
is true if they're buying bio energy with ccs from
a waste to energy facility in the Nordic countries, they're like, well,
what's the real supply of this stuff? How long is
it going to stay underground? What's a reasonable price to pay?
(28:57):
And then to your question, what claims can can we
legitimately make against it?
Speaker 1 (29:03):
So what role is transparency and very clear storytelling play
in talking about carbon in an environment where it has
become a component of the culture war? I mean, that's
it's about grounding us in progress and the opportunity for
greater prosperity. How would you characterize that?
Speaker 2 (29:20):
So wonderful question, Thank you. Let me say that carbon
has become weaponized on both edges of the dumbbell, Like
there are a huge number of organizations out there that
are just waiting to hold people's feet to the fire,
that are willing to say, like you stepped over this line,
(29:41):
We're going to sue the pants off of you. Like,
that's not going to build the world we want. There
are also really terrible forces that are like this is
all a HOOKX. We don't know to spend any money
on this. We just need more money and more energy
for everybody. Like that's also wrong, like categorically wrong. So
the good news is that the heavy lifting gets done
(30:02):
in the middle of the dumbell. Most actors, and I
when I say most actors, I mean most governments, most investors,
most corporations. They all want to do the right thing,
they just don't know how. So they want transparency, but
they want to use that transparency to good effect. They
don't want it to be gaping. They don't want this
(30:25):
to be like a queriable ledger that will just lead
to lawsuits all the time. But they really do want
to make sure that the public is engaged, that the
public is informed, that agencies can do their job avoiding
bad outcomes, And so they want the right level of transparency.
Even that is a scientific question, not only like what
is the right stuff to share? Like like are you
(30:47):
sharing biochemical data from soils as part of an enhanced
rock weathering project, Like, how do you do that? Really?
Like what kind of stuff should you share?
Speaker 1 (30:54):
How do you tell the story too?
Speaker 2 (30:55):
How do you tell the story? But also how do
you even federate that data? How do you how do
you gather it? How do you share it in a
way that everyone can use that scientists can use, that,
environmental groups can use that, regulators can use How do
you even do that? That is also a deep technical question.
At the end of the day, these things are not
about principles. They start with principles, that's the right way
(31:16):
to start thinking about it. But very quickly you need standards,
you need protocols, you need data centers, you need all
these things working together to do the job. And most groups, governments, investors,
civil society and corporations know that.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
You've collaborated with Microsoft, as you mentioned earlier, to establish
criteria for assessing the quality of carbon credits, and the
most recent report was released in June. What criteria do
you check to establish the carbon credit is high quality
in twenty twenty five?
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Sure, we use six criteria. Actually, first one is additionality.
Is the purchase actually changing anything or are you just
lining someone's pocket? Yeah, you have to show that you're
doing something that not automatically happen in nature or not
autogomatically happen in a market durability, are you actually getting
(32:07):
the thing you bought for the term you did So,
if you're buying biochar for three hundred years, will that
actually last three hundred years? If you're putting co two hunderground,
is it going to stay there geologically forever or are
you going to leak it in some future? If you're
buying forests, are they gonna get chopped down in ten
years or burned down?
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Burn?
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Third is monitoring against a baseline really important. So if
you're doing a soil intervention, you need to measure the
soils beforehand to know the curb in content, and then
you need to monitor it to show that it's actually happening. Right,
So this is this is an important one, and if
you don't have that monitoring against a baseline, you're kind
of not doing anything. Use two that are not specific
(32:52):
sort of scientific questions but are important for quality. One
of them is are you causing environmental harms or are
you creating environment benefits? Like you need to know that.
One of the challenges, for example, with enhanced rock weathering,
is there's a risk of ecotoxicity. You could be having
heavy metals to food and soils. Okay, nobody wants to
(33:13):
do that and call it a quality removals. So you
need to guard against that as well, and you want
to make sure the farmers are maintained and supported and
so forth. And then there's questions of sort of equity
and justice. Are you adding environmental burdens to people who
shouldn't have environmental burdens for whatever reason. So these are
the kinds of quatria that we use to do that.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
That kind of information is accessible for a large organization
that can gather this information and process it. Is this
kind of carbon credit available to the typical consumer who
might be seeing these pitches. I mean, our readers asked
this question, I mean, this is this true? Can I
really make a difference? So can they?
Speaker 2 (33:57):
So it is a question of the design discerning buyer.
The short answer is, yes, you can make a difference.
Yes you can get this stuff. Yes you can figure
it out. It is not easy. This is the reason
our company exists is because separating sense from nonsense is
often hard. There's a lot of hip, slick and jive
(34:18):
stuff in the market and people are like, we have
the best quality, you know, come to rapid Eddy's, you know,
CO two removal, Like this is this is the kind
of thing that's out there, you know, And it's if
most people don't want to have to become a scholar
to sort this out anymore than most most people don't
(34:39):
want to do this with their electricity either. They're like,
can somebody just tell me my electricity is clean and cheap, like,
then I'll buy it. So two things that I should say. One,
we have offerings. Carbon Direct has looked at hundreds of
projects around the world. Out of those hundreds of projects
around the world, we have selected what we think are
the thirty best projects and we may those available. We
(35:01):
don't make those available to individuals today, like we don't
have individual purchase capabilities on that portfolio. But if you're
a small company you want to buy a thousand tons
instead of twenty million tons, like you can come to us.
We can help you out. There are also guides out there.
There are now a whole bunch of organizations that rate
(35:22):
projects that are basically like bond rating agencies B zero,
SILVERA or examples where they just go out there and say, like,
we rank these things so you don't have to if
you want to know if this project is good, or
if this organization is good then or this platform is good,
we have opinions and you can go out there and
look at those things.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
There are a variety of industries where we know there's
an immense problem aviation, shipping, concrete, productionist steel. Which of
these sectors are going to depend more on carbon draw
down technologies than reduction in their initial impact? What do
you think the most promising solutions for them are.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
So let's start by saying that all of them should
be doing reductions for real, and most of them are.
If you're a steel company, you're looking at hydrogen, you're
looking at biocoke as a reduction agent. If you're a
shipping company, you're looking at emethanol and biomethanol and ammonia.
(36:24):
Like they're really looking at all these things as reductions first,
and that's good because that does two things. One it
gives them control over their supply chains and their products,
and two it allows them to make good decisions. The
fact that they're educating themselves on this allows them to
start comparing these things realistically. None of these companies. I
(36:47):
should repeat, none of these companies have come to us
and say we just want to buy a bunch of
cheap credits and get on with business as usual. Like,
no one's doing that.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Not just checking the box. It's making a difference.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
Well, but not just that. They all know that this
is part of their future, that they can't dodge this bullet.
It's coming their way. So they just want to make
sure that they are educated and capable, that they have
the teams in place to make smart decisions, that they
put the internal corporate policies in place to gather the
money and make smart investments. Like they just want to
(37:18):
do all this stuff. I think that there are going
to be a bunch of industries where they have to
do removals to balance the books. They just have to.
I think aviation is a good example of this. They
will buy as much sustainable aviation fuel as the world has.
That is good, and maybe that will cover thirty percent,
maybe it will cover fifty percent, but it will never
cover one hundred percent at some point. Also, sustainable aviation
(37:42):
fuels are like two thousand dollars a ton for abatement.
They're really expensive. At some point they're like, why are
we spending two thousand dollars a ton. Director captures already
six hundred dollars a ton. Let's do that instead, we'll
save some money, or even better, we'll do other kinds
of removal and spend less than six hundred dollars. For
steel companies, it's going to be a little harder. People
(38:03):
don't really have this in their minds. Steel companies have
very tiny margins. They're globally traded commodities. It's super hard
to remove and reduce the emissions they are eight percent
of global emissions. Steel is more than cars. Steel is
basically more than cars plus aviation. So like when you
put those numbers together, it's like, well, how do you
(38:24):
actually do it? They're gonna have to do some removals
and they know it. Yeah, but who's going to pay
them to do that? Who's going to mandate them to
do that? They just can't start doing that on their
own nickel. If they do, they will get pushed out
of the market immediately on cost. So they have a
very tricky thing to manage. They understand that they want
help choosing the good stuff and planning for the right future.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Given that, what role should government play in accelerating carbon
removal deployment. What kind of incentives can we put in place,
whether they're cartso.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
Sticks, sure, So let's start by the easy stuff. They
should actually set targets for removals the same way they
set targets for everybody else. They have clean power targets. Great,
they should have clean steel targets. We will buy a
certain amount of clean steel, and this is the date.
By twenty forty ten percent of the steel in the
(39:21):
world must be clean. And they have a real lever
on this as governments. Governments buy twenty percent of the
steel in the world. They buy fifty percent of the
concrete in the world. If they set a clean standard,
they can pay for it because it's their business actually,
and having that clear signal date, certain volume, certain will
(39:43):
help the same way that renewable portfolio standards worked. Clean
buying standards can help. They can also just start paying money.
Governments can do what they do for everything else. They
buy paper clips. Okay, great, we'll buy CEO to removal
because this is part of our net zero commitment, right
and we're seeing that happen in Canada and the United States.
(40:05):
It started in California this is the builder discussing, but
in parts of Europe they're digging in and saying, all right, well,
I guess what is it. The UK just announced they're
going to do a fifty pound purchase or something like that,
like okay, well that's a good start. That sends clarity
to the market, that helps these companies. They also can
work with regulatory and standard bodies like the International Maritime
(40:26):
Organization and say, hey, if everybody knows that we need
to have a certain amount of carbon footprint by twenty
thirty five, the whole world is buying that same standard.
Everyone's got it to you. And how do we then
compete as a nation. If we're Denmark, we want to
make clean fuels. If we're Indonesia, we want to make
clean fuels, and we can also offer removals as part
(40:47):
of that package.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
You also mentioned environmental justice a few moments ago, and
let's take sustainable aviation fuel. About forty percent of the
corn grown in the United States goes to creating ethanol
rather than feeding people. How do we how do you,
as carbon direct advise companies to think about those kinds
of trade offs between human impact and climate impact.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
Sure, so let's start by saying we live in a
world of abundance. We actually have abundant energy, we have
abundant food, we have abundant money. The discussion around ethanol
and feeding people is the wrong discussion, Like, well no,
but I mean, if there are people who are hungry,
(41:34):
it's not because we're growing corn for fuel, Like that's
not the.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
Reason, absolutely, given our ability to want to have is
buried limited.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
Well sure, but I do want to focus on your
question of justice, like how do you think about these
trade offs for real, because there are real issues in this.
We've created this unfortunate term environmental sacrifice zone. It's real.
We got to do this. We have chlorine tanks in California.
They have to go somewhere, Like that's an environmental sacrifice zone.
But you really don't want frontline communities groups disadvantage minorities,
(42:10):
Like you don't want these groups to pay an undue
environmental burden. That's just wrong, right, And we have an
environmental justice practice. We also think that we have to
build our way to the future we want. If we
want sustainable aviation fuel, we're gonna need a bunch of
sustainable aviation fuel plants. We're gonna need more sugarcane, ethanol,
corn ethanol. We're gonna need a bunch of stuff. We're
(42:32):
gonna need turn waste and garbage into jet fuel, like
we're gonna need some kind of harsh supply chains to
make that happen. That's true on the supply side and
on the manufacturing side. Those things end up in communities always.
So you need a practice that engages communities and said,
what do you really care about? What is okay and
(42:53):
what's not okay? How can we help you get to yes?
How do we know when to cut bait? Because as
you say, no, these are nuanced discussions. This is not
cookie cutter, like, go through it and answer it. And frankly,
we need to get away from a litigious sensibility around
this and start thinking about how do we build together.
(43:16):
Generosity is what's going to deliver the future we want.
Cooperation is going to deliver the future we want. We
are not going to litigate and shame our way to zero.
We need a community of people who build things.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
I hope people take that to heart. Given what you
just said, what is your advice to a business leader,
or a policymaker or even an individual listening to this
show that wants to contribute to scaling carbon removal solutions fast?
What should they do?
Speaker 2 (43:47):
A handful of things. First of all, acknowledge that it's
got to be done. There's still a huge industry out
there of people who just say, like it's a moral hazard,
we should never do it. No, the science is pretty
we cannot balance the climate books without huge amounts of
COO to removal. And you don't get to pick your
favorite one and declare it like the only thing we
(44:09):
need to do. Just like everything else in different markets
and in different ecosystem we're going to do lots of
different stuff. So acknowledge that you need it and keep
an open mind about what you got to do. Second thing,
there's no reason not to be educated on this topic.
You have the entire world's database at your fingertips, literally,
and don't just go to the you know, clickbait. Take
(44:31):
a little time educate yourself on what carbon dioxide removal
is and isn't. Okay, it is not actually a ploy
by oil companies to destroy the world. It is not that. Like,
educate yourself a little bit. Third thing, and this is
the easiest part, start talking about it. If you're in
(44:51):
civil society, be civil about it. I've heard about COOTI removal.
What do you guys think? What do you know? Like,
start the conversations going. And if you're a company, educate
yourself is job one because you're gonna be spending money
on this for sure. There is no world in which
you are not spending money on this. So you want
to spend money, well, like any other corporate engagement, you
(45:13):
want to spend that money well, learn what's reasonable, decide
what your policies should be, figure out what's good. It
sounds simple, but it's not, and it takes time and effort.
I've been surprised a lot of companies who come to us.
They're like, oh, our whole sustainability desk is two people.
It's a big company, it's like a half a billion
(45:35):
dollar or a twenty billion dollar company. But they're like,
a sustainability desk is two people, and they do water,
they do trash, they do supply chains and do all
this stuff. Like, so you're gonna have to staff up.
You're gonna have to spend money to educate yourself, training sessions,
hiring people, investing in whatever you need to do to learn.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Well, one of the ways they can keep up is
with carbon Direct. What how can folks follow your work
learn from what you're discovering in your process as well?
Speaker 2 (46:04):
That's my second favorite question. Thank you. I'm pleased to
say that we have improved our website so it is
easier to figure out what we do. One of the
first things you can do, of course, is subscribe to
our newsletter and you will get information in your inbox.
It tells you recent blogs, what's a big report, when
(46:24):
we have one of these major things coming out, if
we're doing a webinar, what is latest on our website.
You can find all that in our subscription newsletter. You
can also just regularly go there. We have a page
that's called Carbon Direct slash Insights. You go to the
insights page every time we put out a blog or
a report or a position piece. You can figure out
something there that's useful. It could be on policy, it
(46:48):
could be on a specific kind of pathway like biochar
director capture. It could be on what is quality, it
could be on environmental justice, and we have all of
these things on our website. We'd encourage people to to
go there. We've tried to make it easy. For every
big Honkin report, there's always a seven hundred word blog,
so people can just be like, what am I really
(47:08):
trying to figure out? And how do I learn about it?
Speaker 1 (47:11):
Pick which big Honkin report you want to really dig into,
And I think that's the right way to, as we
were talking about before, surface the information in a way
that becomes consumable, but then give people the direct access
to learn the deep knowledge that they need to understand
if they want to go deep exactly.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
So if you want to read the thirty five page
report that we did on what is high quality criteria,
you can do that. If you want to read the
guidelines for sustainable biomass harvesting, we got that. If you
want to read our big report on sustainable aviation fuels
or natural gas with carbon capture, we got these things.
So you can choose, like, well, do I want to
(47:49):
learn this topic or not? But that's up to you
because everyone's not going to know everything. I'm pretty smart,
but I'm not as smart as the whole earth. So
like it's worth like figuring out where you want to
actually learn something and then take a little time.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Well, we all have the choice to take those steps
or not, and I hope we all do. Julio, thanks
so much for spending time with us today.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
It's been fascinating, Mitch, it was a real joy. Thank
you again.
Speaker 1 (48:20):
You've been listening to my conversation with doctor Julio Friedman,
chief scientist at the carbon management company carbon Direct, and
you can learn more about their work and dig into
that library of reports that they publish at carbondashdirect dot com.
That's carbondashdirect dot com, not one word with no space,
no dash. Julio's comment that the question is who will
(48:43):
pay for cleaning up the atmospheric mass created by two
hundred and fifty years of extractive industrial activity and the
single year society it has produced in the early twenty
first century is precisely what we need to be asking
right now. Unfortunately, the federal government is plugging its ears,
looking away and jabbering yan yan, yeah, whenever the issue
(49:05):
of climate is raised. And to echo Julio again, the
first step toward climate progress is to acknowledge that the
job needs doing. That's a scientific, not a religious position.
But back to the question, who's going to pay for
carbon removal? And the answer is all of us, and
if not us our children, our grandchildren, and if there
(49:26):
are future generations after that with the capacity to earn
in a scorching hot world, those people that we call
our future are going to pay our bills. So let's
have the buck stop with the generations living right now.
By tackling the challenge together with transparent, science based but
easily understood data about the environmental impact of products and services,
(49:48):
each of us can make decisions that contribute to progress. Look,
let's take the Republican Party at their word and value markets. Markets,
which are the most effect mechanism for exerting our influence
at a time when gerrymandering and censorship characterize our politics.
Depend on complete and accurate information. We should reinforce regulations
(50:11):
that require clean air and set goals as a country
and as individual states if the FEDS won't step up.
But we can't do any of that if we don't
actually have the data and can understand and trust it.
Carbon removal is at that awkward early teenage stage when
it must try so many things and it's going to
make a lot of mistakes. Taking an adversarial approach to
(50:34):
the companies and nonprofits trying to make a positive difference
can be counterproductive at a time when early experiments have
begun to provide a path, albeit an expensive one, out
of the crisis. Let's get more information out there. Today
was the first time that I've heard, during more than
a half dozen conversations on the show about enhanced rock weathering,
that the chemical and crystalline structure of basalt impacts the
(50:57):
efficacy of this carbon removal strategy. But were the earlier
guests over simplifying claims or just lying about enhanced rock
weathering's eficasy saying that basalt works.
Speaker 2 (51:07):
No.
Speaker 1 (51:08):
The first time that research was published was in Applied
Geochemistry in twenty twenty one, and the insights into a
wider variety of basalt types appeared only just this year
in the journal Energies. So we're still just learning how
to repair our environment. We must embrace being a learning
society together and that will give us the path out
(51:30):
of the climate crisis. So we'll continue to share what
we learn here and please stay tuned. And would you
take a moment to consider any of the more than
five hundred episodes of sustainability in your ear to share
with friends or your family. Writing a review on your
favorite podcast platform will help your neighbors find us. Folks,
you're the amplifiers that can spread more ideas to create
(51:52):
less waste. So please tell your friends, your family, your coworkers,
the people you meet on the street that they can
find sustainability in your ear on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Audible,
or whatever purveyor of podcast goodness that they prefer. Thank you,
folks for your support. I'm Metracliffe. This is sustainability in
(52:12):
your Ear and we will be back with another innovator
interview soon. In the meantime, take care of yourself, take
care of one another, and let's all take care of
this beautiful planet of ours. Have a green day.
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