Full Transcript for Carbon Removal’s Real Bottleneck Isn’t Technology. It’s Demand.

00:04:51.317 --> 00:05:00.899 And sort of the, positives there are that it most likely is storing carbon dioxide for very long periods of time. 00:05:01.500 --> 00:05:06.019 The challenge around enhanced rock weathering is really around the, modelling side. 00:05:06.076 --> 00:05:10.367 So when I was talking about nature-based solutions, right, there was two questions around nature-based solutions. 00:05:10.367 --> 00:05:12.166 One is, how much have I captured? 00:05:12.166 --> 00:05:13.547 And two, for how long? 00:05:13.997 --> 00:05:21.076 In the case of enhanced rock weathering, you're able to answer the how long question quite confidently, the how much question. 00:05:21.406 --> 00:05:22.247 It's a model. 00:05:22.247 --> 00:05:30.199 I'm not suggesting that it's, not, capturing CO2 because I, I firmly believe it is, but it's, a difficult technology to directly measure. 00:05:30.199 --> 00:05:34.536 You have to rely on a model and if you're modelling, you introduce some degree of uncertainty. 00:05:35.644 --> 00:05:35.855 Okay. 00:05:35.855 --> 00:05:36.305 Fair enough. 00:05:36.425 --> 00:05:36.845 Fair enough. 00:05:37.285 --> 00:05:38.454 Let's get straight to the tension. 00:05:38.454 --> 00:05:42.954 'cause carbon removal is exciting, but it's also controversial. 00:05:42.954 --> 00:05:48.115 You, you know, a lot of people hear carbon credits and think that it's a licence to pollute. 00:05:48.485 --> 00:05:50.134 Where is that criticism right? 00:05:51.382 --> 00:06:00.012 Well, I think there's a, couple of, ways of thinking about this and talking about this, and I'm just going to, speak from my own perspective here. 00:06:00.103 --> 00:06:16.855 So I've been in the carbon management business for more than 15 years at this point in time and have been working climate change arena more broadly, more than 20, maybe even close to 25 years at this point in time. 00:06:17.095 --> 00:06:24.103 And so what that's taught me, those last, couple of decades of experience is the need for pragmatism. 00:06:24.432 --> 00:06:24.853 Okay. 00:06:24.853 --> 00:06:35.255 I think the more ideologically pure or however you want to, characterise it, can often stand in the, in the way of just, practical progress, right? 00:06:35.255 --> 00:06:51.499 And so, if we get into an argument about like, okay, should we abate everything and then only remove, once we're, we have abated everything, then we've kind of just let ideology, come before practical considerations. 00:06:51.499 --> 00:07:02.196 And so my own view of this is, of course we need to abate, we need to abate as much as possible, but we also need to remove, okay, so that's the broad setup. 00:07:02.196 --> 00:07:02.406 Now. 00:07:02.406 --> 00:07:04.896 Let's go a little bit deeper into that question. 00:07:05.105 --> 00:07:08.706 And so, because there two things become really important. 00:07:08.886 --> 00:07:11.766 One is the cost per tonne of CO2. 00:07:12.096 --> 00:07:24.517 I very much believe that, all of carbon, you know, management abatement and removal needs to be investigated on a dollar per tonne of CO2 how much does it cost to do it? 00:07:24.517 --> 00:07:28.696 And also just technological pragmatism question, like how hard is it to do it? 00:07:28.696 --> 00:07:33.730 What is the natural replacement cycle of a particular you know, emitting facility? 00:07:33.781 --> 00:07:42.017 There's a lot of considerations around the feasibility of, taking a tonne of CO2, either, not emitting it or removing it from the atmosphere. 00:07:42.017 --> 00:07:47.464 So I would just characterise that broadly as cost and, technological feasibility. 00:07:48.274 --> 00:07:51.449 I think that's a very important consideration. 00:07:51.586 --> 00:07:55.456 And then I think we also need to think about what I call the time value of carbon. 00:07:55.636 --> 00:07:55.935 Right. 00:07:55.935 --> 00:08:08.432 And that is that, a tonne of CO2 emitted today is basically adding to the overall insulating effect around the planet that's effectively trapping more heat that heat's largely getting stored in the ocean. 00:08:08.432 --> 00:08:17.543 So, either abating or removing a tonne of CO2 today versus 25 or 50 years from now, there's much more value in doing it today. 00:08:17.853 --> 00:08:26.386 So that's kind of what I would characterise as kind of like a, techno economic analysis meets a climate change, scientific perspective. 00:08:26.386 --> 00:08:30.745 And then, so to bring those two together, yes, I do think we need to abate. 00:08:31.485 --> 00:08:40.066 I also think we need to remove, and I think the curve that we should be building for ourselves is effectively a supply curve of blended abatement and removal. 00:08:40.336 --> 00:08:43.576 That is looking at how much does it cost, how soon can you do it? 00:08:43.576 --> 00:08:46.005 Do those first things, lowest cost things first. 00:08:47.288 --> 00:08:52.614 And should removals only be used for residual emissions after deep cuts or, how do you. 00:08:53.777 --> 00:08:55.307 I don't really see it like that. 00:08:55.307 --> 00:09:01.047 I mean, it's not to, kind of challenge the orthodoxy you know, should we abate first or should we remove first? 00:09:01.047 --> 00:09:09.970 I just think that's an ideological perspective, and I have a practical perspective on this, and I think the, practical perspective is we need to address climate change. 00:09:09.970 --> 00:09:13.629 The way you address climate change is you lower the atmospheric concentrations of CO2. 00:09:14.500 --> 00:09:20.604 The way you do that, in the fastest and most economically efficient manner is do what I was just describing. 00:09:20.754 --> 00:09:28.104 And that is essentially take the technologies that are lowest cost today, that are feasible today, and do those. 00:09:28.283 --> 00:09:36.402 And then, take the technologies next step on the, the supply curve, if you will, and do those technologies tomorrow or next year, right?

00:09:36.402 --> 00:09:46.279 The idea is like you're building, a abatement slash removal curve that is based upon technical feasibility and cost and not on ideology. 00:09:47.528 --> 00:09:50.227 There's a real fault line in that answer. 00:09:51.187 --> 00:09:57.427 Barclay isn't saying removal should wait until every feasible emissions cut has been exhausted. 00:09:57.548 --> 00:10:03.128 He's arguing that abatement and removal should compete on cost, feasibility, and timing. 00:10:04.087 --> 00:10:07.927 That's a contested framing and it leads to the next question. 00:10:08.498 --> 00:10:13.538 Even if you accept it, can removals scale to something that matters? 00:10:14.296 --> 00:10:22.186 You announced recently a deal with JP Morgan removing 60,000 tonnes over 10 years. 00:10:23.005 --> 00:10:30.225 That's obviously commercially very important, but climatically, it's insignificant, I would think. 00:10:30.885 --> 00:10:35.625 What has to be true for this to scale to something that matters? 00:10:36.596 --> 00:10:37.706 Yeah, it's a great question. 00:10:37.706 --> 00:10:40.548 And I think, there's a lot of ways of looking at this. 00:10:40.548 --> 00:10:40.938 Okay. 00:10:40.938 --> 00:10:47.269 But I think the, the way that, I look at it is really from that kind of practical perspective, right? 00:10:47.269 --> 00:10:51.461 And the practical pieces are number one, does your technology work? 00:10:51.610 --> 00:10:56.392 So you need to build a, either removal or abatement technology for that, for what it's worth, right? 00:10:56.392 --> 00:10:57.125 That works, right? 00:10:57.125 --> 00:11:03.339 That actually keeps, CO2 from entering the atmosphere or is able to remove that tonne of CO2 from the atmosphere. 00:11:03.668 --> 00:11:06.129 And then second is you need paying customers. 00:11:06.188 --> 00:11:10.830 You need someone who is willing, to pay you to provide that service, right? 00:11:10.830 --> 00:11:22.203 And so, you know, I think any, certainly any startup executive, any kind of practical minded business person is going to say, that's how you build a company is you build a technology that works and you find people that are willing to pay for it. 00:11:22.610 --> 00:11:27.259 And what would you think, what will break first at scale? 00:11:27.440 --> 00:11:28.610 Would it be feedstock? 00:11:29.059 --> 00:11:29.659 Land? 00:11:29.690 --> 00:11:30.440 Capital? 00:11:30.620 --> 00:11:31.279 Policy? 00:11:31.309 --> 00:11:32.059 Monitoring? 00:11:32.389 --> 00:11:33.350 Community trust? 00:11:33.620 --> 00:11:34.460 Something else? 00:11:34.610 --> 00:11:35.299 All of the above? 00:11:36.145 --> 00:11:36.566 Yeah. 00:11:36.566 --> 00:11:43.702 So, you know, I think, again, I'll come back to the Carbon Casting process and let me just describe it in a couple of practical steps. 00:11:43.702 --> 00:11:46.072 'cause then I can answer your question much more directly. 00:11:46.222 --> 00:11:50.393 So the, process is using byproducts of agriculture and timber. 00:11:50.452 --> 00:11:53.962 So again, think of things like rice hulls from the agricultural context. 00:11:54.352 --> 00:11:58.903 Think of things like sawdust and bark and things like that from the timber context. 00:11:58.994 --> 00:12:07.602 So that, material in the United States, there's about 1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents every year that's effectively lost. 00:12:07.663 --> 00:12:10.482 That is in the kind of the biomass residual category. 00:12:10.753 --> 00:12:14.863 We have a billion tonnes CO2 of material sitting around. 00:12:15.043 --> 00:12:17.743 It is unutilised and in it returns to the atmosphere. 00:12:17.743 --> 00:12:20.130 It's either burned or simply decomposes. 00:12:20.130 --> 00:12:24.421 So that gives you some sense of the, the scale with that's in the United States alone. 00:12:24.740 --> 00:12:29.480 You scale that up globally and you're into the, the many billions of tonnes of CO2 equivalents, per year. 00:12:29.874 --> 00:12:33.323 So that's on the side of the feed stocks, right? 00:12:33.323 --> 00:12:37.630 And the amount of carbon captured, naturally in these sort of timber and agriculture industries. 00:12:38.566 --> 00:12:43.043 Now, just to walk through what we do and, and how we do it. 00:12:43.043 --> 00:12:54.663 So that material, that causes biomass to break down, that causes the CO2 and or the carbon within biomass to be released back into the atmosphere is effectively microbial decomposition. 00:12:54.693 --> 00:12:57.634 Little bugs essentially go in and eat the carbon, and excrete it. 00:12:57.716 --> 00:13:00.693 And that's how the carbon returns back to the atmosphere. 00:13:00.903 --> 00:13:09.783 So our technology, what we call Carbon Casting, essentially rests on the basic idea that microbes, like all living organisms need water to live. 00:13:09.783 --> 00:13:15.822 If you're able to dry the biomass below a certain moisture content, you halt microbial decomposition. 00:13:16.697 --> 00:13:22.817 Once that is stopped, you've effectively permanently captured that carbon and kept it from reentering the atmosphere. 00:13:23.051 --> 00:13:24.985 So that's the kind of the, principles. 00:13:25.316 --> 00:13:28.927 Lots of, carbon dioxide equivalents and biomass residuals. 00:13:29.647 --> 00:13:34.206 Relatively straightforward scientific principle of how to keep that from returning to the atmosphere. 00:13:34.356 --> 00:13:36.126 Now how do we do it? 00:13:36.157 --> 00:13:36.417 Right? 00:13:36.547 --> 00:13:41.131 So what we do is we take, essentially waste streams, from agriculture, and timber. 00:13:41.162 --> 00:13:43.861 I'll use our project in Arkansas as a practical example. 00:13:44.192 --> 00:13:47.552 They're growing rice, they're milling the rice for human consumption. 00:13:47.552 --> 00:13:51.086 The husk around the rice grain you can't eat that. 00:13:51.086 --> 00:13:52.346 So they remove that husk. 00:13:52.418 --> 00:13:53.467 That becomes a

byproduct. 00:13:53.467 --> 00:13:54.847 We take that as a feedstock. 00:13:55.207 --> 00:14:02.471 We dry that material down, we grind it up, we compress it essentially to allow for greater density. 00:14:02.471 --> 00:14:04.990 Then we encase it in a waterproof barrier. 00:14:05.770 --> 00:14:08.380 At that point, we have dry encased biomass. 00:14:08.380 --> 00:14:10.931 You've essentially captured the carbon at that point in time. 00:14:11.350 --> 00:14:14.831 Now we go to the permanent storage side of the equation. 00:14:14.951 --> 00:14:22.716 And so what we do there is we go to the again, this is all about making use of underutilised assets within the natural resource economy. 00:14:22.716 --> 00:14:29.967 So in this case, we're going to the mining industry now, so going to former essentially exhausted surface mines. 00:14:29.967 --> 00:14:36.581 Things like limestone quarries, gravel pits, things along those lines is what I, like to call existing holes in the ground. 00:14:36.760 --> 00:14:43.392 So we go to those existing holes in the ground, essentially abandoned lands, and we effectively refill them, right? 00:14:43.392 --> 00:14:46.001 And we do so in a very controlled way. 00:14:46.062 --> 00:14:51.522 So we're taking lessons effectively from the waste management industry, you know, reversing that process. 00:14:51.522 --> 00:14:56.892 So we go to that existing hole, we line it with a waterproof barrier on the bottom. 00:14:57.162 --> 00:15:00.042 We place the dry encased biomass on top of that liner. 00:15:00.251 --> 00:15:09.636 We place another liner on top of that, sealing it, effectively creating what I call a layer cake as we refill that hole and permanently storing, that carbon. 00:15:09.933 --> 00:15:19.596 And just for what it's worth, when we're done with the essentially what we would call the sequestration site, so the former mine that we have refilled, we create a park, right? 00:15:19.596 --> 00:15:27.067 So we u reutilise the surface of that either for a park or, a solar facility or some other public benefit asset. 00:15:27.067 --> 00:15:28.206 Could be wildlife habitat. 00:15:28.206 --> 00:15:31.042 It depends a lot on, the particulars of the project. 00:15:31.402 --> 00:15:31.611 Okay? 00:15:31.611 --> 00:15:35.114 So that's the process that we would call Carbon Casting. 00:15:35.474 --> 00:15:39.988 Now, let's go to your questions of what are the key impediments to scale. 00:15:41.144 --> 00:15:41.443 Okay? 00:15:41.443 --> 00:15:42.988 Number one, I'm gonna just answer them. 00:15:43.033 --> 00:15:50.274 The ones that are not okay, I will ultimately answer the one that is right, but the ones that are not, the technology is proven. 00:15:50.653 --> 00:15:51.014 Okay? 00:15:51.014 --> 00:15:53.923 So we're currently issuing credits today. 00:15:53.991 --> 00:15:57.350 We've issued, approaching 20,000 credits thus far. 00:15:57.350 --> 00:16:03.995 So in the durable carbon removal space, that's among the larger you

know, we are among the larger issuers of carbon credits. 00:16:03.995 --> 00:16:05.044 So the technology works. 00:16:05.044 --> 00:16:06.784 So that's not an impediment to scaling. 00:16:07.455 --> 00:16:10.784 The biomass material is not the constraining resource either. 00:16:11.144 --> 00:16:12.825 Jump over to the land. 00:16:12.876 --> 00:16:14.767 The, the sequestration site. 00:16:14.767 --> 00:16:18.538 Number one, we're taking, you know, these former, mining assets, right? 00:16:18.538 --> 00:16:22.948 And turning them into public benefit assets and of doing carbon removal along the way. 00:16:23.716 --> 00:16:29.746 And two is the amount of, carbon that we can store per unit, area of land is very high. 00:16:30.047 --> 00:16:30.287 Okay? 00:16:30.287 --> 00:16:41.080 So we're able to store, depends a little bit on the specifics of, a given site, but somewhere to 25 to 50,000 tonnes of CO2 per acre of land, okay? 00:16:41.080 --> 00:16:46.582 And so you're able to store significant amounts of carbon in relatively small areas. 00:16:46.673 --> 00:16:48.923 So you're also not land constrained. 00:16:49.462 --> 00:16:52.913 So, so it's not technology, it's not biomass, it's not land. 00:16:52.913 --> 00:16:55.732 What it is is it's demand constraint. 00:16:55.883 --> 00:16:58.352 How much are people willing to buy? 00:16:58.547 --> 00:17:02.068 The types of, prices that durable carbon removal commands. 00:17:03.018 --> 00:17:07.548 After all that process detail, the important claim is simple. 00:17:08.307 --> 00:17:13.577 Barclay says the bottleneck isn't biomass, land, or the core technology. 00:17:14.087 --> 00:17:14.897 It's demand. 00:17:15.798 --> 00:17:20.867 That's Graphyte's view and some of the numbers behind it deserve verification. 00:17:20.928 --> 00:17:28.397 But even if the inputs are available on paper, what happens when you actually build the thing? 00:17:29.208 --> 00:17:31.607 What gets difficult in the real world? 00:17:32.221 --> 00:17:33.421 A few things, right? 00:17:33.421 --> 00:17:37.567 Is, every business is going to have its challenges. 00:17:37.567 --> 00:17:44.317 And I think every manufacturing process is going to have unanticipated challenges. 00:17:44.347 --> 00:17:44.647 Okay? 00:17:44.647 --> 00:17:47.884 You, you lay it all out on paper, it looks great, this thing's gonna work perfectly. 00:17:48.067 --> 00:17:53.827 Then you turn it on and you realise, oh, this machine doesn't connect to that machine, so smoothly. 00:17:54.008 --> 00:18:00.211 And so I think that is, true in any technology, certainly in any carbon removal technology. 00:18:00.931 --> 00:18:07.644 Now, that said, I'm gonna talk about how that's a little bit of an asset for, Graphyte and our Carbon Casting process. 00:18:08.048 --> 00:18:17.250 And the reason is, is I, spent a long time in the startup world, and one of the edicts from the startup world in the software space is just always ship, product, right? 00:18:17.250 --> 00:18:22.993 As like, get your code out there and it's not meant to be proud of, but you can fix it later, right? 00:18:22.999 --> 00:18:25.814 It's like get, you know, deploy and then, debug, right? 00:18:25.846 --> 00:18:33.597 And that, you know, has been a dominating sort of thesis around the, certainly the startup space in the software world for a very long time. 00:18:34.077 --> 00:18:44.778 Now, what's challenging with that in most carbon removal is the CapEx for the, the capital expenses for the facilities is often, hundreds of millions of dollars. 00:18:44.816 --> 00:18:49.638 So it's very hard to, ship and, and debug, right? 00:18:49.638 --> 00:18:53.851 If you, have a hundred million or 200 or $500 million facility. 00:18:54.330 --> 00:19:02.010 Now, in our case, and this is why again, I think it's somewhat of an attribute for us, is our CapEx for our facilities is relatively small. 00:19:02.010 --> 00:19:08.401 It's 10 to $15 million per 50,000 tonne CO2 per year line, okay? 00:19:08.401 --> 00:19:09.300 Kind of All in. 00:19:09.300 --> 00:19:16.528 You could build a 50,000 tonne per year CO2 removal, project for on the order of 10 to $15 million. 00:19:16.798 --> 00:19:26.698 And so what that means is we can build it and then we can realise, oh wait, that machine doesn't connect with that machine quite so well, it's not a $10 million mistake. 00:19:26.698 --> 00:19:31.647 It's not a million dollar mistake, it's a 50 or a hundred thousand dollars mistake that you can fix. 00:19:31.738 --> 00:19:32.127 Okay? 00:19:32.127 --> 00:19:34.198 And so I really like that. 00:19:34.198 --> 00:19:41.212 I like the fact that we were able to deploy, ship, ship, ship, if you will, and then we can fix our problems along the way. 00:19:41.212 --> 00:19:43.240 I think that, is a real attribute for us. 00:19:43.240 --> 00:19:55.347 And honestly, something that has, you know, stood in the way of many decarbonisation activities is you spend all of your time planning and you never actually build anything, right? 00:19:55.617 --> 00:20:00.123 In our case, we're able to build, improve, innovate, build the next one. 00:20:01.263 --> 00:20:13.503 There's a point here that's easy to miss if Barclay's CapEx numbers are right, lower cost isn't just an economics advantage, it's a learning speed advantage. 00:20:14.074 --> 00:20:21.604 You can build, find the weak points, fix them, and build again without every mistake becoming existential. 00:20:22.594 --> 00:20:28.588 But fast iteration only matters if the underlying removal can be measured and trusted. 00:20:30.211 --> 00:20:34.820 I read a bit about Project Loblolly, which is giving you monitoring data. 00:20:35.500 --> 00:20:40.201 Obviously, for people who are listening, they won't know about this, so can you talk to us a little bit about that? 00:20:40.621 --> 00:20:43.330 How you're getting real monitoring data and what it taught you? 00:20:43.940 --> 00:20:44.240 Yeah. 00:20:44.240 --> 00:20:46.574 So,

measurement, reporting and verification. 00:20:46.574 --> 00:20:48.074 The acronym is, MRV. 00:20:48.210 --> 00:20:50.910 Now come back to Graphyte and our Carbon Casting process. 00:20:51.269 --> 00:20:59.365 Our MRV system is as good as I will, in fact argue better, but as good as geologic sequestration of CO2. 00:20:59.605 --> 00:21:04.634 And the reason is, is we're able to directly measure the amount of carbon in the biomass material. 00:21:04.704 --> 00:21:09.611 So you know, for certain how much carbon is in the material, you have the direct weight of that material. 00:21:09.654 --> 00:21:15.295 So it's very simple arithmetic to go from mass times carbon content to get to CO2 equivalent. 00:21:15.295 --> 00:21:20.035 So very high degree of certainty with respect to the amount of carbon that has been captured. 00:21:20.335 --> 00:21:26.738 Now, just go to the call that the M you know, in, MRV, now go to the V the verification. 00:21:27.127 --> 00:21:37.015 In our case, I described our sequestration site before the former mine that we've effectively engineered a layer cake by sort of storing that encased carbon encased biomass. 00:21:37.015 --> 00:21:39.375 In these, zones, one on top of the other. 00:21:39.585 --> 00:21:42.795 Each one of those zones is a hermetically sealed chamber. 00:21:43.125 --> 00:21:50.414 It's effectively, you've at a bottom liner, you've placed a biomass, you've placed a top liner, you've welded those two closed. 00:21:50.684 --> 00:21:53.595 I jokingly refer to this as the world's largest Ziploc bag. 00:21:53.595 --> 00:22:02.248 But the idea is that you've, created a, a sealed chamber, and within that chamber we have gas collection pipes. 00:22:02.548 --> 00:22:10.528 So within that zone where we have stored that biomass, we are collecting you know, entombed gases, if you will, right? 00:22:10.554 --> 00:22:18.448 So we're measuring the amount of CO2, we're measuring the amount of methane, we're measuring the temperature and pressure and other sort of indicators of any activities. 00:22:18.718 --> 00:22:35.698 And we were able to conclusively show that that carbon that is in that biomass that was stored in that chamber is not off gassing, it is not releasing CO2 or methane providing conclusive evidence that the carbon that was captured by the plant is not returning to the atmosphere. 00:22:36.825 --> 00:22:40.144 And what have you learned from coming up with this process? 00:22:40.613 --> 00:22:47.304 There's many things that I, I have learned, I'll take this in a somewhat, maybe interesting direction. 00:22:47.574 --> 00:22:56.104 And so I think many people focused in the carbon space, many, climate change oriented you know, we think a lot about science. 00:22:56.104 --> 00:22:57.634 We think a lot about technology. 00:22:57.634 --> 00:23:00.664 We might even think a lot about, finance and economics. 00:23:00.664 --> 00:23:04.204 But what we often don't think enough about is project development. 00:23:04.505 --> 00:23:09.244 That is, if you're going to decarbonise the economy, you have to build things, okay? 00:23:09.244 --> 00:23:14.914 And if you're going to build things, you need to build things in places where people want you to build them, right? 00:23:14.914 --> 00:23:20.017 And you see this time and time again, that new technologies, crop up. 00:23:20.646 --> 00:23:27.696 People don't invest enough in understanding, getting to know, showing some real benefits to the local communities. 00:23:27.757 --> 00:23:28.567 And guess what? 00:23:28.596 --> 00:23:30.696 The local communities fight back, right? 00:23:30.696 --> 00:23:32.076 And that slows your progress. 00:23:32.076 --> 00:23:53.289 And so, you know, one of the things that we have done at Graphyte, I have spent, as I mentioned earlier, roughly 20 years in the decarbonisation space, is we focus a lot on getting to know the local community, communicating with them what we're doing, so that when it comes time to build a project, to, get a permit, they know who we are, they know what we do. 00:23:53.559 --> 00:23:56.959 And it doesn't engender a lot of, public opposition to our projects. 00:23:56.959 --> 00:24:02.358 I think that's very important for the industry, certainly something that we take very seriously here at Graphyte. 00:24:30.885 --> 00:24:38.836 And let's connect all this now to the JP Morgan deal and the wildfire angle, 'cause we haven't discussed that just yet. 00:24:38.836 --> 00:24:42.855 So can you explain what the wildfire mitigation angle is and why that matters commercially? 00:24:43.757 --> 00:24:44.086 Yeah. 00:24:44.086 --> 00:24:51.901 So, as you'll recall, our process relies on biomass, biomass, residuals that aren't used in another process already. 00:24:51.901 --> 00:24:53.221 That material has carbon. 00:24:53.431 --> 00:24:56.191 Now, how does that relate to wildfires? 00:24:56.191 --> 00:24:57.601 Just bear with me for a minute. 00:24:57.601 --> 00:24:59.701 Let's talk about wildfire science, right? 00:24:59.701 --> 00:25:00.691 And forest management. 00:25:00.990 --> 00:25:04.891 And so, I'm really talking about here is mostly the western United States. 00:25:04.891 --> 00:25:07.111 That's the area that I'm most knowledgeable about. 00:25:07.291 --> 00:25:19.651 But what we've had is a hundred years or more of certain forest management practises, particularly about fire suppression that has resulted in what is now called overstocked forest. 00:25:19.651 --> 00:25:24.571 So if you just think about the number of, trees per acre of land, right? 00:25:24.571 --> 00:25:35.391 We've effectively allowed for too many trees, particularly too many small diameter trees to kind of crowd the forest out that has a couple of negative impacts. 00:25:35.471 --> 00:25:41.211 Number one is it results in effectively a tinder box waiting to catch fire. 00:25:41.270 --> 00:25:41.510 Okay? 00:25:41.510 --> 00:25:48.201 So you've got a lot of biomass closely packed together, and

strangely enough, it actually limits the overall forest growth, right? 00:25:48.201 --> 00:26:01.929 If you had fewer of those small diameter trees competing for water, competing for sunlight, competing for nutrients, actually you're bigger, more established trees will actually in fact get bigger, but they're further apart, so they're less of a, of kind of a fire contagion risk. 00:26:01.959 --> 00:26:02.169 Okay? 00:26:02.169 --> 00:26:11.007 So that's a hundred years or so of forest management has resulted in this over dense or overstocked western forest, dynamic. 00:26:11.591 --> 00:26:16.359 So the foresters of the world have learned this, and they are trying to correct that. 00:26:16.359 --> 00:26:19.058 And the way they're correcting that is these thinning projects, right? 00:26:19.058 --> 00:26:26.336 So leaving the big, diameter trees and essentially removing the small diameter trees and brush and the, what is called non merchantable timber. 00:26:26.576 --> 00:26:29.427 Now the non merchantable is the key word there, right? 00:26:29.427 --> 00:26:37.370 So that's how Graphyte enters the story is because this small diameter tree, again, think of a two inch diameter tree or a four inch diameter tree. 00:26:37.370 --> 00:26:39.920 You can't make a, anything from that, right? 00:26:39.920 --> 00:26:44.287 It's not big enough to make a board or so forth, or not worth, hauling far away. 00:26:44.527 --> 00:26:49.447 And so we are effectively able to create commercial demand for that material. 00:26:50.269 --> 00:26:55.609 And allowing it to come off the forest, not just be cut down and burned in the forest, which is what happens today. 00:26:55.939 --> 00:26:59.449 So we effectively pay for that material to be removed. 00:27:00.019 --> 00:27:01.578 We turn it into carbon removal. 00:27:01.609 --> 00:27:02.899 That's how we get paid. 00:27:03.072 --> 00:27:05.622 JP Morgan is the, prime example there. 00:27:05.832 --> 00:27:14.042 But importantly is that's providing a financial incentive to further do the forest cleaning the forest, thinning. 00:27:14.342 --> 00:27:24.130 And so there's really a, many pronged benefit here, but just to keep it very focused on the forest for a moment is we all understand we need to remove those trees. 00:27:24.130 --> 00:27:28.931 We need to do so, particularly in proximity to urban areas, places where people live. 00:27:28.931 --> 00:27:31.391 No one wants their homes to catch on fire, okay? 00:27:31.501 --> 00:27:35.681 So we are engaging in that, but there is no commercial market for that material. 00:27:35.681 --> 00:27:37.811 If there is, it's a very limited commercial market. 00:27:38.081 --> 00:27:51.529 So we then step in, take that material, we get paid in the form of carbon durable carbon removals, providing an economic incentive for the, next acre of forest to be thinned and, and further reducing the wildfire risk. 00:27:52.807 --> 00:27:53.408 Very nice. 00:27:53.577 --> 00:27:59.067 And where does

biomass based carbon removal not make sense? 00:28:00.897 --> 00:28:06.177 I'm not sure I know the answer to that question, so I just, I, I paused for a long time there. 00:28:06.207 --> 00:28:16.316 'cause I will go back to, you know, the way that when I started Graphyte, and certainly the way that I see the carbon removal landscape is in a supply curve sense. 00:28:16.316 --> 00:28:23.166 And that is, let's figure out how the different carbon removal technologies, how much they cost, how feasible are they today? 00:28:23.186 --> 00:28:25.316 And I think you see that in the data today, right? 00:28:25.316 --> 00:28:33.219 You see it in, CDR.FYI does a, a fantastic job of tracking both sales and deliveries within the durable carbon removal space. 00:28:33.219 --> 00:28:35.729 And what you see is the quote BCR category. 00:28:35.808 --> 00:28:41.379 The biomass carbon removal category is dominant and it is dominant for the reason that I just described. 00:28:41.379 --> 00:28:42.338 It is feasible. 00:28:42.548 --> 00:28:44.409 It is relatively lower cost. 00:28:44.558 --> 00:28:47.919 It is the thing that we should be doing and we are doing first. 00:28:49.148 --> 00:29:03.398 That answer leaves one thing unresolved Barclay has made the case for biomass removal as a relatively lower cost deployable option, but he hasn't really defined where it stops making sense. 00:29:04.057 --> 00:29:11.258 Every technology has boundary conditions, so rather than pretend that question is settled, let me ask a different one. 00:29:12.010 --> 00:29:16.181 What has the real world forced Graphyte itself to rethink? 00:29:16.961 --> 00:29:27.192 I think the thing that has been somewhat of a surprise to me is, I started out again very much like I just have a techno economic mindset, right? 00:29:27.192 --> 00:29:30.247 I was like, of course this is, you know, makes sense, right? 00:29:30.247 --> 00:29:32.144 We can, directly measure it. 00:29:32.144 --> 00:29:34.802 It cost a fraction of, competing technologies. 00:29:34.802 --> 00:29:36.511 It's deployable today. 00:29:37.082 --> 00:29:46.692 And, I would say I in founding Graphyte and kind of entering the market, you know, I really kind of led with that techno economic story. 00:29:46.991 --> 00:29:52.392 What I learned along the way is techno economics are important, but is not the only thing that is important. 00:29:52.392 --> 00:29:55.751 People need a broader narrative around the technology as well. 00:29:55.991 --> 00:30:03.340 Not just that it makes sense, you know, because you can, build it and, and it's, it's relatively low cost, but fits into a broader, narrative. 00:30:03.640 --> 00:30:04.059 Very good. 00:30:04.059 --> 00:30:11.380 And over the next five to 10 years, what has to happen for durable carbon removal to become material? 00:30:11.976 --> 00:30:13.326 Yeah, scale, scale, scale. 00:30:13.326 --> 00:30:13.686 Right. 00:30:13.686 --> 00:30:18.788 So I think the last, couple of years, Graphyte was founded in, 2023. 00:30:18.788 --> 00:30:20.820 So just over three years old. 00:30:20.820 --> 00:30:33.664 And what I would say, you know, we'll just kind of put a general lens of, you know, the last five years, I think it's been a real technology proving ground period of time, what works, what doesn't, what's, can be done within reasonable cost realms. 00:30:33.725 --> 00:30:34.365 What can't. 00:30:34.904 --> 00:30:55.005 I think as we start to start wind down that technology exploratory phase, or at least this, this phase of that, technology exploration, then it really is about taking those technologies that have proven themself, capable of working at reasonable price points and getting those to scale. 00:30:55.005 --> 00:31:05.315 Getting those to scale through, commercial demand, through government policies, getting out of the lab, if you will, and getting into the real world, you know, and building these projects and getting them to scale. 00:31:05.615 --> 00:31:09.815 At the same time, we'll be needing to incubate those technologies. 00:31:09.815 --> 00:31:21.192 It'll be the next on the supply curve, but again, I think, right now the name of the game is taking the technologies that work, let's get them to a reasonable scale as we incubate the next wave of technologies. 00:31:22.505 --> 00:31:23.195 Okay, superb. 00:31:23.884 --> 00:31:30.423 time now, Barclay for the lightning round of questions, short questions and one sentence answers. 00:31:31.564 --> 00:31:31.953 Okay. 00:31:31.953 --> 00:31:34.653 So cut emissions or buy removals first? 00:31:36.370 --> 00:31:36.730 Both. 00:31:38.299 --> 00:31:38.539 Okay. 00:31:39.220 --> 00:31:43.065 Biggest bottleneck money, land, trust, policy, something else? 00:31:44.559 --> 00:31:45.100 Demand. 00:31:45.299 --> 00:31:46.500 Demand slash policy 00:31:47.564 --> 00:31:47.784 Okay. 00:31:49.004 --> 00:31:50.913 What should buyers stop doing tomorrow? 00:31:51.893 --> 00:32:06.413 They should start to think of getting carbon removals to more of a commodity like product, less treating it like a bespoke suit, more treating it like mass manufactured blue jeans. 00:32:07.566 --> 00:32:11.226 Okay, fast tonnes or perfect tonnes? 00:32:12.090 --> 00:32:12.570 Fast. 00:32:13.462 --> 00:32:13.883 Okay. 00:32:14.243 --> 00:32:16.083 One phrase, buyers should remember? 00:32:17.376 --> 00:32:17.977 Buy now. 00:32:19.605 --> 00:32:20.085 Okay. 00:32:21.078 --> 00:32:24.259 That's the end of the lightning round, now a left field question for you. 00:32:24.859 --> 00:32:37.859 So if you could have any person or character, alive or dead, real or fictional, as a champion for durable carbon removal, who would it be and why? 00:32:40.153 --> 00:32:41.682 I'll answer this one in a funny way. 00:32:41.682 --> 00:32:42.853 It'll be John Gault. 00:32:43.303 --> 00:32:48.043 And so, I don't know if you remember Atlas Shrugged, the Ayn Rand novel, right? 00:32:48.043 --> 00:32:52.565 But the idea is that, John Gault was a builder, right? 00:32:52.565 --> 00:32:53.465 He was a builder. 00:32:53.587 --> 00:33:00.493 But the, point is, is that we need more builders and we need more enthusiasm for building, decarbonisation. 00:33:00.783 --> 00:33:08.901 And so, it's just what I, would really cheer for and, and encourage is like, let's get more builders in this space. 00:33:08.901 --> 00:33:16.520 Let's get people who can articulate the vision of building, how it helps community, how it creates jobs, creates jobs in rural places. 00:33:16.821 --> 00:33:19.101 So strangely, my answer is John Gault. 00:33:20.699 --> 00:33:21.119 Interesting. 00:33:21.179 --> 00:33:21.479 Great. 00:33:22.409 --> 00:33:25.078 We're coming towards the end of the podcast now, Barclay. 00:33:25.078 --> 00:33:32.834 Is there any question that I didn't ask that you wish I had, or any aspect of this we haven't covered that you feel is important for people to be aware of? 00:33:34.173 --> 00:33:41.141 So I think one of the things that we need to think about, with respect to how the, durable car removal space is maturing. 00:33:41.381 --> 00:33:46.061 And so as we enter scaling, I think we need to start thinking about finance, right? 00:33:46.061 --> 00:33:54.041 So finance is a critical element to getting the durable carbon removal industry to a meaningful size, right? 00:33:54.041 --> 00:33:56.411 You need to do that with project level investing. 00:33:56.740 --> 00:34:03.971 Venture capital only take you so far, it's expensive capital, it's limited, you know, in the overall capital pool deployed in, venture capital. 00:34:03.971 --> 00:34:06.071 And so we need to get to project scaling. 00:34:06.221 --> 00:34:14.878 And so as I, would encourage all of us is, let's think about the technologies that work, particularly those that are capable of getting project level finance. 00:34:15.028 --> 00:34:24.239 Let's get behind those, get those finance, get them working at meaningful scales that will provide a template for the next round of technologies as they mature. 00:34:25.027 --> 00:34:25.717 Excellent, great. 00:34:26.137 --> 00:34:26.918 Super Barclay. 00:34:26.947 --> 00:34:27.757 That's been fascinating. 00:34:27.757 --> 00:34:34.148 If people would like to know more about yourself or any of the things we discussed on the podcast today, where would you have me direct them? 00:34:34.701 --> 00:34:40.822 So for those of you who are interested in learning more about Graphyte, the best resource is www.Graphyte.com. 00:34:40.851 --> 00:34:44.722 That's G-R-A-P-H-Y-T-E.com. 00:34:45.981 --> 00:34:46.202 Superb. 00:34:46.572 --> 00:34:47.692 Barclay, that's been really interesting. 00:34:47.692 --> 00:34:49.432 Thanks a million for coming on the podcast today. 00:34:49.706 --> 00:34:50.485 Thanks so much, Tom. 00:34:50.485 --> 00:34:51.175 Really appreciate it.