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This is a weird little intro. A that we're doing because Rob
Niven, guest of this episode is so confidential, so good.
At keeping his business has secrets that he did not inform
me of the great news that happened like five days.
Four days after we recorded this Rob.
So we had to come back on and talk about what exciting news is
happening for carbon cure a great.
Yeah, it is really exciting and now I'll be more than happy to
talk about it. Yeah, me too was.
Be happy to see this. I thought it was exciting.
The choices that were made and the thing that were alluding to
is that stripe at long last has announced the choices that they
are making in regards to their carbon removal policy.
And carbon cure is one of four groups that they are working
with right now. Yeah, that's right.
So they call it, the negative emissions.
Commitment. It was to invest in carbon
removal Technologies. They had a million dollars to
invest and they chose four companies.
To purchase negative emissions from we were one of the
companies we use CO2 and mineralized within concrete and
we're extremely excited about this, not just from the
investment. But really how this is creating
an entirely New Market and capital or financial model that
will help companies like ours, be able to scale up to meet the
needs and timelines of climate change.
Have you been getting a lot of attention since this news came
out? Yeah.
Certainly and I think especially within the tech community so the
intranet tech industry which is doing quite a lot right now,
around the space of carbon removal.
There's been a lot of high-profile announcements that
have been made, so I think this certainly gets some attention
there. I think.
Also the overall sector about engineered carbon removal
Solutions is getting some much-needed.
Attention. So that more capital is coming
into the space. I would also say that we're
raising money right now, so being able to share some great
news. Like this is definitely a very
welcome opportunity to speak more deeply about our company
and its impact. You know, I think one thing that
that they make in their blog and I do recommend people go and
read the blog as quite informative is that this is
going to take a portfolio of Solutions in the carbon removal
space, which does mean the biosphere and also some of Is
there more engineered Solutions? And I think the story is much
more than just the money so million dollars in the grand
scheme of things is not a lot. However, what it does though is
it does create or catalyze this new Marketplace for negative
emissions purchasing which already exists today, in a lot
of biological likes, a forestry offsets.
So, in some ways this this is a really positive thing because it
Creates an entirely new model of attracting carbon offset
purchasing within carbon removal for engineered Solutions, which
already exists today for forestry and other biological
type of emission reduction solution.
So I think, in some ways this is going to be able to float all
boats and be able to bring more Capital into the space.
Absolutely. We're only focused on soil.
We like to say that we're agnostic towards the means of
carbon removal and want this to be as Rod and his big industry
as possible because we really do need all hands on deck.
I like that ecumenical approach. I'm glad you share it.
Well, we wish you. Well, if you're listening
hopefully you were able to glean enough context for this to make
sense. If not, you can listen to
episode and come back to this and figure it out.
And there's links in the show notes for the stripe
announcement and anything else. That might be relevant that came
out here. So thanks for the update, Rob.
Hey, it's my pleasure and sorry for being so secretive the other
day. It wasn't a Appropriate amount
of circumspection. I think, I know how embargoes
work and loose lips sink ships as I say.
So it would be terrible. If you submarine your own deal,
bye-bye blabbing about it on the podcast.
Well, it's also being quite respectful to a group that has
done so much to advance this space.
So it's the very least that we could do.
Yeah. I think that's that's totally
the right attitude. Well cool.
Hope you enjoy the rest of the show.
Hope this made sense, and thank you for listening.
Hello and welcome to the reversing climate change
podcast. I'm Ross Kenyon today we have
with me. Well, Christophe Chris Bosh pay
you used to co-host all the time.
Now you're a little too busy, too busy working on, agriculture
stuff. So I'm happy to have you back in
here talking about carbon Tech. I'm still on the roster, there's
like put me in coach. This is a good one to be on.
There's this like the the slimmest little glimmer of
sadness in there. But yeah, I try to tap you on
the shoulder when time allows today, we have with us.
Us Rob Niven of carbon cure CEO and founder there.
Thank you for being here Rob. Thanks very much.
It's really a pleasure. Yeah, we're happy to have you,
we have like, we're pretty animated by what's happening in
concrete. We think there's a lot of
opportunity. There's a lot of peril to, it's
a huge part of world emissions. And what you're doing is, is
quite interesting. So, maybe give us a nice little
sample of what. Exactly is carbon cure and what
are you working on? Great.
Well, it's not too often. I hear someone say that they're
animated about concrete. At least outside of carbon cure.
So I'm happy to do involve CH, you're in good company.
This is this is what we do is who we are.
Okay, great. Well, I'm amongst friends carbon
cure is a clean tech company that uses CO2 and the production
of concrete where it's actually used to make concrete with
production cost savings and also lower carbon footprint.
So I'll again, you got the elevator pitch down, you must be
a founder and CEO or something I've got 38.
I've done a fair. I'm out of pitching.
And in fact, we're actually doing some of that.
Now, if you want me to expand a bit on that, we're basing Nova
Scotia and we are working with, about 200 concrete plants.
We produced about 5 million, cubic yards of particular
concrete. Most of the production is
throughout the US Canada and we're now expanding into Asia as
well. Most recently in Singapore and
see opportunities as well and and Europe.
So what Carpenter Was this were really trying to solve this
carbon problem of concrete. And if you look at some of the
mega Trends happening right now, concrete is certainly On The
Rise. The megatrends I speak of our
population growth and urbanization, which are
colliding right now to create this unprecedented growth of
cities. And you may not know this but
cities are mostly made out of concrete.
It's the most abundant Building Material in the world more than
all the others combined two. And most used material on on the
planet, after drinking water. That's a lot of concrete that's
being produced and it has quite a significant carbon footprint.
So, what we're trying to do is keep using concrete, because
it's a low cost and resilient material, and we're all going to
need places to sleep and to work and play.
But we need to be able to break that link of carbon emissions
and concrete production, so that we can continue this growth of
cities. So Rob, can you help out our
listeners and kind of lay the foundations?
What's the difference between concrete and cement?
We did you mean pour a foundation Iceland?
Well sure, I'd be happy to answer.
That's commonly mixed up. There's no such thing as cement
Foundation or a cement Road, it's concrete.
And concrete is the building material when cement is mixed
with water. It becomes an active ingredient
holds. All of the Aggregates and sand
together to make concrete, which is the foundation of our modern
society. So you hear about different
types of cement, there's like, Portland cement as an example.
Can you spell it out a little bit more for us?
I've quite enjoyed one of your promotional videos on your
website. Using a cake metaphor saying
that cement is like the cake and concrete is an ingredient of the
cake, but are there different cake varieties that we should be
aware of? Yeah, there are.
Yeah. So I think the analogy that
you're thinking of is Is that concrete is the cake and cement
has the flower and that's it up. There It Is.
Well, that's what I do. That's fine.
So they're Portland, cement is what you're referring to is, is
the ubiquitous form of cement and how you make cement is, you
start off by mining primarily Limestone from the earth and
then heating that in a kiln, a rotary Kiln on a cement plant at
high temperatures and then Mint or I should say that limestone
is broken into two halves. So 1/2 by weight, is the
precursor to cement called clinker and then the other half
is actually CO2. And that's why cement has a high
carbon intensity is because of this process, a mission called
calcination that is is due to the large emission profile of
the cement and concrete sector, which is around five to eight
percent of all global. Emissions.
So it's a really big emitter but it's also a really big industry
but the heart of the whole issue here.
Is this calcination reaction. It's not the thermal component
to heat up that count, which is only about one-third of the
total emissions of cement. So, cement is then shipped to
concrete plants, their separate cement plants.
Tend to be closer to Big Cory's concrete plants are closer to
where we live because concrete only has a shelf life of about
Minutes. So once you add water, the you
start the clock and if you get it to later, I'll set up and the
truck, which is a whole headache.
So they tend to build many many concrete plants.
There's about 5,000 in the u.s. that are scattered around mostly
metropolitan areas or wherever anything is ever built.
And that then takes cement mixes with these other ingredients of
Aggregates and sand, and some water and some chemicals to form
concrete and then concrete, if you think Of it as a pie.
Now that we have these baking analogy is most of the pie is
something called Ready. Mix Concrete and small, minority
portions are things like Precast and masonry so they're all made
up of about the same thing but different proportions and in
different production Styles but Ready Mix is the one to remember
that accounts for the vast majority of cement and all
concrete types that are used and in the US So carbon care focuses
on all different product types, which is a unique attribute of
what we do. But most importantly is we are a
carbon solution for the ready mcstays, got it.
You laid out a lot of really interesting topics and I'm not
entirely sure where to go, but I want to start with maybe
chemistry 101. So you're describing a process
where you're converting Limestone into clinker.
And Limestone that CaCO3, right? So you want to turn it into CA 0
which leaves you with the CO2 molecule and so the majority of
the emissions that have plagued the concrete industry are.
When you see that CO2 be lost into the atmosphere from the
heating, the Limestone process up, right?
And turning it into lime so it's exactly right.
So are the cement Industries? Primary role is to crack c03.
E into two halfs of equivalent weight which is CO2 + C a0 so
calcium. Oxide clinker and CO2, CO2 goes
up the stack and is released into the atmosphere and
contributes to global warming. That's the problem that we're
trying to fix. But C a0 is a very productive
material is highly resilient and uniform cement and which then
allows us to build everything around us.
And so you're literally curing the carbon back into that CA 0
we're actually reforming CaCO3, which is the thermodynamically
stable form of calcium oxide. It doesn't want to be calcium
oxide, you had to put all this energy into it and all this
worked crack it. What we do is that once cement
is is mixed in back into concrete as we introduce some
CO2 that reacts. That calcium oxide to form a
different type of limestone. It's a nanomaterial that we're
creating and it's a really important form because that
allows concrete to have higher strength by adding this
nanomaterial early in the hydration reaction, may be
getting a bit technical here, but that's a really important
stage for our how our technology works is.
We we create value from CO2 by reforming calcium carbonate And
the form of a nano Limestone, which then gives concrete higher
strength, which then gives concrete producers, the ability
to alter, how they make concrete, so that they need less
cement. Remember, cement is carbon
intensive. So then that lowers the overall
carbon footprint of concrete by both using less cement, and
also, by permanently mineralizing CO2, back in the
original product. And all, this is done in a way
that we can provide this better. Lower carbon concrete at the
same price as what's made today. Rob, we're going to go into
greater detail and resolution here.
I do want us to zoom out a tiny bit because I imagine most
people listening are like me. And don't know much about
concrete. I'm playing a little bit dumb,
but I'm starting pretty close to scratch about how exactly this
thing that we all take for granted.
That is around us at all. Times don't really know that
much about it. In fact, when I think of
concrete I think back to Like Roman roads and stuff like that,
which I don't know is that concrete.
But also how much of it has actually changed over the time
that concrete's been in use. It just seems ubiquitous and
sort of, with a since Humanity. I know that's not the case, but
how much has it changed over time?
It actually hasn't changed that much.
And that's I think that's really a testament to how good of a
material it is. And, you know, certainly, the
formulation of Portland cement that we have today is about 150
years old. But forms of cement and sand and
hydraulic cements have been around for a very long time.
And a lot of structures are still standing today.
Like the pantheon that were made with early forms of concrete so
this speaks to its ability to be highly durable and resilient
which today takes a different meaning as we think about the
effects of climate change. We're going to need to build
more resilient lie to the effects of water and fire and
wind and, and so on. So, So, we do need those
resilient materials that have stood up to the test of time,
and that's also cheap, and local.
And that's why there's just so much of it everywhere, you know,
I agree with you. It's in some ways.
It's, it's been around and it's all around us, but most of the
time, people never think about it because they just take it for
granted, but it is literally below our feet right now and
wrapped all around us and there wouldn't be civilization today
if it wasn't for concrete. But its role in the future is
really in question because of this carbon How do we continue
to get all that good stuff, but do it in a way that's actually
compatible with climate goals, and like, a two degree or 1.5
degrees Celsius Target. Right now, it's not compatible.
So we need to fix that and that's really where carving care
comes in. If we didn't do something like
carving care and we didn't make concrete better, what would we
be left with? What's the the alternative to
concrete for building? It is such a great question.
Because there isn't anything like, if you think about the
other big, climate discussions like energy Mobility.
If you think about those things, there's better options, right?
There's low-carbon options. If you don't like Cole, well,
put a solar panel on your roof, that's just not the case with
concrete is. There's nothing that we can use
at the scale that we need to use things and the density that we
need to build that is comparable like so that's that's the real
rub. Here is we don't have a choice.
We don't have a plan B to concrete but at the same time we
can't we can achieve all this growth of cities like will be
doubling everything we've ever built and 40 years the next 40
years. Just think about how much more
construction that is that spoke 2.5 trillion square feet and for
us to be able to build that much is just going to blow away our
climate targets. So we had to figure out a way of
doing this. Are we get back to our analogy
with cakes as we get to have our cake and eat it too?
I like cake cake to either. They've been listening to this
podcast for a while because, you know, we like to torture these
metaphors analogies, go ahead and stuff.
Yeah, we also like getting really wonky on carbon
Footprints and you said those words, so let's go into it and
maybe I'll just throw some terms that you and maybe you can weave
them into a response in In the built environment, we often hear
this term called embodied carbon.
I'm curious how that plays into your process or sorry, you're
Canadian. So process and I'm also curious
just, you know, Upstream Downstream all the emissions
sort of, how do you calculate the carbon footprint of what
concrete is doing today? And then what the carbon care
process does to reduce. That carbon footprint.
Great question I'm so Glad you brought up embodied carbon.
And I'm not surprised because you guys are based in Seattle,
but that has been were a lot of the best thinking has happened.
The University of Washington, the carbon leadership Forum,
Kate's eminent, who's their executive director.
And if I could just sort of Riff on that point, just for a
moment, just because it's so important for people to
understand is when you're thinking about the built
environment and and decarbonization most people
think about eating event Elation lighting, better Windows, and
insulation, and all of those things reduce what's called
operating emissions and those emissions.
As you would expect are emitted as energy is consumed over the
lifetime of the building, what people like Kate's eminent have
discovered is that we have entirely missed the boat.
And we've had a great blind spot around this embodied, carbon
component and embodied carbon is all of Emissions that are still
attributed to the built. Environment photo released
during the production of materials and the construction
phase of those same buildings. And if you do the accounting,
what they discovered is that the embodied CO2 emissions of
buildings. So the construction phase in the
materials production accounts for about half of the entire
emissions of a building over its entire life cycle.
So building may be around for 50 60, 70 years, but half of its
emissions are released before that first tenant ever steps
through the front door. So for thinking about tying
value of carbon, we're thinking about near term climate targets.
We've got really ten years to work with.
We've got a really get on top of this and bodied thing and it's a
bit alarming that we're at. This is only coming to light how
so there's a lot of urgency and there's actually some some great
work that's been done by Bill Gates, Other local business and
climate celebrity and the Seattle area, who's really
jumped onto this topic and has created some material to educate
people on it as well. As I said the carbon leadership
forum and tools that they develop like DC-3.
So really, really important topic.
So if you look at the accounting a little bit further and what
you realize is that concrete is the number one contributor to
embodied CO2 buildings. The answer is not to use less
concrete because we know we need to do it.
We want to do it, but it's to do it in a way that's lower carbon.
Now, concrete can be made of really Limitless different
ratios. What's called mixed designs that
have different carbon Footprints.
The thing that you need to really know is whatever.
The cement content is of. That concrete will have a big
impact on the carbon emissions of that, cubic yard of concrete
or a cat that we've called M3. And the more cement usually the
higher strength or other attributes but also means a
higher carbon footprint. So a way to look at that as
there might be 300 kgs on the M3 of concrete.
Now the goal is to try to get that number down because that's
the single largest thing you can do to reduce Urban of concrete
or of buildings. And what we do is we as I said
mineralize CO2. The concrete, but as well as
reduce the amount of cement in the concrete, without reducing
the quality of the product. So today we do, you know,
somewhere in the order of around 15 to 20 kgs, but we have
Technologies now that we're rolling out to get us to 100 and
we can do that in a way that has minimal to no capex for the
plant and also doesn't impose any cost increases for the
actual end user of that concrete.
I think that's something really key to think about is, whatever
climate Solutions are brought to Market.
They need to be scalable and that means a lot of different
things. And one of them of course it has
to be a good technology but ideally it's also affordable and
in scalable across the entire industry and those are all just
as important you need to get them.
All right for you to be able to actually make a difference on
climate. If I could read back, what I'm
hearing you say, is your technology presents a better
product uses less input and saves people money and
irrespective of if you believe in climate change or not is just
the logical Way Forward. Why isn't everyone doing it?
Well like all Technologies to take a bit of time and we're
certainly on a roll. Now the last three quarters is
we've smashed are our sales records and over continue to
grow really quickly. But this anecdote, Tsar is
everyone's from Missouri, the Show-Me State.
So it does take a bit of time to get through that phase.
But that period is getting shorter and shorter as their
peers from across, the country are realizing, is that this is
just a better way. And you don't have to be a
granola to use a technology like this.
Because whether you believe in climate or not.
And certainly, I think I think we all agree that it's a major
issue, but most of our sales discussions, never use the word
Climate. We're talking about just making
a better product that arguably is also in high demand by your
customers, but this is a business decision that allows
you to differentiate yourself because the guy down the road,
you might be making concrete is just making some more warm gray
stuff and there's nothing Innovative or green about it and
this is an opportunity for you to be able to get that leg up.
And those are the kind of discussions that we want to have
with with producers and also their customers.
So those could be Data centers or offices or airports and we've
done all different types of projects ourselves, how is
business going? Rob you guys on a tear right now
or I'm in, this is the covid time.
I wonder is building still continuing a pace or people more
conservative, how are things looking over at Carbon cure?
Well, every, every industry is being hit and fortunately, the
concrete, or the construction industry has and many states.
And in other parts of the world, maybe been affected a bit less
just because it has been considered an essential service
and concrete is still being poured.
There's a strong digital element to our products.
So we actually have an AI and Telemetry component where we
have insights into production all around country, certainly in
some parts of the world. So we get a really close Those
real-time Sense on how business is going.
So that gives us some some hope that this this industry is going
to fare relatively. Well, we have adapted, how we're
doing business before we used to send Engineers some planes to
and set up plants. We were really good at it.
Only took us about a date, actually retrofit entire plant,
but now because of covid, and because we can put people on
planes as we've had to adapt the product but also how we do
things. So now we're continuing to grow.
Tending to even put up plants, we just put up our first plant
in Florida two weeks ago without ever setting an engineer foot on
the ground. So doing everything remotely
now. And to us, this could be
revealing as a better way of doing business.
It's basically Minecraft, right? We're my craft.
Yeah, baby. But I think is a bigger story
here, right? Like, I think, I think people
are really waking up to the effects of climate change and
people see this as a business opportunity.
T possibly as a moral imperative.
And and there's a lot of momentum here that covid snot
going to slow down. And I think, clean tech
companies, like ours are going to continue to be very
successful and we got some great momentum.
In January. We were just named the American
clean tech company the year for out raising money right now and
always looking for new partners and Industry construction sector
but more and more. Two are actually passing
policies now, because they realize this is just better
concrete. And this is a totally overlooked
climate solution that they can use to help meet their targets.
Whether its corporate public climate targets, is that why
carbon care got started? Did you have that sort of vision
in mind? Well, this was my thesis this
technology. So, this is really personal,
right? And it's even become, even more
personal I ever could have imagined since having our first
child. And because now this like really
matters, you know, like it's much more than an academic
exercise or even the climate space is its family, it's really
personal and I think when this thing got started like the
vision of certainly evolved and as we brought on a bigger and
you know, great talented team, we really learn from each other
and are inspired by each other as well as bringing on some new
investors. And we're just delighted to
include breakthrough energy Ventures on our last round.
Is that this has raised our ambition and our vision where we
want to reduce five hundred megatons of CO2 emissions in
here, we believe there's a very clear path for us to do that and
we think it's entirely achievable.
What keeps me up at night though, is how can I do this in
a time scale that actually matters.
How can I do this in 10 years? I should say I nice.
We we as a team or we have all Barb sort of broader
stakeholders and so we need a lot more people.
Under the Tent. But what's great?
That's not a it's not a question of, is this possible?
It's just how fast can we get this thing done?
And we need a lot more Partners from from industry and
government media. And so, on to be able to do that
because everybody has a role and sometimes I think that clean
tech companies up too much pressure on them because, you
know, they're expected to solve all these huge societal issues
while the same time making a buck for their shareholders.
But, you know, it's something that we all have to be part.
And a big part of that is around procurement of clicking Tech
products and solutions because that changes market dynamics, I
think carbon offsets have an important role to play.
I've seen a lot of the Tech Industries or move into that by
playing a bigger role to accelerate and catalyze change.
So government policies, especially procurement policies
or want to do. So, lots and lots of different
ways. People can get involved manual
and so much good stuff there. But you said a very audacious
numbers. So I want to walk back from
that, which is that with this type of Technology, the world
can reduce half a billion tons of carbon dioxide per year.
Can you help us out with some math and talking about the order
of magnitude? So that's the macro scale then
zooming in on a plant, how much CO2 reduction can one plant.
See, and early on, you mentioned, words, sort of capex.
Op X, the capital expenditures and operational expenses.
Just kind of do some math for Of what is it going to take to see
this technology scale to reach that half a billion, tons of
climate mitigation per year. Well, the good thing going for
for this is it's a huge industry.
We talked earlier on about how this is the most widely used
material after water and there's about a hundred thousand plants
worldwide. You know, if you just focused on
China alone, that's 50% of all production.
I remember back in 2014, reading a quota as well by Bill Gates.
And said that China has used more concrete and three years,
then the US has in its history, lots of impact happening,
especially in Emerging Markets. So, what I'm trying to say is
that the size of the, of the industry actually means that it
has a big carbon footprint, but also a big carbon opportunity
and because we have a business model that is not only
affordable, but, but actually creates value and cost
efficiencies, then there's an economic driver that we Behind
us, that doesn't rely on regulatory, to be able to drive
change, but regulatory might accelerate change.
So I'm trying to think, how do I get there?
Is that it comes down to two things?
More plants. So we need to expand into,
especially Emerging Markets faster.
But we also have to layer on additional Technologies.
So, are what we call our mixer. Technology today gets us about a
third of the way there, and then we have what we call our watch.
Water technology that just came out last year and that gets us
about half the way. And then we have other
Technologies, which are inter Innovation pipeline that close
up the the remainder and by incorporating a stack of
Technologies and carbon cures a portfolio Solutions, not just
one that all use CO2 in a productive manner.
Then that allows us to be able to plant by plant Dollar by
Dollar. Get us to the CO2, emission
targets that we can achieve. What are some of the ways that
policy can support? What you're doing?
Rob that's really interesting model was created in Hawaii last
year. That I really don't think got
enough attention. So we work with a group and in
Hawaii called the elemental accelerator, maybe you've heard
of them just a phenomenal clean Tech Community.
They've created that collects clean, tech CEOs and Founders
from around the world and creates this place-based
learning type. Of ecosystem to drive clean tech
deployment in a number of different areas, like water or
circular economy, climate energy mobility and so on.
But they have deep deep roots in Hawaii, which is a pretty
courageous sort of policy environment, and both the state
and city, created some policies around procurement where at its
most basic form stated that they would use concrete made with
mineralized CO2. If it was available at the same
cost and same quality or Car Projects, this is important that
we state government projects because that's something that
government can control. And so ends a lot less
contentious, as saying everybody in the private sector needs to
make concrete. Certain way are used concrete of
made in a certain way. And this is something the lines,
their climate goals with their procurement.
And they also take all the downside risk of it around
economics. And and Quality quality is
really important when you're building a bridge or a school.
it's not too different than say some of the trends we're seeing
with by Clean legislation coming out of places like California
that are rapidly expanding across the country but this was
a really focused on concrete and it had an immediate effect in
the market where private sector saw what was happening and
public sector and saw that this was a success and government was
helping meet their climate targets and that led to change
and then Honolulu host of the US Conference of Mayors, which I
think represents about thirteen hundred cities across the u.s.
they saw what was happening in Hawaii, then passed a resolution
to the same effect that then spends the entire country and
then a number of devotees and other cities have have then
taken that resolution and implemented it.
And one that I think is worth paying attention to is a bill
that was just introduced to New York State 86 17, ab86 17, which
takes this type of an LLC, a green procurement approach to
Group because they recognize its impact on embodied.
CO2 in the built environment, they've done a lot on
operational and then realize they need to play catch-up on
the body. And this is how they targeted.
And what's been really cool about seeing that build of all
his. It's received support from
industry from ngos, construction, sector political,
and I hope, I hope that one successful.
Of course, with current covid environment.
That's not doing anyone any favors, but I think it's
probably one of the The most refined approaches and creating
a guaranteed buyer in that way. It's pretty Innovative.
And pretty interesting way to do policy from that procurement
level. I'm not, like I said, there's
what government is the single largest buyer concrete.
So well, there you have it and a big influence in the
marketplace. And, you know, if I Dream Out
Loud, as I just wonder is when covid stimulus funding hits for
infrastructure. Why not play a climate lens to
that. Please give people prioritizing
green infrastructure Solutions if it's the same price and
quality like why wouldn't you do that?
Because then you kind of get a twofer right is you get all the
stimulus and you get all the infrastructure and then and then
you also get on the climate benefit and it doesn't cost
anything. Why not do it?
I know there's someone who's crankily grimacing right now.
Listen this paying like, it isn't as a much of a free
lunches, you are saying rob, but it does sound pretty compelling
to me. I need to learn more about how
Procurement policy works and wrap my head around it, but
that's very cool. One of the things and all pass
it to Christophe to to work out with you is oftentimes tap
Christoph on the shoulder to be the LCA Watchdog and just trying
to make sure that what is happening or claim to be
happening is actually happening the Bold environmental claims of
various types of producers or companies are being checked.
So Christoph, won't you dive into the wild world of lcas for
us the life cycle assessment? Huh?
It comes back to, this is what we're talking about, reducing
the flow of carbon to the atmosphere, or can it fall into
the carbon removal camp? That's a question for you rob.
Okay. So what what is carbon removal?
And the way that I would Define it as it's a coin with two
sides. So we need to capture and we
need to use the CO2. Once it's captured, sometimes I
scratch my head when I hear, you know, capture being referenced
as as a climate solution where it isn't without having the
other side of the coin and just as utilisation needs CO2 to be a
complete climate solution, So carbon cure is agnostic, on its
CO2 Supply, what do you prioritize?
Our I should say, we as in our concrete producer Partners,
we're at the, you know, these 200 plants and growing are
prioritizing lowest cost and most reliable, especially source
of CO2 and not CO2. Today is supplied from the
emissions of Industries, like ammonia ethanol refineries And
companies are in the business of capturing that CO2 from this
BlueStacks and distributing it to different Industries.
Now, including concrete, if things like DAC were to become
widely available, then there's nothing stopping us from
swapping one bottle to another, which is something that we would
like to see, but we're not going to wait around and also create
more complexity for our business and for our customers to use
DAC. When there's a lot of other way,
CO2, That's available today and it's widely available and easy
to get. So I entirely believe that
carbon cure is a carbon rule solution but we focus on the
second half of the of the coin. The utilization side, our
storage side and our case its utilization because we create
value from the CO2 or than just putting it underground another
element, I think that's important in.
All this discussion is to think about permanence.
How do we differentiate between carbon removal solutions?
That create Product that is consumed and say 30 days.
Then then re released back into the environment that needs to be
part of the discussion here and naturally, of course, scale does
as well. Hmm, well, I mean, just to lay
out a couple things is we can look at where the sources of the
carbon that we might mobilize. And limestone is one of those
sources when we make the lime, and when Nori looks at, what are
we trying to incentivize? It's the The taking carbon back
out of the atmosphere where if you're mobilizing carbon, but
then stopping it then that can't be carbon removal.
Although when you're sequestering the carbon that
certainly is a very important asset and it kind of gets to
this. Can we even think of these
things as fungible? Can we think of a ton of CO2
avoided because you sequestered it, the same as a ton of CO2
removed in which cases might they be similar?
And perhaps, you can convince us that there may be Some cases
where that is similar but it's almost as if carbon removal as
the cleanup crew. After the fact it's kind of like
an it's funny because you have carbon care in your name but an
ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
You know if you can stop carbon from getting into the atmosphere
before you need to pull it back, that's going to save you a lot
of money and time in the back end.
But I just don't see how someone can say, let me turn on a part
carbon cure client, and this is going to start pulling carbon
back out of the atmosphere. Are you?
Going to accept Nori's narrow definition in that sense to say
here, a wonderful form of carbon sequestration but it's not
carbon removal. Well I hmm I hadn't looked at it
that way before Kristoff. So I'd like to think about that
as you're, you know, you're saying that the fact that we're
actually using cement in the first place which is mobilizing
CO2 from Limestone, it just precludes it.
Anything in that value chain from being carbon removal.
Well it comes from what carbon removal can say to an emitter is
I am going to pull one additional ton of carbon back
out of the atmosphere. What a carbon offset can say is
because of my existence you're either going to stop at on going
to the atmosphere or I'm going to remove a ton from the
atmosphere. So when looking at the things to
incentivize reducing the flow of carbon to the atmosphere with
your technology, Gee. It's a Wonderful carbon offset
and the question is, is it a carbon removal?
Can it be because you know, in that calcination process, you're
releasing the CO2 because that actually is your original
Source. Super interesting point.
I suppose I've always looked at Carbon removal more, from a
technical perspective, our Technology based perspective
thinking more of the, you know, the atoms and the mechanical
component of thinking, you know, can we physically remove CO2
from the air or from a stock and then be able to permanently draw
that down into products and that would sort of the definition
that I was going with on Urban removal.
I hadn't really thought about the fact that, you know, we had
to look at this from weather concrete.
The fact that the CO2 is being released from cement in the
first place to create concrete and then and then you're
applying that technology at that, then negates that Carbon
removal definition in my mind, it goes back to the point that
we need concrete to, for modern society to grow.
And and it is the it is the product that would be essential.
I think I'd like to give us some more thought Christoph.
I think I think is a really interesting point to take more
about and sort of. So thanks for helping, expand my
mind, but I don't think I'm really ready to close the book
on this one yet. Sorry.
I let slip the house. Of Hell upon you, sorry about
that famous just pay an ambush. There's no Ambush here because
we want to make it loud and clear.
We love what carbon care is doing and think it's a very
important technology to have in the suite of tools that Humanity
needs to avoid climate change period paragraph.
The question is, can a field that by definition is about
taking carbon out of the atmosphere include something?
Also on the front end is still releasing it and even if we
recognize we're going to be using concrete.
And what you're doing is better than a baseline that is
absolutely producing something which can be financialized in a
carbon offset. And the question for Nori in a
narrow. Definition of carbon removal
that this is an avoidance of CO2 to the atmosphere.
That is really important but isn't carbon removal because it
hasn't gone to take it back out. Out.
So good point. I was like, there is both a
sequestration like, a mineralization, however, we want
to call it element and an avoided element.
So there are two a zooms applying here.
I think that's worthwhile noting but, you know, outside of
biological systems trees. What slaps like, what is an
engineered solution for Carpenter Google?
If we're using that, that definition, like it's, it's not
fueled, that's for sure. And like I can't think of any
other A commodity products that we can be using CO2 and we're
that that works, but I'd really like to continue the
conversation, okay? I think this is a really
interesting way of looking at at lcas and our world.
We think about things like environmental product
declarations and sort of traditional CA counting.
And I'm really, really appreciate that.
Yeah, I think it's very interesting conversation.
I'm sure there's more to say about it too.
I'll leave it to you guys, too. Tin you that another time.
But Rob one question I have about this is depending on how
your sourcing, the CO2 that you're using, assuming it's
coming out of like a flu stack or you're capturing at a power
plant or some manufacturing facility and feeding it back in.
I sort of think about this in the way where when various
States Tax cigarettes, you wonder like does the state
actually want people to stop smoking because they're taxing
it and they're probably having Revenue come in from it.
So what is it? What is the Ship with If you're
sort of dependent upon emitters, does this sort of business have
an inherent type of shelf life or do you think at some point
you would just switch to sourcing from direct are
capture? Are you thinking about that?
Yeah. So our point is being agnostic.
In fact, we don't even buy the CO2 ourselves and that's the
responsibility of our producer partners that adopt the
technology and Source. CO2, and as I said before, like
CO2 today is available from other large emitters from stocks
and that CO2 is then supplied. Applied to the concrete
production site to be consumed ideally sooner than later.
Then the CO2 from these emission sources begins to dissipate and
potentially with different forms of energy based emissions first.
But as long as there will be concrete, there will always be
cement and cement can never decarbonise that calcination
reaction on three process changes.
It does it but it is conducive to see you to capture.
So there will always be that. Mmm And Source from an
industrial emitter, and then there's likely to be other
industrial emission sources as well.
I should say that direct air capture is an entirely good
option. It's not an option that we have
available to us today, and I clearly has a lot of benefits
when it becomes available online.
And when that happens, I think that, you know, we could be in a
different supply and demand type of a situation where maybe a lot
of the other sources of CO2. We are starting to diminish and
Supply going down. Is that the demand from
Solutions? Like carbon care will continue
to rise and maybe the price of CO2 from large emitters will
exceed director Contra Supply. And at that point, I think that
that would be an ideal time for our concrete producers to be
able to Source CO2 from DC. Yeah.
What a role that would be what's going on in the industry as a
whole. Maybe we should start wrapping
it up and zooming out a little bit Rob but do Feel like you
have a competitors and you're in good company.
Are you just out there on the frontier, in the fringes here?
Making this happen on your lonesome, what's it like?
Well, you should pay attention to things like carbon X prize.
There's also a competition that just wrapped up called the CRA
emission reduction, Alberta Grand carbon challenge.
So these are multi-year. Multi-million dollar prize
competitions, where they accelerate the best and
brightest in in CO2 utilization Solutions.
Many of them are based in concrete and cement.
So there's quite a few really great companies in the area.
They all have their different flavor.
Some are changing the chemistry of cement and some are looking
at other components of concrete like Aggregates or segments,
like masonry. So, there's a lot going on,
there's a lot of investment. And then, of course, there's all
of our cousins who are turning CO2 into different kinds of
products, like, Plastics, and fuels, and chemicals, and so on.
So I would say It's very vibrant.
There's a lot of growth and investment going into this
space. The same time, I would say that
carbon cure is by far the most advanced and commercially and
are continuing to build out with new Innovations.
So, I don't believe that there's anyone else in the space that
has nearly the amount of deployment, as I mentioned,
over, 200 plants, but that doesn't mean there's not room
for a lot of other Solutions here.
Like this is a very, very big problem and we want to see a lot
more solutions. Coming into the space, because
most of them are very compatible with one, another, that's great.
And if someone wanted to keep in touch with you, and what carbon
care is doing, what's a good way for them to do so, Rob?
Well come visit us in Halifax Nova Scotia but barring that
there's lots of ways to interact with us online.
And, you know, certainly our website gives you a portal into
different ways that would be also follow us on LinkedIn and
Twitter or some other good channels.
So please stay in touch and if You are interested in what our
policies or construction or even using the technology itself as
we absolutely want to hear from you.
And please reach out because we need to expand our Partnerships
to be able to reach that. As you mentioned, audacious
climate goal, but it's entirely doable if we work together and
links to all of those things are in the show notes.
If you're out there listening and want to stay in touch
Kristoff, anything burning inside of you, you want to say
before we sign off, No, this is a really fun episode.
I want to maybe give you a final question that I've been want to
ask on this podcast, which is Rob.
You have a magic wand in your hand and you wave it.
What has come true so that your vision is a reality.
What could come true? Now, let's just assume that your
technology is now reducing half a billion.
Tons of CO2 per year. What are the elements that has
come true? Because that's a real.
Reality. Okay, I love the question.
I want to make sure I get it right, so you're saying for us
to achieve that goal, what would have had to have happen?
Correct. I'll start off by saying, I
don't think we're going to get there from a time frame.
That's relevant by just organic growth alone.
So just the type of sales growth albeit relatively fast.
As I don't, I don't think is adequate.
I think some of the two key things that need to happen.
One is procurement policies to be able to drive faster Market
shift. Second thing is, I believe that
there are other financial instruments which can play a
role at least temporarily and accelerating this change.
And that's where I believe that the sort of carbon Finance our
offset space can play an enormous role in accelerating,
the change with another type of a market mechanism.
And that can be one as well that can be applied globally, where
perhaps the type of policies that we would be looking for are
not past, but I just don't believe that having just
economics and good. Technology are necessarily going
to be enough to get us there in the time scale that matters
that's a great answer and it has the right notes of optimism and
realism well it can be done. I know it and thank you guys.
So much for this podcast, I listen to it whenever I take out
the dog for a walk and I've got there all the episodes now.
So you guys need to start making more of them faster so that
people like me and continue to be inspired by these these great
insights that you bring. Wow, I didn't realize you'd
listen to that much. That's just dozens, maybe 100
hours of us doing this. So, you know, I was pretty well,
it sounds like, yeah, I love it. Thank you very much.
Yeah, thanks for being here, Rob.
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