1 00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:02,480 Hey, thanks for listening. This is Ross Kenyon. 2 00:00:02,480 --> 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 --> 00:02:05,280 And now here is the show. Hey everyone, thank you so much 40 00:02:05,280 --> 00:02:07,440 for listening to Reversing Climate Change. 41 00:02:07,440 --> 00:02:11,360 This is Ross Kenyon, I am the host, and today I have the 42 00:02:11,360 --> 00:02:15,200 sincere pleasure of having someone on the podcast who I 43 00:02:15,200 --> 00:02:19,360 believe, just in terms of sheer seniority of years, is someone 44 00:02:19,360 --> 00:02:21,760 who tops my involvement in carbon removal. 45 00:02:22,360 --> 00:02:25,040 There's not that many of them since I was involved in carbon 46 00:02:25,040 --> 00:02:27,000 removal pretty early. Noah's one of them. 47 00:02:27,000 --> 00:02:30,040 I'm going to tell you all about Noah Deutsch if you don't 48 00:02:30,040 --> 00:02:33,480 already know him before I do. If you could please open up your 49 00:02:33,480 --> 00:02:36,080 podcast app before you've gotten into whatever task it is you're 50 00:02:36,080 --> 00:02:37,880 going to do. If you could get 5 stars on 51 00:02:37,880 --> 00:02:41,080 Spotify, five stars on Apple Podcast, and write a really 52 00:02:41,080 --> 00:02:44,000 quick positive review, it would mean a lot to me. 53 00:02:44,000 --> 00:02:46,800 It's so helpful and I really appreciate it. 54 00:02:47,280 --> 00:02:50,680 Additionally, for $5 a month, you can get access to bonus 55 00:02:50,680 --> 00:02:54,520 content and all of the ads I don't read myself are taken out. 56 00:02:54,720 --> 00:02:56,800 So the link to become a paid subscriber is in there. 57 00:02:57,040 --> 00:02:59,360 And please open up your apps or YouTube or whatever you're 58 00:02:59,360 --> 00:03:00,840 using. Find some way to make some 59 00:03:00,840 --> 00:03:03,760 positive mark in favor of this show so that more people see it. 60 00:03:04,120 --> 00:03:06,840 Thank you so much. And now I will get back to 61 00:03:07,560 --> 00:03:10,000 lauding this carbon removal legend. 62 00:03:10,920 --> 00:03:13,200 Noah Dykes was actually one of the first reversing climate 63 00:03:13,200 --> 00:03:18,360 change guests that we ever had. Eight years ago or thereabouts, 64 00:03:18,400 --> 00:03:23,040 did a show in their office before it was even carbon 180. 65 00:03:23,040 --> 00:03:26,200 I believe the original name was Center for the Center for Carbon 66 00:03:26,200 --> 00:03:28,840 Removal, something like that. I can't even quite remember, 67 00:03:28,840 --> 00:03:32,160 it's been so long. Noah was at the Department of 68 00:03:32,160 --> 00:03:34,840 Energy during the Biden administration working on carbon 69 00:03:34,840 --> 00:03:37,920 removal, a recurring theme of many podcast guests of this 70 00:03:37,920 --> 00:03:40,120 show. Noah's background is one of 71 00:03:40,120 --> 00:03:42,680 those things. When you look at it's so 72 00:03:42,680 --> 00:03:46,000 impressive to have a fear that has this many things that 73 00:03:46,000 --> 00:03:47,920 they've done. One of the founders and the 74 00:03:47,920 --> 00:03:51,480 original executive director of Carbon 180, as I mentioned then, 75 00:03:51,480 --> 00:03:56,080 Center for Carbon Removal, various academic and nonprofit 76 00:03:56,080 --> 00:03:58,680 affiliations. What we talked about today 77 00:03:58,680 --> 00:04:02,600 though, is that he was a Stripe Climate Fellow, which was a very 78 00:04:02,600 --> 00:04:05,360 prestigious program. If you look at who was a Climate 79 00:04:05,360 --> 00:04:09,520 Fellow from Stripe in carbon Removal, it's an absolute 80 00:04:09,520 --> 00:04:13,280 killers gallery of people who are doing very impactful work in 81 00:04:13,280 --> 00:04:15,520 carbon removal. My understanding of the 82 00:04:15,520 --> 00:04:18,959 fellowship was this very focus on how to generate additional 83 00:04:18,959 --> 00:04:22,680 demand for carbon removal. There's a long running problem 84 00:04:22,680 --> 00:04:25,400 in debate within carbon removal. What can be done to make sure 85 00:04:25,400 --> 00:04:28,000 that more companies are buying, more governments are buying 86 00:04:28,000 --> 00:04:30,840 carbon removal or finding other ways to just make sure carbon 87 00:04:30,840 --> 00:04:33,240 removal doesn't get all this early stage support from groups 88 00:04:33,240 --> 00:04:35,040 like Stripe and Milky Wire and others. 89 00:04:35,320 --> 00:04:38,520 And these companies get to the ability to produce carbon 90 00:04:38,520 --> 00:04:41,320 removal at scale. But then surprise, there's no 91 00:04:41,320 --> 00:04:44,760 one waiting at the other end of the bridge to buy at that scale. 92 00:04:44,800 --> 00:04:47,240 And thus a lot of money might have been wasted. 93 00:04:47,400 --> 00:04:51,200 Talent may egress from the space, things that are really 94 00:04:51,360 --> 00:04:53,920 not so good for us. So Stripe and making this 95 00:04:53,920 --> 00:04:57,920 climate fellowship program was attempting to solve the bridge 96 00:04:57,920 --> 00:05:00,200 to nowhere problem that carbon removal faces. 97 00:05:02,040 --> 00:05:04,880 And NOAA was doing very interesting work trying to make 98 00:05:05,000 --> 00:05:08,440 advanced market commitments as a structure work for governments. 99 00:05:09,320 --> 00:05:12,000 Really tough time I imagine trying to do that. 100 00:05:12,160 --> 00:05:14,640 I get to ask him a bunch of questions of what that is like. 101 00:05:15,120 --> 00:05:18,600 We both look back and look forward to carbon removal. 102 00:05:18,840 --> 00:05:20,320 What's going to be happening next? 103 00:05:20,720 --> 00:05:23,960 We try to offer some advice to entrepreneurs and others working 104 00:05:23,960 --> 00:05:27,880 in this space that somehow keeps us coming back for more as our 105 00:05:27,880 --> 00:05:30,240 life's work, something that we're so passionate about. 106 00:05:30,760 --> 00:05:34,000 Thank you know for being on. I don't know why this took so 107 00:05:34,000 --> 00:05:35,640 many years since your first visit. 108 00:05:35,920 --> 00:05:38,720 Love and respect so much of what you're able to pull off. 109 00:05:38,720 --> 00:05:41,600 On behalf of Carbon Removal, here is your show. 110 00:05:41,760 --> 00:05:43,680 Thanks for listening. Here it is. 111 00:05:46,720 --> 00:05:51,360 Hey Ross, glad to be back, been too long but excited to to join 112 00:05:51,360 --> 00:05:55,240 you again. I think you were like the 2nd 113 00:05:55,480 --> 00:06:00,880 3rd guest on the show when it was Christophe and I like 8 114 00:06:00,880 --> 00:06:03,080 years ago. Is that how you remember it? 115 00:06:03,480 --> 00:06:07,040 That that is certainly tracks it in my mind. 116 00:06:08,320 --> 00:06:10,560 It was such a quaint little space back then. 117 00:06:10,920 --> 00:06:13,880 It needs. It's less cute now, it's more 118 00:06:13,880 --> 00:06:17,920 muscly, burly. Yeah, I don't know. 119 00:06:17,920 --> 00:06:20,320 I don't know if we're quite at the muscley burly phase. 120 00:06:20,320 --> 00:06:24,280 We're like at the in the gym, trying to get there but not 121 00:06:24,280 --> 00:06:26,560 quite there. I feel like, yeah, we were 122 00:06:26,560 --> 00:06:28,720 there. And then it was like the last 123 00:06:28,720 --> 00:06:31,520 year has been like, you stopped going to the gym and all your 124 00:06:31,520 --> 00:06:35,080 muscles start to like just go away and kind of sag away. 125 00:06:35,080 --> 00:06:37,640 And I think that's kind of. No, here, here's how I see it. 126 00:06:37,640 --> 00:06:40,480 It's like you, you're on that big hike and you think you get 127 00:06:40,480 --> 00:06:44,280 to the top of the the mountain, but you're actually, you really 128 00:06:44,280 --> 00:06:46,960 have barely started and there's like the giant mountain is ahead 129 00:06:46,960 --> 00:06:48,960 of you. It's just like a little a little 130 00:06:48,960 --> 00:06:51,040 hill and now you can actually see where you got to go and it's 131 00:06:51,040 --> 00:06:53,640 like, oh boy, this is going to be that's a big one it. 132 00:06:54,160 --> 00:06:57,080 Was like the the false peak of carbon removal? 133 00:06:57,240 --> 00:07:00,800 Exactly, Yeah. Cool, that's not necessarily 134 00:07:00,800 --> 00:07:04,960 encouraging, but you probably have the most right to say so of 135 00:07:04,960 --> 00:07:07,840 nearly anyone else. Long time in carbon removal. 136 00:07:07,960 --> 00:07:10,200 You just did a stripe fellowship which was. 137 00:07:10,600 --> 00:07:13,480 I want to hear all about it. Hard to get, Not that many 138 00:07:13,480 --> 00:07:15,360 people got them. Very prestigious. 139 00:07:15,720 --> 00:07:18,160 Fly around the world trying to cut carbon removal deals. 140 00:07:18,720 --> 00:07:20,120 What'd you learn? What'd you see? 141 00:07:20,120 --> 00:07:22,480 How did it work? Yeah. 142 00:07:22,480 --> 00:07:27,080 So my project specifically was how do you get governments 143 00:07:27,080 --> 00:07:33,400 around the world to effectively create a frontier, but not for 144 00:07:33,400 --> 00:07:36,200 private voluntary purchases, but of governments. 145 00:07:37,320 --> 00:07:38,480 So it involved a handful of things. 146 00:07:38,480 --> 00:07:42,080 First, what does that even mean? Governments around the world are 147 00:07:42,080 --> 00:07:46,080 doing a lot of different things to catalyze demand for carbon 148 00:07:46,080 --> 00:07:48,400 removal. It's actually a wildly 149 00:07:48,400 --> 00:07:51,800 heterogeneous set of policies that different countries are 150 00:07:51,800 --> 00:07:55,440 pursuing to make that happen. And so how, how might that all 151 00:07:55,440 --> 00:07:59,320 come together to send a signal to the market that the whole is 152 00:07:59,320 --> 00:08:00,800 greater than the sum of the parts? 153 00:08:01,400 --> 00:08:02,880 And so that that is kind of piece 1. 154 00:08:02,880 --> 00:08:05,840 And then piece 2 is just how do we actually go ask governments 155 00:08:05,840 --> 00:08:10,200 around the world what is it going to take to get them to to 156 00:08:10,200 --> 00:08:13,360 do this, to increase demand, to come together around something 157 00:08:13,360 --> 00:08:16,480 like that? And so the work involves a lot 158 00:08:16,480 --> 00:08:20,800 of that direct engagement with policy makers working on carbon 159 00:08:20,800 --> 00:08:25,480 removal around the world and. What led you to start with North 160 00:08:25,480 --> 00:08:29,240 Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Iran? Why did you start there? 161 00:08:29,480 --> 00:08:33,880 Well, I mean, there is an election in 2025 or 2024. 162 00:08:34,400 --> 00:08:37,600 Change the course of things. They zigged. 163 00:08:37,600 --> 00:08:39,480 I zagged. You know, it just kind of makes 164 00:08:39,480 --> 00:08:42,960 sense, right? Are there when you were in these 165 00:08:42,960 --> 00:08:46,320 meetings or I'm I'm sensitive to the fact that you probably can't 166 00:08:46,480 --> 00:08:49,520 be totally transparent in public here about how all the meetings 167 00:08:49,520 --> 00:08:51,360 went, but is there a general feeling? 168 00:08:51,360 --> 00:08:54,880 No, no, I can't. Here here's, yeah, here's what I 169 00:08:54,880 --> 00:08:59,920 see is that there's actually way more progress on carbon removal 170 00:08:59,920 --> 00:09:03,720 than there was even two or three years ago in many places around 171 00:09:03,720 --> 00:09:06,800 the world, mostly North America and Northern Europe. 172 00:09:07,280 --> 00:09:11,160 But we're starting to see encouraging signs both in the 173 00:09:11,160 --> 00:09:14,800 kind of Asia Pacific region as well as many emerging economies 174 00:09:14,800 --> 00:09:17,360 like India, Kenya, Brazil, etcetera. 175 00:09:18,080 --> 00:09:22,840 And I'm fairly optimistic about the prospects that these policy 176 00:09:23,240 --> 00:09:27,720 processes are going to create real markets and bankable kind 177 00:09:27,720 --> 00:09:32,120 of policy frameworks for carbon removal by 20-30, which is 178 00:09:32,120 --> 00:09:33,720 great. That's not that far into the 179 00:09:33,720 --> 00:09:38,760 future if you think about it. However, there's how many 180 00:09:38,760 --> 00:09:42,320 hundreds of carbon removal startups that have kind of hit 181 00:09:42,320 --> 00:09:46,360 the go button with their venture capital money, have started 182 00:09:46,360 --> 00:09:50,200 selling projects, have started building tech, and they need to 183 00:09:50,240 --> 00:09:54,040 get to that commercial scale within the next year or two in 184 00:09:54,040 --> 00:09:58,840 order to continue to grow and be viable businesses. 185 00:09:59,360 --> 00:10:03,720 And so that's the real gap. It's kind of what will it take 186 00:10:03,720 --> 00:10:08,960 to accelerate the amount of policy support for those 187 00:10:08,960 --> 00:10:11,640 companies. And that policy support can be 188 00:10:12,000 --> 00:10:14,360 two ways. One is actual direct policy 189 00:10:14,360 --> 00:10:18,320 support. That's obviously great, but also 190 00:10:18,320 --> 00:10:21,680 governments play a really important role in influencing 191 00:10:21,680 --> 00:10:23,600 how private capital spends their money. 192 00:10:24,120 --> 00:10:27,080 If governments signal that they are going to be creating large 193 00:10:27,080 --> 00:10:31,160 scale demand for carbon removal in the near future, it makes it 194 00:10:31,160 --> 00:10:35,080 much easier for investors to give folks cash now before the 195 00:10:35,080 --> 00:10:38,760 money is actually there. And then they can go build the 196 00:10:38,760 --> 00:10:41,600 thing that they need to to be ready for when the policy change 197 00:10:41,600 --> 00:10:44,720 happens. So 2030 is not necessarily a bad 198 00:10:44,760 --> 00:10:48,880 timeline. It's just only works if you have 199 00:10:48,880 --> 00:10:51,720 some combination of additional policy in the near term to 200 00:10:51,720 --> 00:10:56,120 support the field to accelerate as well as a signal to the field 201 00:10:56,280 --> 00:10:59,280 to get it to scale. And I really think that the AI 202 00:10:59,280 --> 00:11:02,760 boom right now that's that's happening is very instrumental 203 00:11:03,240 --> 00:11:05,960 in that. We're seeing tech companies pour 204 00:11:06,400 --> 00:11:11,080 hundreds of billions of dollars into infrastructure projects in 205 00:11:11,080 --> 00:11:14,600 pursuit of winning an industry of the future that doesn't yet 206 00:11:14,600 --> 00:11:16,760 exist. Nobody's really paying for it at 207 00:11:16,760 --> 00:11:20,320 any meaningful scale, but could be trillions of dollars in the 208 00:11:20,320 --> 00:11:24,480 not too distant future and totally transform kind of how 209 00:11:24,480 --> 00:11:29,480 the economy works and how the next century unfolds 210 00:11:29,520 --> 00:11:32,680 economically, right? And that story is honestly 211 00:11:32,680 --> 00:11:36,760 pretty similar to what carbon removal could have been, right? 212 00:11:36,760 --> 00:11:41,320 We need trillions of dollars worth of carbon removal industry 213 00:11:41,320 --> 00:11:43,960 in the not too distant future at that scale. 214 00:11:43,960 --> 00:11:47,520 It actually helps us avoid potentially catastrophic climate 215 00:11:47,520 --> 00:11:50,080 damages. And even if not catastrophic, 216 00:11:50,360 --> 00:11:56,040 definitely very painful both on a human and economic lens. 217 00:11:56,440 --> 00:12:00,680 And so you, you could see a similar arms race happening. 218 00:12:00,680 --> 00:12:06,480 But obviously the AI is happening at massive pace and 219 00:12:06,480 --> 00:12:10,840 scale today, whereas our carbon removal, that industry of the 220 00:12:10,840 --> 00:12:17,360 future is still not yet at that lift off pace where we're really 221 00:12:17,360 --> 00:12:22,840 moving forward. I obviously see a lot of hope 222 00:12:22,840 --> 00:12:28,640 tied around data centers as a natural customer for carbon 223 00:12:28,640 --> 00:12:34,920 removal, but seeing how many very large, very prominent 224 00:12:34,920 --> 00:12:39,440 corporate leaders shifted to the right in the last year, maybe 225 00:12:39,440 --> 00:12:41,080 that's positioning. Maybe that's like you have to 226 00:12:41,080 --> 00:12:43,520 kiss the ring a little bit when you're you have a fiduciary duty 227 00:12:43,520 --> 00:12:46,360 to a Fortune 100 company and that means you play politics in 228 00:12:46,360 --> 00:12:50,160 a way that is palatable or maybe that is genuine. 229 00:12:50,160 --> 00:12:53,440 And maybe the world is moving away from that and participating 230 00:12:53,440 --> 00:12:57,080 in carbon removal to that skill, especially in AI, which the 231 00:12:57,080 --> 00:12:59,520 field that the administration cares quite a lot about. 232 00:12:59,520 --> 00:13:01,720 To the extent that they're willing to preempt state 233 00:13:01,760 --> 00:13:06,960 regulation of AI, it's a major part of their the countries go 234 00:13:06,960 --> 00:13:08,320 to market. You might say the commercial 235 00:13:08,320 --> 00:13:12,520 strategy. Will companies still persist in 236 00:13:12,520 --> 00:13:16,680 creating huge amounts of carbon removal demand given that there 237 00:13:16,680 --> 00:13:18,840 may not be sufficient policies to support them. 238 00:13:18,840 --> 00:13:22,440 And also these AI companies are likely global and can shop 239 00:13:22,440 --> 00:13:24,760 around markets where they're not required to do so. 240 00:13:24,760 --> 00:13:26,720 And there might be like C bam might force them if they're 241 00:13:26,720 --> 00:13:29,200 doing business in Europe to like maybe do that at the teeth of 242 00:13:29,200 --> 00:13:31,720 that stay in there. But I'm like curious is we're 243 00:13:31,720 --> 00:13:35,800 going to see venue shopping, policy shopping that may not see 244 00:13:36,040 --> 00:13:38,560 the kinds of carbon removal demand that people are hoping 245 00:13:38,560 --> 00:13:40,320 for. And I think also broadly what 246 00:13:40,320 --> 00:13:43,520 you're saying too is I'm hearing a lot of if we can stay alive 247 00:13:43,520 --> 00:13:49,280 until EUETS integration, like if we can stay alive until the GX 248 00:13:49,280 --> 00:13:52,080 league, if we can just make it a little bit longer and get a 249 00:13:52,080 --> 00:13:54,800 Japanese corporate on our cap table and it's like stay alive 250 00:13:54,800 --> 00:13:58,320 long enough, we'll be OK. I'm wondering how much, how much 251 00:13:58,320 --> 00:14:01,080 of that is opium, and how much of this stuff is actually going 252 00:14:01,080 --> 00:14:03,520 to materialize. Yeah, I don't think staying 253 00:14:03,520 --> 00:14:07,440 alive is the right frame. Staying alive is not what any of 254 00:14:07,440 --> 00:14:10,920 these companies really need to do is they, how do you build a 255 00:14:10,920 --> 00:14:15,040 commercial project? And everyone's being very 256 00:14:15,040 --> 00:14:18,760 creative about where the capital comes from, how you finance 257 00:14:18,760 --> 00:14:21,720 projects like that. But the people who build 258 00:14:21,840 --> 00:14:25,320 commercial scale projects 1st and whose commercial scale 259 00:14:25,320 --> 00:14:30,040 projects work, they will have an enormous leg up going forward 260 00:14:30,480 --> 00:14:33,800 because they'll be able to supply tons at scale and have 261 00:14:33,800 --> 00:14:36,960 credible pathway to say, hey, we actually have data. 262 00:14:37,800 --> 00:14:40,680 Here's what it costs now, but here's what we can sell it for 263 00:14:40,680 --> 00:14:44,840 you in the future. And then we have a real downward 264 00:14:44,840 --> 00:14:47,960 cost trajectory from there. Otherwise, I do think it's a lot 265 00:14:47,960 --> 00:14:53,160 of, we'll see it, we'll believe it when we see it basically sort 266 00:14:53,160 --> 00:14:57,000 of things. But I think that AI data center 267 00:14:57,000 --> 00:15:02,160 Nexus is very much a just coincidence, quite frankly. 268 00:15:02,800 --> 00:15:06,320 The fact that the people who are building out AI data centers 269 00:15:06,560 --> 00:15:10,520 just happened to be the companies that had very high 270 00:15:10,520 --> 00:15:14,680 profit per emission, had already set ambitious net zero goals, 271 00:15:15,400 --> 00:15:18,680 had already begun building teams and leading on carbon removal, 272 00:15:19,080 --> 00:15:21,200 it's just pure coincidence in in my mind. 273 00:15:21,200 --> 00:15:25,320 It's not like a structural feature and it is a true 274 00:15:25,320 --> 00:15:28,040 lifeline for these carpet removal companies without that 275 00:15:28,040 --> 00:15:30,920 policy change. But I think the biggest thing 276 00:15:30,920 --> 00:15:33,800 that I see is that when these companies invest hundreds of 277 00:15:33,800 --> 00:15:39,600 billions of dollars into data center build out, they have a 278 00:15:39,600 --> 00:15:43,440 clear story that there is going to be demand for their AI 279 00:15:43,440 --> 00:15:48,240 products in the future that if they can win, there's this 280 00:15:48,240 --> 00:15:52,320 enormous market. That's the gap right now around 281 00:15:52,600 --> 00:15:58,240 carpet removal is if you build something, will somebody be 282 00:15:58,240 --> 00:16:01,440 there who wants to pay for it? And that goes back to the strike 283 00:16:01,440 --> 00:16:03,120 project. That's the whole point of 284 00:16:03,680 --> 00:16:06,280 frontier in the private sector, right? 285 00:16:06,280 --> 00:16:09,440 That's trying to show that there's an advanced market 286 00:16:09,440 --> 00:16:13,760 commitment there. So if you do invest today in 287 00:16:13,880 --> 00:16:18,800 build private sector projects, then there will be a customer at 288 00:16:18,800 --> 00:16:21,240 the end of the day. That's just that orders of 289 00:16:21,240 --> 00:16:23,640 magnitude too small of a scale to really matter. 290 00:16:23,640 --> 00:16:27,120 So you need the governments to come in and do something of that 291 00:16:27,120 --> 00:16:32,400 nature and signal to the private sector that, yeah, put capital 292 00:16:32,400 --> 00:16:35,480 into the stuff. Now there won't be revenue 293 00:16:35,480 --> 00:16:39,120 immediately, but in the future there will be. 294 00:16:39,480 --> 00:16:42,440 And what's not happening right now is that signal from 295 00:16:42,440 --> 00:16:47,440 governments around the world is not happening with the clarity 296 00:16:47,920 --> 00:16:49,440 and the strength that it needs to. 297 00:16:50,200 --> 00:16:55,080 And so investors are not putting as much money as they want to in 298 00:16:55,080 --> 00:16:57,440 these projects. And it's really interesting 299 00:16:57,440 --> 00:17:01,040 because there's tons of investment interest. 300 00:17:01,160 --> 00:17:04,599 Everybody wants to be an investor in this carbon removal 301 00:17:04,640 --> 00:17:08,040 economy of the future if somebody's willing to buy the 302 00:17:08,040 --> 00:17:12,040 credits. And so who, who is that person 303 00:17:12,400 --> 00:17:14,680 that is going to ultimately pay for this stuff? 304 00:17:14,680 --> 00:17:16,520 Where's that customer going to be? 305 00:17:17,119 --> 00:17:22,280 And I mean, when we first talked, this was a public good. 306 00:17:22,720 --> 00:17:25,319 It still is a public good. We can figure out ways to 307 00:17:25,960 --> 00:17:29,840 subsidized this through integrating it into industries 308 00:17:29,840 --> 00:17:33,440 and doing things around the margin that make it less costly 309 00:17:33,440 --> 00:17:38,000 or potentially even cost saving. But at the end of the day, this 310 00:17:38,000 --> 00:17:41,720 has to be something that society decides that it wants, that we 311 00:17:41,720 --> 00:17:44,640 want to in fact, say, reverse climate change at the end of the 312 00:17:44,640 --> 00:17:48,080 day, and that you're only going to do that with this stuff and 313 00:17:48,720 --> 00:17:52,200 we're going to pay for it. Yeah, that was a hard pill for 314 00:17:52,200 --> 00:17:55,640 me to swallow. I really did not want to come to 315 00:17:55,640 --> 00:17:58,880 that conclusion at the beginning of Nori, which was so VCM 316 00:17:58,920 --> 00:18:01,880 oriented and be like private action can drive and then like 317 00:18:02,440 --> 00:18:05,160 just a harsh reality of like, yeah, what is product market fit 318 00:18:05,160 --> 00:18:07,120 for carbon removal? It really doesn't have a natural 319 00:18:07,120 --> 00:18:08,680 customer. It's really weird space to work 320 00:18:08,680 --> 00:18:11,400 in. Alternatively, we could just 321 00:18:11,400 --> 00:18:13,840 bully the Cullison into getting more of their money. 322 00:18:13,840 --> 00:18:16,400 Noah, have you tried that? I have not. 323 00:18:16,440 --> 00:18:20,680 I don't find that bullying people into giving more money 324 00:18:20,920 --> 00:18:23,880 just out of the goodness of their heart. 325 00:18:25,320 --> 00:18:27,640 Yeah. Much more orders of magnitude 326 00:18:27,640 --> 00:18:30,000 and more. Yeah, I think that's the issue 327 00:18:30,000 --> 00:18:33,760 is that even if you gave all of your wealth away to carbon 328 00:18:33,760 --> 00:18:38,440 removal, which I would advise nobody to do right then what, 329 00:18:38,440 --> 00:18:40,000 what? What do you do? 330 00:18:40,000 --> 00:18:42,240 What, what, how, what impact does that have? 331 00:18:42,760 --> 00:18:47,440 And this ultimately needs to be something that is a teeny, teeny 332 00:18:47,440 --> 00:18:53,440 part of the global economy. But no individual is anywhere 333 00:18:53,440 --> 00:18:56,280 close to being a teeny, teeny part of the global economy, 334 00:18:56,280 --> 00:18:58,560 right? I like this program so much 335 00:18:58,560 --> 00:19:02,920 because it seems to be very focused around demand and just 336 00:19:02,920 --> 00:19:05,160 the bridge to nowhere problem in carbon removal. 337 00:19:05,160 --> 00:19:07,800 Like OK, we got like a bunch of cool pilots Kiloton. 338 00:19:07,800 --> 00:19:10,960 We're like scaling up and then we built a facility that no one 339 00:19:10,960 --> 00:19:12,800 wants and there's no demand for this thing. 340 00:19:12,800 --> 00:19:14,960 And like you've spent a ton of money doing this and we're 341 00:19:14,960 --> 00:19:17,920 nowhere close to to pulling it off and we need governments to 342 00:19:17,920 --> 00:19:20,640 step up that demand. Was there demand that you saw 343 00:19:20,640 --> 00:19:24,200 for building an advanced market commitment at the government 344 00:19:24,200 --> 00:19:26,120 level? Was that a project, an idea of 345 00:19:26,120 --> 00:19:27,800 yours that turned out like there's something here? 346 00:19:27,800 --> 00:19:31,960 Or is it going to be much more individually nationed in that 347 00:19:31,960 --> 00:19:33,600 kind of way that I would describe at the beginning of 348 00:19:33,600 --> 00:19:36,760 this? So I think there's definitely 349 00:19:36,760 --> 00:19:40,680 appetite to do something like this at some point in the near 350 00:19:40,680 --> 00:19:45,240 future. I don't think now is the time 351 00:19:45,320 --> 00:19:50,480 where you're seeing any sort of kind of multilateral climate 352 00:19:50,480 --> 00:19:56,600 collaboration rising to the fore of the broader global 353 00:19:56,720 --> 00:19:59,720 geopolitical climate multilateralism. 354 00:19:59,760 --> 00:20:02,480 But it's things that kill the like IMO agreement. 355 00:20:02,840 --> 00:20:04,560 Does that count as multilateralism? 356 00:20:05,680 --> 00:20:08,320 Yeah, exactly right. So you're, you have negative 357 00:20:08,320 --> 00:20:15,800 examples of where diplomacy is kind of crumbling in front of 358 00:20:15,800 --> 00:20:18,040 our eyes, right. But no, I don't think we're 359 00:20:18,040 --> 00:20:21,560 seeing kind of new multilateral collaborations that are coming 360 00:20:21,560 --> 00:20:25,880 forward and are really focused on solutions, let alone just 361 00:20:25,880 --> 00:20:27,680 kind of signalling about the problem. 362 00:20:28,440 --> 00:20:33,160 And so I, I think that to me is the, what really needs to happen 363 00:20:33,160 --> 00:20:37,200 is end of the day, if countries can get these projects built, 364 00:20:38,080 --> 00:20:42,520 that is, as you said, what everyone needs so that they can 365 00:20:42,520 --> 00:20:46,120 be in a place when geopolitical conditions change, right? 366 00:20:46,840 --> 00:20:50,360 And they're going to change. The question is when, in what 367 00:20:50,360 --> 00:20:54,400 direction, kind of what speed and scale, nobody knows. 368 00:20:54,800 --> 00:21:00,400 And so I think figuring out how to both do the 1 foot at a time 369 00:21:00,400 --> 00:21:05,560 in front of another and thinking about what's the ultimate 2030 370 00:21:05,560 --> 00:21:08,560 and beyond frameworks that we need to have in place, doing 371 00:21:08,560 --> 00:21:10,600 those things in parallel is really important. 372 00:21:12,720 --> 00:21:16,640 When you were white boarding this out and had this idea of an 373 00:21:16,640 --> 00:21:23,000 AMC at the the government level, what was your ideal format for? 374 00:21:23,000 --> 00:21:25,920 Did you have like, OK, is it like the African Union is like a 375 00:21:25,920 --> 00:21:29,160 great candidate for this or is it people who have oil and gas 376 00:21:29,160 --> 00:21:31,680 industries across the entire world are like how did you slice 377 00:21:31,680 --> 00:21:35,000 them and say this is potentially the the segment that I think has 378 00:21:35,000 --> 00:21:39,720 the greatest likelihood I. Mean it initially started as 379 00:21:40,040 --> 00:21:45,360 where who has money and that's largely OECD countries 380 00:21:45,840 --> 00:21:49,840 initially. Could the G7 come together and 381 00:21:49,840 --> 00:21:53,400 do that? Could you have some sort of set 382 00:21:53,400 --> 00:21:57,400 of NATO members do that? That that was the idea is how do 383 00:21:57,400 --> 00:22:01,800 you get countries that are have that industry going today? 384 00:22:02,200 --> 00:22:06,320 And so they're not only they have the fiscal capacity to fund 385 00:22:06,320 --> 00:22:10,360 projects, but they also get benefits from it because they've 386 00:22:11,640 --> 00:22:14,320 really catalyzed a lot of that innovation. 387 00:22:14,480 --> 00:22:19,440 They have those research university ecosystems and 388 00:22:19,440 --> 00:22:23,120 venture capital ecosystems that stands to make an enormous 389 00:22:23,120 --> 00:22:25,960 amount of money if you can actually create the industry of 390 00:22:25,960 --> 00:22:29,560 the future out of it. And so I, I think that that to 391 00:22:29,560 --> 00:22:38,040 me is the where I, I see where we saw an initial opportunity, 392 00:22:38,480 --> 00:22:42,440 but I, I think the formulation of it is going to change and it 393 00:22:42,440 --> 00:22:46,600 is unlikely to be that set of countries in the near future for 394 00:22:46,600 --> 00:22:49,360 a handful of reasons. I think the first is that 395 00:22:49,520 --> 00:22:52,920 countries have been very nationalistic about their carbon 396 00:22:52,920 --> 00:22:55,520 removal policies. They want to fund projects in 397 00:22:55,520 --> 00:23:00,400 their own countries, not where the the projects are cheapest. 398 00:23:01,000 --> 00:23:05,360 There are exceptions to that. Very small countries say 399 00:23:05,480 --> 00:23:08,640 Switzerland, Singapore, etcetera, they don't really have 400 00:23:08,760 --> 00:23:12,920 the space to do big carbon removal are are eager to do kind 401 00:23:12,920 --> 00:23:15,800 of Article 6 Paris agreement transactions. 402 00:23:18,120 --> 00:23:20,960 And countries like Japan have thought about it in a really 403 00:23:20,960 --> 00:23:24,960 interesting way about projects don't have to be in Japan, but 404 00:23:24,960 --> 00:23:30,600 they have to be owned by some fraction of Japanese companies. 405 00:23:30,880 --> 00:23:34,240 So there's, there's always some sort of not just this pure 406 00:23:34,240 --> 00:23:38,280 climate motivation, there has to be an, an economic story behind 407 00:23:38,280 --> 00:23:41,520 that. And that coupled with the fact 408 00:23:41,520 --> 00:23:47,160 that every country is doing their own policy framework that 409 00:23:47,640 --> 00:23:52,200 we have certain tax credits here in the US, The Canadians have 410 00:23:52,200 --> 00:23:56,640 different tax credits. The British have a a contract 411 00:23:56,640 --> 00:23:58,560 for difference model on their ETS. 412 00:23:59,440 --> 00:24:02,160 The European Union has its own ETS integration. 413 00:24:02,160 --> 00:24:03,440 Like everyone's doing their own thing. 414 00:24:04,520 --> 00:24:09,680 And so having that all come together under one package is a 415 00:24:09,680 --> 00:24:13,680 little bit challenging for folks to do. 416 00:24:13,680 --> 00:24:18,080 I, I think it's very much within the art of the possible. 417 00:24:18,080 --> 00:24:21,640 And AMC does not have to be a single pool of money where 418 00:24:21,640 --> 00:24:25,560 everyone says here we're going to give you $10 billion a year 419 00:24:25,560 --> 00:24:27,800 and you have to go buy credits. And there's a central vehicle 420 00:24:27,800 --> 00:24:32,640 that's like the most extreme form of an, an AMC, but it can 421 00:24:32,640 --> 00:24:35,760 just, all that matters is that there's a credible and bankable 422 00:24:35,760 --> 00:24:39,480 signal that is sent from policy makers around the world that 423 00:24:39,480 --> 00:24:44,600 says if you build this according to certain specifications, 424 00:24:44,600 --> 00:24:48,640 whether it's cost or permanence or whatever, there will be 425 00:24:48,640 --> 00:24:50,840 demand for it. And that can be through credit 426 00:24:50,840 --> 00:24:55,680 purchases, it can be through tax credits, it can be through ETS 427 00:24:55,800 --> 00:24:59,680 integration and guarantees. It just you need to send that 428 00:24:59,680 --> 00:25:02,280 signal to the private sector in a clear way. 429 00:25:02,280 --> 00:25:04,800 That's what an AMC is at its heart. 430 00:25:05,200 --> 00:25:08,200 So I think you can get something like that, but my guess is it's 431 00:25:08,200 --> 00:25:12,720 going to be either technology specific or industry specific. 432 00:25:14,680 --> 00:25:17,680 There's a lot of sense in my mind about if we're going to 433 00:25:17,680 --> 00:25:21,440 scale up certain marine carbon removal approaches that we would 434 00:25:21,440 --> 00:25:25,480 want governments to be kind of collaborating on that, given all 435 00:25:25,480 --> 00:25:29,440 the sensitivities and complexities about broader 436 00:25:29,440 --> 00:25:34,520 international ocean regulation and who is allowed to 437 00:25:34,520 --> 00:25:38,080 commercialize the ocean for what purposes, right? 438 00:25:38,080 --> 00:25:41,040 There's a lot of reasons why governments would want to come 439 00:25:41,040 --> 00:25:44,080 together and kind of set the terms for what commercialization 440 00:25:44,080 --> 00:25:47,440 looks like. They're also specific 441 00:25:47,440 --> 00:25:49,800 industries. Aviation is a great example 442 00:25:50,120 --> 00:25:55,760 where in many cases today carbon removal is often a cheaper way 443 00:25:55,760 --> 00:25:59,320 to decarbonize aviation then sustainable aviation fuel. 444 00:26:00,320 --> 00:26:03,680 I don't know that's going to be the case forever, but certainly 445 00:26:03,680 --> 00:26:07,080 could be. And so I, I think there's kind 446 00:26:07,080 --> 00:26:10,280 of international aviation coalition's that might want to 447 00:26:11,080 --> 00:26:13,080 jump start carbon removal development. 448 00:26:14,960 --> 00:26:17,640 But then I think the biggest thing that I've seen is that 449 00:26:17,880 --> 00:26:22,560 there hasn't been demand from emerging economies that can do 450 00:26:22,560 --> 00:26:26,160 carbon removal at potentially very massive scales at 451 00:26:26,680 --> 00:26:31,920 comparatively lower costs to insist that the rich countries 452 00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:35,800 who have created the most historical emissions actually 453 00:26:35,800 --> 00:26:38,560 pay for it. And we've seen this happen with 454 00:26:38,600 --> 00:26:42,880 forest carbon projects. Red Plus involves enormous flows 455 00:26:42,880 --> 00:26:50,760 from rich countries to places like Brazil, heavily forested 456 00:26:50,760 --> 00:26:53,200 countries. But we haven't seen that same 457 00:26:53,400 --> 00:26:59,040 sort of recognition that places in kind of the tropical and 458 00:26:59,040 --> 00:27:03,280 subtropical regions could be most effective at things like 459 00:27:03,280 --> 00:27:06,440 enhanced rock weathering or certain types of biomass carbon 460 00:27:06,440 --> 00:27:09,960 removal or even have the right conditions to do direct air 461 00:27:09,960 --> 00:27:14,320 capture. And that investment from abroad 462 00:27:14,360 --> 00:27:17,760 into those projects, it is an important thing to do. 463 00:27:17,760 --> 00:27:21,120 So there's just not that demand signal that or or that 464 00:27:21,120 --> 00:27:24,640 international diplomatic call, if you will, for those projects 465 00:27:24,640 --> 00:27:28,480 right now. But I think over time that will 466 00:27:28,480 --> 00:27:32,280 grow increasingly loud. We have seen India, for example, 467 00:27:32,720 --> 00:27:37,640 already say that the global N needs to pay for historical 468 00:27:37,640 --> 00:27:40,200 carbon emissions. I think it's the only kind of 469 00:27:40,560 --> 00:27:44,680 explicit diplomatic call we've seen on that front. 470 00:27:45,880 --> 00:27:49,520 But it hasn't translated into kind of specifics of, hey, 471 00:27:49,520 --> 00:27:52,680 create an advanced market commitment for carbon removal 472 00:27:53,120 --> 00:27:58,400 where the global N is buying Article 6 credits from emerging 473 00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:01,640 economies around the world, right. 474 00:28:01,760 --> 00:28:04,080 But that that to me, is something that I think could 475 00:28:04,080 --> 00:28:06,040 emerge in the the coming decades. 476 00:28:07,600 --> 00:28:11,480 So much there to think about. I want to poke on this 477 00:28:11,480 --> 00:28:16,160 protectionist point that you bring up to where when I think 478 00:28:16,160 --> 00:28:20,400 about carbon removal, I've some amount of economics training. 479 00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:24,360 I'm sympathetic to certain kinds of free trade arguments when I 480 00:28:24,360 --> 00:28:27,920 hear that we can do cost arbitrage and there is carbon 481 00:28:27,920 --> 00:28:30,320 removal that's just as good as what we can produce in the US, 482 00:28:30,320 --> 00:28:33,040 but much cheaper somewhere else. And that might even have a 483 00:28:33,040 --> 00:28:36,320 justice angle to it where it'll, you know, feed money into people 484 00:28:36,320 --> 00:28:37,760 who are providing A valuable service. 485 00:28:37,760 --> 00:28:40,680 And it can address some of the climate justice aspects here at 486 00:28:40,680 --> 00:28:42,800 a bargain relative to what we would pay for the same 487 00:28:43,080 --> 00:28:45,080 atmospheric benefit here in the US. 488 00:28:45,960 --> 00:28:48,560 And that makes very strong intuitive sense to me and has 489 00:28:48,560 --> 00:28:50,240 since I was a teenager like that. 490 00:28:50,240 --> 00:28:51,880 That line of logic is very tight to me. 491 00:28:52,280 --> 00:28:53,960 And then I get frustrated sometimes with policy when I 492 00:28:53,960 --> 00:28:58,720 think about all politics as local politicians obviously want 493 00:28:58,720 --> 00:29:01,240 these projects in their districts so they can have jobs 494 00:29:01,240 --> 00:29:03,800 and something to brag about. And then like the idea of having 495 00:29:03,840 --> 00:29:05,840 an opportunity that could be in your district, but you're 496 00:29:05,840 --> 00:29:08,720 actually just going to give away this opportunity to come home 497 00:29:08,720 --> 00:29:12,080 with what's the LBJ line? It's like, how many how many 498 00:29:12,080 --> 00:29:14,160 Coon skins do you have on the wall kind of thing? 499 00:29:14,160 --> 00:29:17,280 Like you have like, this is not a Coon skin on the wall at this 500 00:29:17,280 --> 00:29:19,360 point because you gave away the raccoon to someone else. 501 00:29:19,400 --> 00:29:22,240 And that's a terrible thing. If you're a politician. 502 00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:25,880 Do the politics of this actually make sense to do, to have like 503 00:29:25,880 --> 00:29:27,960 free trade even before we get to the fact that the world is 504 00:29:27,960 --> 00:29:31,240 increasingly autarkic at this point economically and 505 00:29:31,240 --> 00:29:34,040 protectionism is on the rise? It almost seems like it doesn't 506 00:29:34,040 --> 00:29:36,960 make sense and probably wouldn't have existed even if we did have 507 00:29:36,960 --> 00:29:39,240 a Harris presidency. We probably still would have 508 00:29:39,240 --> 00:29:41,560 been going in a more protectionist direction with 509 00:29:41,560 --> 00:29:43,680 regard to our carbon. And that's not even taking into 510 00:29:43,680 --> 00:29:47,080 into account any of the NDC dynamics and corresponding 511 00:29:47,080 --> 00:29:50,000 adjustments and any of the other like big thorny issues of carbon 512 00:29:50,000 --> 00:29:51,920 removal transacting internationally. 513 00:29:52,720 --> 00:29:54,560 Yeah. I mean, do I think there will be 514 00:29:54,640 --> 00:30:01,720 $100 billion a year industry of foreign direct investment for 515 00:30:01,720 --> 00:30:07,680 carbon removal without any sort of OECD industry? 516 00:30:07,880 --> 00:30:10,960 No way. But I also, I, I don't, I don't 517 00:30:10,960 --> 00:30:12,360 think that's what needs to happen. 518 00:30:12,440 --> 00:30:19,240 I think a very small amount of the relative spending can go 519 00:30:19,360 --> 00:30:21,040 abroad. And I think there are lots of 520 00:30:21,040 --> 00:30:26,160 ways that make that mutually beneficial, figuring out how to 521 00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:30,800 incorporate basically to export technology and and figure out 522 00:30:30,800 --> 00:30:33,960 how to get some of the technology innovation to be 523 00:30:33,960 --> 00:30:37,160 deployed abroad there. There are lots of ways. 524 00:30:37,160 --> 00:30:40,960 And I actually think about how Japan is thinking about this in 525 00:30:40,960 --> 00:30:45,400 terms of, yeah, we'll buy, we'll enable credits from abroad to be 526 00:30:45,400 --> 00:30:48,480 in our Japanese ETS system potentially. 527 00:30:48,640 --> 00:30:51,640 But they need to have some sort of Japanese ownership or 528 00:30:51,640 --> 00:30:53,560 technology content or whatever it is. 529 00:30:54,280 --> 00:30:57,280 I would expect that you'd have a lot more interest in things like 530 00:30:57,280 --> 00:31:01,360 that just because I actually don't think you're going to end 531 00:31:01,360 --> 00:31:06,120 up doing a ton of carbon removal domestically. 532 00:31:06,560 --> 00:31:10,480 And so that the job creation won't be that kind of hard hat 533 00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:14,520 job creation in many places. It will be more of the financial 534 00:31:14,520 --> 00:31:18,080 services and so forth. Like the end of the day, the UK 535 00:31:18,440 --> 00:31:22,600 might be a pretty hard place to say deploy direct air capture at 536 00:31:22,600 --> 00:31:27,840 massive scale given their energy prices, the land constraints, 537 00:31:27,840 --> 00:31:34,320 the storage constraints, right. So it's a great place to finance 538 00:31:34,480 --> 00:31:38,080 large scale director capture projects abroad, potentially to 539 00:31:38,800 --> 00:31:42,800 bring technology out of the UK research and innovation 540 00:31:42,800 --> 00:31:46,240 ecosystem, scale that internationally to provide the 541 00:31:46,240 --> 00:31:51,520 kind of City of London financial services around that in terms of 542 00:31:52,040 --> 00:31:54,120 credit quality, credit registries. 543 00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:57,280 And you see all of those pieces happening in the UK has one of 544 00:31:57,280 --> 00:32:02,560 the most advanced carbon removal of ecosystems today, but like 545 00:32:02,560 --> 00:32:06,520 very structural challenges. California, I think is a similar 546 00:32:07,080 --> 00:32:09,280 situation where you have an enormous amount of innovation 547 00:32:09,280 --> 00:32:13,440 happening in California on carbon removal, but not a ton of 548 00:32:14,200 --> 00:32:16,760 people who say, yeah, California is the future for where I want 549 00:32:16,760 --> 00:32:20,720 to build these projects. They're developing in California 550 00:32:20,720 --> 00:32:24,800 and then going to Texas, Louisiana, wherever else in 551 00:32:24,800 --> 00:32:28,600 order to actually deploy. Because the environment for 552 00:32:28,600 --> 00:32:32,480 doing those projects is just, it's possible in a way that 553 00:32:32,480 --> 00:32:36,320 California is not. Let alone the fact that the 554 00:32:36,320 --> 00:32:40,720 power prices and other just financial cost of doing business 555 00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:45,120 in some of those geographies is way less than in, in California. 556 00:32:45,120 --> 00:32:49,160 So I, I, I think what you'll see is folks figuring out how to, to 557 00:32:49,160 --> 00:32:53,400 specialize and there will be gains from trade, whether that 558 00:32:53,400 --> 00:32:55,600 is politically durable, who knows. 559 00:32:55,680 --> 00:32:58,680 I don't think the story about, hey, we're going to create a lot 560 00:32:58,680 --> 00:33:02,960 of financial service sector jobs is remotely as compelling as, 561 00:33:03,280 --> 00:33:08,480 hey, we're going to actually give folks manufacturing jobs, 562 00:33:08,480 --> 00:33:14,000 construction jobs, kind of, yeah, jobs that are more in 563 00:33:14,000 --> 00:33:16,960 demand today. And so many regions that are 564 00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:21,160 going to be increasingly stressed by both climate change 565 00:33:21,240 --> 00:33:28,000 and a shift away from dependence on fossil fuels for our energy 566 00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:31,120 mix. And so really thinking hard 567 00:33:31,120 --> 00:33:35,040 about those kind of rural economic development strategies 568 00:33:35,240 --> 00:33:38,720 and how that fits with carbon removal is, is really important. 569 00:33:39,080 --> 00:33:42,320 And I, I think actually fits kind of in a very complementary 570 00:33:42,320 --> 00:33:48,560 way to some of the, the broader global carbon removal ecosystem 571 00:33:48,840 --> 00:33:53,320 changes because it fundamentally it's all about how do you embed 572 00:33:53,360 --> 00:33:59,360 carbon removal into various industrial processes or, or 573 00:33:59,360 --> 00:34:03,640 agricultural processes or, or think about including carbon 574 00:34:03,640 --> 00:34:08,600 removal as part of that broader economic development and local 575 00:34:08,600 --> 00:34:12,440 benefit story. It could be environmental 576 00:34:12,440 --> 00:34:15,400 benefit, it could be job creation benefit, right. 577 00:34:17,239 --> 00:34:19,800 But how do you, how do you actually think about it in part 578 00:34:19,800 --> 00:34:26,080 of a more holistic systems view? And how are we going to support 579 00:34:26,360 --> 00:34:31,520 investment in rural communities, not just here in the US, but 580 00:34:31,679 --> 00:34:35,400 everywhere in the world? How are we going to help fossil 581 00:34:35,400 --> 00:34:39,760 dependent economies transition? And, and like what, what types 582 00:34:39,760 --> 00:34:44,560 of things actually matter there? I think that frame is where the 583 00:34:44,560 --> 00:34:47,760 community of carbon removal developers has really gone. 584 00:34:48,040 --> 00:34:50,679 Not this pure. Hey, we need it for the climate 585 00:34:50,679 --> 00:34:53,639 math, which is where we were eight years ago. 586 00:34:53,639 --> 00:34:57,480 And I think everyone gets that now, more or less. 587 00:34:58,520 --> 00:35:03,760 It's just not translating into money for projects because it's 588 00:35:03,760 --> 00:35:07,960 not directly connected to the salient themes today around 589 00:35:07,960 --> 00:35:11,720 affordability, around how do we get energy abundance and 590 00:35:11,800 --> 00:35:17,680 economic development and all those other themes that are feel 591 00:35:17,680 --> 00:35:21,120 much more urgent and pressing in the next two to three years 592 00:35:21,680 --> 00:35:26,560 compared to 2050 net 0 targets and so forth. 593 00:35:29,120 --> 00:35:32,320 I have a strange question for you and it might be a tad 594 00:35:32,320 --> 00:35:35,680 foolish, so get ready. Yeah, hit me. 595 00:35:38,640 --> 00:35:43,640 When countries are doing things like we're setting up a carbon 596 00:35:43,640 --> 00:35:46,480 removal industry that we're going to support with policy, 597 00:35:47,040 --> 00:35:49,960 you're taxing money from citizens, It's running through 598 00:35:49,960 --> 00:35:52,280 an administration where some of that money is being spent just 599 00:35:52,280 --> 00:35:55,680 on the admin cost of it. And then we're paying for for 600 00:35:55,680 --> 00:35:59,760 something domestically that doesn't seem to be revenue 601 00:35:59,760 --> 00:36:01,520 generating. But the way you're describing 602 00:36:01,520 --> 00:36:04,240 this is a lot of countries who want carbon removal to be a 603 00:36:04,240 --> 00:36:07,920 revenue generating, tax receipt producing industry. 604 00:36:08,280 --> 00:36:11,560 But the first example I gave is very much robbing Peter to pay 605 00:36:11,560 --> 00:36:15,800 Paul in some kind of way. And the second one relies upon a 606 00:36:15,800 --> 00:36:18,520 free trade scheme where like some people are revenue 607 00:36:18,520 --> 00:36:22,520 generating, some people are the customers of the suppliers of 608 00:36:22,520 --> 00:36:24,560 carbon removal. And we're trading these things. 609 00:36:24,560 --> 00:36:27,600 But when it takes place inside of a country, like you spent 610 00:36:27,600 --> 00:36:30,640 money to create an industry, but it was money that people would 611 00:36:30,640 --> 00:36:33,240 have probably spent anyways on something else that would have 612 00:36:33,240 --> 00:36:36,720 just became a different kind of product as a. 613 00:36:36,960 --> 00:36:38,280 Really weird. Question to ask, do you 614 00:36:38,280 --> 00:36:38,840 understand? What? 615 00:36:38,840 --> 00:36:41,040 No, no, I, I think we're, you're getting as there's two things, 616 00:36:41,040 --> 00:36:44,360 right. One is there's this basic 617 00:36:44,360 --> 00:36:48,040 paradigm that polluters should pay for the cost that their 618 00:36:48,080 --> 00:36:53,120 pollution imposes, right? And that, that's an ETS system, 619 00:36:53,840 --> 00:36:56,800 every sort of carbon tax, carbon trading system. 620 00:36:58,640 --> 00:37:00,880 Yeah, of course polluters do not want to pay for it. 621 00:37:00,880 --> 00:37:05,120 But then all of society pays. And So what we're doing is 622 00:37:05,320 --> 00:37:08,400 effectively making the people that are causing the problem pay 623 00:37:08,400 --> 00:37:12,920 for the problem, not just feeling what we talked about as 624 00:37:12,920 --> 00:37:16,720 kind of the social cost of carbon because everyone is 625 00:37:16,720 --> 00:37:18,840 paying for climate change, right? 626 00:37:18,880 --> 00:37:24,800 It's just a how how you feel it in your wallet is different for 627 00:37:24,880 --> 00:37:29,080 for everyone. And so an ETS system is a an 628 00:37:29,080 --> 00:37:33,600 easy way to think about how you would distribute the cost of 629 00:37:33,600 --> 00:37:36,560 dealing with that effectively. So that that's one end and the 630 00:37:36,560 --> 00:37:39,960 other end is at at some point you get to this weird dynamic 631 00:37:39,960 --> 00:37:45,880 where the polluters who made the problem are not here anymore. 632 00:37:46,320 --> 00:37:50,400 That we are going to have emissions that are causing 633 00:37:50,400 --> 00:37:57,720 climate change that were emitted in the 1950s and 20 years ago, 634 00:37:57,800 --> 00:38:00,600 that today in 50 years ago, in 50 years from now are still 635 00:38:00,600 --> 00:38:02,760 there. The companies that made those 636 00:38:02,760 --> 00:38:05,640 emissions are almost certainly going to be logged on. 637 00:38:06,040 --> 00:38:09,960 So who do you pay? Who who do you charge for that? 638 00:38:09,960 --> 00:38:14,000 It's like a a weird problem. And so it very much comes into 639 00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:18,400 this public good about kind of, yes, society created all these 640 00:38:18,560 --> 00:38:21,320 emissions. We didn't charge anybody for it 641 00:38:21,320 --> 00:38:26,240 at the time, but we are ultimately responsible for that. 642 00:38:26,720 --> 00:38:30,560 And there's that's just a public good, right? 643 00:38:30,640 --> 00:38:35,760 We pay for governments to do things like provide a National 644 00:38:35,760 --> 00:38:40,680 Defense for us and we give them money and they create defense 645 00:38:40,680 --> 00:38:42,800 spending. We give government's money to 646 00:38:43,000 --> 00:38:47,200 clean up our trash and they do that, right? 647 00:38:48,080 --> 00:38:52,600 So I, I think it's not necessarily a question of we're 648 00:38:52,600 --> 00:38:56,240 going to take money away from somebody and, and give it to 649 00:38:56,240 --> 00:38:59,680 other. And it's like a, that, that is 650 00:39:00,000 --> 00:39:03,920 what we're doing. But that's the function of many 651 00:39:04,080 --> 00:39:09,080 government actions to kind of solve these social problems, 652 00:39:09,080 --> 00:39:09,680 right? So. 653 00:39:10,480 --> 00:39:13,480 For sure, I sitting it plainly like that is meant for 654 00:39:13,480 --> 00:39:16,720 illustration, but it isn't inherently critical of that 655 00:39:16,720 --> 00:39:19,280 process. I think kind of what I'm 656 00:39:19,280 --> 00:39:23,240 pointing out is that I think some states want it both ways 657 00:39:23,240 --> 00:39:27,760 where carbon removal, is it meant to decarbonize either 658 00:39:27,760 --> 00:39:30,400 one's country or the atmosphere as a whole? 659 00:39:30,400 --> 00:39:33,240 Or is it a revenue generating opportunity? 660 00:39:33,400 --> 00:39:35,880 And can it be both? It is on the micro scale, like 661 00:39:35,880 --> 00:39:39,000 some people will be relatively made better off and some people 662 00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:42,680 will be made relatively worse off in like short term monetary 663 00:39:42,680 --> 00:39:46,520 fiduciary pecuniary ways, even if the climate is made better 664 00:39:46,520 --> 00:39:50,400 off overall. But some of this is like not 665 00:39:50,400 --> 00:39:52,840 everyone can be generating revenue from carbon removal at 666 00:39:52,840 --> 00:39:54,560 the same time. Some people are paying for it, 667 00:39:54,560 --> 00:39:57,600 some people are making money on it and that will net out at 0, 668 00:39:58,080 --> 00:39:59,560 but it's easy. Someone wants to make money at. 669 00:39:59,800 --> 00:40:01,040 The same time. It's weird. 670 00:40:01,600 --> 00:40:03,560 No, I think that's the fundamental crux. 671 00:40:03,560 --> 00:40:06,920 And that's again, everyone wants to be an investor in carbon 672 00:40:06,920 --> 00:40:09,080 removal. Very few people want to be an 673 00:40:09,080 --> 00:40:11,240 off taker for those credits, right. 674 00:40:11,720 --> 00:40:18,120 And so that's the role of of governments is to say, no, we 675 00:40:18,480 --> 00:40:23,200 want to provision this good, it is a public good. 676 00:40:23,200 --> 00:40:26,400 It's not going to be provisioned through a market. 677 00:40:27,000 --> 00:40:31,400 And the fact that it is being provisioned through a voluntary 678 00:40:31,400 --> 00:40:34,520 carbon market today at the scale that it is today to me is a 679 00:40:34,520 --> 00:40:36,720 minor miracle. Like when we first talked about 680 00:40:36,720 --> 00:40:39,040 this, if you would have gone to any of these tech companies and 681 00:40:39,040 --> 00:40:43,040 be like, hey, can you pay 500 bucks a ton for a couple million 682 00:40:43,040 --> 00:40:46,480 tons of Cdr, they would have like, OK, that that's, that's 683 00:40:46,480 --> 00:40:48,600 nice. Like what do you, I don't 684 00:40:48,600 --> 00:40:50,360 understand those words. Like what are you, what are you 685 00:40:50,360 --> 00:40:52,160 talking about? You have no concept of what's 686 00:40:52,160 --> 00:40:53,840 going on. And now they're leading that 687 00:40:53,840 --> 00:40:57,200 charge. And so there's a lot of 688 00:40:57,200 --> 00:41:03,200 illogical things about the market, but to bet on that 689 00:41:03,360 --> 00:41:07,120 voluntary market being the thing that scales, seeing this 690 00:41:07,160 --> 00:41:14,800 incredibly unwise given how few fast followers there are behind 691 00:41:15,280 --> 00:41:18,720 the first movers in the space. And just the fundamental nature 692 00:41:18,720 --> 00:41:23,880 of this as a public good, that we're going to need governments 693 00:41:23,880 --> 00:41:27,080 to either tell polluters that they need to pay for it or that 694 00:41:27,800 --> 00:41:31,520 society recognizes that there are benefits to carbon emissions 695 00:41:32,280 --> 00:41:35,640 and that society is going to clean it up because society as a 696 00:41:35,640 --> 00:41:39,800 whole benefits. And that's just through public 697 00:41:39,800 --> 00:41:43,960 spending, right? But yeah, you're not going to 698 00:41:43,960 --> 00:41:46,400 get just kind of magic money creation. 699 00:41:47,240 --> 00:41:49,800 You're not going to see that happen for sure. 700 00:41:50,400 --> 00:41:52,520 Sometimes I feel like we wanted it that way. 701 00:41:52,520 --> 00:41:56,520 Or when you think back to how Brazil used to credit forestry 702 00:41:56,520 --> 00:41:58,640 or how like various Red Plus project would work, it's like 703 00:41:58,960 --> 00:42:02,520 you're we're both claiming the credits for our own net zero 704 00:42:02,520 --> 00:42:05,360 goals or our own like neutrality goals, but we're also selling 705 00:42:05,360 --> 00:42:07,920 the credits at the same time. And like you would want to count 706 00:42:07,920 --> 00:42:11,920 it for yourself and sell it and yeah. 707 00:42:12,000 --> 00:42:14,040 Yeah. So I, I actually think there's 708 00:42:14,360 --> 00:42:17,120 some nuance there where if you're going to count it for 709 00:42:17,120 --> 00:42:20,840 yourself and then sell it to other countries for them to 710 00:42:20,840 --> 00:42:23,880 count for their national inventories, that that's not 711 00:42:23,880 --> 00:42:26,400 allowed and that's no good. That will result in just 712 00:42:26,400 --> 00:42:29,360 emissions ballooning. But if you want to count things 713 00:42:29,360 --> 00:42:33,920 for your national inventory and then have somebody buy a 714 00:42:33,920 --> 00:42:38,240 voluntary credit, they should be able to count that because 715 00:42:38,920 --> 00:42:41,840 companies are not part of the Paris Agreement, right? 716 00:42:42,040 --> 00:42:43,600 It's almost a dual Ledger, right? 717 00:42:43,600 --> 00:42:45,840 You need to have companies get to net zero. 718 00:42:45,840 --> 00:42:47,600 You need to have countries get to net zero. 719 00:42:48,480 --> 00:42:51,280 You can double count in that instance. 720 00:42:51,960 --> 00:42:57,720 And I, I think that's a totally legitimate way for those 721 00:42:57,720 --> 00:43:02,200 projects to, to actually happen, as long as you're not trying to 722 00:43:03,680 --> 00:43:07,600 somehow get the voluntary thing to mix into compliance markets, 723 00:43:08,000 --> 00:43:11,200 which in many cases you are. So the line gets very blurry 724 00:43:11,440 --> 00:43:13,680 very quickly. But in, in some of these just 725 00:43:13,680 --> 00:43:16,640 bilateral deals, like it makes perfect sense. 726 00:43:17,080 --> 00:43:20,080 And you actually have projects that happen to help your 727 00:43:20,080 --> 00:43:23,520 national inventory that wouldn't happen without these voluntary 728 00:43:23,520 --> 00:43:26,720 deals. Like if these tech companies 729 00:43:27,280 --> 00:43:31,160 couldn't claim their credits, they would absolutely not do the 730 00:43:31,160 --> 00:43:33,280 projects. And then it's not as if the 731 00:43:33,280 --> 00:43:35,360 projects would just somehow magically happen. 732 00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:39,880 It's a choice between does the project happen at all or, or 733 00:43:39,880 --> 00:43:42,440 does the, the company get to, to claim it right. 734 00:43:42,440 --> 00:43:45,640 So I I think there's a very credible case to be made that in 735 00:43:45,640 --> 00:43:50,080 the near term that that voluntary double counting with 736 00:43:50,080 --> 00:43:52,640 the compliance is not not the worst in the world. 737 00:43:53,400 --> 00:43:55,560 Oh yeah, for sure. I think that that's true. 738 00:43:55,960 --> 00:43:58,920 I just like the everyone would like to have their cake and eat 739 00:43:58,920 --> 00:44:02,400 it too. Claim net zero for your native 740 00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:06,920 carbon removal industry and also be generating revenue from other 741 00:44:06,920 --> 00:44:10,960 countries at the same time. But what's next for you Noah? 742 00:44:11,520 --> 00:44:13,040 It seems like you have your pick of the letter. 743 00:44:13,040 --> 00:44:15,480 I'm sure companies approach you and I want to poach you. 744 00:44:15,480 --> 00:44:18,880 I'm sure there's plum policy positions for you too. 745 00:44:18,880 --> 00:44:20,600 What where you going? Are you able to say? 746 00:44:21,240 --> 00:44:24,000 Well, no, I'm just going to be continuing to to help where I 747 00:44:24,000 --> 00:44:27,400 can. I'm so working in in civil 748 00:44:27,400 --> 00:44:33,920 society back at Carbon 180 as a senior advisor, their part time 749 00:44:34,840 --> 00:44:40,440 working with some academic affiliations as well, both with 750 00:44:41,160 --> 00:44:44,360 Jen Wilcox up at Penn and at Columbia as well. 751 00:44:44,760 --> 00:44:49,040 And so it's all the same work. It's how do we continue to build 752 00:44:49,240 --> 00:44:53,840 the policy foundations for this and really a focus on how do we 753 00:44:53,840 --> 00:44:56,960 get projects to scale that. That to me is where we need to 754 00:44:56,960 --> 00:45:01,400 focus right now is getting commercial scale projects built 755 00:45:01,840 --> 00:45:07,560 and then showing the world that carbon removal can work and it 756 00:45:07,560 --> 00:45:12,000 can come down a cost curve. It can be measured and verified 757 00:45:12,080 --> 00:45:16,160 in a really robust way. And that to me really helps get 758 00:45:16,160 --> 00:45:20,800 this flywheel spinning where once you see that happening, you 759 00:45:20,800 --> 00:45:24,680 see the jobs, the investment, you see the climate impact 760 00:45:24,680 --> 00:45:28,000 potential. And that motivates the demand 761 00:45:28,280 --> 00:45:32,400 far more than we have today, where it's a whole bunch of 762 00:45:32,400 --> 00:45:36,760 little startups more or less and the promise of something big. 763 00:45:37,280 --> 00:45:41,040 But actually seeing that big thing is a completely different 764 00:45:41,320 --> 00:45:45,720 ball game and I think will actually help us to make the 765 00:45:45,720 --> 00:45:50,040 progress that we need in 20-30 and beyond to really scale the 766 00:45:50,040 --> 00:45:55,120 industry. Any predictions for 2026? 767 00:45:56,680 --> 00:46:02,960 02026 In what sense for us? Open-ended question. 768 00:46:02,960 --> 00:46:06,080 Is it going to be a year of? I don't know, I've speculated. 769 00:46:06,080 --> 00:46:09,080 I think what's what's your prediction for example? 770 00:46:11,280 --> 00:46:14,000 Similar to yours in some ways where like you're, you make me 771 00:46:14,000 --> 00:46:17,280 think of, do you know the famous Earl Butts line that Wendell 772 00:46:17,280 --> 00:46:19,960 Berry and permaculture people love that like get big or get 773 00:46:19,960 --> 00:46:23,360 out of AG from the 70s? Does carbon removal have get big 774 00:46:23,360 --> 00:46:24,920 or get out? Is that happening right now? 775 00:46:25,280 --> 00:46:29,000 I imagine we're going to see closures, M&A, well capitalized 776 00:46:29,000 --> 00:46:31,520 companies will probably pick up others that are able to for 777 00:46:31,520 --> 00:46:33,480 either attack or physical infrastructure or something like 778 00:46:33,480 --> 00:46:35,120 that. I think we're going to see 779 00:46:35,120 --> 00:46:37,320 probably a fair amount of stuff like that happen. 780 00:46:38,000 --> 00:46:40,840 I don't have super high hopes for 2026. 781 00:46:40,840 --> 00:46:43,960 I think if you're able to, you know, stay lean and but also be 782 00:46:43,960 --> 00:46:46,880 building things that will help you transition to the policy 783 00:46:46,880 --> 00:46:49,320 that you're going to be able to plug into, then cool. 784 00:46:49,640 --> 00:46:53,000 But I don't know if it's going to be as fun as previous years. 785 00:46:54,000 --> 00:46:59,440 No, it's going to be very hard. But I've always thought that 786 00:46:59,440 --> 00:47:03,840 carbon removal was going to be very hard, and I've perpetually 787 00:47:03,840 --> 00:47:07,280 been surprised at how much success it's had in the face of 788 00:47:07,280 --> 00:47:08,800 how hard it's been. I always. 789 00:47:08,920 --> 00:47:11,560 Thought it was going to be easy. I'm just getting punched in the. 790 00:47:12,440 --> 00:47:14,800 Hi, Ross. What about this? 791 00:47:15,200 --> 00:47:19,040 What about the? PCM was going to work and like 792 00:47:19,040 --> 00:47:20,040 that didn't make any. Sense. 793 00:47:21,640 --> 00:47:23,800 Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. Why would that work? 794 00:47:25,880 --> 00:47:29,760 I'm smarter now, but yeah, I learned the hard way. 795 00:47:30,640 --> 00:47:32,960 Yeah, no, it's going to be really hard. 796 00:47:33,080 --> 00:47:37,280 But I think they're the fundamentals are actually really 797 00:47:37,280 --> 00:47:40,200 encouraging. There is really good tech out 798 00:47:40,200 --> 00:47:42,280 there. There are really good teams. 799 00:47:42,600 --> 00:47:48,080 There is enough of an investor and purchaser and policy 800 00:47:48,080 --> 00:47:52,360 ecosystem that recognize that this is critical for not just 801 00:47:52,360 --> 00:47:54,880 that kind of peripheral, how do we make some money in the near 802 00:47:54,880 --> 00:47:59,160 term, but like will we actually deal with climate change? 803 00:47:59,480 --> 00:48:04,600 This is a critical piece and we need to have that option to 804 00:48:04,600 --> 00:48:09,480 scale up and sustain it at real industrial skill soon. 805 00:48:10,080 --> 00:48:14,920 And so folks have risen to the occasion over and over again in 806 00:48:14,920 --> 00:48:18,240 the past 10 years at this point to make that happen. 807 00:48:18,560 --> 00:48:23,240 And yeah, it's going to be incredibly challenging for the 808 00:48:23,240 --> 00:48:27,880 indefinite future. But to me, that's just the water 809 00:48:27,880 --> 00:48:33,640 that carbon removal inhabits. And the folks are, they're 810 00:48:33,640 --> 00:48:37,560 figuring out how to do it. And so I I remain cautiously 811 00:48:37,560 --> 00:48:42,120 optimistic, even if I have no clue exactly where that will 812 00:48:42,120 --> 00:48:45,280 come from, given how hard everything is. 813 00:48:46,640 --> 00:48:49,200 I've done some things within climate, but outside of carbon 814 00:48:49,200 --> 00:48:52,400 removal and I honestly miss it. I'm just like, oh, this is great 815 00:48:52,400 --> 00:48:56,800 confirmation for me that I am a dyed in the wool carbon removal 816 00:48:56,800 --> 00:48:59,440 person and I am actually meant to be over here. 817 00:48:59,440 --> 00:49:02,080 And I'm very effective over here in ways where I'm like 818 00:49:02,760 --> 00:49:05,960 diligencing a battery be like, this is a cool battery. 819 00:49:05,960 --> 00:49:09,880 I'm like, this is not this is not the best reason I should not 820 00:49:09,880 --> 00:49:12,120 be doing analysis of this battery. 821 00:49:12,120 --> 00:49:14,560 Go to market right now or tea. I know. 822 00:49:14,560 --> 00:49:18,040 But that's the thing about carbon removal is if you can 823 00:49:18,040 --> 00:49:23,080 solve admittedly very hard challenges, like the potential 824 00:49:23,080 --> 00:49:27,680 is just enormous, there's so much good that could happen in 825 00:49:27,680 --> 00:49:31,120 so many geographies across so many dimensions, not just 826 00:49:31,120 --> 00:49:35,560 climate, right? That when you get it right, like 827 00:49:35,840 --> 00:49:38,000 how could you not be excited about it? 828 00:49:38,440 --> 00:49:43,240 But that has to live in dialogue with the fact that it's super 829 00:49:43,240 --> 00:49:48,840 hard. And yeah, it's a 11 out of 10° 830 00:49:48,840 --> 00:49:51,040 of difficulty thing to do. But I. 831 00:49:51,240 --> 00:49:54,880 Always say it that way too. How have you like kept your 832 00:49:54,880 --> 00:49:56,600 passion for it? Is it like me where you just you 833 00:49:56,600 --> 00:49:58,920 just like go vocation like call to this actor? 834 00:49:58,920 --> 00:50:00,520 You're like this, I'm meant to be here. 835 00:50:00,520 --> 00:50:02,680 Or do you have days where you doubt that? 836 00:50:02,680 --> 00:50:04,120 Like how do you feel about your work? 837 00:50:04,120 --> 00:50:06,640 Oh. I think this is something we're, 838 00:50:06,880 --> 00:50:13,680 we're still at the very early days of the industry that I 839 00:50:13,680 --> 00:50:17,960 wouldn't be surprised if in 10 years we have a completely 840 00:50:17,960 --> 00:50:21,960 different conception of what carbon removal solutions 841 00:50:21,960 --> 00:50:24,560 actually make sense and can scale and what the business 842 00:50:24,560 --> 00:50:31,280 models and policy frameworks. Only OAF in the future. 843 00:50:31,520 --> 00:50:38,080 Yeah, again, Ross, I think like the early prognostications have 844 00:50:38,080 --> 00:50:45,040 a tendency to be wrong, right. And so I, I hold that that what 845 00:50:45,040 --> 00:50:49,200 we see today is the path to 2030, let alone 2050, almost 846 00:50:49,200 --> 00:50:53,560 certainly going to be radically wrong, but that what we do 847 00:50:53,560 --> 00:50:57,920 figure out is going to work just will be so beneficial and so 848 00:50:57,920 --> 00:51:02,000 impactful. And that, that to me is, is why 849 00:51:02,000 --> 00:51:06,320 I'm excited about this and recognize that again, we're at 850 00:51:06,320 --> 00:51:12,960 the the peak of a tiny little hill that we can now see more of 851 00:51:12,960 --> 00:51:16,880 the giant mountain ahead and just got to keep going forward 852 00:51:17,240 --> 00:51:20,960 figuring out a way out. As someone who's been doing this 853 00:51:20,960 --> 00:51:25,440 work for so long, seen so much from such an early stage and 854 00:51:25,440 --> 00:51:27,960 with so many different organizations, is there any 855 00:51:27,960 --> 00:51:31,040 advice you can give to people working in carbon removal right 856 00:51:31,040 --> 00:51:32,920 now? Things that you are finding 857 00:51:33,440 --> 00:51:37,080 fulfilling, even in times when it might feel darker than you 858 00:51:37,080 --> 00:51:39,040 might like. Yeah. 859 00:51:39,040 --> 00:51:44,880 I think to me, it's just figuring out where you can do 860 00:51:44,880 --> 00:51:47,920 this, like where the opportunities are and to go in 861 00:51:47,920 --> 00:51:51,480 recognizing it will be really hard, but that there's a 862 00:51:51,480 --> 00:51:54,800 surprising amount of opportunity to continue to work forward and 863 00:51:54,800 --> 00:51:59,680 make progress in this space. There are companies hiring, 864 00:52:00,440 --> 00:52:05,280 There are certain geographies that are hiring policy makers 865 00:52:05,280 --> 00:52:08,960 and civil servants, right? There are other places where 866 00:52:08,960 --> 00:52:14,200 people are hiring investors or corporate purchasers and there's 867 00:52:14,200 --> 00:52:16,440 not a lot of that opportunity. Sure. 868 00:52:17,000 --> 00:52:21,840 But I think folks can figure out how to deploy their skill sets, 869 00:52:22,120 --> 00:52:28,480 whether they're scientists and engineers or marketers or policy 870 00:52:28,480 --> 00:52:32,200 experts like there, there's certainly opportunity in a 871 00:52:32,200 --> 00:52:36,680 surprising number of places. And I think all of that 872 00:52:36,680 --> 00:52:39,600 contributes in a significant way today. 873 00:52:39,880 --> 00:52:43,320 And it goes back to the fact that we're still so early that 874 00:52:43,320 --> 00:52:48,160 there's so much that actually matters and can, can push the 875 00:52:48,160 --> 00:52:50,760 field forward. But I, I would definitely keep 876 00:52:50,760 --> 00:52:55,560 that in mind about how do you make sure that you're doing work 877 00:52:55,680 --> 00:53:00,280 that ultimately matters. And to me that's about how do 878 00:53:00,280 --> 00:53:03,640 you go build projects and how do you go build policy foundations 879 00:53:03,880 --> 00:53:07,160 and market foundations that are actually going to scale in the 880 00:53:07,160 --> 00:53:11,320 next kind of three to seven-year time window. 881 00:53:11,320 --> 00:53:16,320 And so I think there's a decent amount of activity, just stay at 882 00:53:16,320 --> 00:53:19,480 it and hopefully those opportunities will present 883 00:53:19,480 --> 00:53:22,680 themselves. Sensible advice. 884 00:53:23,280 --> 00:53:25,520 Thanks for coming back on Noah. I don't know why it took so 885 00:53:25,520 --> 00:53:27,280 long. Ross, it's been a pleasure. 886 00:53:27,800 --> 00:53:31,680 Yeah, fewer than eight years. The next time. 887 00:53:32,000 --> 00:53:33,120 Fewer than eight years.