- Hello.
Today's video is about an awesome company
called Climeworks that builds machines
that take CO2 out of the air.
Yes, they are the sponsor of this video,
but I wouldn't have agreed to have them sponsor this video
if I did not believe in what they do.
They called me up and they're like,
"Hey, want a sponsor?"
And I'm like, "(blows raspberry) What do you do,
Take CO2 out of the air?"
And they're like, "Yeah," and I'm like "Oh.
Okay."
So let's talk about direct air capture
and how Climeworks is making the world not not good
by taking CO2 out of the air.
What should we call it?
(dramatic music)
This video is coming at you in question/answer form.
Kwah?
Yes.
And the questions I'll be answering
were posed by some random strangers
I found on the street.
First question from this random stranger.
- Hello, I'm a doctor.
Taking carbon out of the air sounds pretty great.
I should know, I'm a doctor.
Should I rest easy knowing we've found the one
and only solution to climate change?
- (laughs) Yes, absolutely.
We don't have to worry about reducing emissions anymore.
Don't take it from me.
Ask Steven and Rachael from Climeworks.
I did.
- We need to reduce first, a hundred percent.
I mean, ideally we just stop drilling from the ground,
but unfortunately, A, as much as we would love that,
it's a transition, and B,
there's already too much carbon in the air.
Our technology is removing those unavoidable
excess emissions kind of on top of reduction methods.
- [Craig] Oh, right, right, right.
There are lots of things that need to be done
to combat climate change.
We need to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels,
increase renewables, electric cars, plant trees,
stop having methane balloon fights.
I used to do that.
It was a different time.
So it's not the only tool, obviously,
but direct air capture is useful
and I like what Climeworks is doing.
- Why do you like Climeworks?
Give me the prognosis, for I am a doctor.
- First of all, I talked to Rachael and Steven
from Climeworks, and they seem like real, genuine people
who care about the real, genuine world.
I asked what brought them to Climeworks.
- I was like, "I wanna work in climate,
I want something full of purpose,
and I want to use my skills as a marketeer
to be able to communicate to, you know, a mass audience."
Make a difference for the world
and spread the word that the solution's out there.
- Steve brought up a question he didn't like
that he got asked while he was working at his old job,
an advertising agency.
- "Are you one of those guys that put ads
in front of my YouTube videos,
kind of working for an advertising agency?"
- I thought you were asking me.
- [Steven] And that really made me think about,
"What am I doing here?"
- Yeah, I'd never put an ad in a YouTube video.
- [Steven] That's why I kind of moved towards
something with more purpose in life.
My reason for being here is that
I really want to have an impact
and not just put silly YouTube ads.
- So there you go.
Climeworks is made up of real people
who just want to help.
Done.
Thank you for watching this video.
If you'd like to support Climeworks,
there's a link down below where you can subscribe.
- Whoa, whoa, slow down, son!
I'm a police officer and I've got more questions.
- Oh, right, back to the kwah.
- As a police officer, I'd like to know,
how does Climeworks clime work?
(officer laughing)
- Okay, here are the details.
You got your fan drawing in your air into your box
with your special filter that your CO2 sticks to.
Once you're all full up of CO2, the box closes
and heats to 100 degrees Celsius.
They're a Swiss company, they use Celsius.
212 degrees Fahrenheit.
'Merica! (fireworks exploding)
This allows the pure CO2 to be collected.
- In Iceland, we have a partner there called Carbfix,
and it's a really, really cool process.
So once we have the captured CO2,
we liquefy it and then it gets injected
deep underground about a thousand meters,
which is basically like two Eiffel towers.
We've got a plant running in Iceland,
which was launched last September.
It's called Orca, which is actually
the Icelandic word for "energy."
The really great thing about Iceland
is it's full of basaltic rock, which is like a hard sponge.
If you imagine all this liquified CO2
is kind of filling the gaps, it then becomes solid matter
and it stays underground essentially forever.
- Okay, okay, okay.
But as a police officer, can this only work in Iceland?
- I believe it was Bjork who said it best.
"Nope."
- It's not limited to Iceland.
- [Rachael] There is the right kind of rock
in many, many different places.
We've got a pilot in Oman.
They are actually using a different type of rock,
it's not basaltic, so-
- See, it can happen in lots of places.
- Hello, I'm a man in a tuxedo.
Do we need to bury all that carbon?
Can't it be used much like my brother is being used
by the woman he just married
at the wedding I just came from?
- Yes, it can be, and is used,
not like that, though.
In addition to burying a lot of it forever,
they give some to greenhouses to grow vegetables.
They've also gotten into the fizz-ness business
and sold some to Coca-Cola
so that they can make their sparkly water sparkly.
- Okay, okay.
But doesn't this use a lot of energy,
much like I did doing the twist with my cousin?
- Yes, it does use energy.
But fortunately, their site in Iceland
uses Iceland's clean geothermal energy, but yes,
they wanna build these in a lot of different places,
which is why they plan to build near
renewable sources as they grow.
- Oh, so they plan to grow, do they?
What are their plans for the future?
And should I sign a prenup?
- Well, this isn't a marriage, so no.
But yes, they have big plans.
Here's the deal.
Climate scientists are saying that we need to
get up to removing about 10 billion tons of carbon
from the air by the year 2050.
That's a lot.
We're nowhere near that.
But Climeworks has begun scaling up,
and they plan to continue scaling up a lot more.
Their first plant is called Orca.
They've begun building-
- [Rachael] Another plant called Mammoth
because it'll be much bigger.
Currently, we're pulling 4,000 tons of CO2 per year,
and the next plant will be almost 10 times that.
That's a lot, but it's not
this whole 10 billion tons per year thing,
so we wanna get to that level.
Multiple plants in lots of different locations
pulling mega tons and being really what we call
"climate relevant."
We're pulling thousands of tons
and we wanna get to billions.
But now that we have it, and now that it's proven,
it's something that we can keep scaling.
- Okay, great.
As a tree hater, we can pretty much
forget about trees now, right?
Because I hate them.
- No, no, no, no.
Why do you hate trees?
Of course, we gotta continue planting trees.
I love trees.
I can climb 'em, my dog pees on 'em,
I sometimes pee on 'em if I'm well hidden
and really gotta go.
What's not to love?
But we need more than trees.
- [Rachael] It needs a thousand times less space than trees.
Keep planting trees, keep investing in
reforestation projects and everything,
but it requires too much land
to remove the amount we need.
Two Indias, one Europe.
I mean, it's mind-blowing, it's huge.
You know, we've got these kind of
shipping-container-size-collectors,
which you can just stack.
- As a regular person who exists,
I'm thinking this is a very large challenge.
Is there a reason to hope?
- Yes!
You may have seen in the news recently
that Climeworks has received funds
from some large donors, and just regular people like you.
- Who, me?
- Yes.
- [Rachael] We've got currently 15,000
what we call "climate pioneers."
What we think is really unique with Climeworks
is that actually individuals can take a subscription
and they can remove CO2 from the air,
fight climate change on a monthly basis, or yearly basis,
and you can help support the goal and the mission.
- [Craig] I'm a climate pioneer.
Currently in 34th place.
What up?
Wait, 35?
I went down a rank while I was editing this!
Oh, I'm so angry that more people
wanna fight climate change!
Now, where was I?
I support them every month, and you can too.
You can just follow the link below and subscribe.
You can get in on the ground floor
of what I think is going to be a big player
in the fight against climate change.
Any other questions?
- Hey Carl, are you paying me for being in this video?
- I sure am!
- Great!
- In the form of promotion.
- Oh, that's super.
My mortgage is three YouTube promotions.
- Check out Greg Benson's hilarious livestreams
at twitch.tv/mediocrefilms,
and his wonderful podcast,
"Two Guys Talking About Lettuce" with Craig Benzine.
They talk about wonderful nonsense.
Very little about lettuce, actually, but it's fine.
And thanks again to Rachael and Steven
for talking with me and for helping take CO2 outta the air.
I hate climate change, it's so stupid!
So you can click down there to subscribe to them,
or just go to their website, learn more about them,
tweet about them, tell your grandma.
I regret telling you that I peed on trees sometimes.
Don't go peeing on other people's trees.
And YouTube thinks you'll like that video.
There's a video that's probably really good.
I don't know what it is.
You can click there to subscribe and check out Climeworks.
(high piano note playing)
- Thanks for having me.
And I apologize for saying the word (beep)
in your branded video.