WEBVTT - Carbon removal’s magic number 0:00:01.280 --> 0:00:04.080 Hey, it's Aukshat. I'll be going to COP twenty eight 0:00:04.320 --> 0:00:07.000 in Dubai later this month. I'd love to find a 0:00:07.000 --> 0:00:09.680 way to answer the many questions you may have of 0:00:09.760 --> 0:00:13.360 the United Nations Climate Conference. Check out the show notes 0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:16.680 for details on how to send us your questions. Thanks 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:29.240 for listening. Welcome to Zero. I'm Akshatrati. This week Reduce, reuse, Remove. 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:44.760 The sad reality is that even though the world has 0:00:44.880 --> 0:00:48.000 clear climate goals, it was late in starting to do 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:52.279 something about them. That's why meeting these goals will not 0:00:52.400 --> 0:00:55.640 just mean an end to dumping greenhouse gas emissions, but 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:59.600 also undoing some of that damage by drawing down carbon 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:03.120 diox from the air. That's what we are going to 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:05.920 talk about today. This is the second in a series 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:08.440 that looks at the state of carbon capture and carbon 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:12.800 removal technologies. Last week I talked to Emily Grubert. She's 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:15.880 a professor at Notre Dame University, and we talked about 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:20.039 the potential and limits of technologies that trap emissions before 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:23.640 they exit a smokestack. That type of coin source carbon 0:01:23.680 --> 0:01:26.880 capture is expected to do the heavy lifting as the 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:30.520 world gets close to net zero by twenty fifty. But 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:33.200 as we get closer to that date, which is only 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:36.080 twenty seven years from now, that zero models say that 0:01:36.080 --> 0:01:39.280 carbon removal technologies will have to kick into gear. The 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:43.640 International Energy Agency suggests the world needs one billion tons 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:46.600 of carbon dioxide removed from the air by twenty fifty. 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:50.960 Currently we draw down less than ten thousand tons each year. 0:01:52.080 --> 0:01:55.160 I think it's really indisputable right now that we will 0:01:55.640 --> 0:02:01.080 overrun our climate safety barriers, and because of that we 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:04.600 must be able to remove CO two from the atmosphere. 0:02:04.680 --> 0:02:06.560 You can't have net zero without a negative. 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:11.200 The science is clear industrial carbon removal is a necessary 0:02:11.240 --> 0:02:15.200 part of our climate toolbox. Point source carbon capture is 0:02:15.360 --> 0:02:18.800 cheaper than carbon removal. It costs less than sixty dollars 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:21.559 a ton to stop CO two from entering the atmosphere, 0:02:22.040 --> 0:02:24.680 whereas it costs ten times as much to pull it 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:27.720 back down from the air. If carbon removal is to 0:02:27.760 --> 0:02:31.160 play a meaningful role in reaching climate goals, the cost 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:33.799 has to come down to about one hundred dollars a ton. 0:02:34.520 --> 0:02:37.800 That's how much European companies pay currently for every ton 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:39.520 of CO two pollution they put out. 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:43.680 We're at a point where avoiding emissions since the atmosphere 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:44.960 is no longer enough. 0:02:45.560 --> 0:02:48.959 This is my guest today, Jennifer Wilcox, a professor of 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:52.720 chemical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. She is currently 0:02:52.800 --> 0:02:55.760 on leave from that position to oversee the Office of 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:59.680 Fossil Energy and Carbon Management at the US Department of Energy. 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:03.200 The US government has devoted billions of dollars to scaling 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:07.680 carbon capture technology, and it is now funding carbon removal projects. 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:10.880 I wanted to ask Jen about the US strategy for 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:14.320 getting carbon removal out of the research phase, what happens 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:17.000 if we don't hit the price points we need, and 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:20.200 why for once it was private industry that took the 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:35.440 lead on developing this clean technology. Jen, welcome to the show. 0:03:35.920 --> 0:03:36.720 Thanks for having me. 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:40.680 Let's start with how you got to run the Office 0:03:40.680 --> 0:03:42.880 of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management. 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:47.680 Sure, so, back in twenty twenty, I was approached and 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:51.280 asked if I would be interested in coming into the 0:03:51.680 --> 0:03:55.520 new administration and overseeing the work and the Office of 0:03:55.520 --> 0:03:58.160 Fossil Energy at that time, and so I had to 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:00.880 learn a little bit about what that meant. And my 0:04:00.920 --> 0:04:04.839 background is in chemical engineering and getting excited about how 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:09.960 we separate things like CO two, Whether it's from a 0:04:10.000 --> 0:04:12.400 power plant, or whether it's from a cement plant, or 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:15.120 maybe from the atmosphere, which is a lot more difficult 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:18.039 to do. Back in twenty twelve, I did write a 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:22.840 textbook on carbon capture, and really the reason for me 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:25.680 of doing that is that I felt that there was 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:29.360 a lack of human capital in this space that were 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:32.200 educated in a way that could help to contribute in 0:04:32.240 --> 0:04:36.200 a meaningful approach to helping us to making sure that 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:39.599 we have this in our toolkit as we are trying 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:43.560 to achieve net zero goals. And so when I came 0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:47.279 into the position, one of the asks was how can 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:52.280 we reconcile investments in this space with climate goals. So 0:04:52.320 --> 0:04:56.440 in the first year, we reorganized our entire office and 0:04:56.480 --> 0:04:59.840 we added two keywords carbon management to the office because 0:04:59.839 --> 0:05:01.479 that's big part of what we do. 0:05:02.040 --> 0:05:05.480 Why does having those extra to words, having a sort 0:05:05.480 --> 0:05:07.520 of a new brand so to speak, matter. 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:11.680 Well, because we're at a point where avoiding emissions into 0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:15.680 the atmosphere is no longer enough. And I think, you know, 0:05:15.760 --> 0:05:19.880 previously when we were only fossil energy before this administration, 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:22.400 I think the perspective was more about how do we 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:25.000 make sure that everybody has access to energy in the 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:27.960 United States, not just access to energy, but that that 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:33.120 energy is affordable and it's clean. And carbon management more 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:37.200 broadly has another aspect. Right, It's not just about avoiding 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:42.720 emissions into the atmosphere. It's about recognizing that the accumulated 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:47.680 CO two in the atmosphere is mostly also from legacy 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:52.680 fossil and so recognizing that that should be our mandate too. Right, 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:56.560 as we look at carbon dioxide removal tackling the accumulated 0:05:56.600 --> 0:06:00.120 CO two that's in the atmosphere, that it may make 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:03.960 sense that the Office of Fossil Energy is tackling that 0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:07.960 one because most of it was sourced from hydrocarbons that 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:09.160 we got deep underground. 0:06:09.760 --> 0:06:14.920 In the past decade, we have started talking about carbon removal, 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:18.640 which is, as you said, taking down the legacy emissions 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:22.159 that already exist in the atmosphere. Because we've left the 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:25.279 climate problem so late that to be able to meet 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:27.120 our climate goals, we are going to have to do 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:31.320 some of that carbon removal. And so somebody coming cold 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:36.760 to this subject, how would you separate what is traditional 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:43.240 carbon capture technology versus what is an important and multifaceted 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:46.400 way in which you could actually remove carbon dioxide from 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:46.800 the air. 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:50.280 Yeah, so you know, how do you separate? We have 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:53.160 been also just trying to keep these tools separate as well, 0:06:53.200 --> 0:06:57.000 because they're so easy to conflate. So if you're looking 0:06:57.040 --> 0:06:59.359 at a point source and you're retrofitting it with a 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:03.760 carbon chapter technology, you're avoiding the emissions from ever entering 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:07.560 the atmosphere. We recognize in the United States there's a 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:11.560 concept of committed emissions. A lot of power plants, you know, 0:07:11.600 --> 0:07:14.320 were built thirty plus years ago and they'll probably retire, 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:18.880 especially as we you know, squeeze our wedge of dependence 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:21.760 on fossil energy down and we have so much opportunity 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:25.000 in the United States for renewables, but there are going 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:28.239 to still be some units that are going to continue 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:31.920 to operate on fossil for the unforeseeable future. And what 0:07:32.440 --> 0:07:35.680 we need to think about is that it is cheaper 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:39.480 and easier from an economic perspective to retrofit the units 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:42.679 that are going to persist because they're new coming online 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:45.760 today in some cases. So there's going to be some 0:07:46.080 --> 0:07:49.480 amount of carbon capturing storage that's going to be point source. 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:53.080 And the reason why that's important is because now it 0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:57.200 reduces the burden of carbon removal. When we think of 0:07:57.240 --> 0:07:59.800 carbon removal, you know, we all use it so loosely 0:07:59.800 --> 0:08:01.840 now because we recognize that we have to take CO 0:08:02.040 --> 0:08:05.880 two out of the accumulated pool in the atmosphere. All 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:08.960 climate models tell us we need it, but not we 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:11.480 need it because we're not going to do deep decarbonization 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:14.560 fast enough. We actually need it for truly hard to 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:19.360 decarbonize sectors. We need it for the agricultural sector, We 0:08:19.440 --> 0:08:23.480 need it for aspects of shipping, in aviation that are 0:08:23.520 --> 0:08:26.840 truly hard to decarbonize. And so if we look at 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:30.320 our emissions in the United States, you know, roughly five 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:33.600 and a half to six gigatons of CO two every year, 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:37.240 and when you do the bottom up calculation of thinking 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:40.600 about what's truly truly hard to decarbonize, it still adds 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:44.600 up to a little over a gigaton. So that's carbon removal. 0:08:44.840 --> 0:08:48.200 That's the role of carbon removal is to counterbalance truly 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:52.880 hard to decarbonize sectors, not to counter balance sectors by 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:56.000 which we have technologies that we can decarbonize. 0:08:56.160 --> 0:08:59.600 When you're talking gigatons, you mean billion tons, right, yes, 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:03.560 And when you say truly hard to decarbonize. What's the 0:09:03.800 --> 0:09:07.040 hard part? Is it just we don't know how to 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:11.520 do it, or it's too expensive, or it's politically impossible. 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:12.640 What is hard? 0:09:13.400 --> 0:09:15.360 Hard means it's not ready today. 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:17.880 So it's technologically not ready today. 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:21.880 Well, so technologically not ready, yeah, it's at an R 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:25.400 and D phase, maybe not at the demonstration phase yet, 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:28.760 or there's other reasons too write. So it could also 0:09:28.840 --> 0:09:31.640 be that when you look at the aviation sector, we 0:09:31.720 --> 0:09:35.720 get very excited about sustainable aviation fuel, but the question 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:38.359 is is it going to do it all right? Sustainable 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:41.400 biomass as a feedstock, do we have enough? When do 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:44.920 we start competing for food? And even an aspect of 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:48.720 sustainable aviation is also downstream use of CO two CO 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:52.080 two with clean hydrogen for synthetic fuels that could play 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:54.560 a role, But the question is are we going to 0:09:54.640 --> 0:09:59.679 be able to close that wedge quick enough? And so 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:04.400 it's really unclear even how much carbon removal we're going 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:07.360 to need to offset the truly hard to decarbonize sectors, 0:10:08.120 --> 0:10:10.800 and if we don't invest today, we're just not going 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:12.839 to even have it available to us in time. 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:17.360 Before we discuss the challenge of doing this at scale. 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:21.080 Let's look at what types of technologies are available. It's 0:10:21.080 --> 0:10:25.160 one thing that keeps surprising me. Point source carbon capture 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:29.320 typically does just one thing. A chemical process separates our 0:10:29.440 --> 0:10:33.000 carbon dioxide from a mixture of gases before they go 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:37.000 into a smokestack. Carbon removal can piggyback on that technology. 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:41.080 Swiss startup climb Works uses the same chemical process, but 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:46.240 instead of industrial gases, it uses air as the input. However, 0:10:46.400 --> 0:10:49.920 carbon removal technologies can also get weird. I wrote about 0:10:49.920 --> 0:10:53.320 an Australian startup called inter Earth, which takes trees and 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:57.240 then buries them in highly salty soils. The trees capture 0:10:57.280 --> 0:11:00.480 certo from the air and the salty soils stop it 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:05.680 from degrading, thus carbon removed. Another idea is to use 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:09.520 waste from agriculture, turn it into a carbonaceous black goop 0:11:09.800 --> 0:11:14.480 not unlike oil, then sync that deep underground. That's what 0:11:14.679 --> 0:11:18.120 US startup charm Industrial does, and there are tens of 0:11:18.160 --> 0:11:21.520 other wacky ideas available. It's up to investors and governments 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:24.880 to back the ones that they think are scalable. Carbon 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:28.240 removal startups have received hundreds of millions of dollars in funding. 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:31.959 Most of that has come from private industry. The Frontier Fund, 0:11:32.080 --> 0:11:34.840 led by the payments company Stripe, has promised to buy 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:38.920 one billion dollars of carbon removal. Bill Gates also funds 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:41.640 many of these startups, and he pays for his own 0:11:41.679 --> 0:11:47.240 carbon removal at a price of six hundred dollars a ton. Now, 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:50.960 a lot of the green technologies that got started started 0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:54.800 through government R and D. You know, very early solar 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:58.440 research happened in labs, then it happened in some private industry. 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:03.440 Same thing with battery. Carbon removal technologies, however, have had 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:05.800 a different route. A lot of the scale up that 0:12:05.800 --> 0:12:08.640 has happened in the past decade has been driven by 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:12.840 private industry, even before the government stepped in. You know, 0:12:12.880 --> 0:12:16.600 we had a billion dollar fund launched last year that 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:21.480 is private industry trying to push carbon removal. Why do 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:22.800 you think that is the case? 0:12:23.600 --> 0:12:25.680 I mean, we've seen a lot of corporations that have 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:31.120 announced net zero pledges back got some momentum in the space, 0:12:31.280 --> 0:12:34.960 and the reason is they're recognizing just within their own 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:40.000 framework of their organization that they can control for the 0:12:40.000 --> 0:12:43.079 most part, those Scope one emissions right even Scope two 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:46.959 where they're accessing their electricity from. But when you look 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:53.640 at scope three cement, steel, paper, aviation, food, even some 0:12:53.720 --> 0:12:58.040 of these are very difficult to decarbonize sectors in terms 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:01.360 of a company that wants to reach net zero, they 0:13:01.400 --> 0:13:05.319 can't control those supply streams and they don't exist today 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:08.440 in a low carbon way, and so the only way 0:13:08.800 --> 0:13:12.679 to achieve net zero for those groups was to have 0:13:12.720 --> 0:13:15.840 carbon removal as a tool to counterbalance the scope through 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:19.600 emissions in their portfolio. And so, you know, you started 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:22.800 to see a lot of interest in some of the 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:27.080 forest offset programs. And then the wonderful thing is is 0:13:27.160 --> 0:13:32.800 that these companies also have really thoughtful leadership and recognizing 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:36.679 when you dig into those nature based offsets that are 0:13:36.679 --> 0:13:41.400 available that were not very expensive, that there's not a 0:13:41.400 --> 0:13:44.400 lot of durability in the removal. In fact, a lot 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:48.560 of uncertainty because in some of those nature based approaches too, 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:52.360 you see a lot of reversal carbon sinks that we 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:56.400 rely on even on our climate models becoming carbon sources 0:13:56.520 --> 0:13:59.880 with forest fires. And so that started to bring more 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:04.400 tension to the very few players several years ago in 0:14:04.559 --> 0:14:07.920 terms of the technological approaches to removing carbon from the 0:14:07.960 --> 0:14:13.240 atmosphere and representing a durable approach to carbon removal. 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:16.920 In a way, you are saying, there's the benevolent corporation 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:21.840 that is thinking about climate in a sensible way and realizing, oh, 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:24.360 we have goals. To hit those goals, we're going to 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:27.400 have to do so many things. Reduce our emissions first, 0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:30.560 but then what remains we have to remove and because 0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:34.080 offsets nature based offsets haven't worked out, have been caught 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:37.120 either in a wildfire or in greenwashing, we need to 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:39.960 find more durable ways to do it. There is the 0:14:40.040 --> 0:14:43.360 non benevolent version of the corporation, which is it's there 0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:47.480 to maximize profits, it is there to protect its reputation, 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:51.800 and it is making sure that through these small investments 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:54.560 here or there, which sound like big numbers given the 0:14:54.640 --> 0:14:57.960 relative scale of the industry, they're sort of getting away 0:14:58.000 --> 0:15:01.280 with it. They're dealing the inn which is to reduce 0:15:01.320 --> 0:15:05.200 their emissions really drastically this decade, but instead telling you 0:15:05.280 --> 0:15:06.920 we're doing the right thing, we're going to invest in 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:09.800 the right solutions, how do we handle the sort of 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:14.000 moral hazard problem that carbon removal technologies throw at you, 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:17.680 which is, yes, science says it's needed, it's good to 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:20.800 invest in them, but aren't we using it as an 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:23.120 excuse to not reduce emissions today. 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:26.880 Yeah, I saw that too, and so one of the 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:30.400 things that we've been doing is, as you know, and 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:33.120 we'll talk probably about the infrastructure law dollars in a 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:39.680 little bit, but there's dollars within that legislation that allows 0:15:39.760 --> 0:15:44.560 us to invest in the point source capture, decarbonizing facilities, 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:47.840 and just focusing on industry for a minute, when you 0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:53.480 look at Scope three emissions of some of these groups cement, paper, steel, 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:58.120 it's a lot cheaper to invest in decarbonizing those industries 0:15:58.280 --> 0:16:01.120 than it is to use carbon remove to offset. But 0:16:01.160 --> 0:16:04.600 the reality is is that CO two capture has not 0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:09.480 been demonstrated on those facilities yet. So we have the 0:16:09.520 --> 0:16:13.480 Petronova example. We have another example where we can make 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:17.960 hydrogen through steam methane reforming with carbon capture. We certainly 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:21.280 know how to take CO two out of the fermentation 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:25.600 process of bioethanol. So we have some great examples to 0:16:25.640 --> 0:16:28.160 point to where we've tested that technology and it works 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:31.000 for those cases, but we still need to demonstrate it 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:33.160 on a blast furnace, as a steel plant and out 0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:35.560 of paper mill and things like that. And so we 0:16:35.720 --> 0:16:37.920 have funding to be able to do that. 0:16:44.960 --> 0:16:47.800 After the break, we get into the numbers. How much 0:16:47.840 --> 0:16:50.840 does the US spend on carbon removal and what happens 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:52.960 if we don't get the price down to one hundred 0:16:52.960 --> 0:17:08.440 dollars a ton. So let's just talk numbers the government 0:17:08.760 --> 0:17:12.240 programs and the money that's being spent. Let's just start 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:16.040 with the big programs that are in play after you 0:17:16.080 --> 0:17:17.040 got into office. 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:21.200 So here we've been talking about carbon removals. We'll start there. 0:17:21.240 --> 0:17:24.520 So we have three point five billion dollars to develop 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:29.240 build out four director capture hubs, each capable of removing 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:31.960 a million tons of SEO two per year, and we 0:17:32.119 --> 0:17:35.760 recently awarded two demonstrations. 0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:40.160 Those two hubs will back two different types of technologies. First, 0:17:40.200 --> 0:17:44.200 we'll see carbon Engineering working with Occidental Petroleum to trap 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:48.120 ZEO two using liquid chemicals. The other one we'll have 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:51.119 Airloom working with climb Works doing the same but with 0:17:51.280 --> 0:17:52.920 solid absorbents instead. 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:57.479 And then what's also exciting is recognizing that there's just 0:17:57.520 --> 0:18:01.160 such a portfolio of technologies at different stages of readiness today, 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:05.600 and we wanted to make sure that we're also investing 0:18:05.640 --> 0:18:10.199 in all those ideas and across the United States, and 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:15.159 so We also awarded roughly twenty projects at concept in 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:18.240 front and engineering design at one hundred million dollars collectively, 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:21.960 recognizing that these are systems that are going to be 0:18:21.960 --> 0:18:24.760 outside and in the elements, right, so how are they 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:28.200 going to perform based upon different conditions across the United States? 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:31.160 And what energy resources are they coupling too in order 0:18:31.200 --> 0:18:32.520 to maximize carbon removal. 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:36.840 The energy equation is stark. Removing one ton of carbon 0:18:36.840 --> 0:18:41.800 dioxide using directair capture can take anywhere between a thousand 0:18:42.040 --> 0:18:46.679 and two thousand kilowot hours of energy. That is roughly 0:18:46.760 --> 0:18:50.800 between four to eight months of electricity that I'm consuming 0:18:50.840 --> 0:18:53.760 with my wife in a London flat. It's a lot 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:58.840 of electricity. How are we going to justify requiring the 0:18:58.880 --> 0:19:03.440 buildout of so much energy infrastructure that we already are 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:06.840 doing to try and replace fossil fuel energy infrastructure, but 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:09.360 we are going to require even more in addition. 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:11.479 Yeah, I mean, I think that's why we have to 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:16.200 think about these first of a kind projects as responsible 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:19.159 projects that we can do in a meaningful way that 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:21.399 can serve as examples for the end of a kind. 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:26.360 And one example is citing in a way that you're 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:30.200 not competing for low carbon energy that would otherwise go 0:19:30.760 --> 0:19:35.080 for decarbonizing fossil power for instance, that needs to be prioritized. 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:39.920 Now, there are various estimates of the cost of carbon removal. 0:19:40.160 --> 0:19:42.960 One from Howard Herdzock at MIT, who's been a long 0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:46.680 time researcher in this space, comes between six hundred dollars 0:19:46.760 --> 0:19:49.560 and a thousand dollars a ton. One from David Keith 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:52.680 at Howard, who also is the founder of Carbon Engineering, 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:55.000 which is one of the companies that got the award 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:58.520 for our Director Capture Hub alongside others, has put it 0:19:58.600 --> 0:20:01.240 between three hundred dollars and four and twenty five dollars 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:04.159 a ton. The goal eventually is to try and get 0:20:04.200 --> 0:20:06.200 it all down to one hundred dollars a ton, sort 0:20:06.200 --> 0:20:09.280 of a realistic number. That's about how much the carbon 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:13.240 price is right now here in Europe, for example. How 0:20:13.320 --> 0:20:18.840 realistic is that aim, because yes, we've seen cost declines 0:20:18.880 --> 0:20:22.320 in green technologies for solar, for wind, for batteries for 0:20:22.400 --> 0:20:25.840 electric cars, but they have come because of what is 0:20:25.960 --> 0:20:30.240 unit economics. They make millions of the same thing again 0:20:30.280 --> 0:20:33.000 and again, and they reduce the price. In direct air 0:20:33.080 --> 0:20:36.160 capture or carbon removal, you could get some unit economics, 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:39.680 but we're still not talking millions of them. So how 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:43.840 realistic do you think is the priced target that we 0:20:43.960 --> 0:20:45.520 have for carbon removal? 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:49.560 So the idea with the carbon negative shot and that 0:20:49.560 --> 0:20:52.399 that is what we're investing in DOE and not just 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:54.919 our office, but our EA is part of the Office 0:20:54.960 --> 0:20:57.960 of Science and eer E, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, 0:20:58.400 --> 0:21:04.240 but our four offices of together to invest our base 0:21:04.240 --> 0:21:08.120 appropriations across R and D to be able to get 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:12.120 to first of a kind demonstrations. So in that space, 0:21:12.480 --> 0:21:16.239 we are estimating that if we invest and get to 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:19.800 the scale of millions and tons of removal per year. 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:23.919 Once we hit millions of tons per year removals, we 0:21:23.960 --> 0:21:25.960 will get down that cost curve with a target of 0:21:25.960 --> 0:21:29.320 one hundred dollars per ton. But to be honest, we 0:21:29.359 --> 0:21:32.280 don't know that until we build you know, more thousands 0:21:32.280 --> 0:21:34.760 of tons of removal. You know, that's where we're at today. 0:21:35.000 --> 0:21:37.680 We need to get three more zeros in. We need 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:40.120 to get to millions, and I think at that millions, 0:21:40.440 --> 0:21:43.399 once we're actually operating that facility and we are transparent 0:21:43.480 --> 0:21:47.399 and true about the cost, we'll learn from that experience. 0:21:47.520 --> 0:21:50.120 Right If it's six hundred dollars a ton, if it's 0:21:50.359 --> 0:21:53.440 three hundred dollars a ton, and then the idea, though, 0:21:53.560 --> 0:21:56.720 is to not just stop there. The idea is to 0:21:56.840 --> 0:22:02.159 usher a new generation of direct dere capture technologies to 0:22:02.240 --> 0:22:06.119 be able to be on the pipeline of more demonstrations. 0:22:06.400 --> 0:22:09.160 It may not be that one, right, that first one 0:22:09.160 --> 0:22:10.000 that they all look like. 0:22:11.320 --> 0:22:14.160 There are a lot of things in net zero scenario 0:22:14.280 --> 0:22:16.560 that we have to think about, and we can't always 0:22:16.600 --> 0:22:18.720 have faith in all those things. We can't have faith 0:22:18.760 --> 0:22:22.120 in politics, it may swing here or there. We can't 0:22:22.160 --> 0:22:25.439 have faith in economics and finance, it may swing here 0:22:25.520 --> 0:22:28.240 or there. Technology is one that we can have a 0:22:28.240 --> 0:22:30.480 little more faith in because we understand the science, we 0:22:30.520 --> 0:22:32.960 know some of the history, et cetera. But say we 0:22:33.119 --> 0:22:37.040 don't reach the one hundred dollars per ton target number, 0:22:38.040 --> 0:22:39.640 what happens to carbon removal? Then? 0:22:40.080 --> 0:22:42.720 I think it depends too on what are the other 0:22:42.800 --> 0:22:46.000 options that are cheaper. We talked about what truly hard 0:22:46.000 --> 0:22:49.040 to decarbonize means. So when we get to the point 0:22:49.040 --> 0:22:51.680 we cross that, and we'll call it a finish line, 0:22:51.680 --> 0:22:54.679 it's more of like a water station stop or something 0:22:54.800 --> 0:22:57.240 like when we get there at that millions of tons 0:22:58.000 --> 0:23:00.119 of removal, because we still need three more zeros to 0:23:00.119 --> 0:23:01.880 get to a billion or a gig a ton, Right, 0:23:01.960 --> 0:23:04.800 So it's like, once we get there, if we're only 0:23:04.880 --> 0:23:09.000 say at millions of tons of removal, and we haven't 0:23:09.040 --> 0:23:12.080 hit one hundred dollars mark, and we look at what 0:23:12.200 --> 0:23:16.960 we're trying to counterbalance, we might have to need more 0:23:17.040 --> 0:23:21.440 policy to further incentivize direct air capture. I don't think 0:23:21.440 --> 0:23:23.800 it's the policy that's going to get us to the 0:23:23.840 --> 0:23:26.480 finish line. I think it's the policy that's going to 0:23:26.640 --> 0:23:29.160 probably get us to the millions of tons of removal. 0:23:29.800 --> 0:23:32.119 And that sort of speaks to the importance of having 0:23:32.119 --> 0:23:35.400 a portfolio approach to try and tackle this problem. That 0:23:35.440 --> 0:23:38.359 you're not betting on one technology or one horse or 0:23:38.400 --> 0:23:41.960 even one company do get us there. Now, if you 0:23:42.440 --> 0:23:45.760 were to think about the criticisms that come your way 0:23:46.600 --> 0:23:49.080 for doing the work that you're doing, what do you 0:23:49.119 --> 0:23:53.119 think is the biggest criticism of your own work? Maybe 0:23:53.160 --> 0:23:55.719 an unreasonable one and maybe a reasonable one. 0:23:56.320 --> 0:24:00.920 Yeah, that's a great question. I do feel right now 0:24:01.400 --> 0:24:05.320 a lot of criticisms in this space, in part because 0:24:05.359 --> 0:24:08.800 maybe of the version one point zero of what carbon 0:24:08.840 --> 0:24:12.480 management look like. And I think we have so many 0:24:12.520 --> 0:24:18.760 solutions that we are leaning on fossil energy companies to 0:24:19.600 --> 0:24:22.119 be there with us as kind of part of the solution, 0:24:22.320 --> 0:24:24.840 but at the same time they haven't always been good 0:24:24.840 --> 0:24:28.280 stewards or good players on their word, and so it 0:24:28.320 --> 0:24:32.080