Start with why: My direct air capture origin story
The convergence of political reality, scientific necessity and the ticking time-bomb that is atmospheric cancer (aka climate change)
There’s next to no reason why my path should have led me to trying to develop machines to capture carbon dioxide from the air. First things first, personally I would rather not be doing this work and wish we were not in this mess in the first place. I guess that’s what is meant by being mission first.
It was September 2018 and I had just returned to London after fulfilling my post-undergrad itch to travel for a few months in India. Having exited my previous company earlier in the year, I now had 168 hours a week to figure out what to do next. Fortunately, I had already decided on a couple of paths during my travels. Pedagogical innovation - basically improving the education system and building on my previous companies work or, something to do with climate which was becoming increasingly apparent that a) it was a big problem, and b) not enough was being done to address it.
What happened a few weeks later essentially made this decision for me. The IPCC’s Special Report on global warming of 1.5°C awoke me, and many others, to the reality of the destruction we have already caused and continue to impose on our home planet. Luckily you don’t need to spend four of your most formative years like I did getting a degree in Accouting to understand these two extracts from the report:
Using global mean surface air temperature, as in AR5, gives an estimate of the remaining carbon budget of 580 GtCO2 for a 50% probability of limiting warming to 1.5°C, and 420 GtCO2 for a 66% probability (medium confidence).
All pathways that limit global warming to 1.5°C with limited or no overshoot project the use of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) on the order of 100–1000 GtCO2 over the 21st century. CDR would be used to compensate for residual emissions and, in most cases, achieve net negative emissions to return global warming to 1.5°C following a peak (high confidence).
I had thought of myself as a relatively aware global citizen on matters concerning the environment and climate change, but I had never even heard of a ‘carbon budget’ nor ‘carbon dioxide removal’ before reading the report. It was clear I had some learning to do. I spent the best part of a month diving deep on carbon budgets (disclaimer: they are constantly under review and subject to regularly updated research), decarbonisation pathways, and the various options available for carbon dioxide removal. I came to the pretty premature conclusion that we knew what to do and, but for a few technologies, the solutions largely existed for economy-wide decarbonisation and it was predominantly a matter of political intransigence inhibiting progress (that’s for another post)1.
Basically, we needed to electrify everything (using nuclear and renewables), adopt carbon capture and storage for hard-to-abate emissions (steel, cement, etc), and use carbon removal for the rest (agriculture, long-distance aviation and shipping). However, the carbon removal picture was another story. I only found a handful of early-stage companies working on developing the various carbon removal options we would need, and the scientific literature was pretty clear that we needed a suite of solutions. As controversial as it is, more trees were simply not enough. ‘Engineered solutions’ quickly became the focus of my attention. These include solutions like enhanced weathering, bio-energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), biochar and the most whacky of them all, direct air capture (DAC) - literally machines sucking carbon from the air. Naturally, I decided to focus on direct air capture.
There were two problems with this plan. I was 16 when I last did any sort of chemistry and I had only taken one engineering class in my life so with that, who would listen to a 23 year old with a useless degree and no relevant experience when it came to direct air capture? I decided the best path forward would be to pursue a Masters in some sort of engineering which would give me the time, learning environment, ‘brand equity’, and hopefully the network to eventually have an impact in carbon removal and potentially start a company developing direct air capture technology.
There was another problem: what school would accept a student with a finance undergraduate degree and no proper engineering experience onto a Masters in Environmental Engineering? A nearly brand new joint China-UK institute on the outskirts of Shanghai, that’s who2. To be clear, moving to China was not such a shot in the dark as it would be for most ‘foreigners’. I had first gone to Beijing as an intrigued 18 year old for a summer internship, and a part of me never really left. There wouldn’t be any culture shock, my Chinese was by no means fluent but I could still hit the ground running - even as the only non-local student in the cohort of almost 100 students.
I spent the few months I had before starting the Masters program in September 2019 going deeper down the direct air capture rabbit hole. I read whatever articles and papers I could find on DAC technology, researched business models the few existing DAC companies were pursuing, gaps in the market, and where I thought there was value to be added. This is where the foundations were laid for what in late 2019 became Carbon Infinity, a company I started with a Professor and expert in carbon capture technologies at the new institute to commercialise our research.
Covid all considered, the journey continues to this day. Stay tuned!
As straightforward as this story appears, the road to this point was by no means without its ups and downs. That said, the welcome reception a true novice like myself received by the overarching majority of the direct air capture community re-affirmed my initial passion to focus my work in this nascent field. We need more people who seek to solve such problems. In the spirit of paying it forward, I would love to support individuals early on their journey in climate tech, carbon removal, or direct air capture. Feel free to reach out via LinkedIn, Twitter, or Email.
In the meantime, for those reading this and asking themselves ‘how do I start’, there are a few great climate and carbon removal resources and communities out there to help along that journey. A few of my favourites are listed below:
Newsletters:
Climate Tech VC: A weekly newsletter covering different themes in the world of climate, alongside the latest in climate tech funding, interviews and job opportunities
Bloomberg Green: A daily newsletter crafted by some of the best climate journalists and columnists out there
MCJ Newsletter: A part of an increasingly sprawling media and investment empire documenting Jason Jacobs’ (founder of Runkeeper) climate journey covering some similar topics to Climate Tech VC but definitely worth a sub!
Podcasts:
Reversing Climate Change: A podcast hosted by Nori - a carbon removal marketplace, covering everything from regenerative agriculture deep-dives and climate change interviews
MCJ Podcast: The original content property of Jason Jacobs documenting his climate journey with a host of high-calibre interviews focused on all aspects of tackling climate change
Outrage + Optimism: Sometimes their optimism on things is a bit outrageous but their network and access to guests - David Attenborough and John Kerry to name just two, is second to none
Communities:
OpenAir Collective: The most (personally) impactful carbon removal community out there. Focused on developing open-source direct air capture technologies, and host to a variety of tangential member-led ‘missions’ including: the development of low-carbon concrete legislation, integrating a DAC system into a vertical farm and state-level carbon removal purchasing legislation
Airminers: Probably the OG of carbon removal ecosystems. They’re a community of 800+ people on Slack with channels focused on different carbon removal verticals (DAC, ocean-based CDR, business model innovation) and an increasingly frequent (virtual) events calendar
Climate Action Tech: A more generalist climate tech ecosystem on Slack with a global community of people where you’ll no doubt find people who share similar interests to you no matter what area of climate change
Learning resources:
Carbon Removal Academy: A comprehensive introduction to the broad suite of carbon removal options (nature-based and engineered solutions), carbon removal policy and carbon markets
Carbon Dioxide Removal Law: A project of Columbia Law School and Columbia SIPA crafting a bibliography of the best learning materials out there across all carbon removal solutions. I wish I knew about this when I was starting my journey!
Terra.do: A broad-based program into the climate change landscape including hydrogen, the built environment and agriculture, as well as a host for climate focused job fairs (program fees apply however scholarships are available)
Bonus:
Heidi Lim (Chief of Staff @ Opus 12) on Chasing a Job with Purpose: For those looking to take the plunge into a more impactful career be it in climate or another field, this is a must read! (Now in audio format too)
To receive David and Goliath’s commentary, analysis and thoughts in your inbox once a week, become a subscriber today!
If you enjoyed this piece, you can share it as a web page by clicking the button below:
If you’ve got useful (and/or interesting) things to say and would like to post a comment, click the “Leave a comment” button:
Stay positive, be kind to those around you, and have a great week ahead!
I acknowledge the political realities facing governments across the world. For example, China and India are not contemplating installing additional coal power in 2021 because it’s a good economic decision - it’s a matter of maintaining social stability and local employment. I will potentially touch on the political aspects of decarbonisation in a future piece.
Tesla would later build its first gigafactory outside the US a stone’s throw away from the campus