About one year ago we were joined on this show by Toby Bryce, who works with the volunteer-advocacy group the OpenAir Collective on a variety of projects that support the growth of carbon removal. Toby told us about the groups work advocating for state-level legislation called the Carbon Dioxide Removal Leadership Act in New York State.
Since then, the legislation has been proposed in several more states, and the group’s network of policy advocates has grown along with it.
Today we’ll talk to Toby about what’s going on with CDRLA, and what kind of political dynamics he’s found as OpenAir wades into state-level policymaking.
Radhika and Toby will also delve into some of the bigger questions about the public acceptability challenges of growing carbon removal. What should advocates and CDR companies be doing to communicate with the public, and what are the stakes?
On This Episode
Toby Bryce
Radhika Moolgavkar
Resources
Carbon Dioxide Removal Leadership Act
Co Biochar to Oil Wells Legislation
Subscribe to Climate Workers Anonymous
My other show, Reversing Climate Change
Books referenced in the podcasts, at Bookshop
Full Transcript
Announcer: You’re listening to Carbon Removal Newsroom, a weekly show about current events in the world of carbon removal, from technology and innovation to policymaking and job growth. Brought to you by Nori, the carbon removal marketplace.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Hello, everybody, and welcome to Carbon Removal Newsroom for Thursday, April 6th. Today, we have Toby Bryce, who works on CDR Policy and Advocacy with the Open Air Collective. Hi, Toby.
Toby Bryce: Hello, Radhika. Thank you for having me on your program.
Radhika Moolgavkar: We always like having you. And then, as always, this is Radhika Moolgavkar, Head of Supply at NORI. Today we’re going to try something a little different and not have a panel, but we are spinning up kind of a new series that is going to talk in depth with people who are engaged in community outreach, community development of projects and carbon removal generally. So we’re launching with Toby partially because Toby is in the trenches and partially because he is given a lot of thought on this. So we’re excited to kind of hear his perspective.
A year ago, he was on the show and he works, for those of you who don’t know, he works with a volunteer advocacy group, the Open Air Collective on a whole host of projects that support the growth of carbon removal. Toby told us about the group’s working to advocate for state level legislation called the Carbon Dioxide Removal Leadership Act that was passed in New York State. Since then, the legislation has been proposed in several more states and the group’s network of policy advocates has grown along with it. Today, we’ll talk a little bit about the CDRLA and what kind of political dynamics he’s found as the open air wades into state level policymaking and also touch upon public acceptability and the challenges of growing carbon removal.
How do we balance both the needs of advocates and the urgency of this problem? So first off, Toby, let’s just start on an update on CDRLA outreach, the status of the state bills and that kind of thing.
Toby Bryce: Yeah, absolutely. I guess to just sort of set the stage, Open Air, you know, one of our One of the biggest pillars is policy development and advocacy, and we do a lot of thinking and work at the state and local level, and we think that’s really important. Obviously, federal policy can be larger and more impactful, but it’s also slower and in our current political environment, it’s a little bit indeterminate how much more federal policy we’ll be able to get. However, we think the state and local jurisdictions are incredibly fertile ground for working on policy.
And that’s for a couple reasons. Number one, we have 50 states. And so we think that there’s a lot of opportunity for innovation and to think about new policies and really just more shots on goal and get more policies passed. The other piece of it is that Again, like federal policy can be really impactful, but also with federal policy, you end up with kind of larger unitary policies that give us things like DAC hubs, which are really important and I think are going to be really great for taking the DAC sector forward.
But we think that carbon removal is strongest when it’s The sector will be strongest if we can be as broad based as possible in terms of geography and also carbon removal method and approach. And so like if you have a state level policy where you can have, again, more shots on goal that will fund a broader range of projects, then I think federal policy is really set up to do. So those are the reasons we really like state policy. The CDRLA is a bill that we wrote kind of, is really our first state level carbon removal bill.
And it’s designed to set up a state level CDR procurement program. The bill is a live bill in New York. It’s a little bit more abundant in New York. So today we’re going to talk a little bit more about Massachusetts. In Massachusetts, it was introduced earlier this year by the Senate Majority Leader in Massachusetts, Cindy Cream, who is amazing, super powerful. She completely gets carbon removal and how it fits into our kind of climate toolkit. And so the bill has been introduced there. In terms of the status, there’s an initial hearing, I believe next year, Tuesday, April 11th, we have a great roster of panelists, Greg Nemet, folks from 4401, Running Tide, Heirloom, Verdox, Frontier, who are going to come and talk to the legislators about carbon removal generally, not really the bill specifically, but to kind of set the stage for passing the bill.
So that’s where the policy is in Massachusetts. We think it’s in a really good place. New York is a politically challenging environment. There are a lot of other climate policies pending. We’re kind of trying to pursue a more executive approach by working with the governor’s office on potentially a smaller pilot project in New York. No real news to report there yet. We have two bills being advanced in Colorado. One is a sort of a study bill to create sort of a research and experimental initiative around plugging orphan oil and gas wells with biochar, which is really interesting.
And then there’s another bill that’s a more general carbon removal bill that would allow carbon removal projects to qualify under the more general rubric of state clean tech funding. So those are two kind of interesting bills happening in Colorado. And then in California, there’s a super innovative and interesting bill that’s been introduced by Senator Josh Becker, who’s kind of from the peninsula, Silicon Valley area, and it’s called a carbon dioxide removal. Market Development Act, CDRMDA, if we would like to go acronymic. And that bill also has a hearing, I believe, week after next.
And it is a different structure than the CDRLA procurement bill. It’s more of a compliance mechanism, and it’s setting up a polluter pays compliance market for carbon removal along the lines of kind of the low carbon fuel standard and the CCA compliance markets in California. So that’s the kind of the top line. I’m happy to kind of dig into any of those that you’d like to drill into.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Yeah, I think I’m just more curious to start with about why you’ve chosen slightly different strategies or how you have chosen the strategies you’ve chosen in each state. So it sounds like the Northeast, you’re going with sort of this CDRLA, this procurement model. Then in Colorado, you’re looking at a slightly different model. And then in California, yet another model.
Toby Bryce: Yep.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Is that by design or is that in response to the political environment or some combination?
Toby Bryce: I think a combination. I mean, I think, you know, when you’re looking at local state and local policy, you really have to think about what the local politics are. The CDR LA is a bill that we wrote. California and New York are both Democratic super majorities. So the politics there are very different from Colorado, which is more of a red state, which kind of, or sorry, purple state, which requires that you start in a little bit more modest terms, which those bills are. And then California is a politically obviously very Dynamic and heterogeneous state, California already has this market-based infrastructure for carbon.
So those bills we have collaborated on, but I wouldn’t say we were the primary authors of the bills in Colorado or California. We’re very supportive of both, and we’re working on getting membership together for citizen lobbying for both bills. The CDRLA is kind of a It’s like most philosophically aligned with how we think. It’s a method neutral criteria based procurement bill. It starts very small, 10,000 tonnes a year, and then increases by 10,000 tonnes each year over its initial five year authorization. So it goes 10, 20, 30, 40, 50,000 tonnes.
If it passes this year, it would start in 2024. And, you know, there’s a 10 year delivery period, the projects have to be in state or likely by an in state carbon removal company. And so it’s really designed to, you know, it’s obviously going to deliver some climate benefit, but it’s really from a political perspective, it’s packaged as an Innovation and commercial development policy. We’ve kind of found that for a state level government, it’s hard to sell the purely climate narrative. So you really need to think like, why would New York or Massachusetts spend this money on this project when the federal government’s also doing it?
So you really need to kind of think about it in terms of building, enabling the given jurisdiction to be able to participate in what is, as we all know, is going to be a trillion dollar sector later this century.
Radhika Moolgavkar: So as the Open Air Collective and the groups that you work with are looking to work within states, how are you choosing the states you work with or how are you figuring out who to partner with as you move these bills forward across the country?
Toby Bryce: Yep. Well, open or as you mentioned, open air is an all volunteer organization, no one gets paid. And it’s so it’s very member driven. So, you know, and I would say this to the audience too, if anyone is living in a state and wants to like collaborate on a carbon removal policy for your state or join If you have any of our work in the states where we’re active, please, you know, we’ll put a link in the show notes, but join our group. It’s very member driven. So, you know, if someone in North Carolina or Texas or Louisiana wanted to start a carbon removal policy, we kind of have the tools and infrastructure to get something like that started.
It starts with the people. It starts with the volunteers. So New York, I mean, I happen to be in New York. Chris Niedel, our co-founder, is from Albany and very well connected politically in the state. So that’s kind of where we started. Massachusetts, literally, I saw Senator Kareem. She’s sponsoring another policy that we developed called the Low Embodied Carbon Concrete Leadership Act, which is a state-level policy for public procurement of low-carbon concrete. So we sort of knew her. Massachusetts has kind of an interesting situation. Both New York and Massachusetts have net zero policies that are net zero by 2050, 85% from emissions reductions, and then 15% from other, kind of poorly defined offsets.
And in New York, that’s kind of where it stopped. But in Massachusetts, interestingly, they had actually done the work to estimate of that 15%, how much sequestration can they get out of their natural and working lands. So that kind of like eliminated the conflict between, you know, longer duration, And I saw that and I messaged her on Twitter and she replied right away and said, contact my Policy Director Garrett Casey, who, by the way, is amazing. He’s like, gets so much done and we’re only one of, I don’t know how many different pieces of legislation he’s working on.
So it’s, again, it’s just very member driven. And then you have to be very, you know, a carbon removal policy in Arizona is going to look very different from a carbon removal policy in Massachusetts, just because of the local political context. And then there are also kind of legislative and legal contexts. Not every state has a net zero commitment. So you kind of have to think about it in a different way there. And again, California is its own beast. It would be one of the largest countries in the world if it were its own country.
So it’s got very, I think, specific politics.
Radhika Moolgavkar: That’s a kind way of putting it after having lived in California for four years. So I’m curious a little bit about the Colorado bill, because that’s actually the first bill that’s kind of in a purple state that you’ve talked about in depth. And I’m curious. What kind of what are the political dynamics in a purple state? And where are the areas where you’re seeing unexpected cooperation and unexpected maybe lack of cooperation?
Toby Bryce: First of all, I’m not super plugged into our Colorado work, so I am probably not the best person to talk in detail about Colorado, but I can say a few things. Yes, Colorado is a purple state. I think we started kind of trying to pitch, present a CDRLA, state-level public procurement framework there, and it just didn’t get anywhere. I think there were some issues with the state We had to look in other directions. Partners in government in Colorado. There are a couple of state legislators we’ve become close to. The head of sustainability for Boulder County, Susie Strife, who is one of the founders of the Four Corners Carbon Coalition, which is a local government CDR procurement program that OpenAir kind of helped get off the ground.
And so we talked to them and tried to figure out what was the best way to get started. It was suggested, and this actually came from the local legislator there, that, you know, one problem is that there is money for clean tech in Colorado, but carbon removal projects can’t qualify. So we just decided to start by making it so that carbon removal projects can qualify for this more general pool of funding and see if that can get passed and go from there. I think getting something passed, you know, I think that, you know, in politics, obviously, it’s the art of the possible, as they say, you don’t want to let the perfect be the enemy of the good, just to load on the cliches here.
And, you know, I think you have to be really pragmatic and practical when you’re thinking about these things.
Radhika Moolgavkar: So where did the idea for biochar as a lid or, you know, for the mines come from? Because that seems like pretty innovative and Yeah, no, it’s a super cool idea.
Toby Bryce: It came from the academic literature. We have a member in Colorado who we actually we did a seminar where she presented and she kind of had a personal issue that got her really interested in how to plug orphan oil and gas wells because of a health issue with a family member from the some of the contaminants that came from the orphan oil and gas well. And she just got interested in it. And, you know, she was part of Open Air. And again, we kind of have this like framework and support structure so that an individual who has an idea like this can kind of take it and run.
And now it’s a, you know, it’s a live bill in the legislature. And again, it’s a really modest policy. It’s a study bill. It basically gets the state to start looking into this, you know, at There are millions of orphan oil and gas wells in North America and the U. S. and they’re a huge source of greenhouse gas emissions and this is just one way that you can potentially solve that problem.
Radhika Moolgavkar: It’s really creative. I love it because it’s so practical.
Toby Bryce: I can give you guys some little information on that bill that you can put in the show notes. And again, if anyone’s interested in following up on that, definitely reach out to us and we can kind of hook you up with that team. And obviously there are other states where that kind of policy could potentially be advanced because there are orphan oil and gas wells all over our country, unfortunately.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Yeah. So how about in the more, like you said, the Democratic supermajority states, what kind of resistance or political dynamics do you see in those states?
Toby Bryce: Well, number one, and the biggest one, I think, for any policy advocacy is just inertia, getting mindshare with legislators. There’s just so much going on. You know, climate’s important, but so is climate. And so number one is like finding a good sponsor and getting mindshare because it’s just hard, you know, you have to get a committee hearing and then once you’re through committee, you have to get a vote and all of that just takes, you know, that takes legislator interest. So that is really the, by, I think, Far, in a state like New York and Massachusetts, the biggest problem.
New York, there are a dozen climate policies pending. There are some really good bills that couldn’t even get a vote last year because of just like intransigence in Albany. So, you know, I think that’s The biggest challenge. And for Massachusetts, I mean, we’re really fortunate to have such a, you know, plugged in, in tune and powerful sponsor in Senator Cream. And I think that gives me a lot of hope for our prospects in Massachusetts. Beyond that, really, you know, it’s not like you’re going to get Republicans super interested in this policy in a state like New York or Massachusetts.
But in Massachusetts, they’re actually, the Republican Party in New York is kind of a little bit of a, It’s in a little bit of disarray, I would say, in a variety of ways. But in Massachusetts, there are actually some relatively reasonable Republicans who are interested in climate. So I think we could potentially get bipartisan sponsorship in Massachusetts. Again, we’re just getting started, and we haven’t really started rolling out our effort for to attract other legislative sponsors. So we’re kind of early days in Massachusetts. But the biggest, I think, opposition is on the sort of environmental left, where you have a lot of kind of old guard environmental organizations that are really suspicious of quote unquote carbon capture.
They don’t understand the difference between carbon removal and carbon capture. You have some sort of like Folks who’ve drank the Mark Jacobson Kool-Aid that we can get everything done with solar and wind and we don’t need any other technologies. So that’s kind of the challenge there. And what I’ve found is that some, you’re not going to be able to win some people over, but The way to kind of win over that point of view is to try to have it’s also hard to have group to group conversations because like groups are kind of monolithic and it’s hard to kind of they have hard positions and they can be kind of dogmatic.
But you try to find influential people within the groups that are potentially open to new ideas and have one on one conversations. And I’ve really found that the best way to unlock the door when someone might not agree with you with respect to carbon removal is just like go Overboard and correctly, frankly, that emissions reductions are the lion’s share of the work that we need to do as a society to reach net zero. I always reference the science-based targets numbers, which are 90% from emissions reductions and then 10% from emissions.
Carbon removal. If we do well, it could be less from carbon removal. If we can get more from natural and working lands, it could be less from longer duration carbon removal. But if you really start, like a couple people with whom I’ve had this conversation, it’s like, I really like to hear you say that 90% number. So I found that, first of all, I believe it. And second of all, and I think it’s correct. And second of all, I think that’s one thing that I found really, really helps like open people up to this conversation.
And then number two is to disambiguate carbon capture from carbon removal. You could have a whole nother episode on carbon capture because, you know, someone, Jack Andreassen from Breakthrough said on Twitter today, carbon capture is not going to be important for energy generation because it’s just not going to make sense to put clean coal makes no sense. But carbon capture will be needed for industrial things like cement and steel most likely. But regardless, you know, and it may or may not be a good techno-economic situation given whatever that particular context is but it’s not carbon removal, so if you can kind of get folks to understand that carbon carbon capture quote unquote is different than carbon removal.
That’s the second thing that I found helpful, the third thing that I found helpful is to really emphasize that carbon removal. Does not equal giant carbon engineering direct air capture plants, but rather it’s a range of pathways and approaches, everything from forests and soils to biochar and bio-oil. People don’t like it when you say bio-oil, so I usually just say biochar. Talk about ocean-based methods, mineralization. I mean, there’s no one on the planet who doesn’t like enhanced rock weathering. So like emphasize these other approaches. Direct air capture is part of the puzzle, certainly, but there are all these other approaches.
But those are kind of the three things that I think we’ve found that can help convince people. And you’re not going to win everybody over, but we’ve had some wins. And in Massachusetts, we’re having those conversations now. We’ve been set up with kind of one-on-ones with local environmental organizations in Massachusetts. We’re organizing a sort of a private environmental justice roundtable to kind of present the policy and listen. And, you know, and the fact in Massachusetts is the bills, you know, it’s a legislative draft, we’re open to feedback, we’re listening, you know, so I think the key is to like, to be really humble and just try to listen to what people have to say.
And then those three kind of, I found those three primary points to make have been sometimes effective in getting people to be open to the idea of carbon removal.
Radhika Moolgavkar: So another area that I heard a lot of concern about, which I don’t know if your three strategies alleviates, is the feeling that the communities that were most hurt by the extractive industries will be, again, most hurt because that’s where long-term storage will happen. And therefore, there will be injections and things like that. And frankly, you know, I think they have an interesting perspective because they have been the most impacted. And why should they trust what anyone’s saying? But we don’t have time to convince them in some ways because it’s so important.
So how do you approach, you know, that part of the environmental justice system? Community, which also seems to me maybe less in the political sphere and more in the advocacy like grassroots sphere.
Toby Bryce: Yep. And I think that’s a really good point, because I would say that, you know, the environmental left is not monolithic. You do have these sort of incumbent old guard environmental organizations, and then you have the actual frontline communities. And there’s definitely some overlap between those two segments of the environmental lab. Left but they’re pretty distinct they’re coming to this from a pretty distinct point of view. You know, through this work I’ve had the fortune and to like be able to sit down and roundtable situations with really some of the most like prominent environmental justice leaders in the US Peggy shepherd Dr Beverly right from Louisiana Catherine flowers from Alabama and.
Again, you just have to sit down, be quiet, and listen. That’s what you hear from folks like that. Their communities have borne the brunt of industrialization for the past century plus. I remember one comment was very impactful to me that y’all need to not be doing your science experiments in our backyards. And we don’t, you know, we have our own experts. We don’t trust your experts because they’ve been hearing these things for decades and generations. And what I come down to is, okay, you know, this is a new industry. We have the opportunity to do it right.
We’re going to have to earn community’s trust. And You know, we need to, we, the, you know, the extractive fossil carbon economy, the industrial economy was built in a very inequitable way and we absolutely have to do better this time. And I think it comes down to consent-based siting. Let’s not put projects where they’re not wanted. And I think we’re going to talk about this a little more, but like if you’re a carbon removal company, the first thing you need to do before you pick a site is You need to have potential sites, and then you need to engage with the communities at those sites.
XPRIZE and Carbon 180 just put out an amazing resource called From the Ground Up, and the title says it all. You just need to do these things first. You know, my day job is I’m a commercial advisor and I work with some carbon removal companies. And that can be hard because it’s hard to understand exactly how to do it. No one knows exactly how to do it. You have folks out there like, you know, Dr. Holly Buck, who are experts in this, who’ve been studying it for many years in an academic setting.
And you can definitely read their work. And, you know, Simone Stewart, Selena Scott Buchler from... Data for Progress, Vanessa Suarez and Anu Khan from Carbon 180. There’s a lot of resources out there, but I think everyone’s flying blind a little bit, but you have to do it that way. I think that, again, the XPRIZE Carbon 180 document, which just came out pretty recently, it’s called From the Ground Up, and it’s kind of an initial attempt at a playbook for a carbon removal company to how do you confront these issues? How do you do this?
And I will say that It’s one of the nice things about working in carbon removal is that it’s a lot of good people, and I think everyone is very well intentioned in this regard, and people want to do the right thing. So I think that, you know, we just have to kind of, we have to, I think, again, it’s consent-based siting and from the ground up.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Yeah, I have, you know, two thoughts about this, though. I would say that one, I think one interesting approach, if some of these communities could Figure out a way to do it is you’re seeing here in the Pacific Northwest, the native tribes taking control of the CDR and becoming actually the people creating it, controlling it, building businesses around it. And so, you know, sometimes I wonder if the tribes, if the communities that have been most impacted actually had control over the businesses in some way, whether they were lice, you know, creating them or creating the, or owning the electricity, which is happening in the native tribes in Canada, that Helps them come to the table and have a better understanding and actually get a financial benefit from it too.
My other just general thought is I think there are some playbooks out there that we aren’t looking at in the CDR industry, like affordable housing and other parts, which has not gone well, but you can learn a lot from what not to do if you follow like affordable housing and homeless shelters and the opposition that they raise on the worst ways to do it and like Yeah. You know, the traditional playbooks and how they don’t work. And, you know, I think you can translate a lot of stuff from other areas into CDR in this very specific space of community outreach.
Yeah. But I would, so I want, I do, go ahead.
Toby Bryce: Just to your community, with the tribal communities, I think that’s a really important concept. I think it was in New Republic, but I can check and we can put it in the show notes. But there was a really good article. I don’t agree with everything the article said. But there’s a really good article about community-based CDR and getting communities to take ownership of projects. And one thing we specifically included in the CDRLA legislative text is something we called the small project allowance. So we basically reserved a certain amount of the procurement that would come to projects that were smaller than, I can’t remember the number, but I think a thousand tonnes.
So that, I mean, obviously you can’t do All small projects, but, you know, we tried to create a reserve so that, you know, there are mechanisms in the bill so that all the procurement doesn’t go to just a couple projects. And I think this idea, and I think that’s another reason that local and state level policy is important because it’s impractical for federal policy to, like, to incentivize and what they can incentivize, but to actually procure really small projects. But I do think that at the local government, again, the Four Corners Carbon Coalition model and at the state level procurement programs, I think that’s a great way to actually support these projects.
So I think that really would be an amazing thing that can be part of the sector going forward.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Yeah, so I, you know, like final sort of topic area, I wanted to sort, I wanted to touch on, you know, how you imagine Best for us, us being the CDR industry generally, to build a community-forward model. And Project Bison in Wyoming is probably the first, at least well-documented, attempt at doing CDR outreach. And I would say it might have been mixed. There seems to be still a lot of hesitation from the community within Wyoming, or at least some parts of the community. But certainly from the descriptions you hear and read about, it seemed like the companies really made a lot of effort to do it correctly, but even the name became a problem, right?
Like Bison somehow caused some anxiety and irritation within the community that they were citing this. So I’m curious, Toby, as you’ve been working with In the Trenches, as you’ve been working with these different groups, what you think... A small CDR and working with small CDR companies, what should they do and how do they do it when they’re startups, limited budgets, limited resources, but they have the best of intentions.
Toby Bryce: Yeah. I think Project Bison is a good example. I mean, they, I don’t, they certainly, I’m sure there’s no way they could have done everything perfectly, but there was a genuine There’s a genuine belief in that company that they do want to do the right thing and they do want to engage with the community. Some of the press coverage I thought was a little bit unfair. It was sort of the journalistic, like we found one person for it and one person against it. I don’t think those are the actual percentages.
Again, shouting out to Data for Progress, they did some amazing polling in Wyoming about carbon removal, and it was like plus 41% favorability. So I think a relatively significant majority of You know, residents of Wyoming are supportive. Any local project is going to have issues. And one example, you know, the community Rock Springs area in Wyoming where the project’s happening, and this isn’t directly related to Project Bison, but they had a problem with their solar farms because the solar farms were interrupting the normal migration patterns for pronghorn antelope and I think potentially diverting them onto the interstate, which is a problem.
And like, but it’s a solvable problem, you can create corridors through the solar farm so like, you know, but that was kind of brought in some of the coverage like this was a something that that project bison was responsible for. So I think that, you know, I think that a lot of times, there will definitely They’ve had a team out looking at, I think, four different communities in the U. S. , including Wyoming, and doing some really great field work. And I don’t believe it’s been published yet, but I think that’s going to be a really useful document for people to read.
More generally for carbon removal companies, I’m just going to go back and not to be boring, but just a consent-based citing. And make that number one on your to-do list when you’re citing. I think that it’s the right thing to do. It’s morally correct, but it’s also good business because you don’t want to be in a community where you’re not wanted. It’s just, it’s going to make it hard to find people to work for you. It’s going to make it more expensive. Things are going to take longer. If people don’t want you there, people have power.
People can stop projects. Dr. Beverly Wright’s group in Louisiana just stopped a giant petrochemical plant, not just, but a couple months ago. So I just think that, again, consent-based siting and from the ground up, do this first when you’re siting. And obviously, I do have sympathy for people A carbon removal company because I can see it from that side too. There are a lot of things to do. It’s not like the sector is super profitable at this point. No one has revenues to speak of. But I think that engaging early and listening is really important.
And I think that communities have to be reasonable about things like community benefits agreements. These projects are not rich. They’re not going to have a tremendous amount of extra margin to throw around. That said, I do think any carbon removal project of reasonable size should have some level of community benefit agreement. And you should try to hire local businesses and local employees. You should try to hire union employees where possible. So I think there are a lot of things that a carbon removal project can do. But I think it all starts with just engaging upfront, early listening, and ultimately consent-based siting.
It’s also most carbon removal approaches Don’t have significant negative externalities. They should be the kinds of projects that people want in their communities. If they’re presented properly, if you listen to what the communities say, and you’re able to kind of, you know, deliver benefits.
Radhika Moolgavkar: And with consent-based siting, is that something you see as separate situations? Prior to any sort of permitting action. So do you or is that part of the permitting process because oftentimes there’s a whole community outreach in that process as well.
Toby Bryce: Yeah, I think it’s more of a it’s more of a general concept, I would say. Because I do think, you know, through the permitting process, if a community really doesn’t want something, they have some opportunity to stop it or to make it more difficult or more costly. But I think philosophically, it’s a pretty important term. I mean, practically speaking, too, you know, even for one of the Companies I work with does terrestrial biomass sequestration, biomass burial. And it’s not like you’re building a giant DAC plant, but, you know, there are going to be some disturbances to the community, at least temporarily.
So, you know, I think that just like socializing those with the people who live around where you’re going to do this work, even if it’s temporary, is important. And it’s also, it’s commercially, it’s good business because you’re going to find other people who are interested in this if you present it well. And, um, You know, and practically speaking, a lot of these things are going to have to happen in parallel. You’re going to have to investigate, you know, permitting, you’re going to have to file. So it’s not like you have to, there’s not like a, I don’t think there’s a specific like checkpoint getting quote unquote consent from the community, but I do think engaging in that initial stage is important.
And again, I think we’re all kind of feeling this out. I’m definitely not the expert on this. Some of those names I mentioned earlier have done some really good thinking on this. I think there are a lot of good resources out there. And there’s just not that many good models because it’s a new sector. So I think that we’re all going to be learning as we go along.
Radhika Moolgavkar: I think the final question I would ask you, and then I will leave you to your evening, is pipelines. This one is particularly... A question I have is, you know, people don’t want pipelines in their backyards. And so it’s bringing together interesting coalitions of folks. And so when you’re looking at something like that, that really doesn’t maybe have a community benefit for that parcel of land, but might be necessary for a broader community benefit. You know, have you seen any successful models yet addressing those types of concerns?
Toby Bryce: I think the successful model with pipelines is to avoid them. First of all, again, as you well know, carbon removal is a range of pathways and approaches, most of which don’t have anything to do with pipelines. So it’s a relatively small number of, it’s actually a very small number, direct air capture and BECCS or certain bikers pathways where you’re capturing the CO2 require pipelines. I mean, the first thing I would do is cite those projects On top of your sequestration, like Climeworks has done in Iceland. And that’s not going to be possible forever.
And pipelines are going to be potentially necessary if you need to retrofit an existing cement plant with with with carbon capture but that’s again not carbon removal, I do think that like pipelines are obviously extremely difficult they’re extremely expensive, I think, at this early stage. You know I think that maybe there will be pipeline infrastructure with some of the dark hubs that’s more of a kind of large scale. Infrastructure Development Question. There are some small number of existing pipelines that could be leveraged.
I know that some carbon removal company some some direct air capture companies are looking to site adjacent to existing pipeline infrastructure so. I guess my number one, my three step would be avoid pipelines if you can. You’re probably not going to be able to avoid them forever, but I do think with early deployments, I think that there will be a reasonable opportunity to avoid pipelines. I mean, there might be like site level pipelines where, you know, you’re moving carbon CO2 around the site, but I just think the idea of building long pipelines is just, it’s very difficult, I would say.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Well, Toby, with that, I really thank you for being our inaugural guest as we start to think about these issues in more depth. And I really appreciate your time and your insights and look forward to seeing how all your different initiatives move forward.
Toby Bryce: Thank you. It’s always a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for having me. And I am a huge fan of the show. I listen to every episode.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Toby, I appreciate that.
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