Hey everyone, welcome to season 2 of reversing climate change. We're doing that podcast thing. Now in launching a patreon, you can find it at patreon.com slash Nori podcasts. There are various tiers with different types of goodies available. Do you want to receive a special newsletter digest of what Nori knots are reading that week? Be a part of a Nori book club. Get special access to Nori
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But it isn't listed here. Honest, feedback does a lot to help us shape what we offer to you, you can send an email to podcast at nor e.com or fill out our podcast survey anonymously in our newsletter, which you can find at nor e.com. Subscribe, and thank you so much for listening to another season of reversing climate change. Hello and welcome to the reversing climate change. Has to I'm Ross, Kenyon today, I have with me Kristoff boiler CDR manager, at climb works and also
with roles at the negative. Emissions platform, and risk dialog, Foundation. Hi Kristoff, hi Ross, pleasure to be here. It is my pleasure to do an episode on climb works. We follow your work. You get name checked in so many episodes. Christophe our Kristoff. Not you Christophe has visited some of your facilities and Switzerland before. We're fans what you do. Ooh, we are very excited about what is happening in DAC, and so, now is the time to talk about it. So, thank you for joining me.
Yeah, thanks for having us. And we also fans of yours and yeah, happy to talk. Great, thank you. I'm happy to hear that. Well for listeners. Who may not know? Maybe it is good to start with what is climb works. And what is unique about? Your direct are capture approach. Yep. That's a very good question. So climax is all of the first direct are capture come. He's it's also the largest and it's the first that is
commercial. What's unique? So I would say the first thing that's unique about us is that we have a modular approach and we use solid sorbents which allows us to use renewable energy only for to run our
operations. So we have a low carbon footprint which is kind of important if you're in the business of removing carbon from the atmosphere and Obviously the modular approach allows us to, you know, build smaller plants or different sizes, relatively quickly, through which we can learn quickly and, and then, you know, improve quicker. So, that's why we chose this approach. You can also call it fail fast or, you know, learn fast we
okay. Yeah. You could say that this modular approach I find intriguing. We did a show a while back on carbon removal. Newsroom about the degree to Which carbon removal, necessitates an economy of scale and large machines. Doing this work versus something that's more distributed and smaller scale and modular as you might say and I like the idea of it being modular both for the antifragility reasons.
But I also really want to have my own direct are capture unit that plugs right into a SodaStream. So I can just have my own carbonated water through put in my kitchen. This is a dumb question to start off with. But is that ever going to happen for me? It is if you if you willing to spend a lot of money on that third and and, you know, okay, so seriously, so obviously we're sympathetic to that kind of thinking and, you know, we can build decentralized, but not as
decentralized. So it needs to be a few, you know, dozen or ideally a few hundred tons per year, at least for it to become economically viable. Well, you have no idea how much carbonated water I'm drinking. That's true. Yeah, it could be. It could be very very viable. Yeah. Okay. I taken is my framing of your economy of scale versus modular thinking is that the correct way to understand how you're using modular? I wouldn't not entirely so so, so where we will get it.
Economies of scale, is through mass production. So, you know, we won't build these large plans, which have economies of scale in in In the building process of the plant. But we essentially what we have is 40-foot containers. That's our kind of modular unit. And if we Mass produce them much like, you know, trucks or cars that's economies of scale and you said thanks for complicating that story. I had a feeling whenever you have such a neat little partition between two schools of thought.
It's almost never. That way, is it? Nope. So sorry, ya know, it's a bit more complicated. But yeah, I also want to explain a little bit more about sorbent approaches to carbon removal and director capture. What exactly does that mean? I imagine there are people listening. I imagine there are certainly are people listening, who are not biochemical Engineers, not Material scientist. What is this orbit? And maybe what are some other
approaches to director capture? Yeah, so a solvent is basically is a filter that attracts selectively, only CO2, and then this is what we are, after all the DLC companies that are after two, A perfect and you basically have two ways that are working now and there's a third potential one that could disrupted and the two ways out the the solid solvent, which we
use. So so the CO2 molecules sticks to that solid solvent and you have to heat it to 100 degrees Celsius. So that's the way we work in Europe and sorry, I don't know the fahrenheit numbers from the top of my head and and and also you know the other way is to have a liquid solvent where the CO2 reacts with a saw Avant and becomes a solid and then you have to desorb at 900 degrees Celsius and that means you have to burn natural gas and and that
then requires you to co capture. The the fossil CO2 molecules from the natural gas. This is, this is the carbon engineering approach and it's a great approach because it is how can be cheaper. But if you look at it from a, from a full LCA perspective, then you have to obviously account for that fossil bit, Your calculation and the Third Way which you know the MIT is looking at another research
institutes. You could potentially maybe one day do it not with chemistry but electricity and that could be a game-changer. But currently we can't see that working in the foreseeable future. We did another carbon removal Newsroom recently about the department of Energy's office of fossil energy has issued a number of ants or other funding mechanisms for a number of carbon removal and mostly director capture companies.
And many of them are sorbets based and my understanding is that they will be attracting CO2, do them. And then there is some sort of process by which they can be induced to release the CO2 after it's been captured. And then it is stored somehow. And I've also seen one of the companies that want to Grant through that process, it does it through alkalinity and PH which I'd never heard of before. But, and I also know Klaus lackner is famous for the
moisture swing. So after the this sort of resin has captured CO2, you've changed the moisture environment in which these pellets are in, and then it releases it, but it sounds like the approach that you're using tends to be focused on heat and temperature. And in the difference between those two environments is how it is captured in the CO2 released.
Is that correct? So some of this, I'm not an expert in but from what I understand yes and and you know the main difference between what Klaus doesn't what we do is he gets a 5% CO2 stream and we get a almost pure CO2 stream and that makes it kind of easier for utilization, but I think in general, you know, the way things are going and also, you know, if you read the ipcc reports of we will need everything in addition to full steam ahead on reduction of CO2
emissions. We're definitely attitudinally aligned on this. The only thing I will say we talked about this a little bit prior, is that carbon removal soil? Gets a lot of this but director capture to has this sort of Holy Grail or a to it, where people become way too optimistic about it and runs the risk of us disappointing people. And so I tend to default to a very large portfolio, we're all sort of on the same team here, Elevate, cool. Ideas.
I never want to over promise anything and it sounds like maybe you are similarly disposed and trying to say okay this is exciting promising stuff but we still need to do boring climate fixes as well. This is that okay by you. Yeah definitely I mean I think you know it's not just over promising is we are literally you know talking about our future here and we should be really careful and realistic and how to assess this therefore we tend to be on the conservative
side. With our, you know, communication of prices and kind of, you know, Pathways where this can go. I mean we definitely see gigatons scale happening, but this, you know, needs strong political and societal will got it. Okay, that's always good to hear. And just to clarify to with this orbital approach in the way that I framed. It with moisture pH or heat,
you're saying climb works. Is focused on heat like differences in Heat to both capture the CO2 and then also to release it by changing the heat in the environment in which these sorbents exist. Is that like a good lay persons understanding of this? Yeah, it's heat. And we capture at whatever temperature is the outside temperature and then we need around 100 degrees difference to
release the CO2 from the filter. These are 100 degrees Celsius roughly it's 80 to 120 but don't go deeper with your questions because I'm not a technical guy. So I will you will My limitations quite soon on that. Yeah, I just want to do the good point of order. I think it's just the temperature at which water boils. Right? 200 calendar. That's that's that's a good. That's usually what it requires. Okay. Cool.
I'm not a technical guy either. So I'm we are both doing science translation for The Listener right now Christoph. It sounds like we are well placed as peers right now, that's very good to hear. Well we've done a number of episodes about climate and specifically carbon removal. Policy in the United States. There's been some state level things but mostly watching the federal government and seeing what happens in d.c., what is it like in Europe?
I'm not sure that we've ever had an in-depth conversation about what climate policy and specifically carbon removal policy looks like in Europe. Yeah, that's very good question. And one of my favorites because a lot of my time goes into that. But yeah, so I think the way I see it. It's, you know, in the u.s. move as usual. Quite fast on this with 45 Q in the low carbon fuel standard and in Europe, it is kind of a bit different. So we would say we always almost moved from the opposite end.
So I think in Europe, the first step tends to be kind of binding NetZero goal. And the European Union is is very close to to having one that they are. You know, some countries that already have these goals and and that then is usually an 80, 2050 goal, which means we already borrow from the future and have to go.
Net - thereafter to stick to the Paris goals, but from this, you can then calculate production pathway and then you will find that you have unavoidable emissions that you somehow need to get rid of to get 20 and that's usually your carbon removal part. And then you can, you can think about how much biomass to we have within our borders. Because if you if you're thinking about Importing. The chances are high that other countries might want to do that too. So that's probably not a good
idea. And then from that, you know, you can calculate how much technological solutions you will need. And then you have your kind of rough picture what you need to do to get to to your climbing goal in 2050. And from that we tend in Europe we tend to then design policies that allow the scale up on the removal side and obviously the reduction on the other side.
Have there been many fights in Europe about the degree to, which carbon removal constitutes a moral hazard and that's been quite prominent in discourse here, but I think we are now recognizing that carbon removal is necessary, no matter what. So, it shouldn't be an excuse, not to decarbonize as fast as feasible, but we also shouldn't neglect it. Because if we don't, there's already just too much CO2 in the atmosphere. We need to do carbon removal
now. Has a similar process happened in Europe. Where has it been different? Yeah, no, no, no, I'm totally. I mean, the moral hazard mitigation returns discussion has been going on for years now and it I find it. If I may well it's no. Use my favorite yet to say Krista sorry. So you can let loose. You can tell me exactly how you feel about this. It sounds like the only good good. I find it quite annoying. That's what I want to say. Because the science is clear,
right? We can't make it with reductions alone. It is too late. We have admitted too much. And then, you know, there are two forms of moral hazard. One is not talking about it which is the one that's overlooked. And obviously the one is overselling it. And and keeping on emitting, which is if you live in our world you have an understanding of the price point. So that's rarely the case we see it and I also feel that there's a very easy solution and that is you split the Net Zero goal as a
next step into a binding. In mitigation or CO2 reduction of greenhouse gas emissions reductions pathway rather. So I could be a minus 90 or minus 95 or minus 85 depending on, you know, how much biomass and then Forest you have in your country, Etc. And the rest is, your CD are scalar pathway. And, and if that is based on robust science, you shouldn't have a mitigation deterrence
discussion anymore. Okay. So you're saying that you want to split the Net Zero goals of various countries in Europe and they can have the vast majority can be for carbon reductions, but you want a specific pool available? That is by necessity carbon removal. And this is in order to help that side of things scale, much more quickly than it is. Now, is it, is that kind of what you're saying, or did I miss it? Yeah, that's that's what I'm saying.
The only difference is that they would be a european-wide goal. So it would be likely you know, - 85% on the emissions reduction side and then it would be 15% on the removal scale up side so 15 percent of current emissions. We need to remove in 2050. Maybe you can also think about adding a little percentage to be
on the safe side. So some overlap so we could say minus 85 And 18 or something like that and then you pretty much, they're right, you know, what policies to design to get to that 15 percent or 10 or 18 wherever you are. And and you know, what policies to design to, to get to the minus 85 percent. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Hmm. That seems to be at the, maybe the, the country or inter-country level is their thinking on what businesses might be required to do in Europe, at least now and then how might that Interact with carbon removal policy? Yeah, I think what we also implicitly assume is that article 62 and 64 of the Paris agreement would work. So that means we assume that you could transfer removal credits internationally in a kind of
regulated market. I think this is necessary because of the differences in, you know, endowments with biomass or storage potential. Lynn in different countries, not only Europe, but the world. So it's very important that we do the stuff. Where's the safest? The cheapest and the most reliable ride. So so we would wish for for some form of internationally transferable removal credits. And do you see this being part of a compliance Market, or do you see a role for voluntary
carbon markets as well? I think it will definitely start with the voluntary Market. You know, if you look at the So Soft. The stripes. The shopify's, ETC. We have started to move in this voluntary Market environment and that's your business, right? You know, that much better than to me, it will start as a voluntary market. And you know, on the regulated side is, it's the Paris agreement that envisages this but it hasn't gone very well in the past years.
I mean, now with with China Having kind of committed to a NetZero, all that it might change, but I definitely would cease seed starting in voluntary markets with players that understand the Strategic need to scale this. Otherwise you know, we won't make my 11.5 42 degrees Celsius and then it you know, my become regulated at a later stage. So you're thinking that your countries and or companies want to do this now because they it might be either easier or more.
Favorable towards them, then any perspective regulatory regime might or something like that. I think they can just move faster, you know, with, with these voluntary pledges. And I think, you know, I don't know how you see it, but from from our perspective, we think we see that, you know, the big, the Microsoft's Etc that I just mentioned, they understand that, if they don't drive this, you know, the world might very likely not make the climate goals of the Paris agreement.
That means You know, a less stable economy or society and that means also Less business cases for these these companies. So, yeah, I think that's that's what this is what drives is. There certainly is a lot of leadership being shown and taking risks on. I mean, most most, if not all carbon removal, companies are startups or very nearly startups or, or just early in the growth of their companies. Yeah, there's not many that are That old.
So for Brands my understanding is that it's for the expression. I always use for. This is the reason why you see, I forget where I got this isn't this isn't something I originally thought and sorry for all the caveats.
But okay, here's the thought is that if you work at a movie studio, you're never going to get fired for saying yes, to Spider-Man 7 because the IP has already been proven to be very valuable and if you take a shot at it, and The new Spider-Man movie turns out to be bad, people will just say, oh yeah, well what we have a track record of really good, Spider-Man, movies and it performing well. So that's okay.
That was a totally reasonable risk to take, but if you take a risk on even a much cheaper, movie by independent sort of like high art Cinema, maybe Winsome Oscars, but isn't a commercial success movie. Your job is much more at risk in that way. And so this is a way of illustrating, I think there is some inherent conservatism.
Big companies. Because the risk of saying, yes, is something that later proves to be an embarrassment, is much greater than just, you know, continuing on as you always have but I think a lot of companies are breaking out of that and maybe it is just hey, we're in a position to lead here, and if we don't do it, no one else is going to, or hey, this is going to help our employees and shareholders like us more.
Trust us more want to stay with us, or maybe they just genuinely like we have to do this now because we're really in great Danger. As a planet if we don't. I'm not sure which it is. I'm thinking, if you want to be really self-interested about it, I'm sure some of it is saying, whatever the government proposes. It's probably going to be more expensive to comply with will have less flexibility, will have less choice. We should do it on our end because maybe we'll set an
example for future policy. And maybe if we do it voluntarily, there actually may not be policy in that like direct oversight kind of way. That. I imagine many companies want to avoid, sorry, I just gave you 15 different things to respond to Kristoff, so your choice. Yeah, I don't know. I maybe I'll start with you know, if you look at Microsoft and and a likely regulated environment in the u.s. it's not that likely that they will be forced to remove their historic emissions anytime soon.
Right? Also given the current Administration so I think they're genuinely understand that they have a social responsibility to drive this. And also as I said, you know, you don't have a business case anymore. I rather quite quite an interesting policy paper. 18 months back, which started an attempt of calculating, how much of of the world population would be still alive and 2060? I think. And obviously, that's a nearly impossible task to do.
But they kind of looked at, you know, how the military would calculate compounding risks, that would happen to to appear and concluded that, you know, one third of us might not be alive in 40 years and, and that I know that number is not necessary robust, but that kind of gives you an idea of, you know, why these companies. And I'm still, I'm sure they understand this think this way because it's yes it's kind of a moral thing, but it's also purely from a business
perspective. If you shift your view from the next quarter to, I don't know the next three decades, what becomes profitable changes, a lot and and then all of a sudden obviously this becomes profitable in that spot.
scientists have been saying for decades and I think the exciting thing that is happening now is that you know all of a sudden the Technologies appear and yes they are new but they have to be new because there was the need wasn't there in in past decades because we could have still made it without removing but you know the Technologies are there to still make it and that is kind of a very hopeful Prospect and also probably the last hopeful prospect that we have to still turn this around.
I'm sorry this this was kind of an obviously a equally philosophical answer to you. Why question for ya this is these are my thoughts. You can match match me on that, that's totally fine. Yeah, that's a lot. Well, fair enough, curious to see how it goes, obviously the big risk. And I think why people distrust a lot of voluntary action? Is that tendency to greenwash is it's a big Big risk. Many environmental projects are.
It's hard to evaluate especially for the average consumer or shareholder to look into what the company is doing and saying like yeah I think this type of credit is actually doing something good or this policy doesn't just sound good but actually is getting the goods in some important way.
So I think there is a I don't know that that's another risk of voluntary action that I think people justifiably are concerned about and one of the reasons why Maybe we do see some sort of compliance mechanism coming into the future but that carries its own risks to. It isn't people tend to over idealize, regulatory action as inherently good and always good. And someone who studies this. I think you must agree that that is not the case, right? I would agree.
I think the intentions are always very well in this, someone who works, you know, in the policy field. I'm always impressed. I mean, I know from the outside, it's not going that fast but from the inside, there's so much to consider and look at and think about it. I'm super impressed with how fast and especially in recent Years day they change regulation in Europe, but yeah, obviously
no system is perfect. And no regulation is perfect and and the same applies, obviously, for the volunteering marketing greenwashing. And then, I'm not saying there's no green washing off, of course there is, but ultimately, I think A lot of this starts as as well intended. And a lot of it survives as a good thing, you know? So the European emissions trading system, which is currently the globally, the largest regulated emissions trading Market. It it is not a perfect system
but it is really really good. Especially if we compare it to you know, the other things that are there globally and someone just needs to start and if Start us voluntarily so be it and you know also on a smaller level you know we offer off of voluntary carbon removals on our website for individuals and and you know the price point super-high. You know because we selling
small tranches of subscription. So our cost is you know somewhere around 600 and then with all the overhead we have to charge over a thousand dollars per ton and people are buying this because they want to drive. If the unders it's a bit like Tesla right there they want to buy the model S so they can one day be a model 3 that that kind of makes this happen for most of us. Yeah II like that and we will
certainly discuss more. What climb works is doing in a consumer facing but also be to be fashion. That's a little bit less clear maybe to regular consumers so what we will get there and if you're listening and you like what climb works is doing, I want to support them, there will be links in the show notes for you to do so.
Well, one of the questions we tease earlier Kristoff that I really wanted to ask you is what is the relationship between all of these different carbon removal methodologies and what we keep coming back to at least my kristov and I have talked about is ecological succession as a model for the development of the carbon removal industry and which are the pioneer species that are first out, the gate that are making carbon
removal possible. And maybe holding some ground and preventing crises and then what are the sort of late blooming, but massive scale permanent or more permanent storage methods, that are actually going to get us to, you know, like a carbon removal world where we are removing more than we are putting out every year which happens first one, which comes next. Yeah, I think I think that's that's genius question. Because Das There's also another
mechanism within the. So, obviously, first out of the gate that has already happened. A long time ago is our for station, which has started live competing in a market, that is not a removal Market even though they are removal, but they're completed in in a compensation Market against avoided emissions
certificate. So, you know, you know you do a project, you you save a bit of a missions against the reference project and you can, you can then pack that A certificate because you have saved something and sell it on. But no carbon has been removed. And I think that the first bill species out of the gate, are you guys in the carbon removal markets? Because that is key because at the net zero point, there are not avoided emission certificates anymore which is the majority of was traded
today, right? And there's only removal and and then I think it's quite simple. You know, there's only so much sustainable biomass and we should use all of that, whether it's for, you know, First station backs of biochar. And then, you know, after that comes they would accept and maybe enhanced weathering and hopefully so many more that I don't yet know of and all of that together, hopefully we'll get us to, you know, climate positive world.
We need to have 30 years and I recently read a very good article in political, which look to this topic. And kind of the, the societal transformation that is needed to achieve this and it was aptly titled. The goal is Revolution because it's not enough to drive a Tesla and shower little shorter. You know, we really globally 80%. If I'm not mistaken or around, that is still fossil energy that we use and we need to replace all of that with renewable or CCS it or remove it from the
air. And and and also you know the product Like jet fuel, that you can't replace and we can make fuels from thin air with with CO2 from the atmosphere. And and and you know, Green hydrogen. You can make methane and then you can build, you start building your Harbin, sorry, hydrocarbon chains. And all of that system needs to be developed in the next 30 years because otherwise we've literally won't make it. And I think this is incredibly exciting but it's also a
daunting task. And yeah, I'm I'm kind of losing track, but I just want to convey. What we're dealing with here. Now, it's good. This comes up once in a while and what I usually say is that, it's like when you're watching a movie and someone says like, don't look down and the other character says, why what's down? And I look down. And of course, they freaked out because it's a giant Cliff or whatever that they're about to fall off of and we tend to be optimistic.
Yeah, conservative. Yet optimistic looking down, once in a while really has a tendency To focus the mind, I think. And when I look down on I'm with Miss Kate, I right, we shouldn't freak out because we definitely need to move. And I think what you guys are doing, you know, building the marketplace for this is is
incredibly important work. Well thanks, it's certainly not the easiest task but actually now that I think about it, it doesn't seem like any of these methodologies or approaches are particularly easy now. No, we you're right. We often joke and say, when we asked, why are you doing this? I doing this to make money or to save the planet and then we, you know, one responses, there are easier ways to earn your money.
So yeah, I'm sure. Well, what I think you're you're in the like Zurich area, couldn't you just work in finance. Go get a job at UBS and you'd be just fine, right? I don't know. I mean I had enough at I think including bonus more than twice. Salary. I have now and I'm fine because this is incredibly exciting and a lot I'm sure. I mean they're interesting jobs and findings to but yeah I like what I'm doing and I think that's also something that most
climb or and all climax. I know of share, you know we like doing what we're doing and obviously if you if we think think it through with a long lens, it is also incredibly profitable and it will Um, a large industry. At least if the world will make or will try and make the pair's goals, so it's both kind of things, right? Is it is profitable. That is also hard getting it off
the ground. Yeah, I think I think that is the hope I want to talk a bit about permanence because this is come up on both shows recently and maybe the best way to do so is to talk about what happens with the CO2 that climb Works captures. Are you monetizing it in some way? Is it re-entering various value streams? Or is it being mineralized? What's happening to your captured CO2?
Yeah, that's a good question. So so what we do is sink in cycle so part of our see, 2 goes into the ground where we have developed a way with with our partners in Iceland to mineralize the CO2 underground. So it's gone gone and stored forever. Even you know?
so if we have an earthquake or volcano erupts and that's the kind of the removal part which is needed to achieve the parasols and and the other way that we need to to think about to achieve the Powers goals is we need to replace fossil CO2 inputs into the system with atmospheric inputs because otherwise in a NetZero world you would have to Take the CO2 back out again, and it's always cheaper to almost always cheaper to use a CO2 for to replace the product.
I give an example. So if you were to say okay let's you know Aviation we don't have we don't have or at least currently we can't see too many options other than having a liquid fuel so you have two ways, right? You keep on burning fossil kerosene and then You remove the emissions from that fossil kerosene, for example, with direct are capture. Now, if you look at it a bit closer, the climate impact of flying is 3 times roughly the
amount of its CO2 emissions. So you would have to remove three times the amount of CO2 that comes from. You know, you have other images like no X, which are a bit more aggressive than CO2. And then you also have two particles where you have other climate impacts. But anyway, say what you can then do is you can simply take CO2 from the air combined with green hydrogen, then you get methane. It's an X term agree action, you get some energy back your fish, your top sheet and you have a
drop-in fuel that you can. You can you can tank into current current aircraft because you have removed the CO2 from the air first, when you burn the fuel, it burns a lot cleaner because it doesn't have any by products because you have built its and ethically and it Returns the CO2 to the atmosphere. So you closing the carbon cycle. And this is possible for almost all hydrocarbon chain products that we currently make from from
fossil sources. And I think this is the other kind of, super exciting prospect that, that we are looking into. And that's, you know, we have demonstrated that this is possible and so has carbon engineering and we're currently working on scaling this up, so the fuel Market in in kind of unavoidable or hard to directly Electrify sectors. It's definitely another interesting exciting case Oh, yeah, I love those approaches the idea of capturing fuel from the air. I know it's a little bit more
complicated than that. That's amazing. I always get excited when I hear about that, and I think having a less emitting source of hydrocarbon fuels that are not going to be easily. Replaceable like jet fuel and other things like that. That's going to play a pretty big role, I think. Okay. The first example you gave though, Iceland, I always forget the name, but what's the facility called again? It's a geothermal power plant, which is called headless idea.
I can't pronounce it in the Icelandic way. I'm sorry to don't normally the God now. That's good listening. And there we have a small demonstrator which we switched on in late 2017 and we are now building a plant there. That's bigger than all of our 16 other plants per capturing CO2. You're building one in Iceland. Yeah. Yeah. Second one. Yeah. And that that is so it captures and removes CO2 and stores it on the ground in the same location. It's located or aggression.
Wow. Yeah, it's called Orca. So, so follow our communication, that it's recently started, and it will take in Corona times. It's always a bit hard to estimate, but we will think in nine months or so it's running.
I love it. Okay, the permanence question, I wanted to get to with regard to. This is one that we've been talking about lately, because the Assumption with carbon removal, Through direct are capture and mineralisation it's sort of taken for granted that these are more permanent than more biological or ecological methods. And granted ecological methods, have not had a good run of things in this last month plus with wildfires Etc.
But one of my colleagues Alden Donnelly, she keeps bringing up the idea that there are orphaned oil wells all around the United States, where oil producing companies, go out of business and then these Wells, there's no one there to take care of them. There's not Financial mechanisms in place to care for these Wells and then you end up leaking in some way, we're not being taken care of and becoming a hazard. And that this process could also
happen with direct air capture. I don't know that understand the science well enough to say, I am cautious that because the rhetoric around permanence and Industrial methods does feel and that sort of euphoric optimistic State and I want to The brakes a little bit if necessary I don't know. What's the latest thinking on permanence with what you're doing there and sorry. I hope that isn't too pointed for you Kristoff, but I really need another good answer for this. Yeah, no, that's fine.
So so I'm not a geologist but it's my job to know about this a bit and you know as far as I know what your friend is talking about, is what we call sequestration. So you inject the CO2 in a liquid form and it stays gaze down there in a kind of liquid form. CO2 is heavier than air, so it doesn't come up as a gas. So so if the conditions are right, it should stay down there. This has been done by the oil industry for decades and there are very few accidents known.
But obviously what we do is different, right? We, what we do is we mineralize the CO2 underground. So, so, So what it is is its specific combination of heat other minerals in the rock that the porous Rock about 1.5 miles down in Iceland. It's a translation that is up the, the mineral rights Basalt. Yeah, that's exactly right.
And and that kind of, you know, forces the CO2, to mineralize for lack of better words, within two years and then, you know, you can abandon it. And because it has turned into stone, it won't come up in no circumstance. And this is, this is kind of The Way We are following. And also, I think globally, there's already one point 1200 Giga. Tons of storage identified. That could be used in that way. So that's more than we likely need to. To remove from the atmosphere so
that's not the bottleneck. Hmm. Wow, I see the attraction. Of course, yeah, Force burned down and then the idea that you could mineralize CO2 and you could, what did you say? You could walk away from it and it would be sort of stable in that capacity that if it's that good in the price point is competitive. That's a massive deal. I think it's fair to say and that's probably why you're building your career around direct are capture. Am I right?
That's correct. Yeah, no, no. I mean it is it is in terms of permanence. That's there's no nothing more permanent than a rock. Right? In that sense. Nothing more permanent than a rock? Yeah, that's free. I can't think of anything more permanent than a rock right now. So well, fair enough. I need to dig more into that. And learn more, see, 90 carbon 180s then some good research recently.
I think a lot of it leaned on the the stuff coming out of Livermore. National Laboratory about the permanence and it not being a threat for earthquakes, really? That it's quite stable. So yeah, I don't mean to inject out and do something that shouldn't but I do have questions. I like to see how this would play out but obviously the for the good of the planet. Yeah, I hope because in our theory of ecological succession maybe that means director capture will really get some
serious legs here in the future. Yeah, but I, you know, volume loss is still needed because a lot of it is at a lower price point. It's just not scalable to the extend that direct a capture. So, again, there's down on silver bullets, we need everything and fast. Definitely, that's certainly true. Well, since we've teased this one a little bit to, where do you think climb Works? Will be in the next 5 years. 10 years. What are you expecting? Projecting able to say, Etc. Yep.
You know, on the, on the one hand, our vision is to inspire 1 billion people to remove CO2 from the atmosphere in order to become what we call climbed relevant. So, so get to gigatons scale and we have developed a roadmap that we have recently made public at our director capture Summit that we held on. Was it the the 8th of September? You can you can you can Google it it's it's available.
But the whole recording and and they're, you know, the idea is basically every two years, we build a plant that is going up by the order of 1 magnitude. So, you know, in 2023, it's 100,000 tons in 25. It's, it's a million tons and then 10 and so, we will reach gigatons scale. Hopefully somewhere. In, you know, depending again we assuming strong societal and put Hitting will in the 2030s 2040s. Wow. So you've heard of exponential growth but have you heard of logarithmic growth?
Yeah, that would be ideal. Yeah, that's yeah, that would be cool. But that's a very hard challenge to, to master in a decade or two. Yeah. You don't say, well, I hope hope you're wildly successful, that that would be amazing. Well, what does that mean then? And then two years after the the what you had million In tons per year than a billion say gigaton.
And then then what? Yeah, 10 gig of times, I think, then if we follow that path, we would relatively soon outstrip, the mass of the Earth or something, with with our DSE plants. I'm not for seeing this happening. Yeah, I'm thinking of that classic Parable. I think it's Indian of the like grains of rice on the chessboard, you know the one I'm talking about. Yeah. Yeah. Be the entire you're going to consume the universe. There's no don't do that. That please. All right, take a No-No.
That's that, that will be kind of counterproductive to what we try and Achieve. Okay. Slightly slightly, yeah. Well, good to have some extreme goals in that way. We definitely need big thinking, what do you think about the carbon removal sector as a whole? Where do you think that's going to go in the next couple of years? That's a good question. I'll see you currently, it's going well right Corona hasn't, you know, damping it that much,
you know. You initiatives and marketplaces and Technologies are springing up left, right and Center. So so I'm hoping for it to continue that way and I think it can and it should obviously and it will. So yeah, I'm conservatively optimistic if that rings a bell. Yeah, I'm curious too. It seems like there's a lot of basic research being sponsored by various government entities.
There are companies that are getting funded and research institutions are being funded to figure out a lot of these new technology, quite a lot of attention is going into direct air capture, but it seems like soil science is advancing quite quickly. These days to at least from where I sit. We just did a bonus episode which should be out by the time we are this one that we're doing with Brian Vaughn hurts in and we were talking about Marine permaculture. And what's happening with
oceans? Oceans right now, I think get the least amount of attention of any of the big spheres of carbon removal. I hope their Heyday comes in the next couple of years to and that takes off. I don't know. Maybe it's different in Europe. Do you see much about oceans over there or like Barbie General? Um, um, maybe. I mean, yeah, there's some work being done on Marine Cloud. Brightening, obviously many not only Europe.
In Australia, I think in general the kind of the natural solutions get a bit more attention in Europe because that's seen as more inherently positive as compared to to the US. And you know in terms of ocean based solution. Obviously, some people started have started to talk about direct ocean capture which to be honest. And this is the only thing I have looked at in a bit more detail.
We can't really see it because, you know, To do direct air capture, you have to move a lot of air and to do direct motion capture, you have to move a lot of water and that is a considerably higher density and mass. So on that side, we can't really see it. Obviously you know for a lot of the other methodologies. I'm not a scientist in that direction so I can't comment on that. But yeah, at there should be
more obviously. Yeah, I won't force you to comment further on that direct ocean capture. Haven't heard of that yet. I'm not surprised it exists and I will have to look into that a bit more if someone wants to support your work. Keep in touch with either you personally but also if they want to support climb Works. What's a good way for them to do?
So? Yeah. So yeah if you if you are an organization based in Europe, one good way is to contact - emissions platform and you can be an NGO or CD. A developer or a CD, our supporter on the demand side and engage with us and may become a member. That will be great. If you are an individual and you want your emissions removed or a company from the atmosphere, you can either, obviously, engage with you guys at all, you know, with us through our web shop.
If you if you are inclined towards direct their capture. Yeah and and in general, you know this topic. Needs more societal dialogue and discussion so anything anything you can do to you know educate yourself on where we are with climate change. We can't call it climate change anymore. Right? How can we call it climate warming? Yeah, do it. We you don't call climate change
anymore. I don't think we can, I would say people in California would Now, go back to calling it climate crisis or Global heating. I don't know. You know, it's not a fear. We need a new word, maybe an old word, maybe maybe is global warming again Ragnarok. I don't. Yeah, I don't know, I don't know about any of these things. Hopefully it won't change it though. I already have the name of this show. You got kids okay? Sorry.
Sorry. I didn't want to reverse it on high prices and the health of your show. Yeah. How dare you? Come on my show, try to get me to change the name of the show Krista. Sorry, Ross. I'll make it up to me, one day. Yeah, insulting way to end the show now, just kidding. Yeah, fair enough, I'll keep my eyes peeled for any of those nomenclature discussions. I'd be curious to know whatever becomes a bit of, it's not
climate change. Links to all of those things in the show notes, if you want to buy carbon dioxide that has been captured by climb works, that link is in the show notes. If you want to follow Kristoff's work on, Keep up with him. Climb works is policy work etc, or also the negative. Emissions platform and risk dialog Foundation. Well, thank you again for being on the show Kristoff. Thank you, Ross fo for having me and 5 and climb works. Yeah, it's my pleasure. A fetus, ain't ya, feet and
dank. And, yeah, I'm sure our paths will cross again. I sure hope so. And hey, if you're listening, would you do me a small favor and write a review on Apple podcast, if you're an iPhone, Zur, it really helps a lot. It only takes, you know, 30 seconds or so. If you boot up the podcast app that comes on your iPhone, go to this show. Give us five stars, right? It's a nice review. Assuming you genuinely think that it deserves it and thanks for your support. Tell a friend, and thank you so
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