Transcriber: Alexis Young Reviewer: Amanda Zhu
Today I want to share with you
ideas, thoughts, progress, interesting information
about carbon dioxide utilization:
Why?
Why now?
And how we should actually do this and how to think about this.
And in fact, what it is?
But let’s take a step back and talk about carbon.
The element carbon is essential to life on planet earth -
no carbon, no life -
with very few exceptions.
So we need to start this conversation
with the recognition that carbon as such is something that’s not only not bad
but it’s essential, it’s great, it’s good.
It’s really good that we have it.
So where does all that carbon come from
that makes up a large fraction
of our bodies, our DNA, our muscles, our foods,
many of our daily products that we use -
soaps, plastics ...?
it’s endless.
It’s everywhere.
So life without carbon, as I say, doesn’t work.
But again, where does it come from?
There are the two main sources of carbon as we utilize it.
One is indirectly supplied to us through plants.
As plants grow, they ingest carbon dioxide from the air
and convert it into valuable materials
like a chemical factory in the plant that takes the carbon dioxide,
breaks it apart,
reshuffles it with other nutrients taken from the ground
and makes carbohydrates, fibers, liquids,
lots of things that can be made out of CO2 that way.
The other big source of carbon for us humans
comes from the ground.
It comes out of coal mines and oil fields,
so fossil sources.
From these fossil carbon sources,
we can make many of our daily life products
plastics, soap, etc. - same thing.
We predominantly use these fossil carbon sources, though,
for their high energy contents.
As we set them on fire, literally,
this energy is made available to us for heating, for transport
and as a source of making chemicals
that happen to to be made
when the hydrocarbons from petroleum are converted into ...
many of the products that we need.
So, so far, so good.
The need is demonstrated.
The sources are there.
What’s the problem?
Why do we hear about carbon dioxide every day?
And why is it all of a sudden a problem?
Well, if we look back what we have done over the last 200 years
as industrialization has grown,
as more and more energy has been needed,
more and more materials have been made,
concrete, plastics, lots of stuff,
all of that has led us
to dig out more and more of these fossil carbon sources
and convert them, and ultimately, they end up as gas -
this carbon dioxide that accumulates in the atmosphere.
It accumulates there because it has little energy left to do anything else.
So it doesn’t react much with anything that’s in the atmosphere too.
So it just stays there.
More and more builds up.
And we have seen what happens.
The CO2 molecule can capture a lot of heat,
thermal energy that comes from the sun
and otherwise would partially be reflected back into outer space.
The carbon dioxide molecules in the atmosphere keep that trapped.
And as a result,
the average temperature on earth is rising,
which as we begin to see,
has really negative impacts
on the well-being, safety and living environment
of a growing number of people around the world.
We have to do something about it.
And this is where carbon dioxide utilization comes into play.
I told you earlier that plants take in carbon dioxide
and convert it into valuable products.
Well, we learn a lot from nature everywhere.
Why not do the same thing in big factories?
Because plants can't do it all for us.
There’s just not enough space to grow enough plants
to take out all of that excess CO2 that is in the atmosphere
way above what needs to be there
or can be there
for a stable climate.
So we need to seek ways in how we can actually take that out
and either store it underground,
put it literally back where we took it from,
or,
since we do need carbon-based products as I’ve shown at the beginning,
we can use that carbon dioxide molecule as the source of that carbon.
So for example, we can take the carbon dioxide molecule,
we can take water,
put in energy,
and we can make fuels.
Didn’t I tell you before that these hydrocarbons,
these fuel molecules that we derive from petroleum
are used to actually generate or release energy?
Now we’re saying we’re putting energy back in to make fuels,
to then bring energy back out.
Well, that’s exactly it.
Fuels are nothing else but just energy carriers,
a convenient way of delivering energy to where we need it.
And with the availability of really cheap renewable energy from wind and solar,
we can actually make that happen.
The technology is emerging.
It’s shown how it actually works,
and therefore making fuels, making chemicals, the plastics
that we need for many of our medical services and more -
all of that can be made out of carbon dioxide.
And therefore we are reusing, recycling that CO2 from the atmosphere
when it has been released to make the things we need.
There is no more additional carbon dioxide being added to the atmosphere
if we work this way.
Furthermore, we can actually look at processes
that can take this carbon dioxide and store it forever in products.
We can take carbon dioxide and react it with waste materials,
or some rocks we find in nature to make concrete, like this planter.
This planter was made in parts with carbon dioxide harvested from air
converted into a rock, and that’s how it stays.
So we have two things.
We remove some of the CO2, solve some of our climate problems this way,
we store it forever,
and in the process, the concrete we make is less harmful to the environment
because we do not need to produce as many of the other harmful ingredients
with lots of excess energy.
So it’s a really, really beneficial way of making this all happen.
So why don’t we do this?
It seems to make a lot of sense.
Well, and it does.
And literally, we have no choice.
We must do it.
The problem only is
regular concrete, regular gasoline, regular plastic wrap
made from petroleum or made from traditional cement
are just cheaper
than the alternatives that are emerging.
Yet if we look at the alternative, we don’t really have one.
We have to take care of the planet.
We have to make sure that the excess CO2 is being removed,
we don’t add more to it, and we have to deal with the cost.
Will we ever be able to do this?
I'm certain of that.
Let’s just take a step back to maybe 1990
when solar panels were really, really expensive
and really weren’t affordable
and certainly didn’t make sense from an economic point of view
as a mainstream provider of energy.
Look at it today.
Solar and wind energy parts are producing the cheapest and cleanest energy
that we have available.
It was all triggered by government support
that enables the launch of these technologies.
And I think we need to see the same thing here
with carbon dioxide utilization.
So we see our carbon future has a solution.
and I hope that I have interested you in CO2 utilization,
that you are excited about it and perhaps join in making it a reality.
Thank you so much.