1 00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:02,520 Hey, thanks for listening. This is Ross Kenyon. 2 00:00:02,520 --> 00:00:04,880 I'm the host of Reversing Climate Change, the podcast you 3 00:00:04,880 --> 00:00:06,640 are listening to right at this very moment. 4 00:00:07,040 --> 00:00:10,040 Before we get into the bulk of today's show, I'd love to tell 5 00:00:10,040 --> 00:00:11,760 you about our sponsor, Philip Lee. 6 00:00:11,760 --> 00:00:14,680 LLPI really like doing shows about the law. 7 00:00:14,680 --> 00:00:18,520 I think the law is such a fascinating part of our shared 8 00:00:18,520 --> 00:00:21,600 social life. It structures so much of it. 9 00:00:21,840 --> 00:00:24,000 It's badly understood by most people. 10 00:00:24,400 --> 00:00:28,320 And just structuring deals within carbon removal is hard. 11 00:00:28,640 --> 00:00:31,040 I'm talking grown up deals here, like when you're trying to put 12 00:00:31,040 --> 00:00:36,000 together an enormous package, complicated structuring, a lot 13 00:00:36,000 --> 00:00:38,680 of money, changing hands, The stakes are high. 14 00:00:39,000 --> 00:00:41,120 You really do need a good lawyer. 15 00:00:41,280 --> 00:00:43,760 I'm sorry to tell you that if you are a startup out there in 16 00:00:43,760 --> 00:00:46,960 carbon removal, you're going to probably pay a fair amount of 17 00:00:46,960 --> 00:00:49,040 money to lawyers. There's just no way around it. 18 00:00:49,120 --> 00:00:52,480 Your choice is basically, do you get a bad lawyer or a good 19 00:00:52,480 --> 00:00:54,520 lawyer? One really cool thing I can say 20 00:00:54,560 --> 00:00:59,800 on Philip Lee LLP's behalf, Well, one, Ryan Covington and I 21 00:00:59,800 --> 00:01:04,800 did a very fun show about how basically no one except for an 22 00:01:04,800 --> 00:01:07,360 elite few really know what bankability and project finance 23 00:01:07,360 --> 00:01:10,240 even mean. And he lays it out very clearly. 24 00:01:10,240 --> 00:01:12,400 If you'd like to go listen to that show, it's awesome and it's 25 00:01:12,400 --> 00:01:15,200 LinkedIn the show notes. And also we end up talking about 26 00:01:15,240 --> 00:01:17,280 Ernest Hemingway of firm not too. 27 00:01:17,720 --> 00:01:20,600 So it keeps with the tradition of reversing climate change. 28 00:01:20,840 --> 00:01:24,160 One also really cool thing is that they just won Environmental 29 00:01:24,160 --> 00:01:26,280 Finances, VCM Law Firm of the Year. 30 00:01:26,840 --> 00:01:31,120 They put it three years in a row, 2023-2024 and 2025. 31 00:01:31,440 --> 00:01:34,640 It's the only award for legal teams operating in the DCM, and 32 00:01:34,640 --> 00:01:37,160 they have offices in the US, Europe, and the UK. 33 00:01:37,720 --> 00:01:39,720 You should check out Philip Lee LLP. 34 00:01:39,880 --> 00:01:41,840 Thank you from the bottom of my heart for listening to this, and 35 00:01:41,840 --> 00:01:44,640 thank you to our sponsors. You really make this so that 36 00:01:45,000 --> 00:01:48,000 it's something that in a busy life with lots of competing 37 00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:50,720 priorities, I'm able to keep coming back and making more, 38 00:01:50,720 --> 00:01:53,480 reversing climate change. Thanks so much for what you do. 39 00:01:53,760 --> 00:01:55,360 And now? Here is the show. 40 00:02:03,200 --> 00:02:06,440 Hey, thanks for listening to Reversing Climate Change. 41 00:02:06,560 --> 00:02:09,360 My name is Ross Kenyon. I'm the host of the show. 42 00:02:09,560 --> 00:02:12,800 I'm a carbon removal entrepreneur, and I'm very happy 43 00:02:12,800 --> 00:02:15,200 to have an alumnus of the show back on. 44 00:02:15,400 --> 00:02:18,800 Tyler Kukla is a research scientist at Carbon Plan, where 45 00:02:18,800 --> 00:02:21,120 he's working on enhanced weathering, which if you're not 46 00:02:21,120 --> 00:02:24,320 familiar with, is one of the main carbon removal pathways 47 00:02:24,320 --> 00:02:26,880 which is being commercialized and researched right now. 48 00:02:27,160 --> 00:02:30,240 I'm going to explain one paradigmatic version of it. 49 00:02:30,880 --> 00:02:33,360 So much of carbon removal deals with putting alkalinity in 50 00:02:33,360 --> 00:02:36,080 different places and configurations, but one of the 51 00:02:36,080 --> 00:02:38,200 main ways of using enhanced weathering that is being 52 00:02:38,560 --> 00:02:41,760 commercialized by companies right now is the laying down of 53 00:02:41,760 --> 00:02:46,800 silicate rocks on croplands. That silicate rock captures 54 00:02:46,800 --> 00:02:50,160 carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and then it washes 55 00:02:50,160 --> 00:02:53,440 through the hydrological cycle out to rivers, out to the ocean, 56 00:02:53,440 --> 00:02:56,640 and then it is stored in stable forms in the ocean. 57 00:02:57,400 --> 00:03:00,800 There's another class of rocks called carbonates that can also 58 00:03:01,240 --> 00:03:04,440 remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it, but 59 00:03:04,440 --> 00:03:07,240 it's a little bit more confusing because carbonate already has 60 00:03:07,240 --> 00:03:10,480 carbon in the rock itself. Some of that will likely be 61 00:03:10,480 --> 00:03:12,640 released in the application of it to soil. 62 00:03:12,800 --> 00:03:15,680 It's currently being used for AG line purposes right now for pH 63 00:03:15,680 --> 00:03:17,480 management. So there's also a question of 64 00:03:17,480 --> 00:03:19,400 additionality with regard to carbonates. 65 00:03:19,880 --> 00:03:23,120 And for all those reasons and probably some others, but also 66 00:03:23,120 --> 00:03:26,880 this next reason, carbonates have not been as thoroughly 67 00:03:26,880 --> 00:03:30,240 investigated as silicates have for enhanced rock weathering. 68 00:03:30,440 --> 00:03:34,440 And that reason is that in 1996, there was an IPCC report which 69 00:03:34,440 --> 00:03:38,920 made a conservative assumption about carbonate rock releasing 70 00:03:39,000 --> 00:03:41,960 all of the carbon that is stored in the carbonate back in the 71 00:03:41,960 --> 00:03:45,360 atmosphere when it's applied to croplands for pH management. 72 00:03:46,120 --> 00:03:49,800 What's so interesting about this story that Tyler turned me on to 73 00:03:50,280 --> 00:03:53,000 is that when we don't have good information, it makes sense to 74 00:03:53,000 --> 00:03:57,040 have a conservative estimate. And so the scientists working on 75 00:03:57,200 --> 00:04:00,720 the carbonate and AG line portion of this IPCC report, 76 00:04:01,040 --> 00:04:03,840 they decided to make the conservative assumption that 77 00:04:03,840 --> 00:04:07,120 100% of the carbon of the carbonate will be released back 78 00:04:07,120 --> 00:04:08,640 into the atmosphere when applied. 79 00:04:09,160 --> 00:04:12,680 That means that AG liming is likely and inherently emitted 80 00:04:12,680 --> 00:04:15,720 process. And maybe it is at best carbon 81 00:04:15,720 --> 00:04:18,560 neutral, but certainly would not be carbon negative. 82 00:04:19,360 --> 00:04:22,640 And what's interesting about this is that that is a 83 00:04:22,680 --> 00:04:27,320 responsible decision that was made, gosh, how long ago? 84 00:04:27,320 --> 00:04:32,960 30 years ago now. And that has led to effects that 85 00:04:32,960 --> 00:04:36,400 have shaped the commercial routes of carbon removal. 86 00:04:36,920 --> 00:04:39,720 We have spent way more time on silicate rock for enhanced 87 00:04:39,720 --> 00:04:42,240 weathering than we have for carbonates, at least partially 88 00:04:42,400 --> 00:04:45,000 as a result of this conservative assumption, which has been 89 00:04:45,000 --> 00:04:47,960 challenged by science and is undergoing revision now. 90 00:04:47,960 --> 00:04:50,640 And there's debates happening within certain communities 91 00:04:50,640 --> 00:04:52,400 within carbon removal and in the Academy. 92 00:04:52,760 --> 00:04:55,600 And we'll see which way this all pans out. 93 00:04:56,080 --> 00:04:59,080 And if that sounds really nerdy to you, fine, I understand. 94 00:04:59,440 --> 00:05:01,800 But I think what I want you to keep your eye on here is not 95 00:05:01,800 --> 00:05:04,560 necessarily the state of the science of the silicate and 96 00:05:04,560 --> 00:05:07,520 carbonate debate for feedstocks with an enhanced weathering. 97 00:05:07,680 --> 00:05:09,600 That's of course interesting and very important. 98 00:05:09,840 --> 00:05:13,720 But what's more interesting to me is how one decision that 99 00:05:13,720 --> 00:05:18,720 probably didn't feel super relevant at the time of the 1996 100 00:05:19,200 --> 00:05:22,280 IPCC report, I doubt the scientists working on this. 101 00:05:22,360 --> 00:05:25,160 We're thinking that 30 years from now, this will potentially 102 00:05:25,160 --> 00:05:28,640 distort the carbon removal marketplace and which types of 103 00:05:28,640 --> 00:05:33,360 rock are eligible to be used as carbon removal and will lead 104 00:05:33,360 --> 00:05:36,120 people towards silicate rock rather than carbonates. 105 00:05:37,200 --> 00:05:39,240 It's just funny. It's not like there's silicate 106 00:05:39,240 --> 00:05:42,080 scientists and business people on the grassy Knoll or anything 107 00:05:42,080 --> 00:05:43,560 like that. Like these are good reasons that 108 00:05:43,560 --> 00:05:45,920 this is made for. And it's just one of those 109 00:05:45,920 --> 00:05:50,480 things that history, causality, contingency, entropy, and how 110 00:05:50,480 --> 00:05:53,560 that affects things over the course of decades are really 111 00:05:53,560 --> 00:05:56,680 unpredictable. I doubt any of the people 112 00:05:56,680 --> 00:06:00,560 working on this had an inkling of their responsible 113 00:06:00,560 --> 00:06:04,800 conservative decision about how to estimate the carbon reversal 114 00:06:05,000 --> 00:06:08,160 of AG liming would lead us down this path. 115 00:06:08,160 --> 00:06:09,560 And that's what's so interesting to me too. 116 00:06:09,560 --> 00:06:11,120 It's not that anyone did anything wrong. 117 00:06:11,440 --> 00:06:14,160 It's not even about weighing in on which rock is best in which 118 00:06:14,160 --> 00:06:15,760 cases. It's just about how many 119 00:06:15,760 --> 00:06:19,160 decisions do we make now will impact our future decisions, 120 00:06:19,320 --> 00:06:21,360 which is especially important because so much of carbon 121 00:06:21,360 --> 00:06:24,280 removal right now is early days. And there is a desire to 122 00:06:24,280 --> 00:06:27,160 regulate things and to have stable expectations of what is 123 00:06:27,160 --> 00:06:30,720 acceptable and what is not. And we will almost certainly be 124 00:06:30,720 --> 00:06:33,600 making rules that our descendants will look at be 125 00:06:33,600 --> 00:06:35,800 like, wow, that really sent us down a wrong path. 126 00:06:35,800 --> 00:06:39,000 That was incorrect. And it was really hard to change 127 00:06:39,120 --> 00:06:41,360 even once we knew it was incorrect or was not the whole 128 00:06:41,360 --> 00:06:43,520 story. I think that's a thing that 129 00:06:43,520 --> 00:06:45,800 should encourage us to try really hard to get things right 130 00:06:45,800 --> 00:06:49,240 now, but also to have mercy for ourselves and for the people who 131 00:06:49,240 --> 00:06:52,200 came before us trying to do their best, and also knowing 132 00:06:52,200 --> 00:06:56,480 that causality is an unpredictable thing. 133 00:06:57,520 --> 00:07:00,760 Tyler and I dig into so many more details about this in 134 00:07:00,760 --> 00:07:04,200 particular, and some of the philosophical historical 135 00:07:04,320 --> 00:07:07,200 linkages here that endlessly fascinate me. 136 00:07:07,760 --> 00:07:10,480 Thank you so much for listening. If you want to open up your 137 00:07:10,480 --> 00:07:13,440 podcast app and give the show 5 stars may be ready to review on 138 00:07:13,440 --> 00:07:14,680 your podcast out, that would be great. 139 00:07:15,120 --> 00:07:18,080 But also I, I think I just want to start the show today. 140 00:07:18,320 --> 00:07:20,800 So I'm not going to, I'm not going to stick my hand out 141 00:07:21,000 --> 00:07:22,920 today. You get a free pass, $5 a month. 142 00:07:22,920 --> 00:07:25,400 You can be a paid subscriber. Blah blah blah if you. 143 00:07:25,400 --> 00:07:27,400 Want to support the show? Go check out the show notes. 144 00:07:27,920 --> 00:07:30,160 I think I'd rather just get you right into the heart of the 145 00:07:30,160 --> 00:07:32,640 conversation with Tyler, so here I go. 146 00:07:33,040 --> 00:07:39,400 Here it is, Tyler. You were brave and you decided 147 00:07:39,400 --> 00:07:42,240 to come back into the lion's den where you're going to get 148 00:07:42,240 --> 00:07:44,800 grilled by me about. Silicates for having us. 149 00:07:47,040 --> 00:07:50,080 Yeah, I'm so happy to have you. I think this is one of those 150 00:07:50,400 --> 00:07:52,520 things that's been percolating for a long time. 151 00:07:52,520 --> 00:07:55,760 I've been hearing people talk about this issue for seemingly 152 00:07:56,080 --> 00:07:58,760 years. It's maybe coming into the 153 00:07:58,760 --> 00:08:01,120 mainstream of carbon removal more seriously now. 154 00:08:01,600 --> 00:08:03,760 There's so much to talk about. I also don't even know how to 155 00:08:04,360 --> 00:08:07,120 start this conversation because some parts of this are science 156 00:08:07,120 --> 00:08:11,120 related, but this podcast is also about the downstream 157 00:08:11,120 --> 00:08:16,480 effects of policy and like design decisions that impact how 158 00:08:16,680 --> 00:08:19,480 science and markets are built downstream from that. 159 00:08:19,560 --> 00:08:20,760 Do you even agree with that framing? 160 00:08:20,760 --> 00:08:22,160 Is that the correct way to understand this? 161 00:08:22,760 --> 00:08:25,400 I think that makes sense to me. I, I would think about this 162 00:08:25,960 --> 00:08:28,400 through kind of the lens of past dependence, which is something 163 00:08:28,400 --> 00:08:31,760 that we've talked about before. And I think that through that 164 00:08:31,760 --> 00:08:34,520 lens, like if you want to talk about how do you get stuck doing 165 00:08:34,520 --> 00:08:37,240 one thing that maybe isn't the thing you want to be doing? 166 00:08:38,760 --> 00:08:40,640 Like the first thing you need to do is identify that you're 167 00:08:40,640 --> 00:08:43,159 trying to get somewhere, right? You have a destination or a goal 168 00:08:43,159 --> 00:08:45,600 that you're trying to achieve. And it's hard to talk about the 169 00:08:45,600 --> 00:08:48,320 path that you're on unless you have agreement around what that 170 00:08:48,320 --> 00:08:50,160 goal is or where you're trying to go. 171 00:08:50,600 --> 00:08:53,000 But once you do have that and you open up the conversation to 172 00:08:53,800 --> 00:08:55,960 to think about like, where should we be going with this, 173 00:08:56,560 --> 00:08:58,760 then you have to think about, well, how do we recognize that? 174 00:08:58,760 --> 00:09:01,000 Like, the thing that we're doing maybe isn't the thing that we 175 00:09:01,000 --> 00:09:04,040 want to be doing or we are ignoring a parallel path that 176 00:09:04,040 --> 00:09:07,520 could be really useful. And I think that's kind of 177 00:09:07,520 --> 00:09:09,560 what's happening in the world of enhanced rock weathering right 178 00:09:09,560 --> 00:09:11,560 now. And that's what I think would be 179 00:09:11,560 --> 00:09:13,120 fun to dig into. Yeah. 180 00:09:13,400 --> 00:09:15,480 What do you think when you think about like past dependence and 181 00:09:15,480 --> 00:09:19,680 carbon removal? So many things. 182 00:09:19,720 --> 00:09:22,280 I'm, I'm almost flabbergasted that you asked me because so 183 00:09:22,280 --> 00:09:26,320 many of the things that I think about relate to, is it better to 184 00:09:26,320 --> 00:09:28,840 have a rule here or no? And I think the default 185 00:09:28,840 --> 00:09:32,480 assumption for a lot of people is like more regularized 186 00:09:32,480 --> 00:09:35,560 assumptions and behaviors would be good. 187 00:09:35,960 --> 00:09:38,880 But you also never get to see what are the things that you 188 00:09:38,880 --> 00:09:42,240 designed out ex ante because you forbid them before they had a 189 00:09:42,240 --> 00:09:45,280 chance to be tried out. So whenever there are rules that 190 00:09:45,280 --> 00:09:48,640 are really strict, are we limiting the innovation space in 191 00:09:48,640 --> 00:09:52,760 ways that it might get us to a local optimum, but not the 192 00:09:52,760 --> 00:09:54,880 global optimum? And the thing that's hard about 193 00:09:54,880 --> 00:09:57,600 it is that it was probably entirely rational for many of 194 00:09:57,600 --> 00:09:59,600 these path dependencies to exist when they started. 195 00:09:59,600 --> 00:10:02,160 But you don't necessarily know that you're in a cul-de-sac 196 00:10:02,160 --> 00:10:04,280 until you're there. And then you're like, oh, crap. 197 00:10:04,280 --> 00:10:07,520 Like that was like medium term, correct, but long term it was 198 00:10:07,520 --> 00:10:08,840 incorrect. Now what? 199 00:10:09,680 --> 00:10:14,360 And then you talking to me about this like, wow, is enhanced 200 00:10:14,360 --> 00:10:17,880 weathering in one of these two? And it's also so hard to talk 201 00:10:17,880 --> 00:10:22,760 about this because so many people's livelihoods depend upon 202 00:10:22,760 --> 00:10:27,160 it, and therefore we need to be very careful unless we are 203 00:10:27,160 --> 00:10:30,400 prepared to receive very annoyed emails. 204 00:10:30,440 --> 00:10:32,520 Tyler, are you really putting me in this position right now? 205 00:10:34,080 --> 00:10:36,360 I mean, I guess I also have that to stake as well. 206 00:10:36,360 --> 00:10:38,000 So it's it. Hopefully you're you. 207 00:10:38,160 --> 00:10:39,760 Got carbon plans? So like your e-mail is already 208 00:10:39,760 --> 00:10:40,880 full. Like you're fine. 209 00:10:41,400 --> 00:10:42,520 Yeah, exactly. Don't. 210 00:10:42,520 --> 00:10:46,520 Worry about it. I think one thing that gives me 211 00:10:46,520 --> 00:10:49,320 hope is that like we are in the early stages of developing 212 00:10:49,320 --> 00:10:51,840 enhanced rock weathering in particular and open system 213 00:10:51,840 --> 00:10:54,040 carbon removal and carbon removal more broadly. 214 00:10:54,320 --> 00:10:58,240 And it's not like the path is necessarily an emergent property 215 00:10:58,240 --> 00:11:01,760 as this like innumerable actors that are all playing the game 216 00:11:01,760 --> 00:11:04,960 and like we nobody is really driving the ship and it's just 217 00:11:04,960 --> 00:11:07,320 kind of going where these like forces that we have no control 218 00:11:07,320 --> 00:11:09,920 over are dictating it. I think we do have a little bit 219 00:11:09,920 --> 00:11:12,480 more control over where we explore, where we look and what 220 00:11:12,480 --> 00:11:15,280 we're doing. And we can't really exercise 221 00:11:15,280 --> 00:11:17,560 that control unless we're having conversations like this about 222 00:11:17,560 --> 00:11:20,000 where should things be going and, and how to do it. 223 00:11:20,120 --> 00:11:22,240 You and I maybe don't have that control, but there are small 224 00:11:22,240 --> 00:11:25,080 enough number of actors in the game right now that and it's 225 00:11:25,080 --> 00:11:28,320 early enough on that I think that it's not too hard to solve 226 00:11:28,320 --> 00:11:30,520 problems of like, Oh no, maybe we're a little bit stuck 227 00:11:30,520 --> 00:11:31,640 somewhere that we don't want to be. 228 00:11:33,920 --> 00:11:37,520 Why do you think we get stuck specifically within enhanced 229 00:11:37,640 --> 00:11:41,920 rock weathering? I, well, I don't think enhanced 230 00:11:41,920 --> 00:11:43,200 rock weathering as a whole is stuck. 231 00:11:43,200 --> 00:11:45,320 I think there's one specific piece of enhanced rock 232 00:11:45,320 --> 00:11:48,120 weathering that like maybe we should be looking in a parallel 233 00:11:48,120 --> 00:11:50,600 direction somewhere else. And the thing that makes me 234 00:11:50,600 --> 00:11:54,640 think that is that anytime that I think you see a divergent 235 00:11:54,640 --> 00:11:58,400 between like where investment is going and what research says 236 00:11:58,400 --> 00:12:02,640 might be promising, anytime that divergent emerges, it's worth 237 00:12:02,640 --> 00:12:05,120 thinking critically about whether or not that's justified, 238 00:12:05,360 --> 00:12:07,280 right? Do we want that gap to exist? 239 00:12:07,280 --> 00:12:08,320 Does it make sense that it exists? 240 00:12:08,320 --> 00:12:12,600 It's not inherently bad, but like it should set off alarm 241 00:12:12,600 --> 00:12:13,840 bells. It should force us to think a 242 00:12:13,840 --> 00:12:16,200 little bit more critically. And I think that that's what's 243 00:12:16,200 --> 00:12:18,120 happening in enhanced rock weathering. 244 00:12:18,120 --> 00:12:22,440 And what I mean by that is that we have built the entire field 245 00:12:22,680 --> 00:12:25,360 around one kind of rock or one set of minerals. 246 00:12:25,360 --> 00:12:28,480 And these are silicate minerals. And we know that carbonates, 247 00:12:28,480 --> 00:12:31,560 which is another kind of rock or mineral set of minerals, can 248 00:12:31,560 --> 00:12:34,680 also do carbon removal. And we have largely ignored 249 00:12:34,680 --> 00:12:37,680 carbonates. And that's not what I think. 250 00:12:37,680 --> 00:12:40,000 If you, it's not like we looked at the research, like a decades 251 00:12:40,000 --> 00:12:42,720 of research and said, OK, well, silicates are the only way to go 252 00:12:42,720 --> 00:12:45,120 or even just like the optimal way to go. 253 00:12:45,120 --> 00:12:46,880 That's not it. There isn't like a good 254 00:12:46,880 --> 00:12:50,280 scientific justification for building and coalescing this 255 00:12:50,280 --> 00:12:52,720 entire field of enhanced weathering around silicates and 256 00:12:52,720 --> 00:12:55,320 largely ignoring carbonates. We know that these rocks have 257 00:12:55,320 --> 00:12:56,560 their own strengths and weaknesses. 258 00:12:56,560 --> 00:12:58,600 It's not like it. It's not that it doesn't matter 259 00:12:58,600 --> 00:13:00,600 which one you choose. It definitely matters. 260 00:13:01,200 --> 00:13:03,440 But we also know that there are examples in the literature of 261 00:13:03,440 --> 00:13:06,360 each one of these types of rocks winning out over the other. 262 00:13:06,760 --> 00:13:09,560 And so I think there's a good case to be made that if we want 263 00:13:09,560 --> 00:13:12,960 enhanced rock weathering to contribute the most that it can 264 00:13:12,960 --> 00:13:16,240 to our our climate goals and our carbon removal capacity, we need 265 00:13:16,240 --> 00:13:18,440 to be exploring both carbonates and silicates. 266 00:13:19,160 --> 00:13:22,080 That's not the world that we live in right now, right? 267 00:13:22,080 --> 00:13:24,600 I, what we don't want to end up in is a world where, you know, 268 00:13:24,680 --> 00:13:27,160 we could be doing 1 unit of enhanced rock weathering for 269 00:13:27,160 --> 00:13:29,480 carbon removal, but we're doing half because we kind of let this 270 00:13:29,480 --> 00:13:34,960 entire side of the field kind of it, we, we ignored it And I, I 271 00:13:34,960 --> 00:13:36,400 don't have a good answer as to why we're here. 272 00:13:36,400 --> 00:13:38,520 I think there's a million reasons as to why the field has 273 00:13:38,520 --> 00:13:41,400 built itself around silicates. I think a lot of it has to do 274 00:13:41,400 --> 00:13:43,200 with one. That's where we started. 275 00:13:43,520 --> 00:13:45,760 And there are a lot of positive feedbacks that emerge around the 276 00:13:45,760 --> 00:13:48,200 thing that you start with. And they are really complicated 277 00:13:48,400 --> 00:13:52,480 and there's no simple answer. But I think that like the the 278 00:13:52,640 --> 00:13:57,600 overarching theme that emerges for me that is maybe so vague to 279 00:13:57,600 --> 00:14:01,000 the point that it's not not useful is that silicates offer 280 00:14:01,000 --> 00:14:03,600 this really easy and simple story. 281 00:14:03,600 --> 00:14:06,000 And that story is the story that we tell ourselves and enhanced 282 00:14:06,000 --> 00:14:08,200 rock weathering. And there are a few elements of 283 00:14:08,200 --> 00:14:10,200 that story that are particularly good for silicates. 284 00:14:10,200 --> 00:14:12,800 But the the big picture is that there is a really nice story, 285 00:14:13,040 --> 00:14:16,480 and these easy early stories tend to stick for a whole bunch 286 00:14:16,480 --> 00:14:18,800 of reasons. I'll tell the story, Tyler. 287 00:14:21,000 --> 00:14:24,400 Well, I mean, I it's worth thinking about the narrative 288 00:14:24,400 --> 00:14:26,200 itself, right? Anytime you have a really nice 289 00:14:26,200 --> 00:14:29,840 story and you get little quick tag lines for podcasts and news 290 00:14:29,840 --> 00:14:31,960 articles. But researchers also have an 291 00:14:31,960 --> 00:14:33,880 easy job framing their research project. 292 00:14:33,880 --> 00:14:36,080 And when the field is over here, you want to ask research 293 00:14:36,080 --> 00:14:38,400 questions around where the field is going already. 294 00:14:38,400 --> 00:14:40,840 And attention attracts attention. 295 00:14:41,440 --> 00:14:44,080 So it's really easy to to kind of build stuff around that. 296 00:14:44,080 --> 00:14:46,400 The first piece of like why carbonates, I think are a tough 297 00:14:46,400 --> 00:14:50,440 story has to do with something that the Intergovernmental Panel 298 00:14:50,440 --> 00:14:54,240 on Climate Change, the IPCC wrote all the way back in 1996 299 00:14:54,480 --> 00:14:56,880 when they weren't talking about carbon removal or enhanced rock 300 00:14:56,880 --> 00:14:58,720 weathering at all. And it's a really. 301 00:14:58,760 --> 00:15:00,560 My Tamaguchi. Back then, I wasn't. 302 00:15:00,600 --> 00:15:02,960 Even. Yeah, I know. 303 00:15:03,080 --> 00:15:04,800 And what even is it called? Tamagotchi. 304 00:15:07,200 --> 00:15:08,680 Few. Few people were thinking about 305 00:15:08,680 --> 00:15:10,200 Nan stock weathering at that time. 306 00:15:11,120 --> 00:15:13,640 It's, it's, it's not the IPC's fault that they weren't thinking 307 00:15:13,640 --> 00:15:16,040 about it. But so the IPCC, they put out 308 00:15:16,040 --> 00:15:19,880 this report every 10 years or so, which is is not frequent. 309 00:15:19,880 --> 00:15:21,680 And we're coming up on the next round right now. 310 00:15:21,680 --> 00:15:23,280 So this is going to be coming full circle. 311 00:15:23,680 --> 00:15:26,840 The report is the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report, 312 00:15:26,840 --> 00:15:30,040 guidelines for how you calculate as a country, how you calculate 313 00:15:30,040 --> 00:15:31,680 emissions from your country, basically. 314 00:15:32,040 --> 00:15:34,560 And one of the guidelines that they have in this very long, 315 00:15:34,560 --> 00:15:37,880 very dense report has to do with what happens when you spread 316 00:15:37,880 --> 00:15:41,240 carbonate rocks on fields. Because the kind of kicker here, 317 00:15:41,240 --> 00:15:43,280 and one of the things that makes carbonates and silicates 318 00:15:43,280 --> 00:15:46,400 different in enhanced rock weathering is that we're already 319 00:15:46,400 --> 00:15:49,000 spreading carbonates on agricultural fields, not just in 320 00:15:49,000 --> 00:15:51,560 the US, but in a bunch of places around the world. 321 00:15:51,560 --> 00:15:53,520 And we're not doing that for carbon removal, even though 322 00:15:53,520 --> 00:15:55,400 carbonates can be used for carbon removal. 323 00:15:55,640 --> 00:15:58,320 We're doing it because there are agronomic benefits, because it 324 00:15:58,320 --> 00:16:01,440 neutralizes acidity in the soil. The plants like that they can 325 00:16:01,440 --> 00:16:03,920 release calcium and and plants need calcium. 326 00:16:04,280 --> 00:16:07,160 So there are clear benefits to spreading carbonate on fields. 327 00:16:07,480 --> 00:16:10,360 And IPCC says, well, we want to make sure that we're accounting 328 00:16:10,360 --> 00:16:13,440 for any emissions that are associated with this, not just 329 00:16:13,440 --> 00:16:16,120 the trucking emissions, which is dealt with elsewhere like the 330 00:16:16,120 --> 00:16:21,000 shipping emissions, but also like if the carbon in it, 331 00:16:21,160 --> 00:16:23,360 carbonates have carbon in them. And we'll get more to this in a 332 00:16:23,360 --> 00:16:25,000 moment it. Better, but it better have it in 333 00:16:25,000 --> 00:16:26,200 there they. Better have carbon in them 334 00:16:26,200 --> 00:16:31,480 because the name, the name that says so if the carbon in that 335 00:16:31,480 --> 00:16:33,760 rock is released to the atmosphere, we want to make sure 336 00:16:33,760 --> 00:16:37,560 that we're accounting for that. And the ITCC in 1996 in the 337 00:16:37,760 --> 00:16:42,080 their greenhouse gas inventory guidelines said, look, without 338 00:16:42,080 --> 00:16:44,840 any better information about what's going on, the safest 339 00:16:44,840 --> 00:16:48,360 assumption is just that all of the carbon in this rock is going 340 00:16:48,360 --> 00:16:52,240 into the atmosphere. Just just go with that in 2008. 341 00:16:52,240 --> 00:16:53,920 So that sparked a bunch of Geo chemistry. 342 00:16:53,920 --> 00:16:55,480 Like this isn't really how it works. 343 00:16:55,480 --> 00:16:58,040 Like we know that a lot of the carbon that's in the rock can be 344 00:16:58,040 --> 00:17:00,880 stored in the water durably along with carbon from the 345 00:17:00,880 --> 00:17:04,079 atmosphere, which is how carbonates do carbon dioxide 346 00:17:04,079 --> 00:17:05,760 removal. They store their own carbon, but 347 00:17:05,760 --> 00:17:08,200 also atmosphere carbon when they dissolve. 348 00:17:08,839 --> 00:17:12,680 And they, a handful of papers came out looking at what is the 349 00:17:12,720 --> 00:17:15,880 carbon effect of adding carbonate to fields even when 350 00:17:15,880 --> 00:17:17,359 we're not trying to do carbon removal. 351 00:17:17,640 --> 00:17:20,400 Some papers found that you get carbon removal, which is great. 352 00:17:20,680 --> 00:17:23,480 Other papers found that like if we want to update an emissions 353 00:17:23,480 --> 00:17:25,680 factor and we're being kind of conservative about what's 354 00:17:25,680 --> 00:17:28,400 happening with the balance of carbon into the system and 355 00:17:28,400 --> 00:17:33,760 carbon out of the system, that it's easy to with an error like 356 00:17:33,760 --> 00:17:36,160 land and that carbonates are emitting carbon to the 357 00:17:36,160 --> 00:17:38,240 atmosphere. So one of the papers that came 358 00:17:38,240 --> 00:17:42,120 out updated the emissions factor for the United States to about 359 00:17:42,120 --> 00:17:44,920 half of the carbon gets emitted to the atmosphere rather than 360 00:17:44,920 --> 00:17:47,800 all of it. And this is the one the United 361 00:17:47,800 --> 00:17:49,640 States has mostly used since then. 362 00:17:50,080 --> 00:17:55,400 But what this also means in that paper is Weston McBride 2005. 363 00:17:55,400 --> 00:17:59,520 For any mega nerds out there, what this also means is that 364 00:17:59,560 --> 00:18:02,520 when we started thinking about enhanced silicate weathering, we 365 00:18:02,520 --> 00:18:05,000 have this like really nice win win narrative that we're 366 00:18:05,000 --> 00:18:06,920 presented with. Which is on the one hand, if you 367 00:18:06,920 --> 00:18:09,280 spread silicates on the street, on the field, you can get carbon 368 00:18:09,280 --> 00:18:11,640 removal and that's a win. And on the other hand, if you 369 00:18:11,640 --> 00:18:14,360 stop spreading carbonate in order to spread the silicate, 370 00:18:14,400 --> 00:18:16,840 then you avoid all of the emissions that are associated 371 00:18:16,840 --> 00:18:20,320 with the carbonate that the IPCC and Weston Mcride and a handful 372 00:18:20,320 --> 00:18:23,680 of other papers have said exist. The complication to that 373 00:18:23,680 --> 00:18:25,960 narrative is that other papers will say, no, we have good 374 00:18:25,960 --> 00:18:28,720 evidence that spreading carbonates on Shields is 375 00:18:28,720 --> 00:18:31,720 actually doing carbon removal. It's not emitting carbon to the 376 00:18:31,720 --> 00:18:33,960 atmosphere. And so it's the story isn't that 377 00:18:33,960 --> 00:18:37,000 simple. But early on in the world of 378 00:18:37,080 --> 00:18:39,800 enhanced silicate weathering, it was easy to say, look, if we 379 00:18:39,800 --> 00:18:42,880 stop spreading carbonates, we avoid those emissions and that's 380 00:18:42,880 --> 00:18:45,720 good. So the IPCC kind of unwittingly 381 00:18:45,720 --> 00:18:49,800 played a really big role in in the early narrative of enhanced 382 00:18:49,800 --> 00:18:52,600 silicate weathering. And we're getting over that now. 383 00:18:52,600 --> 00:18:55,160 Like, I think as a field, we understand pretty broadly that 384 00:18:55,280 --> 00:18:57,960 it's more complicated than that. And the bread crumbs have been 385 00:18:57,960 --> 00:19:01,640 there all along, but what gets picked up early often tends to 386 00:19:01,640 --> 00:19:03,440 stick. So that's the first prong of 387 00:19:03,640 --> 00:19:07,080 maybe one of the reasons why carbonates aren't getting the 388 00:19:07,080 --> 00:19:08,960 attention that silicates have been getting an enhanced 389 00:19:08,960 --> 00:19:12,480 weathering. That's so fascinating. 390 00:19:12,800 --> 00:19:16,000 It's one of those things that was rational at the time. 391 00:19:16,080 --> 00:19:18,880 If you don't have great information and you assume the 392 00:19:18,880 --> 00:19:21,840 most conservative case, we would typically say that's an example 393 00:19:21,840 --> 00:19:24,960 of responsible behavior. So we can just infer from that 394 00:19:24,960 --> 00:19:28,000 that these people are behaving responsibly and conservatively 395 00:19:28,000 --> 00:19:32,920 in appropriate ways. But it also seemingly delayed 396 00:19:33,280 --> 00:19:37,040 carbon removal research into carbonates and favored silicates 397 00:19:37,320 --> 00:19:41,600 in a way that may not have taken place where this one note in a 398 00:19:41,600 --> 00:19:46,400 96 IPCC report. If that didn't exist, we might 399 00:19:46,400 --> 00:19:49,600 have a more balanced picture of enhanced weathering with mineral 400 00:19:49,600 --> 00:19:50,800 types. Do you agree with that? 401 00:19:51,600 --> 00:19:53,880 I think that's fair to say. I think that like it, it's not 402 00:19:53,880 --> 00:19:57,440 like a scientifically rigorous reason why we're not doing 403 00:19:57,440 --> 00:19:59,480 carbonates, but the narrative is really there and it's 404 00:19:59,480 --> 00:20:01,360 compelling. And it's easy to tell that 405 00:20:01,360 --> 00:20:03,400 story. And there have been papers all 406 00:20:03,400 --> 00:20:05,000 along. Like it's not a mystery to us 407 00:20:05,000 --> 00:20:07,840 that carbonates can do carbon removal, especially on human 408 00:20:07,840 --> 00:20:10,520 timescales like hundreds to thousands of years. 409 00:20:12,560 --> 00:20:14,720 But there, there was this little tricky piece. 410 00:20:14,920 --> 00:20:17,280 One thing I want to add is that the IPCC updated their 411 00:20:17,280 --> 00:20:21,080 methodology in 2006 to say, look, we're going to add these 412 00:20:21,080 --> 00:20:23,920 extra tiers so that you can choose different numbers for how 413 00:20:23,920 --> 00:20:26,360 much line their carbonate is emitting carbon. 414 00:20:27,280 --> 00:20:29,480 If you have better information and you can get better 415 00:20:29,480 --> 00:20:32,600 information by better data. And so the Weston McBride paper 416 00:20:32,600 --> 00:20:35,880 I talked about, that's what's used in the US, that's the 417 00:20:35,880 --> 00:20:39,080 better data that we use for the kind of slightly more 418 00:20:39,080 --> 00:20:41,840 sophisticated methodology. And the most sophisticated, I 419 00:20:41,840 --> 00:20:44,800 don't know if anybody uses this, is to run like a complicated 420 00:20:44,800 --> 00:20:47,040 model and figure out what is the fate of the carbon in the 421 00:20:47,040 --> 00:20:49,080 system. But one thing that we've gotten 422 00:20:49,080 --> 00:20:52,600 stuck on, and then this is a bit of an aside, but for the mega 423 00:20:52,600 --> 00:20:55,360 nerds out there, is that there are system boundary questions 424 00:20:55,360 --> 00:20:58,480 wrapped up in all of this too. So the IPCC, when they're 425 00:20:58,480 --> 00:21:00,680 talking about what happens to the carbon in the carbonate, 426 00:21:01,000 --> 00:21:04,040 their system boundary is defined to be just around. 427 00:21:04,040 --> 00:21:05,640 They were drawing a box around the rock. 428 00:21:05,800 --> 00:21:08,680 That's all that they care about. So they are not tracking what 429 00:21:08,680 --> 00:21:11,800 happens to the carbon in the atmosphere, at least not in the 430 00:21:11,800 --> 00:21:14,920 methodology that talks about how to handle spreading carbonates 431 00:21:14,920 --> 00:21:17,640 on fields. So even if you did account for 432 00:21:17,640 --> 00:21:21,120 it, they would say that the the best you could ever do is 0 433 00:21:21,120 --> 00:21:22,600 emissions. You could never do carbon 434 00:21:22,600 --> 00:21:25,200 removal with this specific methodology. 435 00:21:25,800 --> 00:21:28,160 You can account for the carbon removal somewhere else in their 436 00:21:28,160 --> 00:21:30,880 methodologies, but it's not where we're talking about 437 00:21:30,880 --> 00:21:32,680 spreading rocks on fields essentially. 438 00:21:33,400 --> 00:21:36,200 So this wasn't, I don't think the Super well. 439 00:21:36,840 --> 00:21:40,600 I think the authors that kind of tried to amend the early 96 440 00:21:40,600 --> 00:21:45,040 statement by the IPCC understood this more or less, but wanted to 441 00:21:45,040 --> 00:21:47,120 write a fuller picture. And so all of these papers that 442 00:21:47,120 --> 00:21:49,920 followed looked at the full system and looked at the carbon 443 00:21:50,160 --> 00:21:52,520 coming out of the atmosphere as well as the carbon in the rock. 444 00:21:53,280 --> 00:21:55,760 But the IPCC itself, for the purpose of that methodology, 445 00:21:55,760 --> 00:21:57,080 they only care about what's in the rock. 446 00:21:57,080 --> 00:22:00,440 So it's either going to be emitting or at best no emissions 447 00:22:00,440 --> 00:22:05,440 and never removal under that specific rule, which is a tricky 448 00:22:05,440 --> 00:22:08,200 piece. It seems that way to me too. 449 00:22:08,200 --> 00:22:10,320 As a non scientist I look at something like that and 450 00:22:10,320 --> 00:22:15,400 obviously any sort of system boundary question is contested 451 00:22:15,400 --> 00:22:19,760 because if you were extremely holistic, the entire planet is 452 00:22:19,760 --> 00:22:22,160 part of the same system and you should include all of this. 453 00:22:22,160 --> 00:22:24,120 But like that makes science probably impossible. 454 00:22:24,120 --> 00:22:26,400 Like you need to, you need to truncate and you need to 455 00:22:26,400 --> 00:22:28,160 simplify to like make models work. 456 00:22:28,360 --> 00:22:30,600 Otherwise it would be the map in the territory would be the same 457 00:22:30,600 --> 00:22:32,000 thing. And then what's even the point 458 00:22:32,000 --> 00:22:34,040 of having one? I don't know. 459 00:22:34,280 --> 00:22:36,680 This is by open system. Carbon removal is so hard 460 00:22:36,680 --> 00:22:39,560 because we're doing things out in a world where we can't put 461 00:22:39,560 --> 00:22:41,640 our finger on the carbon that we're removing, and we need to 462 00:22:42,040 --> 00:22:45,040 have some understanding of what happens to the carbon that we 463 00:22:45,040 --> 00:22:47,120 just send into the broader earth system. 464 00:22:47,480 --> 00:22:49,080 And it's very hard to draw those boundaries. 465 00:22:49,080 --> 00:22:52,400 And we frankly don't have the models yet that are like really, 466 00:22:52,400 --> 00:22:54,800 really good that we feel very confident about that can trace 467 00:22:54,800 --> 00:22:57,160 those carbon flows super reliably. 468 00:22:57,160 --> 00:22:59,760 They're being developed and we need more data, and the data is 469 00:22:59,760 --> 00:23:03,320 being developed as well. But this is like one of the 470 00:23:03,320 --> 00:23:05,400 fundamental challenges with open system carbon removal. 471 00:23:05,560 --> 00:23:07,800 Where do you draw the system boundaries, and then how do you 472 00:23:07,800 --> 00:23:09,920 simulate them and account for them and understand what's 473 00:23:09,920 --> 00:23:11,720 happening in places that you can't actually make the 474 00:23:11,720 --> 00:23:17,360 measurements in the first place? Well look I am very smart so why 475 00:23:17,400 --> 00:23:20,440 would you just draw the boundary around the rock itself? 476 00:23:20,440 --> 00:23:23,960 Obviously the atmospheric relationship is very important 477 00:23:23,960 --> 00:23:25,880 for understanding. Like does this actually exist or 478 00:23:25,880 --> 00:23:27,040 not? Because it changes the net 479 00:23:27,040 --> 00:23:29,280 carbon removals that can be accounted for and would change 480 00:23:29,480 --> 00:23:33,080 the math of seemingly everything downstream of it in a very 481 00:23:33,080 --> 00:23:35,600 radical way. Teach me as a non scientist? 482 00:23:35,600 --> 00:23:38,720 Like why would you choose to define it so narrowly? 483 00:23:39,680 --> 00:23:42,040 I don't think that you would. In the world of carbon removal, 484 00:23:42,040 --> 00:23:44,240 you wouldn't. I don't think it makes sense. 485 00:23:44,240 --> 00:23:47,920 The IPCC report in their Greenhouse Gas guy inventory 486 00:23:47,920 --> 00:23:51,080 guidelines, It makes sense only because they're trying to 487 00:23:51,120 --> 00:23:54,440 discretize the problem to make it easy to do in small chunks. 488 00:23:54,440 --> 00:23:57,440 So they has the effect of spreading carbonate unfilled in 489 00:23:57,440 --> 00:24:01,080 one place and then the effect of interactions between the soil 490 00:24:01,080 --> 00:24:02,840 and the atmosphere coming somewhere else. 491 00:24:03,200 --> 00:24:05,120 And so they're saying, look, don't worry, you can account for 492 00:24:05,120 --> 00:24:06,960 it. But like maybe the person that's 493 00:24:06,960 --> 00:24:09,800 doing the inventory about spreading rocks on fields is not 494 00:24:09,800 --> 00:24:12,240 the same person doing the inventory about what's happening 495 00:24:12,240 --> 00:24:16,160 at that interface elsewhere. It's just somewhere else in this 496 00:24:16,160 --> 00:24:18,640 very dense volume of all of the different ways that you might 497 00:24:19,000 --> 00:24:22,920 calculate your emissions. So it does exist, but at a 498 00:24:22,920 --> 00:24:26,120 certain point, they just needed to discretize stuff to ideally 499 00:24:26,120 --> 00:24:29,560 make these chunks simple. And that's what happened. 500 00:24:29,800 --> 00:24:31,240 I don't know if it was the right call or not. 501 00:24:31,280 --> 00:24:35,280 It's hard to say, but as we're thinking about what I can say is 502 00:24:35,280 --> 00:24:38,840 that in this next round of updates to the greenhouse gas 503 00:24:38,840 --> 00:24:43,400 inventories with ITC, CS, TFI or task force on, on inventories, 504 00:24:44,920 --> 00:24:47,600 they're thinking about adding carbon removal methods to these 505 00:24:47,600 --> 00:24:51,040 methodologies and asking, well, what would, what rules would we 506 00:24:51,040 --> 00:24:55,840 need in order to figure out like national scale removal estimates 507 00:24:55,840 --> 00:25:00,680 from different in different, including open system carbon 508 00:25:00,680 --> 00:25:03,880 removal approaches. And in that world, if, if 509 00:25:03,880 --> 00:25:06,480 enhanced rock weathering is built into the, the next round, 510 00:25:07,120 --> 00:25:10,840 we're talking about doing it in that other box, not in the box 511 00:25:10,840 --> 00:25:13,160 about spreading rocks on fields, but that other box that I've 512 00:25:13,160 --> 00:25:16,160 been hinting at. So it, it, it has to live 513 00:25:16,160 --> 00:25:18,800 somewhere. And the conversation right now 514 00:25:18,800 --> 00:25:20,800 is to put it there, but it's really hard. 515 00:25:20,800 --> 00:25:22,880 It's like. Yeah, I'm trying to think of 516 00:25:22,880 --> 00:25:25,440 what the alternative is because even the way that I framed it 517 00:25:25,440 --> 00:25:27,560 makes it sound like, well, obviously you wouldn't want to 518 00:25:27,560 --> 00:25:31,160 discretize this and make it discreet in this like nice 519 00:25:31,160 --> 00:25:33,440 little box way because that's not the whole story or you're 520 00:25:33,440 --> 00:25:35,600 missing things that should actually be in relation to one 521 00:25:35,600 --> 00:25:38,000 another. But I think if you didn't do 522 00:25:38,000 --> 00:25:40,800 that, I imagine there's pathologies the other directions 523 00:25:40,800 --> 00:25:45,200 to where because you do not discretize, you have some larger 524 00:25:45,200 --> 00:25:48,280 amorphous system where the causality is confused and maybe 525 00:25:48,280 --> 00:25:50,840 it's harder to do productive climate science in some other 526 00:25:50,840 --> 00:25:52,440 way. Surely there are good reasons. 527 00:25:52,440 --> 00:25:55,120 It's not just, you know, very well educated people who are 528 00:25:55,120 --> 00:25:59,160 passionate about this subject are corrupt or foolish in some 529 00:25:59,160 --> 00:26:00,840 way. Like, is there some other 530 00:26:00,960 --> 00:26:03,760 corollary to this on the other side of go too far and then it's 531 00:26:03,760 --> 00:26:05,600 impossible to do good science or something like that? 532 00:26:06,360 --> 00:26:09,160 You can go too far in the direction of of just taking on 533 00:26:09,160 --> 00:26:10,560 the whole system rather than discussing. 534 00:26:10,560 --> 00:26:11,960 Is that the? Alternative to making things 535 00:26:11,960 --> 00:26:14,160 more discreet is that you would have to have a much more 536 00:26:14,160 --> 00:26:16,360 holistic model, but then that would make it, you know, much 537 00:26:16,360 --> 00:26:19,520 more difficult to write a report or to make sure that all of the 538 00:26:19,520 --> 00:26:23,400 various bureaucratic levels of this report composition sign off 539 00:26:23,400 --> 00:26:25,480 it in the right ways. Do we just not understand the 540 00:26:25,480 --> 00:26:28,560 relationship between all these discrete parts and that's why 541 00:26:28,560 --> 00:26:31,080 it's not written in that way? Like why isn't the science done 542 00:26:31,080 --> 00:26:34,440 in that way? The science of the IPCC or the 543 00:26:34,440 --> 00:26:36,240 science of enhanced rock weathering? 544 00:26:36,720 --> 00:26:38,600 I, I think both of those layers are important. 545 00:26:38,800 --> 00:26:42,160 I think the the IPCC is just like I've edited books and 546 00:26:42,160 --> 00:26:44,440 anything where you have or made documentaries, anything when you 547 00:26:44,440 --> 00:26:48,320 have lots of stakeholders, everyone's got opinions on how 548 00:26:48,320 --> 00:26:51,440 it should be and they often times will call each other names 549 00:26:51,440 --> 00:26:54,880 and it gets really nasty. I imagine being the stakeholder 550 00:26:54,880 --> 00:27:00,240 manager of any IPCC report or any sufficiently numerous 551 00:27:00,240 --> 00:27:03,960 co-author situations it gives you know, makes people go bald 552 00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:06,400 probably. It sounds really, really hard. 553 00:27:06,400 --> 00:27:07,520 I've been there. It's not fun. 554 00:27:08,480 --> 00:27:10,960 So I imagine, like part of that is bureaucratic, political, 555 00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:14,400 diplomatic, and I imagine like the enhanced weathering, part of 556 00:27:14,400 --> 00:27:18,160 this faces its own challenges between commercial interests and 557 00:27:18,160 --> 00:27:21,120 doing science on a time scale that's appropriate for companies 558 00:27:21,120 --> 00:27:22,280 that are funding this, that are for profit. 559 00:27:22,960 --> 00:27:24,520 Basically any of these approaches probably have their 560 00:27:24,520 --> 00:27:26,560 own pathologies that are inherent to them. 561 00:27:27,040 --> 00:27:31,080 And I'm just wondering of the IPCC specifically, why do it in 562 00:27:31,080 --> 00:27:35,160 this way that prioritizes what can be made discrete rather than 563 00:27:35,160 --> 00:27:38,160 something that is maybe truer and more holistic but was not 564 00:27:38,160 --> 00:27:41,120 chosen? I don't know. 565 00:27:42,640 --> 00:27:44,520 I wish I had. Miles, you're on a podcast. 566 00:27:44,520 --> 00:27:48,680 Tyler, this is what we do. I mean, I, I, I kind of think it 567 00:27:48,680 --> 00:27:50,280 doesn't matter too much, to be honest. 568 00:27:50,280 --> 00:27:53,440 I think that like it, the IPCC decision to draw the brat 569 00:27:53,440 --> 00:27:54,920 boundaries where they did is one thing. 570 00:27:54,920 --> 00:27:56,600 And, and it's been misunderstood, frankly. 571 00:27:56,600 --> 00:27:58,680 Like the the papers that have come out that tried to correct 572 00:27:58,680 --> 00:28:01,720 the original statement include a different set of boundaries. 573 00:28:01,720 --> 00:28:06,480 And one of them like coincidentally ignores the quote 574 00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:08,600 UN quote ignores the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere 575 00:28:08,600 --> 00:28:10,840 because they assume that all the carbon dioxide that's taken up 576 00:28:10,840 --> 00:28:13,920 is eventually re emitted. So it cancels out or whatever. 577 00:28:14,160 --> 00:28:16,880 So by accident, they land in the same exact boundary that the 578 00:28:16,880 --> 00:28:19,480 IPCC wrote, but it's completely by accident. 579 00:28:20,200 --> 00:28:24,200 So it's, you know, the boundary that they drew matters for the 580 00:28:24,200 --> 00:28:26,720 purpose of like somebody deciding how much carbonate 581 00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:29,840 emits carbon in their country that year. 582 00:28:30,320 --> 00:28:34,720 It I don't think it matters for the purpose of like either way, 583 00:28:35,200 --> 00:28:37,120 however they drew their boundary, I think they still 584 00:28:37,120 --> 00:28:40,320 would have landed in a world where you have to account for 585 00:28:40,320 --> 00:28:42,400 emissions of spreading carbonate on fields. 586 00:28:42,400 --> 00:28:45,080 And they probably they were thinking about emissions at the 587 00:28:45,080 --> 00:28:46,760 time, not removals. So they probably would have 588 00:28:46,760 --> 00:28:49,560 conservatively landed in a world where there are where carbonate 589 00:28:49,560 --> 00:28:52,520 is an emitting process. And that is that's the piece 590 00:28:52,720 --> 00:28:55,840 that gave everyone talking about enhanced silicate weathering the 591 00:28:55,840 --> 00:28:59,760 ability to say, look, if we stop spreading carbonate, we'll avoid 592 00:28:59,760 --> 00:29:01,400 those emissions that are really pesky. 593 00:29:02,200 --> 00:29:05,640 So I think that that that element is the, the, the tricky 594 00:29:05,640 --> 00:29:07,920 piece, the fact that they're writing in emissions inventory 595 00:29:07,920 --> 00:29:11,920 is kind of the the nature of why we're in this world. 596 00:29:13,640 --> 00:29:15,960 Back to the the narrative question here. 597 00:29:16,240 --> 00:29:19,760 I had thought you were going to go for, I don't know, like if 598 00:29:19,760 --> 00:29:22,400 you were in biomass sinking, you would point to the Azola event 599 00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:24,880 and be like, isn't that cool? Like that's what we're doing, 600 00:29:24,880 --> 00:29:27,760 but smaller. And if you're involved in 601 00:29:27,760 --> 00:29:30,840 silicate weathering, you would go to the Deccan traps or the 602 00:29:30,840 --> 00:29:33,960 Siberian Traps and be like, look, this can change the entire 603 00:29:33,960 --> 00:29:36,360 climate of the planet in the largest way possible. 604 00:29:36,880 --> 00:29:39,040 That's so cool. And if I was doing something 605 00:29:39,040 --> 00:29:41,400 with cyanobacteria, I would be making the same case the other 606 00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:43,160 direction. Like, you know, like those like 607 00:29:43,160 --> 00:29:45,880 major, like biogeochemical things that happen. 608 00:29:45,880 --> 00:29:49,200 Like, it's cool to be able to point to things that made eras 609 00:29:49,200 --> 00:29:52,480 and epochs like, happen. So I thought you were going to 610 00:29:52,480 --> 00:29:55,600 be talking about that. So apparently that's just for 611 00:29:55,600 --> 00:29:58,520 people who like geological deep history stuff. 612 00:29:59,600 --> 00:30:01,160 But it's not, it's definitely not. 613 00:30:01,160 --> 00:30:02,960 Yeah, it's not just for those people. 614 00:30:03,000 --> 00:30:03,680 I. Don't even know. 615 00:30:04,320 --> 00:30:09,040 I, well, a couple of years ago at Carbon Plan, we put out an 616 00:30:09,040 --> 00:30:11,720 article that the title is does enhanced rock weathering work? 617 00:30:11,720 --> 00:30:14,400 Does enhanced weathering work? And the question that we were 618 00:30:14,400 --> 00:30:16,120 asking is like, look, there's still a lot of science that 619 00:30:16,120 --> 00:30:17,640 needs to be done. Do we have an answer to this 620 00:30:17,640 --> 00:30:20,600 question of does it work or not? And the response that we got 621 00:30:20,880 --> 00:30:23,720 from a few folks was we know that it works. 622 00:30:23,720 --> 00:30:27,080 It obviously works because enhanced weathering is the thing 623 00:30:27,080 --> 00:30:29,840 that has kept our planet habitable for billions of years 624 00:30:29,840 --> 00:30:31,880 of time, not quote UN quote enhanced. 625 00:30:31,880 --> 00:30:35,080 What I mean by that is that over the course of geologic time 626 00:30:35,080 --> 00:30:37,640 scales, when too many greenhouse gases build up in the 627 00:30:37,640 --> 00:30:41,400 atmosphere, the weathering of silicate rocks picks up and that 628 00:30:41,400 --> 00:30:44,320 scrubs that excess greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. 629 00:30:44,560 --> 00:30:48,040 And over the course of, you know, millions and billions of 630 00:30:48,040 --> 00:30:50,560 years, This is why we still have liquid water on our planet for 631 00:30:50,560 --> 00:30:52,000 all of this time. We haven't boiled away the 632 00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:54,000 oceans. And it's not like Venus where 633 00:30:54,000 --> 00:30:56,960 you can melt lead on the surface of the planet like we we live in 634 00:30:56,960 --> 00:31:00,560 a different world because this negative feedback exists that 635 00:31:00,560 --> 00:31:03,960 prevents the over accumulation of greenhouse gases in the 636 00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:05,920 atmosphere on very long time scales. 637 00:31:06,400 --> 00:31:08,840 The thing is that that takes place on time scales of like 10s 638 00:31:08,840 --> 00:31:10,240 to hundreds of thousands of years. 639 00:31:10,840 --> 00:31:15,640 And on those long time scales if you weather like carbonate rock 640 00:31:15,640 --> 00:31:18,960 for example, the carbonate that you weather ends up re 641 00:31:18,960 --> 00:31:22,600 precipitating or reforming in the ocean where it locks up that 642 00:31:22,600 --> 00:31:26,520 carbon that you weathered on land permanently. 643 00:31:26,520 --> 00:31:30,040 And so on long time scales, the effect is 0 of weathering 644 00:31:30,040 --> 00:31:31,960 carbonate rock on carbon dioxide. 645 00:31:32,560 --> 00:31:36,160 And the effect of silicate rock is not zero because silicates 646 00:31:36,160 --> 00:31:38,800 don't have carbon in them. So you weather a silicate rock 647 00:31:38,800 --> 00:31:42,480 on a very long time scale, it forms carbonate in the ocean and 648 00:31:42,480 --> 00:31:45,920 that locks up the carbon in the carbonate that you form. 649 00:31:46,440 --> 00:31:49,880 And that is the geologic mechanism of carbon removal that 650 00:31:49,880 --> 00:31:52,600 has kept our planet habitable more or less for for billions of 651 00:31:52,600 --> 00:31:53,880 years. And so when you're telling this 652 00:31:53,880 --> 00:31:57,280 story about like does enhanced rock weathering work, it's very 653 00:31:57,280 --> 00:32:01,600 easy to say, obviously it works. We're here like we have 654 00:32:01,600 --> 00:32:04,440 wonderful evidence that the planet has been inhabitable more 655 00:32:04,440 --> 00:32:06,280 or less for so long. Exactly. 656 00:32:06,520 --> 00:32:09,160 But the the tricky thing about that story is that story too 657 00:32:09,160 --> 00:32:12,560 makes it difficult to kind of weave in carbonates because that 658 00:32:12,560 --> 00:32:15,040 story is built around silicates. It's what we call the silicate 659 00:32:15,040 --> 00:32:17,320 weathering sheet back. Carbonate weathering on those 660 00:32:17,320 --> 00:32:19,800 long time scales cancels out to the point that it really doesn't 661 00:32:19,800 --> 00:32:23,680 matter for carbon removal and it does matter on short time 662 00:32:23,680 --> 00:32:25,840 scales. But when we also, we often say 663 00:32:25,840 --> 00:32:28,560 enhanced rock weathering just takes Earth's natural thermostat 664 00:32:28,560 --> 00:32:31,680 and speeds it up. That natural thermostat process 665 00:32:31,680 --> 00:32:33,760 is the silicate weathering feedback. 666 00:32:33,840 --> 00:32:36,560 And it's easy to make that case. It's, it's a wonderful, 667 00:32:36,560 --> 00:32:40,440 compelling story that like This is why our planet exists the way 668 00:32:40,440 --> 00:32:43,800 it does is silicate rocks. But that story doesn't extend to 669 00:32:43,800 --> 00:32:45,920 carbonates. And it's really hard to, you 670 00:32:45,920 --> 00:32:49,000 know, tell such a nice story around carbonates because of 671 00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:50,520 that. I've never heard anybody who's a 672 00:32:50,520 --> 00:32:54,200 proponent of enhanced carbonate weathering frame the problem in 673 00:32:54,200 --> 00:32:57,440 this really nice simple way that, look, we're just speeding 674 00:32:57,440 --> 00:33:00,880 up Earth's natural thermostat. But a lot of those folks talking 675 00:33:00,880 --> 00:33:02,840 about enhanced silicate weathering, that's like the 676 00:33:02,840 --> 00:33:06,000 first line of the conversation is precisely that. 677 00:33:06,120 --> 00:33:08,680 So the narrative in like a bunch of subtle ways is really 678 00:33:08,680 --> 00:33:11,760 difficult for carbonates to to expand on. 679 00:33:12,440 --> 00:33:14,200 And that's that's maybe the second pillar of why the 680 00:33:14,200 --> 00:33:16,840 silicate story is easy. The first pillar is, look, the 681 00:33:16,840 --> 00:33:20,760 IPCC said a long time ago that carbonates emit carbon and that 682 00:33:20,760 --> 00:33:23,360 that is maybe true in like the very specific way in which 683 00:33:23,360 --> 00:33:26,360 they've drawn their box. But it's not true in the way 684 00:33:26,360 --> 00:33:29,000 that it's like we care about carbon removal is like a broader 685 00:33:29,160 --> 00:33:31,440 process that accounts for what happens in the atmosphere. 686 00:33:32,600 --> 00:33:36,120 It's easy to say, look, stopping adding carbonate will avoid 687 00:33:36,120 --> 00:33:38,080 those emissions. That's the prong number one. 688 00:33:38,080 --> 00:33:41,280 I guess prong number 2 is like one of the most fundamental 689 00:33:41,280 --> 00:33:43,280 stories of enhanced rock weathering as we're Speaking of 690 00:33:43,280 --> 00:33:46,520 Earth's natural thermostat, and that narrative starts to break 691 00:33:46,520 --> 00:33:48,680 down when you want to apply it to carbonate rocks. 692 00:33:49,920 --> 00:33:51,920 Then there's a third prong we can get into, but we can stop 693 00:33:51,920 --> 00:33:53,800 here if we want to take a moment and dig deeper into that 694 00:33:53,800 --> 00:33:56,560 narratives. Yeah, I'm in favor of a prong 695 00:33:56,560 --> 00:34:02,080 break. Yeah, the the advantages and 696 00:34:02,080 --> 00:34:04,880 disadvantages for the various mineral types here is is super 697 00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:06,800 interesting. It also faces problems for 698 00:34:06,800 --> 00:34:10,920 carbons because it is used for pH management and unlocking 699 00:34:10,920 --> 00:34:14,360 micronutrients and on agricultural lands as AG lime. 700 00:34:14,719 --> 00:34:17,120 So therefore like using carbonism this way may not 701 00:34:17,120 --> 00:34:20,440 qualify as additional because no one's putting silicate rock on 702 00:34:20,560 --> 00:34:23,400 farm lands typically for. Ross, that's the third. 703 00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:26,120 Trong, That's the third. Narrative. 704 00:34:26,120 --> 00:34:29,880 Should that be in front? Of the Yeah, well, no, no, I 705 00:34:29,880 --> 00:34:33,679 think those are distinct things because the, the idea that like 706 00:34:33,880 --> 00:34:36,199 we're speeding up Earth's natural thermostat, that exists 707 00:34:36,199 --> 00:34:38,920 regardless of how you decide to do the carbon removal. 708 00:34:39,159 --> 00:34:41,840 But the, the question of like whether or not that carbon 709 00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:46,239 removal is additional in that that question is a challenge in 710 00:34:46,239 --> 00:34:48,880 the context of the carbon market, which is the way that 711 00:34:48,880 --> 00:34:51,080 we're trying to do the carbon removal right now for enhanced 712 00:34:51,080 --> 00:34:54,040 rock weathering. And so I think that the last 713 00:34:54,040 --> 00:34:56,120 piece of like why? And then again, there are many 714 00:34:56,120 --> 00:34:57,200 more, there are others are going on. 715 00:34:57,200 --> 00:34:59,360 These are the three things that float to the surface for me. 716 00:34:59,960 --> 00:35:02,200 But the last piece for bicarbonates are difficult to 717 00:35:02,200 --> 00:35:05,200 support narratively is that we're already doing it. 718 00:35:05,200 --> 00:35:07,600 We're already spreading rock, carbonate rocks on fields for 719 00:35:07,600 --> 00:35:09,760 agronomic purposes. When we're talking about 720 00:35:09,760 --> 00:35:11,720 enhanced rock weathering, terrestrial enhanced rock 721 00:35:11,720 --> 00:35:13,560 weathering, we're usually talking about spreading it on 722 00:35:13,560 --> 00:35:16,520 agricultural fields. So is it any different? 723 00:35:16,520 --> 00:35:18,600 Is it, are you doing something that wouldn't have happened 724 00:35:18,600 --> 00:35:20,600 already if you're spreading carbonate rock? 725 00:35:21,320 --> 00:35:24,240 The answer is, like, mostly probably, yeah, because we're 726 00:35:24,240 --> 00:35:25,960 not spreading at carbonate rock everywhere. 727 00:35:25,960 --> 00:35:28,520 It's a common enough practice, but it's not universal. 728 00:35:28,760 --> 00:35:30,680 So you can find places where it would be new. 729 00:35:30,960 --> 00:35:34,160 But we've talked to a number of buyers and other folks who want 730 00:35:34,160 --> 00:35:36,760 to support enhanced rock weathering who say, well, I'm 731 00:35:36,760 --> 00:35:39,720 just worried that it's hard to sell the story that what you're 732 00:35:39,720 --> 00:35:41,880 doing is additional because we know that we're already 733 00:35:41,880 --> 00:35:44,280 spreading carbonate rock. It's a little bit of like, like 734 00:35:44,280 --> 00:35:47,320 showing up to a job interview and they're like, oh, I'm sorry, 735 00:35:47,320 --> 00:35:51,560 you have a lot of experience in this jobs like we can't, we 736 00:35:51,560 --> 00:35:53,920 can't hire you. But this is one of the other 737 00:35:53,920 --> 00:35:56,360 pieces like why it's hard, I think, narratively to support 738 00:35:56,360 --> 00:35:57,880 carbonates. To be clear, like the same 739 00:35:57,880 --> 00:36:01,440 problems apply to silicates. If you like, mathematically, if 740 00:36:01,440 --> 00:36:04,360 you want to spread silicate rocks on a field that has been 741 00:36:04,360 --> 00:36:08,640 limed or where carbonate has been used historically, you need 742 00:36:08,640 --> 00:36:10,720 to make sure that the silicate rock is doing something 743 00:36:10,720 --> 00:36:13,040 additional relative to what the carbonate that you've 744 00:36:13,040 --> 00:36:14,440 historically applied would have done. 745 00:36:14,680 --> 00:36:16,880 But narratively, it's easier to say that this wouldn't have 746 00:36:16,880 --> 00:36:19,600 happened because so few people are spreading silicate rocks on 747 00:36:19,600 --> 00:36:23,160 their fields as it is, but more are spreading carbonates. 748 00:36:24,320 --> 00:36:27,520 My understanding of the possibility for carbonates to 749 00:36:27,520 --> 00:36:32,000 become additional is that since they are used primarily or 750 00:36:32,000 --> 00:36:36,640 mostly primarily for pH management, but that too much 751 00:36:36,640 --> 00:36:40,080 acidity or the wrong types of acidity caused the carbon to be 752 00:36:40,080 --> 00:36:41,720 more emitted than it would otherwise be. 753 00:36:41,720 --> 00:36:44,560 That's my understanding of the the chemical feedback here. 754 00:36:44,760 --> 00:36:47,720 In which case the field that you would be using for agronomic 755 00:36:47,720 --> 00:36:49,880 benefits are potentially different from the ones that you 756 00:36:49,880 --> 00:36:51,440 would be using for the carbon removal benefits. 757 00:36:51,600 --> 00:36:53,440 Is that true? Is my understanding correct? 758 00:36:54,600 --> 00:36:57,120 When you say the field you would be using for agronomic benefits, 759 00:36:57,120 --> 00:37:00,120 I I think maybe one way to think about it is like the way that 760 00:37:00,120 --> 00:37:02,960 you optimize how you're spreading rock is going to look 761 00:37:02,960 --> 00:37:05,680 different for agronomic benefits than it would for carbon removal 762 00:37:05,680 --> 00:37:07,520 benefits potentially in many cases. 763 00:37:08,320 --> 00:37:10,720 What we know is that, like, in many cases, we're spreading 764 00:37:10,720 --> 00:37:13,600 carbonate on fields already in a way that is removing carbon from 765 00:37:13,600 --> 00:37:15,400 the atmosphere. And we're doing that 766 00:37:15,400 --> 00:37:17,200 accidentally. Like we're not trying to remove 767 00:37:17,200 --> 00:37:19,080 carbon from the atmosphere. But that raises exciting 768 00:37:19,080 --> 00:37:21,560 questions about like, wow, what could we do if we were actually 769 00:37:21,560 --> 00:37:23,960 trying to remove the carbon from the atmosphere? 770 00:37:24,600 --> 00:37:27,080 But you're bringing me to like, I think it's worthwhile taking a 771 00:37:27,080 --> 00:37:30,000 break here to say what are the differences between silicates 772 00:37:30,080 --> 00:37:32,480 and carbonates? I mentioned upfront that like, 773 00:37:32,480 --> 00:37:34,680 they're not like interchangeable necessarily. 774 00:37:34,680 --> 00:37:36,080 They have their own strengths and weaknesses. 775 00:37:36,080 --> 00:37:37,520 And there are important differences. 776 00:37:37,920 --> 00:37:40,840 And the two things that I think are the most important to focus 777 00:37:40,840 --> 00:37:44,360 on are how fast they weather and whether they have carbon in them 778 00:37:44,360 --> 00:37:47,400 or not. So carbonates, they tend to 779 00:37:47,400 --> 00:37:51,080 weather really, really fast, often an order or two orders of 780 00:37:51,080 --> 00:37:54,160 magnitude faster than a lot of silicate minerals do. 781 00:37:54,840 --> 00:37:58,320 So they much, much faster. But they have carbon in them, 782 00:37:58,320 --> 00:38:02,120 which means that that that limits how how effective and 783 00:38:02,120 --> 00:38:04,400 efficient they are at removing carbon from the atmosphere 784 00:38:04,640 --> 00:38:06,960 because that has to compete with the carbon that's already in the 785 00:38:06,960 --> 00:38:10,480 rock when that rock dissolves. Silicates on the other hand, 786 00:38:10,880 --> 00:38:14,440 pure silicate minerals don't have carbon in them and so they 787 00:38:14,440 --> 00:38:16,600 tend to be more efficient at removing carbon from the 788 00:38:16,600 --> 00:38:18,880 atmosphere, but they dissolve more slowly. 789 00:38:19,080 --> 00:38:23,480 So often it it matters a lot more like how finely you grind 790 00:38:23,480 --> 00:38:26,680 your silicate rock in order to increase how quickly that rock 791 00:38:26,680 --> 00:38:29,600 is going to dissolve or weather. Then it matters for carbonates. 792 00:38:29,600 --> 00:38:31,760 But you have this trade off where carbonates go really quick 793 00:38:31,760 --> 00:38:33,160 but they have this carbon in them. 794 00:38:33,240 --> 00:38:36,120 Silicates tend to go more slowly, but they don't have 795 00:38:36,120 --> 00:38:39,240 carbon in them. And the issue with carbonates 796 00:38:39,240 --> 00:38:42,960 having carbon in them is that if you're in a really acidic field, 797 00:38:43,560 --> 00:38:46,680 it's very likely that you're not going to be able to get your 798 00:38:46,680 --> 00:38:48,720 carbon removal. And instead you might just admit 799 00:38:48,720 --> 00:38:51,440 that carbon that was in the rock into the atmosphere. 800 00:38:52,240 --> 00:38:54,400 Now, there are questions about like, you know, depending on 801 00:38:54,400 --> 00:38:56,760 where you draw your boundary, that could be really bad for the 802 00:38:56,760 --> 00:38:59,560 climate or just a little bit bad or maybe not that bad at all. 803 00:38:59,560 --> 00:39:02,120 Maybe it's net zero, depending on how do you draw the system 804 00:39:02,120 --> 00:39:04,520 boundary, which is really complicated and we don't need to 805 00:39:04,520 --> 00:39:09,400 get into, but it it it is one of the concerns around like the 806 00:39:09,400 --> 00:39:11,440 narrative of carbonates. It's like, look, there's a 807 00:39:11,440 --> 00:39:13,880 potential that carbonates are emitting carbon to the 808 00:39:13,880 --> 00:39:16,600 atmosphere and that creates this risk. 809 00:39:17,320 --> 00:39:23,000 I think in my mind, like that same potential sort exists for 810 00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:24,720 silicates. If you expand the system to have 811 00:39:24,720 --> 00:39:28,240 very long it wide enough, like we're always trucking rock and 812 00:39:28,240 --> 00:39:29,760 crushing rock and radiant to the field. 813 00:39:29,760 --> 00:39:32,520 And though that requires emissions, you could all that 814 00:39:32,520 --> 00:39:35,720 like you need to outweigh those emissions when you spread rock 815 00:39:35,720 --> 00:39:37,960 on your field. So just because you can have 816 00:39:37,960 --> 00:39:42,360 emissions with carbonate that is like downstream as what happens 817 00:39:42,360 --> 00:39:44,800 with transporting the rock, doesn't mean that like you can 818 00:39:44,800 --> 00:39:47,840 ignore the problem of emissions in a silicate deployment. 819 00:39:47,840 --> 00:39:54,800 I don't know if that made sense. I answered my previous question 820 00:39:54,800 --> 00:39:59,080 to were yeah, field sufficiently acidic or with certain kinds of 821 00:39:59,080 --> 00:40:02,600 acidity? It might just negate the carbon 822 00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:05,440 removal potential of carbonates because it doesn't play nice in 823 00:40:05,440 --> 00:40:06,560 the kinds of ways that we need for. 824 00:40:06,640 --> 00:40:09,160 There's like perfect 1 to 1 overlap, which may help the 825 00:40:09,160 --> 00:40:11,280 additionality story, but it's one of those things where it's 826 00:40:11,520 --> 00:40:14,360 like the details matter, which is a hard thing to explain to 827 00:40:14,560 --> 00:40:15,920 buyers. You typically want to be talking 828 00:40:15,920 --> 00:40:17,400 about. We're enhancing the natural 829 00:40:17,400 --> 00:40:20,720 cycles of the earth. There's no fancy footwork here. 830 00:40:20,720 --> 00:40:22,840 We're just purely natural, and natural is always good. 831 00:40:22,840 --> 00:40:24,560 Don't you know, like a thumbs up? 832 00:40:25,160 --> 00:40:28,440 This is also why silicate weathering tends to take place 833 00:40:28,440 --> 00:40:30,720 in the tropics where there's more rainfall so that you can, 834 00:40:30,880 --> 00:40:33,800 you can get around some of the issues of the slower weathering 835 00:40:33,840 --> 00:40:37,200 rate because you have things that are, they'd be there 836 00:40:37,200 --> 00:40:39,280 increase the surface area so much or they just have more 837 00:40:39,280 --> 00:40:41,080 interaction with water and things like that. 838 00:40:41,400 --> 00:40:43,920 And that's why people who are interested in carbonates are 839 00:40:43,920 --> 00:40:45,920 more tolerant of temperate zones. 840 00:40:45,920 --> 00:40:48,720 And it's, it's a latitudinal almost more than anything else. 841 00:40:48,720 --> 00:40:51,560 I want to think about who's involved in and the people I 842 00:40:51,560 --> 00:40:53,800 have in mind. Depends on where they're doing 843 00:40:53,800 --> 00:40:56,360 business, basically. It does. 844 00:40:56,400 --> 00:40:59,120 I think one thing we over index on a little bit is the idea that 845 00:40:59,120 --> 00:41:01,080 carbonates don't work in acidic soils. 846 00:41:01,280 --> 00:41:04,160 And it's true that like in really acidic soils, spreading 847 00:41:04,160 --> 00:41:06,360 carbonate probably emits carbon to the atmosphere and we don't 848 00:41:06,360 --> 00:41:09,360 want to do that. But the fact of adding rock to 849 00:41:09,360 --> 00:41:12,600 soil changes the pH conditions of that soil itself. 850 00:41:12,920 --> 00:41:16,280 So over time, you could totally add the rock amendments that 851 00:41:16,280 --> 00:41:19,640 makes the soil amenable to continued carbonate carbon 852 00:41:19,640 --> 00:41:22,560 removal, even if today that soil is really acidic. 853 00:41:23,000 --> 00:41:26,200 And so it, it where we are now doesn't necessarily we don't 854 00:41:26,200 --> 00:41:28,120 have to draw firm boundaries around where it works and where 855 00:41:28,120 --> 00:41:30,000 it doesn't. And carbonates more so than 856 00:41:30,240 --> 00:41:32,240 silicates, at least in the models that I've been running 857 00:41:32,520 --> 00:41:35,840 are much more responsive to increases in rainfall or water 858 00:41:35,840 --> 00:41:38,960 infiltration in the soil. So one of the tricky things for 859 00:41:38,960 --> 00:41:42,160 the the real, again, like the mega nerds out there is that in 860 00:41:42,160 --> 00:41:44,480 the models that we've been running, this hasn't really been 861 00:41:44,480 --> 00:41:46,800 super well validated in shield studies yet. 862 00:41:47,160 --> 00:41:50,040 In the models even running carbonate has a little bit of an 863 00:41:50,040 --> 00:41:52,120 upper limit. So you can only add so much rock 864 00:41:52,120 --> 00:41:54,960 before it saturates and you don't get more carbon removal 865 00:41:54,960 --> 00:41:58,040 for more rock. And you can overcome that upper 866 00:41:58,040 --> 00:41:59,760 limit by dumping more water on it. 867 00:41:59,760 --> 00:42:01,880 It's very, it really likes having more water. 868 00:42:02,120 --> 00:42:04,720 Carbonates do. And so if you have a, a soil 869 00:42:04,720 --> 00:42:07,160 that's not too acidic and it's it's well watered, carbonates 870 00:42:07,160 --> 00:42:08,760 are going to be very happy there. 871 00:42:09,120 --> 00:42:12,040 Silicates don't seem to have that same like saturation limit, 872 00:42:12,280 --> 00:42:13,840 at least in the models that we've been running. 873 00:42:13,840 --> 00:42:16,200 So you can add more and more rock and you tend to get more 874 00:42:16,200 --> 00:42:19,440 and more carbon removal. The question though, is like, 875 00:42:19,520 --> 00:42:21,400 how much rock can you actually spread on a field? 876 00:42:21,600 --> 00:42:25,320 And does that additional rock? Like is that an amount that's 877 00:42:25,320 --> 00:42:28,160 reasonable for what farmers are going to be comfortable adding 878 00:42:28,160 --> 00:42:30,480 on their field? Or, you know, one of the big 879 00:42:30,600 --> 00:42:33,440 questions is how many times can you drive a spreader over a 880 00:42:33,440 --> 00:42:36,280 field before you've compacted the soil too much that you're 881 00:42:36,280 --> 00:42:38,400 not happy with the outcome? So there, there are limits and 882 00:42:38,400 --> 00:42:41,000 how much Rock You can spread already that are built into the 883 00:42:41,000 --> 00:42:42,840 system. But carbonates also have this 884 00:42:42,840 --> 00:42:44,800 limit where they tend to saturate quicker. 885 00:42:45,200 --> 00:42:48,520 And so there there's all of these questions around like 886 00:42:48,520 --> 00:42:50,320 which rock is better? There's no simple answer to 887 00:42:50,320 --> 00:42:53,200 that, but it seems that they they sit different niches. 888 00:42:54,040 --> 00:42:55,720 OK. So we've heard the the silicon 889 00:42:55,720 --> 00:43:00,200 story that has been sort of the canonical position for a long 890 00:43:00,200 --> 00:43:02,680 time. We've heard some of the changes 891 00:43:02,680 --> 00:43:05,840 that come from carbonate research and maybe how that can 892 00:43:05,840 --> 00:43:08,960 play a role here or can also be a part of carbon removal in ways 893 00:43:08,960 --> 00:43:12,760 that previously it was not. Make the case back if you're 894 00:43:12,760 --> 00:43:15,320 working in silicates or thinking about silicates, for why 895 00:43:15,520 --> 00:43:19,640 silicates are still the way to go and carbonates are not nearly 896 00:43:20,840 --> 00:43:22,880 as rosy as you paint a picture of Tyler. 897 00:43:22,880 --> 00:43:24,800 You actually aren't. You've actually disabused me of 898 00:43:24,800 --> 00:43:26,880 several assumptions that I've made during this conversation. 899 00:43:26,880 --> 00:43:29,600 But try and set the record clear for why silicates still. 900 00:43:30,640 --> 00:43:33,040 Yeah. So I think to be really clear, 901 00:43:33,560 --> 00:43:36,560 carbonates aren't like inherently better and silicates 902 00:43:36,560 --> 00:43:38,040 aren't also inherently better like these are. 903 00:43:38,040 --> 00:43:40,200 There really are just different strengths and weaknesses here. 904 00:43:40,200 --> 00:43:42,960 And one of the issues is we don't know it as much about 905 00:43:42,960 --> 00:43:46,440 carbonates because the research has coalesced around silicates. 906 00:43:46,840 --> 00:43:48,760 The papers that look at carbonates tell us that it 907 00:43:48,760 --> 00:43:50,080 could, they could be really promising. 908 00:43:50,520 --> 00:43:53,400 But one thing that is nice about silicates is that you don't have 909 00:43:53,400 --> 00:43:56,320 to worry about emitting fossil carbon to the atmosphere. 910 00:43:56,720 --> 00:43:59,520 A tricky bit of that is you need to really know what your rock is 911 00:43:59,520 --> 00:44:02,400 because you can have carbonate that is cementing inside of a 912 00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:04,640 silicate rock. And if you don't know that it's 913 00:44:04,640 --> 00:44:06,640 there, I know it really shouldn't. 914 00:44:07,080 --> 00:44:09,520 But if you don't know that it's there, you might you might think 915 00:44:09,520 --> 00:44:11,320 that it's delicate weathering when it's actually carbonate 916 00:44:11,320 --> 00:44:13,560 weathering and that that's a big issue that we need to deal with 917 00:44:13,560 --> 00:44:15,240 and. Like in the various mineral 918 00:44:15,240 --> 00:44:17,760 compositions of the the queries that people are are drawing 919 00:44:17,760 --> 00:44:20,520 from, is that a common thing or is that just like in Wyoming in 920 00:44:20,520 --> 00:44:24,240 one particular place? I think it's relatively common. 921 00:44:24,240 --> 00:44:27,520 It's definitely not unheard of. And one of the things is it's 922 00:44:27,520 --> 00:44:29,920 often in a small enough amount that it might be hard to detect 923 00:44:29,920 --> 00:44:32,880 with like course resolution, mineralogical analysis. 924 00:44:33,920 --> 00:44:36,960 But it, it is when you have carbonate in your rock, it's the 925 00:44:36,960 --> 00:44:38,160 first thing that's going to dissolve. 926 00:44:38,320 --> 00:44:41,720 And so you, if you're measuring a really rapid pulse of 927 00:44:41,720 --> 00:44:45,800 weathering, you might be, it might be worthwhile just double 928 00:44:45,800 --> 00:44:47,560 checking that you don't have carbonate in your rock. 929 00:44:47,880 --> 00:44:50,320 Because if you think that it's carbonate rather than, or you 930 00:44:50,320 --> 00:44:52,480 think that it's silicate rather than carbonate or use the use 931 00:44:52,480 --> 00:44:55,240 the wrong assumptions about the efficiency of carbon removal. 932 00:44:55,240 --> 00:44:58,640 Essentially, because as we said, carbonate has carbon in it and 933 00:44:58,640 --> 00:45:02,400 silicates don't. But the silicates have, you 934 00:45:02,400 --> 00:45:04,960 know, they, they don't have carbon in them, which is really 935 00:45:04,960 --> 00:45:06,560 nice. You can, when you grind them up 936 00:45:06,560 --> 00:45:08,680 really finely, they do weather faster. 937 00:45:08,680 --> 00:45:11,520 And much the same way that like if you crush your ice before you 938 00:45:11,520 --> 00:45:13,440 put it in a drink, it's going to dissolve faster. 939 00:45:14,160 --> 00:45:16,320 It's by like when you go to a fancy cocktail bar, they give 940 00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:19,160 you a really big ice cube so that weather dissolves very 941 00:45:19,160 --> 00:45:20,960 slowly. It's the same kind of principle. 942 00:45:22,440 --> 00:45:25,360 And we know a lot more about silicates now because we've been 943 00:45:25,360 --> 00:45:28,160 doing it for, so we've been researching it for a while. 944 00:45:29,040 --> 00:45:31,800 I think there are still a lot of open questions around silicates, 945 00:45:32,160 --> 00:45:35,320 but we know more there. One additional thing that I 946 00:45:35,320 --> 00:45:38,480 think if enhanced weathering folks are listening to this, 947 00:45:38,800 --> 00:45:41,200 they might be screaming at the like, oh, they're definitely. 948 00:45:41,280 --> 00:45:43,040 Doing that. Right now, yeah, they might be 949 00:45:43,040 --> 00:45:45,440 screaming at their at their phones or laptops or whatever 950 00:45:45,440 --> 00:45:48,000 saying like no ion exchange, Matt, you're not talking about 951 00:45:48,000 --> 00:45:51,920 ion exchange processes, which is another issue that is really in 952 00:45:51,920 --> 00:45:54,840 the weeds. But the key take away is that 953 00:45:54,840 --> 00:45:57,600 when you start doing enhanced rock weathering at a place that 954 00:45:57,600 --> 00:46:01,440 you haven't been amending with rock in the past or amending 955 00:46:01,440 --> 00:46:05,280 very minimally, one of the first things that happens is that when 956 00:46:05,280 --> 00:46:09,160 the rock dissolves the stuff, the cations, which is the thing 957 00:46:09,160 --> 00:46:12,040 that removes the carbon from the atmosphere by charge balance, 958 00:46:12,520 --> 00:46:16,040 those cations knock off acidity from the absorb to the soil. 959 00:46:16,440 --> 00:46:20,000 And that acidity limits how much carbon is removed from the 960 00:46:20,000 --> 00:46:22,440 atmosphere because you, you neutralize that acidity, which 961 00:46:22,440 --> 00:46:26,160 is not carbon dependent first. And then later you do the carbon 962 00:46:26,160 --> 00:46:29,640 removal. And when you're adding silicate 963 00:46:29,640 --> 00:46:33,320 rocks, neutralizing that acidity means that you just don't do 964 00:46:33,320 --> 00:46:36,240 carbon removal that much. You you kind of hit zero. 965 00:46:36,720 --> 00:46:38,880 But when you're doing it with carbonate rocks and neutralizing 966 00:46:38,880 --> 00:46:41,560 that initial acidity means that you're emitting carbon to the 967 00:46:41,560 --> 00:46:44,280 atmosphere. So that is also narratively a 968 00:46:44,280 --> 00:46:49,160 really difficult story to tell. However, like what what we need 969 00:46:49,160 --> 00:46:51,920 to keep in mind is that it takes emissions to transport rocks to 970 00:46:51,920 --> 00:46:54,080 your field. So if you're hitting zero carbon 971 00:46:54,080 --> 00:46:57,160 removal with a silicate rock, you're net emitting. 972 00:46:57,240 --> 00:47:00,080 The process as a whole is net emitting because you have to use 973 00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:02,720 emissions to grind the rock up and to transport it to your 974 00:47:02,720 --> 00:47:05,000 field. And the question becomes, is it 975 00:47:05,000 --> 00:47:09,240 more net emitting than your carbonate rock counterparts? 976 00:47:09,640 --> 00:47:12,280 And will that lag before you kind of neutralize all that 977 00:47:12,280 --> 00:47:15,200 acidity be shorter or longer than if you were using 978 00:47:15,200 --> 00:47:18,040 carbonates? So the ion exchange component, 979 00:47:18,120 --> 00:47:19,640 it looks really good for silicates. 980 00:47:19,960 --> 00:47:22,480 It also because you're not emitting carbon when you're 981 00:47:22,560 --> 00:47:27,120 neutralizing that initial pool of acidity, but also you're 982 00:47:27,120 --> 00:47:29,520 still emitting carbon through your upstream processes. 983 00:47:29,520 --> 00:47:32,200 And we haven't had done, I don't think any analysis yet has 984 00:47:32,200 --> 00:47:34,480 factored that in. We're looking at that right now. 985 00:47:34,480 --> 00:47:36,640 I don't it's too early to have like clear answers. 986 00:47:36,960 --> 00:47:39,880 And the answers are going to be really dependent on how you run 987 00:47:39,880 --> 00:47:41,840 the model like because we there's a lot of tunable 988 00:47:41,840 --> 00:47:44,360 parameters here. So there's no universal answer 989 00:47:44,360 --> 00:47:46,960 to this question. One thing that I've heard is 990 00:47:46,960 --> 00:47:51,040 that, well, I also just know it from touching things like basalt 991 00:47:51,040 --> 00:47:55,280 versus limestone, where limestone is just so much softer 992 00:47:55,560 --> 00:47:59,680 and basaltic rock and silicates are harder and like the amount 993 00:47:59,680 --> 00:48:02,560 of grinding and energy to grind is much greater for silicates. 994 00:48:02,560 --> 00:48:04,920 Is that broadly true? That is true. 995 00:48:05,520 --> 00:48:07,600 All of our estimates of how much energy it takes tells us 996 00:48:07,600 --> 00:48:10,680 silicates are harder to grind up, but also like the grinding 997 00:48:10,680 --> 00:48:13,240 emissions are thought to be relatively like a smaller 998 00:48:13,240 --> 00:48:15,360 component of all of the upstream emissions. 999 00:48:16,200 --> 00:48:18,560 So in my models and in the simulations I've been running, 1000 00:48:18,560 --> 00:48:20,760 like the big thing that matters is how are you transporting the 1001 00:48:20,760 --> 00:48:22,400 rock? Are you using a truck, a barge? 1002 00:48:22,400 --> 00:48:25,600 And how far are you moving it? And the grinding emissions are, 1003 00:48:25,600 --> 00:48:27,200 you know, a smaller fraction of that. 1004 00:48:27,480 --> 00:48:29,280 So it's not, it's not a make or break. 1005 00:48:29,280 --> 00:48:31,840 What is kind of more of a make or break is that in my 1006 00:48:31,840 --> 00:48:35,240 simulations at least, and a few others that I've seen, in order 1007 00:48:35,240 --> 00:48:38,040 to achieve the same carbon removal, you need more silicate 1008 00:48:38,040 --> 00:48:40,440 rock because it weathers more slowly. 1009 00:48:40,440 --> 00:48:43,200 So any given year, if you want to do X amount of carbon 1010 00:48:43,200 --> 00:48:45,560 removal, you probably need more silicates than you do 1011 00:48:45,560 --> 00:48:47,560 carbonates. And that means you're 1012 00:48:47,560 --> 00:48:49,840 transporting more rock and you're grinding more rock to 1013 00:48:49,840 --> 00:48:52,560 make all of that work, which carries with it that emissions 1014 00:48:52,560 --> 00:48:54,840 burden. So you're kind of you have to 1015 00:48:54,840 --> 00:48:57,080 chase that emissions burden as you add more and more rock 1016 00:48:57,080 --> 00:48:59,080 essentially to make those things kind of balance out. 1017 00:49:00,600 --> 00:49:04,800 Tyler, I have friends who are on both sides of this one where 1018 00:49:04,800 --> 00:49:08,800 some people I know are extreme partisans of the carbonate 1019 00:49:09,320 --> 00:49:11,920 insurgency. I guess you could say I probably 1020 00:49:11,920 --> 00:49:13,160 shouldn't characterize it that way. 1021 00:49:13,600 --> 00:49:16,520 I'm, you know, friends with many people who are doing business in 1022 00:49:16,520 --> 00:49:21,000 silicates and to me it doesn't necessarily seem like this has 1023 00:49:21,000 --> 00:49:24,920 to be business make or break. I can imagine that they're like 1024 00:49:24,920 --> 00:49:27,680 one of the the business models. I think is is so clever in 1025 00:49:27,680 --> 00:49:30,600 carbon removal is Charm's ability to do bio oil and 1026 00:49:30,600 --> 00:49:33,240 biochar depending on the feedstock and the relative 1027 00:49:33,240 --> 00:49:35,080 values of those products and being able to split the 1028 00:49:35,080 --> 00:49:36,440 difference. How I think it's like such a 1029 00:49:36,440 --> 00:49:39,400 smart idea. Is there not an opportunity for 1030 00:49:40,280 --> 00:49:44,040 enhanced weathering project developers to say like in this 1031 00:49:44,040 --> 00:49:48,360 geography with we have a quarry over here for great carbonate 1032 00:49:48,360 --> 00:49:50,400 rock in the field that we're going to put it on as a great 1033 00:49:50,400 --> 00:49:53,040 fit for it? Like does it have to be so 1034 00:49:53,600 --> 00:49:55,800 contested a ground? I feel like in different 1035 00:49:55,800 --> 00:49:59,320 circumstances, different types of rocks can make the LCA and 1036 00:49:59,320 --> 00:50:02,040 system boundaries work in ways that still be commercially 1037 00:50:02,040 --> 00:50:03,760 viable. I don't know that project 1038 00:50:03,760 --> 00:50:06,240 developers in enhanced weathering have to be silicate 1039 00:50:06,240 --> 00:50:09,240 or carbonate exclusive. They could probably be good at 1040 00:50:09,240 --> 00:50:11,320 both of these things. Or maybe you just need too many 1041 00:50:11,320 --> 00:50:14,360 geochemists on staff to figure out the rock types. 1042 00:50:14,360 --> 00:50:16,320 By the way, does that how it works with like you get some 1043 00:50:16,320 --> 00:50:18,600 geochemists here, like I only do carbonate, I only do silicate 1044 00:50:18,600 --> 00:50:20,240 stuff? Or could there not be productive 1045 00:50:20,240 --> 00:50:21,920 overlap here? There's a lot of productive 1046 00:50:21,920 --> 00:50:23,720 overlap. There's no reason, yeah, no 1047 00:50:23,720 --> 00:50:25,280 reason that you need to do just one. 1048 00:50:25,280 --> 00:50:27,400 I think that the reason that there's tension right now is 1049 00:50:27,400 --> 00:50:30,280 precisely the fact that there is this divergent between where 1050 00:50:30,280 --> 00:50:32,880 investment is going and where the evidence is that like, hey, 1051 00:50:32,880 --> 00:50:35,320 look, carbonates could do really well, especially in certain 1052 00:50:35,320 --> 00:50:37,880 environments. And so it feels like there has 1053 00:50:37,880 --> 00:50:39,840 to be tension because you're fighting for silicate money, 1054 00:50:39,840 --> 00:50:43,160 money that's going to silicate deployments when we could just 1055 00:50:43,160 --> 00:50:46,200 be in, you know, putting in research and development money 1056 00:50:46,200 --> 00:50:48,920 into both. I think like the thing that 1057 00:50:48,920 --> 00:50:51,200 brings them together. Also, companies are thinking 1058 00:50:51,200 --> 00:50:54,840 about maybe I do both. Maybe I do one rock type for my 1059 00:50:54,840 --> 00:50:57,800 early stage, or I'm trying to neutralize that initial pool of 1060 00:50:57,800 --> 00:50:59,600 acidity and then I transition to a nut. 1061 00:50:59,600 --> 00:51:02,320 Like there are ways to optimize here that we're just starting to 1062 00:51:02,320 --> 00:51:05,480 scratch the surface of, but it's not super common to be in a 1063 00:51:05,480 --> 00:51:08,760 place where you have access to both types of rock that you can 1064 00:51:08,760 --> 00:51:11,600 ship to your field. It's just too disparate and too. 1065 00:51:11,600 --> 00:51:13,360 Formal, exactly. Yeah, Yeah. 1066 00:51:13,360 --> 00:51:16,040 So it's not, that's not super not often in like direct local 1067 00:51:16,040 --> 00:51:18,920 competition. But I think one of the 1068 00:51:18,920 --> 00:51:20,960 challenges is that like regardless of where you go, 1069 00:51:20,960 --> 00:51:25,040 whether silicates or carbonates it, what appears to be the case. 1070 00:51:25,040 --> 00:51:28,440 What we're learning right now is that the way that we've built 1071 00:51:28,440 --> 00:51:31,880 out the market so far, we're going to be restricting some 1072 00:51:31,880 --> 00:51:34,800 potentially good projects from happening, whether that's 1073 00:51:34,800 --> 00:51:38,400 because you are in like a really noisy quote UN quote noisy 1074 00:51:38,400 --> 00:51:39,840 field. So it's hard to detect the 1075 00:51:39,840 --> 00:51:42,280 carbon removal signal with measurements, whether that's 1076 00:51:42,280 --> 00:51:44,800 because maybe you're using a rock feedstock that doesn't have 1077 00:51:44,800 --> 00:51:47,720 the right tracer elements in it that you need to do the type of 1078 00:51:47,720 --> 00:51:50,760 measurement that you want to do, even if that rock weather is 1079 00:51:50,760 --> 00:51:52,960 really shast and can do really good, but it's just hard to do 1080 00:51:52,960 --> 00:51:56,600 the measurement that way. Or maybe, you know, you're in 1081 00:51:56,680 --> 00:51:59,360 like a region that historically farmers have been spreading 1082 00:51:59,360 --> 00:52:01,440 carbonate and so it's hard to demonstrate that what you're 1083 00:52:01,440 --> 00:52:03,640 doing is new above what would have happened already. 1084 00:52:03,640 --> 00:52:06,240 There's a whole bunch of reasons why the way that we're doing 1085 00:52:06,240 --> 00:52:08,840 things are potentially limiting really good projects. 1086 00:52:09,360 --> 00:52:12,320 And that is creating this like push toward thinking about, OK, 1087 00:52:12,320 --> 00:52:14,640 what are other ways we can support enhanced rock weather. 1088 00:52:14,640 --> 00:52:17,880 And, and there's increasingly a push toward thinking about 1089 00:52:17,880 --> 00:52:22,360 policy mechanisms like subsidies and pay for practice models that 1090 00:52:22,600 --> 00:52:26,160 are really exciting because they could let you sidestep some of 1091 00:52:26,160 --> 00:52:28,720 the constraints of the market and and potentially support 1092 00:52:28,720 --> 00:52:31,520 projects that just aren't viable in the market to help enhance 1093 00:52:31,520 --> 00:52:33,320 weathering reach that broader potential. 1094 00:52:34,880 --> 00:52:37,280 But I think like a really tricky thing with that, that in 1095 00:52:37,280 --> 00:52:39,800 something that we have to think about with any path dependence 1096 00:52:39,800 --> 00:52:42,880 question is that if you are on a path, you have the destination, 1097 00:52:42,880 --> 00:52:46,480 a goal, a place you want to go. In theory, adding policy 1098 00:52:46,480 --> 00:52:50,920 mechanisms will expand how much types of enhanced weathering we 1099 00:52:50,920 --> 00:52:53,560 can do. But in practice, at a certain 1100 00:52:53,560 --> 00:52:56,440 point, like if you have a subsidy for spreading rocks on 1101 00:52:56,440 --> 00:52:59,680 fields everywhere at every country, that raises questions 1102 00:52:59,680 --> 00:53:01,760 about how much of the carbon removal that you're doing in the 1103 00:53:01,760 --> 00:53:04,120 market is actually additional relative to what would have 1104 00:53:04,120 --> 00:53:06,400 happened without the market practice. 1105 00:53:06,600 --> 00:53:09,320 So what we're doing right now is we're seeing this push for more 1106 00:53:09,320 --> 00:53:11,840 policy mechanisms. But at a certain point, if 1107 00:53:11,840 --> 00:53:15,640 that's very successful, you can imagine a class between how we 1108 00:53:15,640 --> 00:53:18,200 do, whether we do enhanced lettering in one way or in 1109 00:53:18,200 --> 00:53:21,120 another way. And there's no, I don't think 1110 00:53:21,120 --> 00:53:22,520 there's a simple answer to that either. 1111 00:53:22,520 --> 00:53:25,320 But whether you're working with silicates or carbonates, what 1112 00:53:25,320 --> 00:53:27,920 we're seeing is that the market, the way the market has developed 1113 00:53:27,920 --> 00:53:30,480 so far, it's likely that potentially good projects are 1114 00:53:30,480 --> 00:53:33,440 going to be left on the table from that decision alone. 1115 00:53:34,000 --> 00:53:37,200 And it's hard to open the door to other things at scale, I 1116 00:53:37,200 --> 00:53:40,040 think. But I think we used to be very 1117 00:53:40,040 --> 00:53:42,520 clear, I think that we would be a mistake not to be exploring 1118 00:53:42,520 --> 00:53:44,280 policy mechanisms. I just don't think that they're 1119 00:53:44,280 --> 00:53:46,320 a silver bullet for the problems that we're seeing right now in 1120 00:53:46,320 --> 00:53:48,640 the market. Yeah, they're all good points. 1121 00:53:49,440 --> 00:53:53,800 I love questions like this that touch upon the political economy 1122 00:53:54,040 --> 00:54:01,920 of decision making where like you can see this and how much 1123 00:54:01,920 --> 00:54:05,120 permanence is necessary to qualify as durable carbon 1124 00:54:05,120 --> 00:54:07,000 removal. And if you happen to work at a 1125 00:54:07,000 --> 00:54:09,360 dot company, you probably think it's longer than someone who 1126 00:54:09,360 --> 00:54:12,560 works at a biochar company. And you might not even know that 1127 00:54:12,840 --> 00:54:15,640 part of the reason why you think that is because you know that 1128 00:54:15,640 --> 00:54:19,120 you will harm your rivals and help your potential allies or 1129 00:54:19,120 --> 00:54:21,520 your own business by thinking this. 1130 00:54:22,160 --> 00:54:25,200 I think that's what makes this really difficult here too, is, 1131 00:54:25,200 --> 00:54:30,120 you know, that once companies have money coming in, that is a 1132 00:54:30,240 --> 00:54:32,960 downstream of important design decisions, like for registry 1133 00:54:32,960 --> 00:54:37,280 says that oh, this process is actually at best net zero and is 1134 00:54:37,280 --> 00:54:40,200 not carbon removal. That has an enormous impact. 1135 00:54:40,200 --> 00:54:43,160 And once you lock that in as oh, this is actually carbon removal, 1136 00:54:43,160 --> 00:54:46,600 given how we've developed the system boundary changing that 1137 00:54:46,600 --> 00:54:48,000 becomes politically very difficult. 1138 00:54:48,000 --> 00:54:50,680 That registry might lose business, they might get sued. 1139 00:54:50,840 --> 00:54:53,520 The project developers are often backed by powerful venture 1140 00:54:53,520 --> 00:54:56,680 capitalists who have connections and, you know, wealth beyond 1141 00:54:56,680 --> 00:54:58,760 many. And these decisions are no 1142 00:54:58,760 --> 00:55:00,720 longer purely about the science or something else. 1143 00:55:00,720 --> 00:55:01,960 It's all about political economy. 1144 00:55:01,960 --> 00:55:06,000 And whose feathers can you effectively rustle and get away 1145 00:55:06,000 --> 00:55:08,080 with it, even on the name of science? 1146 00:55:08,840 --> 00:55:12,120 Gosh, I'm like, stressing myself even talking about this, Tyler. 1147 00:55:13,440 --> 00:55:15,840 But yeah, how are we supposed to make good decisions given that 1148 00:55:15,840 --> 00:55:19,560 those pressures exist for us? I think that like what where 1149 00:55:19,560 --> 00:55:21,480 you're getting, where you're bringing my brain to is that 1150 00:55:21,480 --> 00:55:24,160 like this is not a problem that's ever going to go away in 1151 00:55:24,160 --> 00:55:27,920 carbon removal. How could it in enhanced 1152 00:55:27,920 --> 00:55:30,200 weathering? Like I think what and across the 1153 00:55:30,200 --> 00:55:32,480 board, what we probably need is flexibility and foresight, 1154 00:55:32,520 --> 00:55:34,200 right? You need the flexibility to 1155 00:55:34,200 --> 00:55:38,440 build rules in such a way that don't make everything like that, 1156 00:55:38,440 --> 00:55:40,840 that don't rule out a bunch of viable projects and need the 1157 00:55:40,840 --> 00:55:43,800 foresight to start investing in stuff before there's even like a 1158 00:55:43,800 --> 00:55:48,120 clear space or place for it in the market more broadly, or any 1159 00:55:48,120 --> 00:55:50,920 kind of clear policy or broader support for that activity. 1160 00:55:51,680 --> 00:55:54,320 And that's because like, as you mentioned, there's a bunch of 1161 00:55:54,320 --> 00:55:57,240 things that just don't work now. But we're not building carbon 1162 00:55:57,240 --> 00:55:59,640 removal for like right now necessarily. 1163 00:55:59,840 --> 00:56:02,640 We're building carbon removal for a decarbonized world. 1164 00:56:02,640 --> 00:56:05,520 If you want carbon removal to, to balance hard to abate 1165 00:56:05,520 --> 00:56:08,480 emissions and to, to neutralize legacy emissions, those are 1166 00:56:08,480 --> 00:56:11,000 things that at least I think it's going to be very hard to 1167 00:56:11,000 --> 00:56:13,480 accomplish that without mostly decarbonizing already. 1168 00:56:13,480 --> 00:56:16,600 So if we're building out carbon removal infrastructure to be at 1169 00:56:16,600 --> 00:56:19,800 scale in a decarbonized world, I mean, we have path dependence 1170 00:56:19,800 --> 00:56:22,800 problems built in because right now one of the biggest 1171 00:56:22,800 --> 00:56:25,080 constraints on what carbon removal works and what carbon 1172 00:56:25,080 --> 00:56:28,320 removal doesn't are the emissions of the non 1173 00:56:28,320 --> 00:56:31,200 decarbonized sectors, right? So we're going to have to keep 1174 00:56:31,200 --> 00:56:33,240 having this conversation over and over again. 1175 00:56:33,400 --> 00:56:35,680 And the evolution of carbon removal over time is going to 1176 00:56:35,680 --> 00:56:38,360 follow this like really used to queue in this path that just 1177 00:56:38,680 --> 00:56:42,000 tracks whatever decarbonization is doing that might unlock new 1178 00:56:42,000 --> 00:56:44,080 types of things that don't make any sense right now. 1179 00:56:45,040 --> 00:56:48,640 And I think it's really hard to build things in a way that makes 1180 00:56:48,640 --> 00:56:51,840 it super easy for those things to reach their potential quickly 1181 00:56:52,080 --> 00:56:55,600 as decarbonization progresses, as new things become possible. 1182 00:56:56,080 --> 00:56:58,480 Like, I don't know what the right answer is, but it's hard 1183 00:56:58,480 --> 00:57:01,520 to build in flexibility early on because it requires a lot of 1184 00:57:01,520 --> 00:57:04,480 resources to build something that is flexible. 1185 00:57:04,480 --> 00:57:05,800 You need to talk to a lot of experts. 1186 00:57:05,800 --> 00:57:07,080 You need to do a lot of research. 1187 00:57:07,280 --> 00:57:10,200 It's very easy to write rules and build infrastructure in a 1188 00:57:10,200 --> 00:57:12,920 very defined way. And I just don't know how to 1189 00:57:12,920 --> 00:57:18,280 balance like the need to, to build something at all with the 1190 00:57:18,280 --> 00:57:20,880 need to build something that that we know needs to be 1191 00:57:20,880 --> 00:57:22,880 flexible because this problem isn't going away. 1192 00:57:22,880 --> 00:57:25,240 And it's not limited to enhance weathering. 1193 00:57:28,200 --> 00:57:29,840 In some cases. I think there's like a story 1194 00:57:29,840 --> 00:57:32,920 element to it. Like like, you know, if you're 1195 00:57:32,920 --> 00:57:35,960 learning physics, you don't, you don't start with like tensor 1196 00:57:35,960 --> 00:57:39,440 calculus and relativity, right? You start with like spherical 1197 00:57:39,440 --> 00:57:43,040 cows and frictionless planes. And that's kind of what's 1198 00:57:43,040 --> 00:57:44,720 happening in enhanced rock weathering right now. 1199 00:57:44,720 --> 00:57:47,320 We have a really nice story around silicates and silicates I 1200 00:57:47,320 --> 00:57:49,400 think are a simpler story to tell. 1201 00:57:49,720 --> 00:57:52,080 But at a certain point you need to have room to like build the 1202 00:57:52,080 --> 00:57:54,560 narrative out and learn more and move on and expand our 1203 00:57:54,560 --> 00:57:56,120 definition of enhanced rock weathering. 1204 00:57:56,560 --> 00:58:00,440 And that narrative piece feels like kind of the first thing 1205 00:58:00,440 --> 00:58:05,240 that needs to be solved in order to build in flexibility into how 1206 00:58:05,560 --> 00:58:07,600 these different pathways evolve. Like you need to be able to tell 1207 00:58:07,600 --> 00:58:10,240 a good story about why we want to go a different direction. 1208 00:58:11,720 --> 00:58:13,360 And it's hard to tell those stories. 1209 00:58:14,240 --> 00:58:17,040 For sure it is, and if you're able to do it, it's a lot of 1210 00:58:17,040 --> 00:58:19,800 power one can wield by being an effective storyteller in this 1211 00:58:19,800 --> 00:58:20,640 way. Totally. 1212 00:58:21,440 --> 00:58:23,640 Oh. Tyler, thanks for teaching me 1213 00:58:23,760 --> 00:58:26,600 science all the time. Like whenever we hang out, I 1214 00:58:26,600 --> 00:58:28,880 just buttonhole you. I'm like, all right, what about 1215 00:58:28,880 --> 00:58:33,240 this getting free, free explanations of scientific 1216 00:58:33,240 --> 00:58:34,800 papers? I appreciate you. 1217 00:58:34,920 --> 00:58:36,480 Oh, I feel like it goes both ways. 1218 00:58:36,480 --> 00:58:38,840 I always appreciate when you're like, oh, well, this philosopher 1219 00:58:38,840 --> 00:58:41,200 says this one specific thing that's relevant to the way that 1220 00:58:41,200 --> 00:58:43,720 we're progressing and carbon removal in this way. 1221 00:58:44,720 --> 00:58:47,120 I my reading list has gotten so much longer through 1222 00:58:47,120 --> 00:58:49,160 conversations with you and I do appreciate that. 1223 00:58:50,760 --> 00:58:53,440 Complimentary skills, I think. Yeah, it's my pleasure. 1224 00:58:53,560 --> 00:58:55,680 Thanks for coming back on. We should definitely do some 1225 00:58:55,680 --> 00:58:57,240 more of this. Links to everything are in the 1226 00:58:57,240 --> 00:58:59,600 show notes if you're listening, and we reference a bunch of 1227 00:58:59,600 --> 00:59:02,800 different papers. Tyler sent me papers that help 1228 00:59:02,880 --> 00:59:05,640 prep for this show that I'll put links to in the show notes if 1229 00:59:05,640 --> 00:59:09,000 you want more detail on this. Thanks again for being on Tyler. 1230 00:59:09,600 --> 00:59:10,800 Thank you Ross, it was a lot of fun.