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Welcome to Sea Change Conversations Solutions series, where we explore the issue of climate change and the potential solutions that give us hope that we will be able to manage this risk.
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My name is Kathleen Biggins, and I am the president and founder of Sea Change Conversations.
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Since 2014, our team has been traveling the country, bringing people together around this issue, helping them understand that climate change will impact the things that all Americans care about.
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Our jobs and the economy, our families' health and security, and even global stability.
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Today we are going to examine the burgeoning field of carbon utilization or carbon tech.
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It involves capturing carbon emissions and transforming them into marketable and useful products.
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Like what?
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Well, like things like fuels and fertilizer that we currently make from carbon that we mine from underground.
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And some companies are even making luxury items from emissions, turning them into diamonds and vodka.
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There is no one I'd rather learn from on this topic than Professor Emily Carter.
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Professor Carter has too many accomplishments to list here, but I will share a few that are most important to this conversation.
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An accomplished scholar in energy research and a former dean of Princeton University School of Engineering, Emily was the founding director of the Princeton Anlinger Center for Energy and the Environment.
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More recently, she was UCLA's executive vice chancellor and provost.
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She was recruited back to Princeton as senior strategic advisor to the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, where she is heading up an effort to diversify the lab's research into sustainability science beyond fusion energy.
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Emily is currently the chair of a congressionally mandated study on carbon utilization.
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Emily and I sat down to talk about carbon utilization a few weeks ago.
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I started off by asking her why she found it so important to work on climate change.
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I think it's existential.
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You know, not for me, but for our children and grandchildren.
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I think that if we don't seize this moment to take responsibility for what we now know to be true, and how it's harming the planet, and how it will continue to harm the planet for many decades and perhaps centuries, hopefully not, then I can only imagine that our children and grandchildren will be looking at us when we're at the end of our lives saying, What were you thinking?
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Why didn't you do more?
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And I just think it's our responsibility.
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So once it became clear to me, I'd say about over 15 years ago, I decided to just reorient all of my research to helping in whatever way I could with my expertise.
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So many of my friends asked me, why can't we just adapt to what's coming?
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Why do we have to upend our economies and move in this new way?
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What do you say when people bring that forward?
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I think what is most important to say is that we have to do everything.
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We're going to have to adapt because a lot of the warming of the planet and the attendant issues with respect to the climate are baked in now because of over a century of emitting carbon dioxide and other planet warming gases to the atmosphere and not you know not realizing, because it was building our civilization that it would be so critical to transform off of it.
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But so basically I would say to them, yeah, we have to adapt, but that's not going to be enough because otherwise it's going to get much, much worse, and adaptation is not enough.
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Let's drill down a bit and look at carbon tech.
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How big of a potential solution could it be?
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Well, it depends on what you compare it against.
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So in terms of the amount of carbon dioxide that's being emitted every year to the atmosphere, uh, you know, right now we already have more m much more than we than we should have in the atmosphere based on how much has been emitted post-industrial revolution.
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And every year we're adding more and more.
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And so if you look at uh the estimates in 2050 of where what carbon utilization, particular carbon dioxide utilization, could be in terms of a market, it's going to be of it could take care of about an eighth of the amount of CO2 that is being emitted currently to the atmosphere.
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So it's not a solution by itself.
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However, it's a set of markets that essentially allow us to say we could take carbon dioxide from various places where it's being emitted, uh power plants, steel plants, mend plants, etc., as well as from the atmosphere, as well as from the oceans, and be able to have that be at least a part of the solution.
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To be able to produce something other than just storing it, which is another part of the solution, but actually having an economic driver to be able to reuse the carbon or to store it and use it.
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Now I've read that you can make a wide range of materials from the captured carbon, things as basic as fertilizer or as even fuels, or as exotic as vodka and even diamonds.
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It sounds like alchemy, right?
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Taking something and turn it into something useful.
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Can you explain it to us in layman's terms the process that enables us to do this?
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Sure.
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I mean there isn't just one process, so first of all, but what you have to know is that carbon dioxide is an incredibly stable molecule.
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Okay?
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And so when you want to then turn that into something else, you actually have to input energy and other inputs to convert it chemically to something else.
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And so the process of making a fuel or making vodka, which is essentially just alcohol, and so making an alcohol, or making diamond, as you say, or making carbon fiber and making plastics, uh, or making uh essentially carbonates that can be used in concrete or in all sorts of different building materials.
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So there are a number of ways carbon dioxide can be converted.
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All of them require uh uh energy and other inputs as well.
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So many of the things that you just mentioned are currently made from carbon we pull from the earth, right, that we mine today.
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Do you envision a time where we could mine emissions from the air instead of pulling it from the ground?
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That's one of the of the ideas, absolutely.
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And so there's there's a process that is called direct air capture, which is essentially saying, you know, we have over 400 parts per million CO2 in the air right now.
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Uh just to give everybody context, it was below 300 parts per million, it was more like 280 parts per million before the Industrial Revolution, so it's gone up tremendo tremendously.
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And so the idea is to come up with ways that you could separate the carbon dioxide from the air.
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I think something that is even more promising is actually taking, finding ways to take the carbon dioxide from oceans because the concentration, the amount of carbon dioxide per unit volume is higher in the oceans.
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And so it'd be easier to extract potentially from the oceans and then use that as a feedstock rather than pulling carbon out of the ground as coal or or gas or oil.
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What I am particularly fond of is the idea that you could take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or from the ocean and store it as a solid.
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So store it not just not as carbon dioxide.
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We know solid carbon dioxide is dry ice, so it you can have dry ice.
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But that, of course, as everyone knows, just evaporates.
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But converting it, again, by putting in energy, uh, either electrically or with heat or uh other other means, um, being able to convert it to, for example, solid carbon, to uh to a carbon fiber, or to, as I said, a mineral carbonate.
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That's a way to both take it out of the atmosphere, remove it so that you're reducing the forcing that is leading to climate change, and at the same time producing a product that can be used in our civilization.
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Right, that makes sense.
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So you're kind of reprising the mantra that we need to clean up our electrical grid and then electrify everything we can and then find alternatives for the things that remain out of the our ability to electrify.
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Is that not right?
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That's perfect.
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That's exactly that's a beautiful summary.
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And you know, uh one of the things I think is is is sort of amusing is when people talk about um decarbonizing.
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And yes, you can talk about decarbonizing uh electricity, but to say you're going to decarbonize you know the world doesn't make any sense because we're made of carbon.
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Uh many things around us are uh our food is is is made of carbon.
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I think you mentioned fertilizer, fertilizer is is uh you know has has carbon in it, and so everything that um you know carbon is all around us.
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So what we have to do is find ways to produce that those carbon-containing materials that power our world, um, but not by pulling more carbon atoms out of the ground.
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So could you describe to me a little bit more on how the physical um transformation happens?
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How do you go from a gas to a carbon fiber?
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What sort of tools do you use?
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So the idea is that you you start again with this, with carbon dioxide, very stable molecule that could just be in the air, could be, you can liquefy it, you can make a solid out of it, but not not terribly useful, except you could argue carbon diox dry ice is useful, right?
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Um I mean there are a few uses for it.
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But the but the idea is that you can take carbon dioxide and for example, you can take electricity that uh runs through an electrode and that's the source of of energy combined with hydrogen, so you have to have a source of hydrogen, uh, which we should talk about because most hydrogen is produced uh uh how it's produced actually produces carbon dioxide, so that's a problem.
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But taking hydrogen and carbon and carbon dioxide, or just carbon dioxide and an acid and uh an electrode and running electricity through it, there are processes by which you can take the carbon dioxide and go to solid carbon.
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So I've also heard of using bacteria or organisms to digest the carbon.
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Great, yes.
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And how does that work?
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Is it in a similar fashion?
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No, it's it's different.
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I mean, it's it's similar in the sense that it's converting the carbon dioxide into a a form that uh is is different, that makes carbon-hydrogen bonds, okay?
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Car carbon-hydrogen chemical bonds, uh, but it's a completely different uh process.
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So that's the beauty of uh of in some sense you can have a whole economy that is built on these competing processes, bringing competing processes to market.
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So there are ways in which you can take carbon dioxide and uh and hydrogen or some uh some other uh chemical that acts like like hydrogen does and feed it to microbes and actually produce uh either um well produce so-called reduced carbon, okay, so carbon that makes uh that has carbon-hydrogen bonds.
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So it can make alcohols, it can uh it can make uh hydrocarbons, things that essentially can take you eventually, for example, to uh to forming fuels.
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Okay, so you can make alcohols, that's a that's a way, for example, potentially to make vodka.
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Uh or one uh promising approach, uh in fact there is a company that is working on uh essentially taking carbon dioxide and microbes and being able to eventually make aviation fuel.
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Which is so necessary.
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Yes, right.
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That would be a big part of the solution because that is currently not able to be done with our our current resources, right?
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Well, I think what's key in terms of the aviation fuel application is that unlike land-based vehicles, where my own personal opinion is that they should all be electrified and be powered by electricity that is carbon-free, uh, that it's not clear, except for very small planes, that we will ever really be able to take very large aircraft and electrify them and run them and propel them on batteries.
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And so we're going to have a need for liquid aviation fuel and probably also for freight, for shipping, uh, for a very long time to come.
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And so we need to have a circular carbon economy to provide that that type of fuel from either from carbon dioxide or carbon dioxide is not the only possibility.
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I mean, you want to talk about carbon utilization.
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Carbon dioxide utilization will have to compete with possibly recycled carbon uh as well as um uh carbon that comes from biomass.
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So that's another possibility.
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So let me stop you for a moment there, because when you say recycled carbon, in some ways what I think of this is recycled carbon because you're capturing it out of the air by the oceans or from some sort of manufacturing plant.
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You're right.
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I I that's true.
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It is a form that is a form of recycled carbon.
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I I agree with you.
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What I meant by that is is that there are products that we make.
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For example, uh any plastic is uh essentially made out of carbon.
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And it also has hydrogen, but it has a lot of carbon in it.
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And so if we can find ways to to, I mean, so another possible carbon source that could lead to fuels or remaking other plastics or remaking other carbon-based materials doesn't have to be carbon dioxide.
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It could be leftover uh agricultural wastes.
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You know, it could right.
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It could be municipal solid waste, it could be uh it could be leftover plastics.
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And there's all sorts of and each one of them will have a different set of processes which make sense in order to convert them to the final product that one wants.
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Converting leftover plastic sounds very appealing given the huge crisis we have in that arena as well.
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So what do you say to people who say that carbon capture and utilization is giving oil and gas a free ride?
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It's giving them a chance to continue to produce their fossil fuels when we should be spending this kind of uh investigative dollars on other proven techniques or technologies that will enable us to go cleaner faster.
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So, first of all, the companies that are producing these new processes by and large are not the same companies.
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These are there are lots of startup companies and and lots of other companies that are uh engaged in this, so it's it I I don't think it is an appropriate um, it's not an appropriate criticism from that perspective.
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The other point is that absolutely we have to be doing everything we can to electrify every process that we can, uh production of energy, our production of steel, our production, production of everything that that enables our way of life.
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And we need to then be using clean energy, and in my mind, clean clean energy includes nuclear energy.
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So it's anything that doesn't emit carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, we must do that.
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And so that part of it is not giving the fossil fuel companies a free ride.
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We can use the if we build up enough clean electricity sources and develop these processes that use clean electricity to take carbon dioxide from steel plants, from from you know industrial plants as well as power plants, as well as the atmosphere, as well as the ocean.
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We need to do that no matter what, uh, independent of what the fossil fuel companies are doing.
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We need to do it because we need to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere anyway.
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We need to get to a point, we know we need to get to a point where uh we have to have these processes in place such that we will be able to run our civilization uh through a virtuous cycle.
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Uh and the last thing I would say is that I feel very strongly that the fossil fuel companies have tremendous expertise about chemical transformations that we need to partner with them to take advantage of their expertise, the infrastructure that they've already built up, and not start from zero as we transition to this much cleaner economy.
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So they need to be our partners, and that will really accelerate the transition.
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So, what gives you hope that we will be able to do just that?
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What gives you hope when you talk to your kids and your grandkids?
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I what gives me hope is the sense that people care and are focused on this problem now in a way that I don't think, at least to the United States, I don't think the the focus has been as intense as as it has, you know, I think things have really changed over the last 10 years that people have seen the impacts of climate change accelerating much faster than we had expected.
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The other thing that gives me hope is that when uh you know when people are focused on and are motivated, uh that is what spurs invention.
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And the United States is the most entrepreneurial plant uh country on the planet.
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And so I firmly believe that you know with the the type of talent that we have here in the United States, we will be able to come up with solutions.
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And we have some, but we need many more.
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One of the things that that kind of brings forward for me is that it's not always about sacrificing.
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A lot of these things, like electric cars, are actually better than a regular car.
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They're quicker, they're safer, quieter, much quieter.
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And so it's a win-win.
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I think so often this transition is is labeled sacrifice, when in fact, as you said, with human ingenuity, it could be opening new ways, better ways of doing a lot of things that would make our lives even sweeter.
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Yeah, I agree.
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And I think you know, it's interesting, for a long time people talked about energy conservation.
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And con the word conservation sounds like sacrifice, as opposed to talking about energy efficiency.
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And so, again, you know, by switching, for example, to um LED light bulbs, that all you know, actually the light it's it's even brighter, it's nicer now that we have um a more refined LED that is that is uh has you know has sort of warm light, it's I think it's nicer.
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And can be dimmed.
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That was incredible.
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And and can be dimmed.
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So that you you now have something which is just as good or better than the previous product and is twenty times more efficient.
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And so the more we can innovate and show that we can I mean it is, it's going to be very important because people are accustomed to a certain quality of life, and so you want to have that quality of life, you want to have more people on the planet having a better quality of life.
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So it's incumbent upon us.
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To continue to innovate and to come up with uh ways in which we can be as efficient with our energy use while still being able to improve people's quality of life.
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And the point of being more efficient translates into saving money.
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And I think that's an undersold story in that uh historically moving towards clean energy has always been labeled as so expensive and harming jobs, whereas today that's not really the case.
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Absolutely.
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So historically it was true, you know, 40 years ago photovoltaics solar cells were incredibly expensive.
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But now the electricity that comes from solar and wind is at parity in many places.
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Uh at parity meaning the same price as if you you uh derived your electricity from coal or natural gas.
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It's even cheaper.
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And so that, you know, at that point then it's then it's an obvious economic driver.
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And actually that's part of what gives me hope.
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Because the fact is something started out very expensive, and but eventually, you know, because of mass production and innovation, um, that didn't just happen in this country, by the way.
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China was a big part of that story in terms of mass production of solar cells, uh, really helped drive down the price, and as a result, we're we're now in a position where solar cells are are uh the value proposition is is really compelling.
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Yes, I don't think many people realize that China actually outspends us almost two to one in these new technology areas.
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I think it's much more than two to one, actually.
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Oh yeah.
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Well, especially in terms of of research and development dollars.
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Well to me it seems like the new policies that have gone through recently, the infrastructure bill, the new inflation reduction act, has really created a new sense of momentum in this arena.
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Almost every day I open up the newspaper and they're talking about new jobs created in this arena in Wyoming or in the Southeast, all around.
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And it's almost as if the genie is out of the bottle.
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Do you see it the same way?
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Do you feel like there is so much momentum moving us forward that we can't go back?
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Well, I think we can always go back.
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I hope we don't go back.
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Um it all depends on the investments and the the policies that that happen in Washington, D.C.
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in terms of what happens in the United States.
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Uh it would be nice if if there could be some more certainty about uh long-term investments.
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And that's not something that the United States has has always been the best at.
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Uh and if if we could have more certainty, I think you would then draw in more private investment too.
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Um, because policies matter.
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And so one thing I will say is that is that uh the Biden administration certainly has been the first administration to be tremendously focused on this.
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In fact, it's uh a very large reason why I decided that it that I needed to get back to working on sustainability science full-time, because I felt that this is the moment where there's an opportunity to really contribute to making sure that the right kinds of investments are made.
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And so I think that the focus is there.
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I think the many of the investments make a lot of sense and uh and the policies make a lot of sense.
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There still is a lot of research and development that needs to be done to get to the point where these are going to be practical, practical solutions.
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So I personally would have liked to have seen a bit more investment in the research and development side, especially or at least flexibility given to the to the agencies that are being given these large sums of money to deploy, because you know there are two ways to advance technologies.
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Uh one is research and development that then leads eventually to pilot plants and then building full-stage plants on something.
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Another is is learning by doing.
00:26:32.960 --> 00:26:39.279
So let's just go, we go with what we have, we take it off the shelf, and we uh we try it out, right?
00:26:39.680 --> 00:26:41.920
And that can also bring the price down.
00:26:42.000 --> 00:26:54.480
And and I and what I would say is that the emphasis of a lot of the policies have been in the latter camp, and I just hope there's enough on the shelf that it makes sense to be um to be doing that right now.
00:26:54.960 --> 00:26:56.240
Spoken like a scientist.
00:26:56.559 --> 00:26:57.680
Yes, that's true.
00:26:57.920 --> 00:27:05.920
And you know, people could potentially say, oh, it's just because she wants uh research dollars for her own research, but that's not true at all.
00:27:06.079 --> 00:27:07.200
That's not what this is about.
00:27:07.359 --> 00:27:10.720
I mean, that's not been my that's not my focus right now.
00:27:10.960 --> 00:27:14.720
My focus is making sure we get to the optimal set of solutions.
00:27:14.960 --> 00:27:23.119
One thing that has been true for a very long time is bipartisan support for research and develop, for scientific research and development.
00:27:23.200 --> 00:27:27.599
And that that's been key to the innovations that this country has produced.
00:27:27.839 --> 00:27:28.559
Absolutely.
00:27:28.799 --> 00:27:34.319
And I think there has been bipartisan support for the infrastructure uh investments, absolutely.
00:27:34.799 --> 00:27:45.359
But what I mean when I said when I was attributing it to the Biden administration is simply that they're the ones that are they're making these proposals uh, you know, in terms of how much to invest.
00:27:45.440 --> 00:27:50.160
And of course they're working with Congress, and of course it wouldn't get anywhere if Congress didn't approve it.
00:27:50.319 --> 00:27:51.440
So, yes, absolutely.
00:27:51.599 --> 00:28:00.240
But by I would say that the Biden administration's been in the lead on um on making these proposals coming out of the Department of Energy.
00:28:00.720 --> 00:28:02.799
Emily, that was so interesting.
00:28:02.960 --> 00:28:06.799
I am so sorry that we've run out of time and we have to call it to a close.
00:28:07.119 --> 00:28:07.920
Well, thank you.
00:28:08.160 --> 00:28:14.160
My guest here today is Professor Emily Carter, a world expert on carbon utilization.
00:28:14.880 --> 00:28:20.559
And I am Kathleen Biggins, and this is Sea Change Conversation Solutions series.
00:28:20.720 --> 00:28:28.799
Thank you for joining us, and please follow us on social media or at our website, www.seachchangeconversations.org.
00:28:29.039 --> 00:28:32.160
Thanks for joining us, and we hope to see you next time.
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Welcome to Sea Change Conversations Solutions series, where we explore the issue of climate change and the potential solutions that give us hope that we will be able to manage this risk.
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My name is Kathleen Biggins, and I am the president and founder of Sea Change Conversations.
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Since 2014, our team has been traveling the country, bringing people together around this issue, helping them understand that climate change will impact the things that all Americans care about.
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Our jobs and the economy, our families' health and security, and even global stability.
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Today we are going to examine the burgeoning field of carbon utilization or carbon tech.
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It involves capturing carbon emissions and transforming them into marketable and useful products.
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Like what?
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Well, like things like fuels and fertilizer that we currently make from carbon that we mine from underground.
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And some companies are even making luxury items from emissions, turning them into diamonds and vodka.
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There is no one I'd rather learn from on this topic than Professor Emily Carter.
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Professor Carter has too many accomplishments to list here, but I will share a few that are most important to this conversation.
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An accomplished scholar in energy research and a former dean of Princeton University School of Engineering, Emily was the founding director of the Princeton Anlinger Center for Energy and the Environment.
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More recently, she was UCLA's executive vice chancellor and provost.
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She was recruited back to Princeton as senior strategic advisor to the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, where she is heading up an effort to diversify the lab's research into sustainability science beyond fusion energy.
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Emily is currently the chair of a congressionally mandated study on carbon utilization.
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Emily and I sat down to talk about carbon utilization a few weeks ago.
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I started off by asking her why she found it so important to work on climate change.
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I think it's existential.
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You know, not for me, but for our children and grandchildren.
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I think that if we don't seize this moment to take responsibility for what we now know to be true, and how it's harming the planet, and how it will continue to harm the planet for many decades and perhaps centuries, hopefully not, then I can only imagine that our children and grandchildren will be looking at us when we're at the end of our lives saying, What were you thinking?
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Why didn't you do more?
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And I just think it's our responsibility.
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So once it became clear to me, I'd say about over 15 years ago, I decided to just reorient all of my research to helping in whatever way I could with my expertise.
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So many of my friends asked me, why can't we just adapt to what's coming?
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Why do we have to upend our economies and move in this new way?
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What do you say when people bring that forward?
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I think what is most important to say is that we have to do everything.
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We're going to have to adapt because a lot of the warming of the planet and the attendant issues with respect to the climate are baked in now because of over a century of emitting carbon dioxide and other planet warming gases to the atmosphere and not you know not realizing, because it was building our civilization that it would be so critical to transform off of it.
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But so basically I would say to them, yeah, we have to adapt, but that's not going to be enough because otherwise it's going to get much, much worse, and adaptation is not enough.
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Let's drill down a bit and look at carbon tech.
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How big of a potential solution could it be?
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Well, it depends on what you compare it against.
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So in terms of the amount of carbon dioxide that's being emitted every year to the atmosphere, uh, you know, right now we already have more m much more than we than we should have in the atmosphere based on how much has been emitted post-industrial revolution.
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And every year we're adding more and more.
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And so if you look at uh the estimates in 2050 of where what carbon utilization, particular carbon dioxide utilization, could be in terms of a market, it's going to be of it could take care of about an eighth of the amount of CO2 that is being emitted currently to the atmosphere.
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So it's not a solution by itself.
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However, it's a set of markets that essentially allow us to say we could take carbon dioxide from various places where it's being emitted, uh power plants, steel plants, mend plants, etc., as well as from the atmosphere, as well as from the oceans, and be able to have that be at least a part of the solution.
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To be able to produce something other than just storing it, which is another part of the solution, but actually having an economic driver to be able to reuse the carbon or to store it and use it.
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Now I've read that you can make a wide range of materials from the captured carbon, things as basic as fertilizer or as even fuels, or as exotic as vodka and even diamonds.
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It sounds like alchemy, right?
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Taking something and turn it into something useful.
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Can you explain it to us in layman's terms the process that enables us to do this?
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Sure.
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I mean there isn't just one process, so first of all, but what you have to know is that carbon dioxide is an incredibly stable molecule.
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Okay?
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And so when you want to then turn that into something else, you actually have to input energy and other inputs to convert it chemically to something else.
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And so the process of making a fuel or making vodka, which is essentially just alcohol, and so making an alcohol, or making diamond, as you say, or making carbon fiber and making plastics, uh, or making uh essentially carbonates that can be used in concrete or in all sorts of different building materials.
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So there are a number of ways carbon dioxide can be converted.
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All of them require uh uh energy and other inputs as well.
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So many of the things that you just mentioned are currently made from carbon we pull from the earth, right, that we mine today.
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Do you envision a time where we could mine emissions from the air instead of pulling it from the ground?
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That's one of the of the ideas, absolutely.
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And so there's there's a process that is called direct air capture, which is essentially saying, you know, we have over 400 parts per million CO2 in the air right now.
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Uh just to give everybody context, it was below 300 parts per million, it was more like 280 parts per million before the Industrial Revolution, so it's gone up tremendo tremendously.
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And so the idea is to come up with ways that you could separate the carbon dioxide from the air.
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I think something that is even more promising is actually taking, finding ways to take the carbon dioxide from oceans because the concentration, the amount of carbon dioxide per unit volume is higher in the oceans.
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And so it'd be easier to extract potentially from the oceans and then use that as a feedstock rather than pulling carbon out of the ground as coal or or gas or oil.
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What I am particularly fond of is the idea that you could take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or from the ocean and store it as a solid.
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So store it not just not as carbon dioxide.
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We know solid carbon dioxide is dry ice, so it you can have dry ice.
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But that, of course, as everyone knows, just evaporates.
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But converting it, again, by putting in energy, uh, either electrically or with heat or uh other other means, um, being able to convert it to, for example, solid carbon, to uh to a carbon fiber, or to, as I said, a mineral carbonate.
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That's a way to both take it out of the atmosphere, remove it so that you're reducing the forcing that is leading to climate change, and at the same time producing a product that can be used in our civilization.
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Right, that makes sense.
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So you're kind of reprising the mantra that we need to clean up our electrical grid and then electrify everything we can and then find alternatives for the things that remain out of the our ability to electrify.
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Is that not right?
00:10:03.279 --> 00:10:04.080
That's perfect.
00:10:04.240 --> 00:10:06.639
That's exactly that's a beautiful summary.
00:10:06.879 --> 00:10:13.519
And you know, uh one of the things I think is is is sort of amusing is when people talk about um decarbonizing.
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And yes, you can talk about decarbonizing uh electricity, but to say you're going to decarbonize you know the world doesn't make any sense because we're made of carbon.
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Uh many things around us are uh our food is is is made of carbon.
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I think you mentioned fertilizer, fertilizer is is uh you know has has carbon in it, and so everything that um you know carbon is all around us.
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So what we have to do is find ways to produce that those carbon-containing materials that power our world, um, but not by pulling more carbon atoms out of the ground.
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So could you describe to me a little bit more on how the physical um transformation happens?
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How do you go from a gas to a carbon fiber?
00:11:05.679 --> 00:11:07.519
What sort of tools do you use?
00:11:08.159 --> 00:11:28.639
So the idea is that you you start again with this, with carbon dioxide, very stable molecule that could just be in the air, could be, you can liquefy it, you can make a solid out of it, but not not terribly useful, except you could argue carbon diox dry ice is useful, right?
00:11:28.960 --> 00:11:31.279
Um I mean there are a few uses for it.
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But the but the idea is that you can take carbon dioxide and for example, you can take electricity that uh runs through an electrode and that's the source of of energy combined with hydrogen, so you have to have a source of hydrogen, uh, which we should talk about because most hydrogen is produced uh uh how it's produced actually produces carbon dioxide, so that's a problem.
00:12:00.080 --> 00:12:17.679
But taking hydrogen and carbon and carbon dioxide, or just carbon dioxide and an acid and uh an electrode and running electricity through it, there are processes by which you can take the carbon dioxide and go to solid carbon.
00:12:18.639 --> 00:12:23.840
So I've also heard of using bacteria or organisms to digest the carbon.
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Great, yes.
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And how does that work?
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Is it in a similar fashion?
00:12:27.919 --> 00:12:28.799
No, it's it's different.
00:12:28.879 --> 00:12:38.639
I mean, it's it's similar in the sense that it's converting the carbon dioxide into a a form that uh is is different, that makes carbon-hydrogen bonds, okay?
00:12:38.960 --> 00:12:45.519
Car carbon-hydrogen chemical bonds, uh, but it's a completely different uh process.
00:12:45.679 --> 00:12:56.000
So that's the beauty of uh of in some sense you can have a whole economy that is built on these competing processes, bringing competing processes to market.
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So there are ways in which you can take carbon dioxide and uh and hydrogen or some uh some other uh chemical that acts like like hydrogen does and feed it to microbes and actually produce uh either um well produce so-called reduced carbon, okay, so carbon that makes uh that has carbon-hydrogen bonds.
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So it can make alcohols, it can uh it can make uh hydrocarbons, things that essentially can take you eventually, for example, to uh to forming fuels.
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Okay, so you can make alcohols, that's a that's a way, for example, potentially to make vodka.
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Uh or one uh promising approach, uh in fact there is a company that is working on uh essentially taking carbon dioxide and microbes and being able to eventually make aviation fuel.
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Which is so necessary.
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Yes, right.
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That would be a big part of the solution because that is currently not able to be done with our our current resources, right?
00:14:04.559 --> 00:14:34.960
Well, I think what's key in terms of the aviation fuel application is that unlike land-based vehicles, where my own personal opinion is that they should all be electrified and be powered by electricity that is carbon-free, uh, that it's not clear, except for very small planes, that we will ever really be able to take very large aircraft and electrify them and run them and propel them on batteries.
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And so we're going to have a need for liquid aviation fuel and probably also for freight, for shipping, uh, for a very long time to come.
00:14:44.720 --> 00:14:55.679
And so we need to have a circular carbon economy to provide that that type of fuel from either from carbon dioxide or carbon dioxide is not the only possibility.
00:14:55.759 --> 00:14:57.840
I mean, you want to talk about carbon utilization.
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Carbon dioxide utilization will have to compete with possibly recycled carbon uh as well as um uh carbon that comes from biomass.
00:15:10.159 --> 00:15:11.440
So that's another possibility.
00:15:11.840 --> 00:15:21.600
So let me stop you for a moment there, because when you say recycled carbon, in some ways what I think of this is recycled carbon because you're capturing it out of the air by the oceans or from some sort of manufacturing plant.
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You're right.
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I I that's true.
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It is a form that is a form of recycled carbon.
00:15:26.320 --> 00:15:27.440
I I agree with you.
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What I meant by that is is that there are products that we make.
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For example, uh any plastic is uh essentially made out of carbon.
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And it also has hydrogen, but it has a lot of carbon in it.
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And so if we can find ways to to, I mean, so another possible carbon source that could lead to fuels or remaking other plastics or remaking other carbon-based materials doesn't have to be carbon dioxide.
00:15:59.679 --> 00:16:04.480
It could be leftover uh agricultural wastes.
00:16:05.279 --> 00:16:06.240
You know, it could right.
00:16:06.399 --> 00:16:12.559
It could be municipal solid waste, it could be uh it could be leftover plastics.
00:16:12.799 --> 00:16:22.000
And there's all sorts of and each one of them will have a different set of processes which make sense in order to convert them to the final product that one wants.
00:16:22.480 --> 00:16:28.159
Converting leftover plastic sounds very appealing given the huge crisis we have in that arena as well.
00:16:29.679 --> 00:16:36.720
So what do you say to people who say that carbon capture and utilization is giving oil and gas a free ride?
00:16:36.799 --> 00:16:49.440
It's giving them a chance to continue to produce their fossil fuels when we should be spending this kind of uh investigative dollars on other proven techniques or technologies that will enable us to go cleaner faster.
00:16:51.679 --> 00:17:00.879
So, first of all, the companies that are producing these new processes by and large are not the same companies.
00:17:01.039 --> 00:17:16.720
These are there are lots of startup companies and and lots of other companies that are uh engaged in this, so it's it I I don't think it is an appropriate um, it's not an appropriate criticism from that perspective.
00:17:16.960 --> 00:17:38.240
The other point is that absolutely we have to be doing everything we can to electrify every process that we can, uh production of energy, our production of steel, our production, production of everything that that enables our way of life.
00:17:38.480 --> 00:17:46.319
And we need to then be using clean energy, and in my mind, clean clean energy includes nuclear energy.
00:17:46.480 --> 00:17:53.200
So it's anything that doesn't emit carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, we must do that.
00:17:53.519 --> 00:17:58.160
And so that part of it is not giving the fossil fuel companies a free ride.
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We can use the if we build up enough clean electricity sources and develop these processes that use clean electricity to take carbon dioxide from steel plants, from from you know industrial plants as well as power plants, as well as the atmosphere, as well as the ocean.
00:18:19.039 --> 00:18:24.240
We need to do that no matter what, uh, independent of what the fossil fuel companies are doing.
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We need to do it because we need to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere anyway.
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We need to get to a point, we know we need to get to a point where uh we have to have these processes in place such that we will be able to run our civilization uh through a virtuous cycle.
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Uh and the last thing I would say is that I feel very strongly that the fossil fuel companies have tremendous expertise about chemical transformations that we need to partner with them to take advantage of their expertise, the infrastructure that they've already built up, and not start from zero as we transition to this much cleaner economy.
00:19:14.240 --> 00:19:20.319
So they need to be our partners, and that will really accelerate the transition.
00:19:21.519 --> 00:19:25.359
So, what gives you hope that we will be able to do just that?
00:19:25.599 --> 00:19:28.880
What gives you hope when you talk to your kids and your grandkids?
00:19:29.359 --> 00:19:55.440
I what gives me hope is the sense that people care and are focused on this problem now in a way that I don't think, at least to the United States, I don't think the the focus has been as intense as as it has, you know, I think things have really changed over the last 10 years that people have seen the impacts of climate change accelerating much faster than we had expected.
00:19:55.599 --> 00:20:08.400
The other thing that gives me hope is that when uh you know when people are focused on and are motivated, uh that is what spurs invention.
00:20:08.640 --> 00:20:14.319
And the United States is the most entrepreneurial plant uh country on the planet.
00:20:14.480 --> 00:20:23.759
And so I firmly believe that you know with the the type of talent that we have here in the United States, we will be able to come up with solutions.
00:20:23.920 --> 00:20:26.319
And we have some, but we need many more.
00:20:26.960 --> 00:20:32.319
One of the things that that kind of brings forward for me is that it's not always about sacrificing.
00:20:32.480 --> 00:20:36.799
A lot of these things, like electric cars, are actually better than a regular car.
00:20:37.039 --> 00:20:41.599
They're quicker, they're safer, quieter, much quieter.
00:20:41.839 --> 00:20:43.200
And so it's a win-win.
00:20:43.440 --> 00:20:55.759
I think so often this transition is is labeled sacrifice, when in fact, as you said, with human ingenuity, it could be opening new ways, better ways of doing a lot of things that would make our lives even sweeter.
00:20:56.079 --> 00:20:56.799
Yeah, I agree.
00:20:56.880 --> 00:21:01.920
And I think you know, it's interesting, for a long time people talked about energy conservation.
00:21:02.000 --> 00:21:08.000
And con the word conservation sounds like sacrifice, as opposed to talking about energy efficiency.
00:21:08.640 --> 00:21:28.480
And so, again, you know, by switching, for example, to um LED light bulbs, that all you know, actually the light it's it's even brighter, it's nicer now that we have um a more refined LED that is that is uh has you know has sort of warm light, it's I think it's nicer.
00:21:28.880 --> 00:21:29.599
And can be dimmed.
00:21:29.839 --> 00:21:30.319
That was incredible.
00:21:30.559 --> 00:21:31.680
And and can be dimmed.
00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:40.720
So that you you now have something which is just as good or better than the previous product and is twenty times more efficient.
00:21:41.279 --> 00:21:57.680
And so the more we can innovate and show that we can I mean it is, it's going to be very important because people are accustomed to a certain quality of life, and so you want to have that quality of life, you want to have more people on the planet having a better quality of life.
00:21:57.920 --> 00:21:59.759
So it's incumbent upon us.
00:22:00.319 --> 00:22:12.799
To continue to innovate and to come up with uh ways in which we can be as efficient with our energy use while still being able to improve people's quality of life.
00:22:13.119 --> 00:22:17.039
And the point of being more efficient translates into saving money.
00:22:17.440 --> 00:22:30.079
And I think that's an undersold story in that uh historically moving towards clean energy has always been labeled as so expensive and harming jobs, whereas today that's not really the case.
00:22:30.400 --> 00:22:31.119
Absolutely.
00:22:31.359 --> 00:22:39.839
So historically it was true, you know, 40 years ago photovoltaics solar cells were incredibly expensive.
00:22:40.079 --> 00:22:46.480
But now the electricity that comes from solar and wind is at parity in many places.
00:22:46.559 --> 00:22:54.000
Uh at parity meaning the same price as if you you uh derived your electricity from coal or natural gas.
00:22:54.079 --> 00:22:55.279
It's even cheaper.
00:22:56.319 --> 00:23:01.279
And so that, you know, at that point then it's then it's an obvious economic driver.
00:23:01.359 --> 00:23:03.519
And actually that's part of what gives me hope.
00:23:03.759 --> 00:23:14.720
Because the fact is something started out very expensive, and but eventually, you know, because of mass production and innovation, um, that didn't just happen in this country, by the way.
00:23:14.880 --> 00:23:32.240
China was a big part of that story in terms of mass production of solar cells, uh, really helped drive down the price, and as a result, we're we're now in a position where solar cells are are uh the value proposition is is really compelling.
00:23:32.720 --> 00:23:38.480
Yes, I don't think many people realize that China actually outspends us almost two to one in these new technology areas.
00:23:38.799 --> 00:23:40.480
I think it's much more than two to one, actually.
00:23:41.279 --> 00:23:42.079
Oh yeah.
00:23:43.279 --> 00:23:47.359
Well, especially in terms of of research and development dollars.
00:23:47.680 --> 00:24:01.039
Well to me it seems like the new policies that have gone through recently, the infrastructure bill, the new inflation reduction act, has really created a new sense of momentum in this arena.
00:24:01.359 --> 00:24:08.720
Almost every day I open up the newspaper and they're talking about new jobs created in this arena in Wyoming or in the Southeast, all around.
00:24:08.880 --> 00:24:12.160
And it's almost as if the genie is out of the bottle.
00:24:12.400 --> 00:24:13.759
Do you see it the same way?
00:24:13.920 --> 00:24:18.319
Do you feel like there is so much momentum moving us forward that we can't go back?
00:24:19.279 --> 00:24:21.279
Well, I think we can always go back.
00:24:21.440 --> 00:24:22.720
I hope we don't go back.
00:24:22.880 --> 00:24:29.920
Um it all depends on the investments and the the policies that that happen in Washington, D.C.
00:24:30.160 --> 00:24:32.480
in terms of what happens in the United States.
00:24:32.720 --> 00:24:42.559
Uh it would be nice if if there could be some more certainty about uh long-term investments.
00:24:42.720 --> 00:24:47.039
And that's not something that the United States has has always been the best at.
00:24:47.279 --> 00:24:54.319
Uh and if if we could have more certainty, I think you would then draw in more private investment too.
00:24:54.799 --> 00:24:57.200
Um, because policies matter.
00:24:57.440 --> 00:25:09.680
And so one thing I will say is that is that uh the Biden administration certainly has been the first administration to be tremendously focused on this.
00:25:09.839 --> 00:25:30.000
In fact, it's uh a very large reason why I decided that it that I needed to get back to working on sustainability science full-time, because I felt that this is the moment where there's an opportunity to really contribute to making sure that the right kinds of investments are made.
00:25:30.319 --> 00:25:35.279
And so I think that the focus is there.
00:25:35.519 --> 00:25:43.200
I think the many of the investments make a lot of sense and uh and the policies make a lot of sense.
00:25:43.440 --> 00:25:53.200
There still is a lot of research and development that needs to be done to get to the point where these are going to be practical, practical solutions.
00:25:53.519 --> 00:26:22.319
So I personally would have liked to have seen a bit more investment in the research and development side, especially or at least flexibility given to the to the agencies that are being given these large sums of money to deploy, because you know there are two ways to advance technologies.
00:26:22.480 --> 00:26:30.000
Uh one is research and development that then leads eventually to pilot plants and then building full-stage plants on something.
00:26:30.160 --> 00:26:32.720
Another is is learning by doing.
00:26:32.960 --> 00:26:39.279
So let's just go, we go with what we have, we take it off the shelf, and we uh we try it out, right?
00:26:39.680 --> 00:26:41.920
And that can also bring the price down.
00:26:42.000 --> 00:26:54.480
And and I and what I would say is that the emphasis of a lot of the policies have been in the latter camp, and I just hope there's enough on the shelf that it makes sense to be um to be doing that right now.
00:26:54.960 --> 00:26:56.240
Spoken like a scientist.
00:26:56.559 --> 00:26:57.680
Yes, that's true.
00:26:57.920 --> 00:27:05.920
And you know, people could potentially say, oh, it's just because she wants uh research dollars for her own research, but that's not true at all.
00:27:06.079 --> 00:27:07.200
That's not what this is about.
00:27:07.359 --> 00:27:10.720
I mean, that's not been my that's not my focus right now.
00:27:10.960 --> 00:27:14.720
My focus is making sure we get to the optimal set of solutions.
00:27:14.960 --> 00:27:23.119
One thing that has been true for a very long time is bipartisan support for research and develop, for scientific research and development.
00:27:23.200 --> 00:27:27.599
And that that's been key to the innovations that this country has produced.
00:27:27.839 --> 00:27:28.559
Absolutely.
00:27:28.799 --> 00:27:34.319
And I think there has been bipartisan support for the infrastructure uh investments, absolutely.
00:27:34.799 --> 00:27:45.359
But what I mean when I said when I was attributing it to the Biden administration is simply that they're the ones that are they're making these proposals uh, you know, in terms of how much to invest.
00:27:45.440 --> 00:27:50.160
And of course they're working with Congress, and of course it wouldn't get anywhere if Congress didn't approve it.
00:27:50.319 --> 00:27:51.440
So, yes, absolutely.
00:27:51.599 --> 00:28:00.240
But by I would say that the Biden administration's been in the lead on um on making these proposals coming out of the Department of Energy.
00:28:00.720 --> 00:28:02.799
Emily, that was so interesting.
00:28:02.960 --> 00:28:06.799
I am so sorry that we've run out of time and we have to call it to a close.
00:28:07.119 --> 00:28:07.920
Well, thank you.
00:28:08.160 --> 00:28:14.160
My guest here today is Professor Emily Carter, a world expert on carbon utilization.
00:28:14.880 --> 00:28:20.559
And I am Kathleen Biggins, and this is Sea Change Conversation Solutions series.
00:28:20.720 --> 00:28:28.799
Thank you for joining us, and please follow us on social media or at our website, www.seachchangeconversations.org.
00:28:29.039 --> 00:28:32.160
Thanks for joining us, and we hope to see you next time.
