Keep our Eyes on the (X)Prize

The place we call home has gotten a bit more livable. We have a long, way to go, no doubt, but at least there’s signs and signals of private enterprise stepping up to the challenge of meaningful climate change mitigation.

First, a new UN IPCC report finally got around to ‘splaining what us non-scientist types knew before Elon Musk made a $100M prize out of it: carbon emissions are bad, and must be stopped, but carbon removal — like gigatons of it, STAT! — is absolutely essential if we are to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

Getting the removal thing done at sufficient scale has been a hotly debated topic, as there are technology enthusiasts actively inventing sucking machines to capture and sequester carbon in rather odd and unnatural ways. But if we had a choice about it (and we do), we’d bet on nature, biology and the coolest part of humanity — our ability to learn how to invent solutions to current messes without making bigger messes in the process. Right?

So it with great pride and appreciation for everyone involved that we announce two In3 clients that were selected for Carbon Removal top honors out of the 1,133 teams that joined Mr. Musk’s carbon removal XPRIZE competition:

1. RIZOME is scaling regenerative, “timber” bamboo globally to achieve rapid atmospheric carbon drawdown, building decarbonization, and improved soil health, while engaging and uplifting indigenous populations and restoring agricultural communities. Making Rizome’s engineered bamboo panels and similar 100% bamboo products generates quite a bit of sawdust, itself used to make top-quality biochar and activated carbon (AC), with biochar finally getting the attention it deserves by both the XPRIZE committee and the UN’s IPCC scientists. Both buildings and biochar have long-term sequestration benefits, drawing down atmospheric carbon into living plants then natural and biological processes take on long-term storage in the built environment dwellings as part of soil microbiomes. XPRIZE Milestone Award Finalist!
   
   
2. BAMCORE: Humanity faces two intersecting crises: accelerating climate change and a growing global shortage of housing. BamCore addresses both by harnessing nature’s fastest growing and strongest structural fiber, timber bamboo, to capture CO2 and create a new generation of super high performance building frames. We can use our product to turn every residential and commercial low-rise building into a durable carbon sink. Our project has a positive impact on the environment by lowering the reliance on slow growing trees and clear-cut harvesting, as well as creating a demand to plant more timber bamboo, which will sequester more carbon, faster than timber forests. Our project is a one-of-a-kind endeavor, and we are the only entity in the world with the experience and expertise to use timber bamboo in this way. It is not theoretical that we will sequester 1,000 tonnes per year, as that is something we expect to achieve by this year, 2022. By using timber bamboo, we are creating quality buildings that humanity desperately needs, while sequestering carbon long term, to help address climate change. XPRIZE Top 60 milestone and Ivory Prize award winner for Housing Affordability.

Both are shown on this Team Map | More at Meet the Competitors

Congratulations to all those who applied and are carrying out this important work!

Carbon Capture versus Carbon Storage

Why everyone is talking about “carbon capture”? But what about carbon sequestration and storage? Once carbon is removed or “captured” from a system, then what do you do with it? If it is embodied in the fibers of the thing you made to capture carbon, such as the case with both companies mentioned above, then you’re done. Mission accomplished! Do more of that. But if it is not embedded as part of that thing, you end up with carbon that needs a new home. Carbon Capture & Storage/Sequestration (CCS) can be controversial, depending on how the storage/sequestration is done, with two broad methods:

1. Via living things, such as plants, soils, and products made from these
2. Via engineering, geoengineering, chemical engineering … to pool and store carbon separately, without necessarily involving soils, plants, or biological processes.

What are the leading methods for both types, and is it safe to store it in underground geologic formations? Rocks seem pretty safe. I’ve met some rocks in my time. Solid individuals. (The jokes don’t seem to be getting any better, do they?)

Carbon in Conventional Energy and Industrial Agriculture

How do we tackle the CO2 emissions from fossil energy production and conventional/industrial food production? We quickly convert to less polluting methods, and put a tax or counterincentive on the pollution to level the playing field. We these dinosaurs out of their misery. It is a design problem we have already solved.

Accounting for the cost of carbon capture and the costs of mitigating climate change overall can help bring things into balance. CCS can reduce emissions from fossil energy production, but why do we need fossil energy at all when renewables are so abundantly available and affordable? Let’s phase them out. Leave the fossil resources in the ground or under the oceans. Can we agree that the problems at hand have taught us we need to do things differently now? Or will we wait until climate change gets that much worse before reckoning with that?

Similarly, we now have the tools and solutions in hand to make up for the yield gap in Certified Organic food production, such as via bio-available liquid phosphorous, the one fertilizer that is hardest to get, so production of pesticide-free Organic crops no longer needs to take up extra land for equivalent yields. We can feed the world without depleting soils, polluting waters with NPK runoff, without poisoning our food supply and workers.

Safety Concerns for CCS

CO2 Transport and Storage Sites Could Be Dangerous

While accident rates during the transport of CO2 are relatively low, the potential for a dangerous leak still exists. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, if CO2 were to leak from a pipeline, a concentration between 7% and 10% in the ambient air could pose an immediate threat to human life.

Leakage at the site of underground storage is also a possibility. If a sudden leak of CO2 were to happen at an injection site, it could put the health of surrounding people and animals at risk. A gradual leak from fractures in the rock layers or from injection wells has the potential to contaminate both the soil and groundwater in the area surrounding the storage site. And seismic events triggered by CO2 injection could also disrupt the areas near the storage site.   All that work at such an unnatural solution can be undone with one good earthquake.

Nature has this one dialed in … if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it

Didn’t humankind get into this pickle by overlooking the long-term systemic effects of CO2 emissions into the air on a massive scale? Doesn’t our overreliance on dominating nature and thinking we know better now show us the answers must include the cautionary principle at every decision?

Consider a house made of bamboo. Not only is that bamboo the fastest-growing carbon sink known, removing carbon from the air as it grows, but then the embodied carbon ends up in a building that has a useful life of many decades. Even if the house gets “recycled” within 60 or 70 years, that carbon remains reusable and stays out of the air. Let’s envision a world where we can put carbon back to work in soils and other functions that draw it down and keep it where it can buy us time.