227: The Future of Carbon Capture

https://youtu.be/dEKWmL18480

Matt interviews Dr. Sebastian Pohlmann from Up Catalyst about their work with carbon capture to produce products like graphite for batteries in a carbon neutral way. Carbon Capture is a divisive topic, but this approach might change your opinion. Could this be a good path forward?

YouTube version of the podcast: https://www.youtube.com/stilltbdpodcast

Get in touch: https://undecidedmf.com/podcast-feedback

Support the show: https://pod.fan/still-to-be-determined

Follow us on X: @stilltbdfm @byseanferrell @mattferrell or @undecidedmf

Undecided with Matt Ferrell: https://www.youtube.com/undecidedmf

★ Support this podcast ★

Creators & Guests

Host

Matt Ferrell

Host of Undecided with Matt Ferrell, Still TBD, and Trek in Time podcasts

Host

Sean Ferrell

Co-host of Still TBD and Trek in Time Podcasts

What is Still To Be Determined?

Join Matt Ferrell from the YouTube Channel, Undecided, and his brother Sean Ferrell as they discuss electric vehicles, renewable energy, smart technologies, and how they impact our lives. Still TBD continues the conversation from the Undecided YouTube channel.

Hi everybody. This week on Still to be Determined we're talking about not talking. What do I mean by that? . I mean, Matt and I are not gonna be talking about anything. I mean, we, we will be talking to one another, but we're not gonna talk about what we normally talk about. And what we normally talk about is what Matt talked about last week.

This week, we're not doing that. We are talking to Dr. Pohlmann, which I mean, Matt talked to Dr. Pohlmann. Anyway. Hi everybody welcome to Still to be Determined, the follow up podcast to Undecided with Matt Ferrell. I, as usual, am Sean Ferrell. I'm a writer. I write some sci fi. I write some stuff for kids, and I'm just generally curious about technology.

Luckily for me, my brother is that Matt of Undecided with Matt Ferrell, which takes a look at emerging tech and its impact on our lives. And Matt, how are you doing today? I'm doing great. It's been an interesting week, busy week. How about yourself? I, it's, I also have had a rather busy week, but one thing that people who are watching us on YouTube might've noticed is that I look fantastic.

And the reason for that. It's because of new technology. I have a new camera. I'll be getting a new microphone and I have a new laptop and people are probably saying, Sean, how do you find all the right things for yourself? How do you zero in on the right tech? And I have one simple trick, everybody. Be related to Matt Ferrell.

That's right. Matt loaded me up with all this new tech, shiny new camera, which makes me look, well, delightful, I think. Anyway. This week we'll be sharing Matt's long form interview with Dr. Sebastian Pohlmann, who is at Up Catalyst, and he talked to Dr. Pohlmann about his work there. Up Catalyst uses the technology of molten salt carbon capture and electrochemical transformation for the production of sustainable carbon materials.

CO2 rich flue gases from heavy industry emitters are being used as a feedstock. In other words, as an ingredient in the process of manufacturing things like graphite, this process is powered by either wind, solar, or hydro energy, which results in a carbon negative production line, which obviously is a great achievement.

Dr. Pohlmann used to work at the supercapacitor company, Skeleton Technologies, which uses curved graphene for some of their products. Matt had a chance to talk to him several years ago about that part of his work and Dr. Pohlmann has now moved on into effectively becoming a part of the supply chain for his old work.

They're pairing the technology at Up Catalyst with industries that are hard, if not impossible, to decarbonize. I've always talked in this channel about the goal of decarbonizing, but there are some industries where that is simply not possible, such as concrete production. What Up Catalyst is doing is they're capturing waste CO2 from those processes and producing common products like graphite, which are needed for batteries and supercapacitors and other industries.

In other words, if there's an industry that can't help but make CO2, we should be capturing and utilizing that CO2. Yep. So, Dr Pohlmann is now on the supply chain side of all of this, and Matt had an opportunity to talk to him. And we're happy to share the long form interview here, while Matt will also be sharing a more revised and edited down version on his main channel.

We hope you enjoy this talk.

So, Dr Pohlmann, thank you so much for joining me again. Um, last time we talked you were at Skeleton Technologies working with Curve Graphene on creating supercapacitors and some amazing energy storage devices. And now you've made the switch to Up Catalyst and you're working on carbon capture and creating the materials that are going to be used for things like batteries and supercapacitors.

I was, My first conversation, my first question for you was, why the switch? Why did you end up going in that direction? What pulled you in that direction?

You know, I've gotten this question quite a lot quite recently, of course, uh, because I've spent at Skeleton Technologies, uh, about eight years, uh, and it was a really great journey.

Um, and it's a really great company. Um, the The main reason for me was that, um, I felt that I can, with all the experience that I got at Skeleton Technologies, all that experience from scaling, um, a company from 35 people to a 1, 750 people, um, I, uh, wanted to kind of repeat that same impact, but with that added experience, um, and at Up Catalyst I know I have the chance to do so, but I wanted to do that while not leaving

um, the, uh, battery space kind of, and, uh, while also, uh, still doing something slightly different, and this was an excellent opportunity for me to do that because Up Catalyst, um, as you said, we're not building energy storage cells or, uh, energy storage systems or anything like this, but we are making the material that goes into batteries.

And, um, this for me was, um, Just a, a very nice opportunity, uh, to do that at a company, um, that is at the right size, does the right things, and, um, at the same time, a company that actually focuses on taking CO2 out of the atmosphere, not only, uh, uh, trying to, uh, stop people from emitting it, but actually taking emitted CO2 and, uh, storing

it.

On that note. Um, I'm hoping you can kind of walk, not only the, the, whoever's watching and listening to this, but me as well. Could you walk me through what the molten salt capture system of, Up Catalyst is like, how does it work? Like, what is it?

Yeah, absolutely. So the molten salt carbon capture and electrochemical transformation technology, which is quite a mouthful.

Uh, it works like this, that you'll have, um, um, a molten salt, um, electrolytes. So you take a salt, mostly a carbonate salt, uh, you heat it up, so on 600, 700, 800 degrees, In that area, um, and once you pump CO2 into, uh, into this solution, and you have, uh, an electrolysis going on, so you have a negative electrode, positive electrode, and that sort, um, you actually can turn carbon dioxide back into carbon and oxygen, um, and what you essentially do is you, you pump the electrons into the right places where they Don't want to be, so you actually have to exert some energy to do that, to make carbon dioxide back into carbon and oxygen.

Um, now, this carbon capture in itself is actually something that is, um, I think also well known, uh, maybe not super well known, but it is something that exists before our catalyst existed. But what we have done, and we have figured out, is how to not only make carbon, but actually how to make carbon In a form that is useful, so not only just amorphous carbon, but carbon like nanotubes or carbon like graphite.

That is something that is definitely the game changer, where you take carbon out of the atmosphere, but at the same time you can get paid for the carbon that you get out.

That was going to be one of my big questions for you, which was How is this different from other carbon capture technologies that are kind of all over the place right now that you're seeing capturing from the air, capturing from, uh, industrial power plants and things like that?

Uh, it sounds like your key innovation is actually taking that carbon and turning it into something at the end of the process. That's something that's super useful.

Yeah, that's, that's, uh, the key innovation. The other part is that, uh, we don't necessarily take, uh, the carbon. So we could, of course, take the carbon from direct air capture.

So where you take the atmosphere, filter, filter the CO2 out and use it. But what we actually do is we, uh, go directly to, uh, the source, which is normally hard to abate industries. And with that I don't mean fossil fuels, because I would say fossil fuels, uh, don't really count as hard to abate. You can replace fossil fuels with other products.

Other sources of energy like solar and wind, but activated industries like the chemical industry, um, activated industries like the cement industry, uh, which today emits around 8 percent of global carbon emissions. Um, and especially cement industry, uh, they don't really have another choice because it's a chemical.

So you have carbon dioxide bound in a chemical, you drive that chemical out to, to, to drive the carbon dioxide out to make cement. And, um, you cannot do it in any other way. So even in, in steel making, you can maybe replace the carbon with hydrogen, and this is being done currently. But in cement making, it's impossible to replace it somehow.

Uh, so that's the industries that we're going after. And locking into their exhaust streams as a feedstock for our, uh, carbon.

Yeah, that's often the argument I always hear against carbon capture is that it's going to be an excuse for the fossil fuel industry to keep polluting. It's going to be an excuse to not make changes.

Um, so it sounds like you are really targeting the things that are going to be either impossible or very difficult to decarbonize otherwise.

Exactly. Right. Exactly. And like any other chemical process we also, um, of course, have the option to go, um, into other existing chemical processes. So you have, um, processes in the chemical industry that are not burning fossil fuels, but they still emit carbon dioxide in order to make their product.

And, um, they might even need oxygen to do so. So you can basically create these circular economies where the only thing that goes in is is energy and some raw materials, but you don't emit CO2 anymore. Um, and you still get all the products that you're used

to. How does, how does this compare to other methods of making carbon materials?

Like If you were going to make graphene another way, like how does this compare to the way it's done traditionally?

So, um, it compares, it doesn't compare, but I will explain how, how graphite is normally made traditionally. So there are two ways how to make graphite traditionally. Graphite can be mined.

You can just go to certain areas of the world and take it out of the earth. And that is how it used to be made for a long, long time. But also graphite is just carbon. So you can take any carbon material and heat it up. For, um, say, a long amount of time, um, above 2, 600 degrees Celsius, so very hot, and you will get graphite out of it, um, permitted that you don't burn it, so there cannot be oxygen involved.

Um, and that's how synthetic graphite nowadays is mostly being made. So you take a cheap carbon feedstock, which is petroleum coke, for example, so already the fossil fuel, source there, um, with all the emissions related to that, and, uh, then you burn natural gas to heat it up, um, that is then the other big carbon impact.

So, you can make synthetic graphite today with other methods. But these methods are just, um, extremely, um, emission heavy and we are around, uh, 20 times like on, on a level three, um, analysis, which means that you include, um, the whole, um, building of the reactor, the logistics, the building of the factory, every emission somehow associated with how you make your product.

Um, if we take all of this into account. We are around, um, 20 times lower in CO2 emissions than the synthetic graphite, um, uh, processes that you currently see.

That's, that's part of the, uh, was it the life cycle assessment, the LCA? Exactly. Yeah. Yes. You guys just had that completed for that assessment, right?

Yes. Okay. Yes. Well, that's, this is also not, I mean, this should be obvious, I'm hoping to everybody, but it's, this is not something you'd probably be building a centralized plant for. This is something that's probably built alongside. existing plants. So this would be something that'd be integrated into a cement factory, something that would be integrated into some kind of industrial plant.

Is that correct?

That's correct. So you, it's, it's not necessarily integrated, but next to it. So you integrate it into existing, um, industrial value chains where, um, the pressure is high to reduce the carbon emissions or to abate them completely. Um, but the, um, saying reality doesn't allow for it because you cannot, you're not even burning fossil fuels.

You cannot replace those. For example, in the cement industry, just emitting it by the chemical reality that we live in. Um, and, uh, the, Uh, the other part is, of course, we would go there where there's, um, cheap renewable energy. That's another thing that we need for our process. So we need carbon dioxide and electricity.

And most probably also, just for supply shedding reasons, you go where the battery manufacturers are. So, um, we will have Um, to go to, um, to different places globally because, uh, battery manufacturers in Europe and the U. S. especially, um, are still quite dependent on, um, supply from China when it comes to graphite and also to carbon nanotubes.

Um, then it has this supply chain strategy component for battery manufacturers. So today, 90 percent of, uh, graphite, synthetic graphite included, comes from China. Uh, that is of course something that especially in the U. S. with the Inflation Reduction Act and the focus on battery supply chain, but also in Europe, um, plays now a larger role and where people are getting very alert to this dependency.

So this would really localize the production, which would of course reduce costs of getting access to it as well. Yeah. Reduce costs and risks as well. Right. I mean, that does ask one of the questions I always have is like, what is the cost going to, how's it going to compare? To like other methods is it going to be cost competitive?

Is it gonna be cheaper? Um, is it gonna be more expensive at first and then get cheaper over time? Like how is this looking right now?

So of course the cost depends on scale. So at scale we know that we can be um. Cost competitive with the existing synthetic graphite processes that you get from fossil fuel feedstock and burning natural gas.

Um, it depends a little bit when you look at these costs, whether you include, um, heavy subsidies in countries like China, where sometimes the energy then for these processes is subsidized. But even with those, we are competitive. So, um, if we look at today's, uh, synthetic graphite prices, um, as of, 2023, then, uh, we know that we can be even lower, but we also, uh, not fooled.

We know that the, the industry overall will develop into something that, that where the prices go lower, but, uh, we know that we can stay cost competitive with this process. Of course, at first we will most probably, um, aim for, let's say the battery manufacturers and, and graphite users that have the biggest pressure to decarbonize.

And, um, then of course are willing to pay a little bit higher price tag for that. But, um, at the large scale, we see no reason why we shouldn't be in every battery.

So it's, it's the, where the, the price might be a little higher upfront, the bigger, deeper pockets, the bigger pressure can handle those costs.

And then as you get to scale, you'll get cheaper and more accessable. Exactly. So what are the biggest challenges for rolling out Up Catalyst's, uh, technology that you have to overcome? Like what's, what's the, the biggest challenges ahead of you that you see?

I think one of the, um, one of the challenges is policies actually.

It's how it's, uh, it sounds weird to say that because normally the challenge is technology and scaling, but we, um, have already proven that we can make both graphite and nanotubes, um, with nanotubes as well, important battery component. We have also already very promising results with cell manufacturers.

Um, but, uh, it's policies in the end that drive the, um, especially in Europe and the U. S. that drive the cell manufacturers um, to choose a local supplier and to actually go through the pain of evaluating a new supplier and, um, validating a new source for their raw material. Um, so that is something where, um, we see actually a lot of movement already happening.

Um, in the EU it's the battery passport and general drive for, uh, low CO2 emissions, uh, for batteries. Uh, in the U. S., um, it's less focused on the CO2 emissions and the rest is more focused on the localization of the supply chain, but it's still a very important, uh, topic as well, that, that, uh, less imports from other countries for critical technologies such as battery.

Right. So these policies definitely drive, um, let's say, our, uh, Um, speed to the market because the more these policies are enacted, um, the faster, um, let's say we also get customers to say, okay, we actually are interested. He has a, uh, he has a supply agreement or he has like a MOU and so on, which then helps us to gather capital because in the end, the technology has proven what we need is money to build it.

Um, and money you normally get when you can prove that you are able to sell it.

Right. So it sounds like it's almost like industry inertia. That would be the biggest challenge and the policies help to kind of break that inertia. Exactly. Okay. To get back to the process for a quick second, like molten salts requires, I'm assuming, a lot of energy to maintain that molten salts form, um, to make this work.

How energy intensive is the process?

It's quite interesting. It is actually not as energy intensive as the classic synthetic graphite or even, um, nanotube processes that you have today. Um, because in order to make synthetic graphite, as I said, you burn natural gas for two weeks over a block of, uh, of petroleum coke.

In order to make nanotubes, um, you basically use chemical vapor deposition in very hot reactors as well, so it's also a very hot reaction. Um, and we don't, uh, need to go to 1, 000 or 2, 900 degrees in case of graphite. We just work at, just work at below a thousand degrees Celsius. The other point is that, um, you only need to heat it up once.

It's not that you take, uh, actually a lot of heat out of the system. Um, you don't go in cycles of heating it up and cooling it down, but you heat it up once, you insulate it well. Um, and molten salts have quite high heat capacity as well. They don't lose heat that quickly. So, um, the heating up, takes a lot of energy, but once it's heated up, you actually only need the electrical energy for the electrolysis.

And, um, this is still relatively energy intensive, but it's not as energy intensive as a, uh, classic synthetic graphite method or classic, uh, modular carbon monotube, uh, chemical vapor deposition method.

Can you kind of elaborate a little bit more about, uh, the environmental benefits of this method of CO2, uh, capture, um, Yeah, can you elaborate on that a little bit more about like what the actual benefits are? Absolutely.

Absolutely. So when it comes to carbon capture, you generally have to ask always, how long do you capture it? So there are these carbon capture methods where you pump just CO2 gas, you just capture it, you pump it just underground, um, to put it away for a long time. The question is always, how long will it stay there?

Um, so, will it seep out in the next 50 years, or 100 years, or even 150 years? Which on, on climate scales, not that long time scales. Because then, uh, what you're doing is useless. Um, the, um, So these questions we also need to ask ourselves. So if you take carbon out of the atmosphere and turn it into graphite or turn it into nanotubes or any other type of carbon, how long does that carbon stay out of the, um, carbon cycle?

So how long do we take it out and, um, store it? And the good thing there is that as in, at least if you stay in the US, um, in the European Union, if you look at the battery business. Then they are quite harsh recycling regulations as well, so you cannot just take a battery and throw it on a fire, which then all that carbon that you just stored again in the atmosphere, but you actually have to recycle it.

And that also means that you can take the carbon out of the carbon chain, um, that much, um, about the, about the carbon factor of this, the good thing about our process and our synthesis is that there are no, uh, other complex harmful chemicals involved. So we are not using any fluoride chemistry, you know, heavy metal chemistry.

Um, the, the salts that we use, uh, commodity salts, um, you know, can't tell you exactly which ones, but they're commodity carbonate salts and, um, the, let's say whole reactor buildup and, um, uh, facility buildup is quite, similar to what we, what you see in other molten salt processes like aluminum industry or magnesium industry where you have, um, uh, reactors being built out of bricks basically.

And, um, uh, so we, we don't, uh, really have any, any other harmful effect, but we take a lot of carbon out of the atmosphere.

So I'm also curious, are you collaborating with any, um. Are you already collaborating with anybody in the industry? Like, do you already have partnerships kind of lined up that you could talk about?

I don't know if that's too early to talk about it or not.

Yeah, we don't have, we, so we don't have any partnerships where I can openly talk about with commercial, um, uh, with, with customers that, that will buy our technology. We have tested our materials, specifically the nanotubes already, uh, with the commercial cell manufacturer.

Um, and, uh, the results look quite promising. Um, then, what we have done is we have actually, um, done collaborations with research institutions, um, one specifically with the Imperial College of London, um, Where we have shown that with our nanotubes, uh, when they are used in sodium ion batteries, then these nanotubes actually, um, can be used as an active material.

They, uh, were cycled for over 4, 000 cycles with excellent capacity retention. So they lost around 7 percent capacity after 4, 000 cycles. Um, and they also increase the overall energy density of that sodium ion battery. Um, so we have, we are in the stage where we have a lot of, uh, kind of data in model cells and pouch cells that are already larger, these kind of things, but, uh, I cannot yet disclose the commercial.

But you, it's not only are you producing this material in a very green fashion, but you're also helping to improve battery technologies that are out there.

Yes, battery technologies are being improved absolutely with this, not only with graphite, but also with our nanotube process. So we can use the same process to make nanotubes, and nanotubes are today used in lithium ion batteries, sodium ion batteries, or different batteries to increase conductivity, so to increase battery efficiency as well.

Um, and nanotubes today, if you get them from the classic chemical vapor deposition process, For, for graphite, I mentioned before a factor of 20 in terms of CO2 emissions. For this one's a factor of almost a hundred. It's a factor of 96. Um, that, that we have less carbon emissions, uh, for our own nano tubes.

Um, the other impact is that it's not only battery technology, so you can use nanotubes specifically, uh, in a lot of different industries. So nanotubes can be used to, uh, increase concrete strength. Um, which in turn means you need less concrete. And considering again, that concrete industry emits only 8 percent of global emissions.

If you can build a foundation or you can build a building, uh, with let's say 40 percent less concrete because you use concrete that has more strength through nanotubes, then you save a lot of CO2 that way

as well. I mean, that makes me think about like, um, the biggest battery, uh, need right now is EVs.

They just suck up all the batteries. Um. How do you see this impacting the EV industry, um, with this kind of technology? Like, cause like making an EV is incredibly, you're, you're, there's a high cost for carbon output in making the batteries and making the car. So what do you think this is going to help clean that up a little bit?

Absolutely. So we have done, um, the study as well and currently in the phase of, uh, confirming these results, also this LCA results always need to be confirmed with, uh, with certain parties, but, um, What we see is that, um, for the, for the overall battery, um, we see around, um, 15 percent CO2 reduction, uh, considering both graphite and the nanotube impact.

So, uh, instead, yeah, basically 15 percent less CO2 emitted per kilowatt hour um, for this EV battery. Um, and especially for the graphite I think it's important that every for every kilowatt hour you need roughly one kilogram of graphite. So it's, uh, it's quite a huge impact there. Uh, but then again you also have for the average car battery, you have half a kilogram of, uh, of nanotubes in there.

Uh, so there's also quite a lot of CO2 emissions related to that. It's just

every time I hear these, you know, the negativity around carbon capture or the negativity around EVs around like it's very intensive to make these cars. So it's not worth it in the long run. Um, it makes me think about like, for you personally, what do you, what are your insights?

How do you see the future of the energy storage sustainable material sector? Do you think we're addressing all those gigantic air quotes, negatives that are perceived by a lot of the public. Um, do you see us addressing those in the coming years?

I, I think we are addressing them and they are already being addressed.

So, um, I think there is a lot of negativity around it as well um, that is manufactured negativity sometimes. Yeah. Of course, if you, if you're in the business of Um, let's say selling fossil fuels, then you might want to point out that also batteries are not, uh, 100 percent, uh, emission free, but, um, even today you see companies, uh, battery companies already working on, um, on reducing their CO2 emission just by using green energy to manufacture, um, but, uh, then also on the materials side, so you have, um, the cathode materials that are quite emission heavy as well.

Where there are a lot of companies that already work on, let's say, maybe not net zero, but, uh, severely reduced emission, uh, cathode materials. Um, and taking this into account with, um, another effect from that, that is, if you reduce your dependency on, let's say, fossil fuel energy, Um, in the battery raw material chain, you also, uh, create better supply chain stability.

And in the long run, you actually make the materials cheaper as well, because let's face it, energy from the sun, it's quite cheap, and if you can make your materials with energy from the sun, you will in the end have a cheaper material. So I would say it's, it's being addressed on the way. We're of course not there yet, but even today, take the average, um, European or US battery, uh, in a car, an electric car. There has been still a lot of carbon emissions making that battery, but drive that car for a couple of, not even 10 years, but drive that car for only 2 or 3 years. And you have already made all of these emissions back and after that you're just saving emissions.

When I look at your kind of experience and your history, you've been tackling very difficult challenges to try to make the world a better place, you're trying to address these issues. Do you have any advice for young scientists and engineers that are out there that want to get involved in the sustainable technology field. Do you have any advice for them?

I think advice number 1 would be to not be basically disencouraged by

uh, these kind of, uh, negative news. Uh, so basically these things like, uh, batteries emit carbon and, uh, solar, solar panels emit carbon and so on, but rather to, uh, also check the sources behind them and, and think about how, okay, if they emit carbon, okay, then how can we make it better instead of, uh, throwing out the baby with the bath water, that's advice number one.

And so to, to not think, okay, we are all doomed because, uh, everything we do when it's a little bit of carbon dioxide, but rather to think about how can we make it better. Um, that's more general, um, of course, not only for the scientists, uh, but for the scientists, I think, uh, the other thing is to, to keep your eyes open for these kind of, um, technologies that help us doing this, because, uh, if you think about now, uh, both actually, also, uh, Skeleton, but also Up Catalyst have been growing to the place where they are now, and how this technology has been developed.

And, uh, there's a lot of, um, There's a lot of situations where somebody just noticed something interesting, and said, hmm, that's interesting, maybe I can use this, but it requires a certain attention, it requires this, uh, thought in the back of the head, how can I make the world better with this. Um, and not just saying, okay, these results, maybe I cannot use, I probably cannot use them.

They're not interesting to what I do right now. But while thinking about how can I use them, it's, it's very general advice, but maybe it helps.

I mean, there's, there's been a, quite a few engineers and scientists I've spoken to, and it always kind of seems to come back to that, that motivating factor of

sometimes it's a, wait, you say I can't do that? Are you sure I can't do that? I think I can do that. You're motivated to try to find, is that true? Challenging that, that point of view. Um, that seems to be a big motivating factor a lot of times.

Absolutely. Yeah. It's, it's, it's a great question to always ask if somebody says, no, this is not possible.

It's like, but, but why can I see that data and, um, then to analyze it and check it.

So what are the next steps for Up Catalyst when you're trying to bring this stuff to the market? Like what's the next five years, let's say, look like for, for Up Catalyst?

The next five years, let's fast forward five years and skip the intermediate steps.

I will tell you about them in a second. But the, um, if we fast forward five years, then in 2006 years, in 2030, we want to provide enough uh, carbon materials, so graphite and nanotubes, um, to supply batteries for our one million electric vehicles. Um, that is our, that is our goal for 2030. So, how do we get there?

Um, because today, uh, we don't have a huge factory, we don't have these things. Is that, um, Today, we are already in a situation where, um, we have, uh, a scaled reactor that can output, uh, say, several kilograms a day, and we're currently building and designing one reactor that can output several hundred kilograms every day.

And, um, uh, this means that once we have this reactor next year, uh, that can put out these hundreds of kilograms every day, Um, it's about, uh, improving it, optimizing it, um, and then essentially copy pasting it. Uh, so essentially we build, uh, one, uh, one next to another and, um, the big challenge I think will be to find the right partner and to make the right decision in the sense of, uh, where we'll build the

first plant, where do we get the CO2 from? Where would you get the energy from to kind of fit this triangle of CO2 source energy and close, uh, being close to the battery market chain? Um, so that is something that we still have to, um, figure out where we are having a couple of good, um, options for the partners when we're also open to discuss this, because, um, the, let's say the cost per kilogram of carbon in the end depends on these three factors.

And that's, of course, where we don't want to make any mistakes once we have it as attractive as possible for the market.

What would the final takeaway be for anybody that's listening to this conversation? What would be the final takeaway that you'd want somebody to walk away with from this?

I think the final takeaway, uh, would be to, to say that, um, if we have enough energy, which, uh, with, with, Renewable energies, we should have, um, we can, um, not only take carbon dioxide and break it up back into carbon and oxygen, but we can do this with anything else as well.

So, looking at the bigger picture, then what we're doing is we're just reversing, uh, the burning of fossil fuels, uh, that has been going on for 150 years. Um, and if you think about it, then it's, it's, uh, recycling at an atomic level. Uh, so if, if I have any message for anybody that that's listening, then it's, uh, recycling at an atomic level, um, is what we need to do more often.

We need to start doing this because our resources are, uh, finite. So we need to think about where do we get our stuff from.

I absolutely love that. Recycling at an atomic level. That is fantastic. I hadn't thought of it that way. Um, is there anything else that we haven't touched on that you'd want to touch on?

It's not really actually. I think, um, I just wanted maybe one thing, uh, to reiterate when, when it, as you said it already, when it comes to carbon capture, people often say that, ah, it's an argument for, uh, don't do it. It's an argument for the fossil fuel industry to burn more fossil fuels. I would always say we are already in such a bad situation with climate change that we need to take any chance we have to, uh, Uh, reduce all emissions that are currently being made, but also reduce the emissions that have been already made for the past 150 years.

So, uh, the only way to do that is to, to capture carbon, um, out of the atmosphere, out of the direct, uh, CO2 streams uh, as much as we can, and as long as it makes somewhat sense from a business perspective, then let people do it. And, um, uh, don't just say, ah, it's, don't do it, don't do it. Yeah. So it's, it's, it's the, in the climate action, uh, we should not say don't do it.

We should rather say, uh, do as much as you somehow can. And as long as it removes carbon from the atmosphere.

Well said. Do everything we can. We have to do everything we can. Well, I really appreciate your time. It was really good catching up again and hearing what you're doing at Up Catalyst. I love seeing how you've, your career has transitioned, but yet you're still having a big impact in the energy storage industry, even though you're now in the material supply chain.

So thanks so much for talking to

me. I've been having a blast doing this. So I can recommend everybody else to get into this industry as well. It's really fun. You meet a lot of interesting people like yourself. So thank you also for having me on the show again.

Absolutely. Well, thank you.

So I'd like to share Matt's and my thanks to Dr Pohlmann for taking the time to talk to Matt about all of this.

And Matt, I have a quick question for you about all of this, which is If Dr. Pohlmann keeps moving to the next stage of, well, here's a thing and we want to do this, and there's a thing that feeds that thing, so we're going to do that. If you were to guess, is there another change of direction on the horizon?

Is there another thing that Dr. Pohlmann might look at and say, like, well, that's the next logical step for me. I don't know. I'm not asking you to speak for Dr. Pohlmann. Let's talk about Dr. Smith. Dr. Smith is a nice lady who's similar to Dr. Pohlmann and she's been changing industries as she's going deeper and deeper to the supply chain.

So if Dr. Smith is looking at the horizon and saying, well, I've tackled those two steps. Is there another step to tackle? I would

say for like that general process that we're talking about, no, but there's like parallel paths, like there's mining and industrial processes and things like that that could be made cleaner and better.

But as far as like going more closer to the source, I would say he's kind of probably gone or this Dr. Smith has gone as close as they can to the source for this logical path.

So would you say that this is analogous to recycling where something is being made and when it's done being used, it either needs to become garbage and useless or it becomes something else through a mechanical process?

Is this a similar model of that?

I would probably say, no, it's not recycling. It's more of, um, there's so many waste products around us when we make stuff. It's kind of like, um, a good example would be like waste heat. Like we've talked a lot about this on Undecided on like thermal energy storage systems that use waste heat from industrial processes or like the last week we talked about viewers that were talking about how can they take waste heat from the refrigerator and put it into their water heater heat pump system, that kind of stuff.

There's things we're just not taking advantage of in the world around us in the things that we just do naturally for other things. So I would say it's more of a waste product that is not taking advantage of, um, it's more like harvesting than recycling in my

mind. Interesting. Harvesting versus recycling.

That is a different mindset and a different model. And I, and I'm interested to see how that plays out in Other ways in Dr Pohlmann's work and the work of people who are in the same vein, because that's to be able to take something like CO2 that is pumping out of a, uh, of an industry that we're not moving away from concrete anytime soon.

Uh, being able to turn that into a net positive is impressive. So looking forward to hearing more about this research. Thank you to all of our viewers and listeners for taking the time to join us. If you have any comments about this conversation or you have any thoughts as part of a follow up to the conversation, please jump into the comments and let us know what you're thinking.

We look forward to hearing from you and sharing your thoughts in an upcoming episode. Don't forget, if you'd like to support the show, the easy ways to do that are to leave comments, to subscribe, and to follow us on YouTube, Apple, wherever it was you found this. Go back there and subscribe and share it with your friends.

If you'd like to more directly support us, you can click the join button on YouTube or you can go to stilltbd. fm, click the become a supporter button there. Both of those ways allow you to throw coins at our heads. We appreciate the welts. And then we get down to the business of talking about Dr. Smith, a doctor I made up.

Anyway, thank you everybody for taking the time to watch or listen, and we'll talk to you next time.