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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.
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.
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
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