Last year Planetary Technologies won the Carbon Xprize Milestone award for their ocean-based CDR method. That same year they started testing their ocean alkalinity enhancement process in a small trial in England, partnering with the local water company. The test showed improved alkalinity and reduced CO2 in local waters. Now the company plans to do a longer, 120-day test this summer, hoping to remove 200 net tonnes of CO2 from the water.
Planetary has conducted public outreach about their plan, and published a public code of conduct laying out how they intend to make the experiments safe.
But last month protesters gathered at Gwithian beach in North Cornwall, expressing concerns about the potential impact on the bay's marine ecosystem.
In a Guardian article about the project Mike Kelland CEO of Planetary Technologies said “People often say to me: ‘You wouldn’t want to swim in this stuff, would you?’ But the answer is that we already do because it’s already widely used in wastewater management.”
He said that the company would be transparent and diligent in their evaluations and monitoring during the study.
Joining us on this episode are two people who are working firsthand on the issues of public acceptability and community outreach that we’ve set out to explore CRN- Will Burt, Chief Ocean Scientist at Planetary and Pete Chargin, Planetary’s VP of Commercialization and Community Relations.
On This Episode
Will Burt
Pete Chargin
Radhika Moolgavkar
Resources
Planetary’s public code of conduct
Guardian article on Planetary’s proposal
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, the Friday, May 5th edition. I’m Radhika Moolgavkar, Head of Supply and Methodology at Nori. Today, we’re talking to two people from Planetary Technologies. Last year, Planetary Technologies won the XPRIZE Carbon Milestone Award for their ocean-based CDR method. That same year, they tested their ocean alkalinity enhancement process in a small trial in England, partnering with the local water company. The test showed improved alkalinity and reduced carbon dioxide in local waters. And now the company wants to do a longer 120 day test this summer, hoping to remove 200 net tonnes of carbon dioxide from the water.
Planetary has conducted public outreach about their plan and published a public code of conduct laying out how they intend to make the experiment safe. Burt last month, protesters gathered at the Gwythian Beach in North Cornwall, expressing concerns about the potential impact on the Bay’s marine ecosystem. In a Guardian article about the project, Mike Kelland, CEO of Planetary Technology, said, people often say to me, you wouldn’t want to swim in this stuff, would you? Burt the answer is that we already do because it’s widely used in wastewater management. He assured that the company would be transparent and diligent in their evaluations and monitoring during the study.
So joining us today are two people who are working firsthand on the issues of public accessibility and community outreach that we set out to explore. On these monthly episodes of Carbon Removal Newsroom. First off, I’d like to welcome Will Burt, Chief Ocean Scientist at Planetary. Hi Will, thanks for joining.
Will Burt: Hi, good to be here.
Radhika Moolgavkar: And Pete Targan, Planetary’s VP of Commercialization and Community Relations. Hi Pete, thanks for coming.
Pete Chargin: Thank you very much.
Radhika Moolgavkar: So first off, I wanted to give Will just a chance to describe Planetary and give a brief history of the company and its technology, or maybe both of you in tandem.
Will Burt: Well, I can certainly go first. I joined the company about just under a year and a half ago. So the company was fairly well established at that point. I joined the company to be leading the ocean science component, as there wasn’t someone in the company yet who was really doing that. So I find myself now in a leadership position, navigating the direction of our science programs and working with Our academic partners to establish our science, both within the company and beyond.
Radhika Moolgavkar: And can you describe the technology just a little bit for our listeners?
Will Burt: Yes, sorry. So our technology is focused on ocean alkalinity enhancement, a specific kind of OAE. What we basically do is we take an antacid, so that is often a metal hydroxide, magnesium hydroxide is the common product that we use, and we add that material to wastewater streams. And the reason we use wastewater streams specifically is a couple of good reasons. One, they are already highly permitted and regulated systems. So we operate within existing permits and that gives us really good guardrails to operate within. And the second reason is that those infrastructure, that infrastructure is already in place.
So there’s no need to build new infrastructure. It gives us a much lower carbon footprint and just a greater ease of operation, I guess. So we add that alkalinity, that antacid to the ocean, and then we use a variety of monitoring systems both within the wastewater pipe and within the ocean to, and we apply those measurements to our measurements reporting and verification framework, which we’ve published online and are happy to hear more comments about and we are improving over time. We combine those two together and we generate carbon removal credits that are very well established to be durable and additional.
So we consider them very high quality.
Radhika Moolgavkar: And can you briefly tell us where you think your company is from a technical readiness perspective, you know, TRL one through 10?
Pete Chargin: So from a TRL level, you can actually think of our business in two parts. Ocean alkalinity enhancement, you need the ocean and you need the alkalinity. There are many places on earth right now that you can get the alkalinity. There are fewer places that you can get alkalinity at a low price with a low carbon footprint. We are developing a number of sources and a specific technology approach to refine our own very low cost Very low carbon intensity alkalinity. That’s at a TRL early, like three or four. The important part that we’re doing now is actually adding that alkalinity into the ocean.
And we are at a very high TRL. We know how to do that. We’ve tested it. We aren’t ready for full deployment yet at all, but only because we want to ensure its safety and its efficacy. The actual addition of the alkalinity into the ocean through these wastewater or other outfalls is at a high TRL.
Radhika Moolgavkar: And so I’m curious, generally, when you get to full TRL and you’re deploying your technology all over the world, where will planetary technology be most likely to be used coastal regions, Northern Atlantic, you know, like what are the best conditions for it? And outside of Cornwall, are there any other tests currently underway or anything you could tell us about future testing?
Will Burt: So I think given that we are at this stage focusing on wastewater streams, our alkalinity additions will occur very near to the coast within a few kilometers. And that’s really important because it’s going to impact the way in which we model the system. You can’t really use a global model to look at systems that are that coastal. So that’s where we’re certainly going to start. I think there is a really large capacity for that wastewater addition. So I think we can go quite a long way with that model. The areas in which this will work, there are a few different ways that this sort of wastewater addition can work.
Cornwall is a really ideal place, and that’s because you’ve got a fairly broad and shallow region of the coast there. For those who know a bit more about ocean alkalinity enhancement or those who don’t, you need, in most cases, air-sea interaction for that CO2 to either be taken up from the atmosphere or to stop CO2 outgasm. So being in a shallow environment where the surface water is in contact with the atmosphere basically all the time is a really important component. So Cornwall was identified very early on as an ideal location where you’re going to have that interaction for months at a time where that air-sea interaction can take place.
Our test site, the second test site, which is probably as far along as the UK site is here in Halifax, where I’m located. That’s largely because we’ve established a really strong collaboration with the local university, Dalhousie University here, multiple large interdisciplinary projects underway. To have academic groups verify the efficacy and safety of this process. It’s really a brilliant team. So the environment here is also conducive because it’s a sort of a sheltered harbor where I live. And that gives you a better chance of measuring these signals because there’s not as much of a dilutive environment in sort of a constrained coastal sort of harbor.
So that presents a really good opportunity here in what we call the Bedford Basin area. And we are exploring a number of sites in the US through government grants that have come up. We’re hoping to hear back about those shortly. We’re developing partnerships with wastewater operators and Pete can touch more on those. And we have a site that we’re looking at in British Columbia as well in Canada, where you have sort of a different setup than the setup in Cornwall and Halifax, but probably an equally interesting one. So not all the wastewater pipes need to be the same.
There’s a few different ways that you can go about this process.
Radhika Moolgavkar: So just one quick follow up question. I notice everywhere you at least could talk about specifically or sort of in cold water ocean, cold ocean waters. Is that a necessity or is that just coincidence?
Will Burt: That’s a coincidence, I would say, you know, we have a footprint in the UK. We’ve had people working for the company from the basically from the outset in the UK. Largely for one reason, because we had a government grant early on awarded there. And then the company, of course, is founded in Canada. So you can’t really find anything but cold up here in terms of water temperature. So that I would say it’s just a coincidence at this point.
Radhika Moolgavkar: All right. So, Pete, I am curious to hear from you, one, if you want to expand a little bit more on some of the potential partnerships, but also how have the local governments responded to your projects? I mean, outside of the academic work you’re doing with How are local governments and partners responding to your projects?
Pete Chargin: So let me answer your first question, and that is regarding partnerships. We are seeing a trend from wastewater and power companies around the world to try to actually involve themselves in the climate change response and actually try to improve their operation. And so we’re seeing interest from many different organizations Mostly around North America, also around UK, some around Ireland and Northern Europe. Those are the places that we’ve heard from first, a little bit in Australia as well. So there seems to be a growing realization that these types of organizations can take a real active role in a positive response to climate change, which is great.
Regarding local governments, Most local governments have some kind of net zero policy in place already. And so, for example, in Halifax, there are a few organizations, not only in the local town, but kind of the regional water quality monitoring and regulation that is trying to move forward in terms of Addressing climate change. And so they generally welcome us. It’s also the same thing in Cornwall in the UK. The Cornwall County Council in general has been relatively supportive. They would like more information, but members of the environmental boards, for example, have generally been very interested in finding out more information.
At a local level, in Cornwall, there are kind of a tale of two cities. Some of the local towns really want us to continue to engage and move forward. Others are less aware of what’s really happening, perhaps, and are more concerned about their own specific situation and don’t want to take any risk at all. And the only way that you can not take a risk is The only way that we can be sure exactly what’s going to happen is if we do nothing. And if we do nothing in terms of climate change, then we know that the ocean is going to become more acidic and that the environment is going to become hotter and stormier.
Radhika Moolgavkar: When you think about the approach as you move forward, how would you advocate or how do you think is the best way to engage with local communities, particularly when coastlines invoke such emotional responses?
Pete Chargin: I completely understand the emotional response. I have an emotional response to my local to my local ocean. I would like to see it very highly respected and I don’t want any harm to come to the local ocean. My view is that the ocean around the world is under attack by climate change, not by any specific individual, but by climate change. And so in order to respect the ocean, we need to help restore it. Burt in terms of community engagement, in my view, it’s a process of two-way education. We need to learn from the local community the specifics about their environment, And because they live there, they know those waters better than we ever will, except in the case where, for example, Will lives in Halifax.
And so he’s very well, you know, very well knowledgeable about that. Burt we planetary need to understand the specifics about those waters in that area. And we need to learn about, well, what issues might we need to take into account that we haven’t taken into account? And at the same time, we need to do a good job and in Cornwall, especially a better job of explaining what it is that we’re really trying to do and make sure that people understand what ocean alkalinity enhancement is, what it’s not, and make sure that they understand the right path that we see for deploying ocean alkalinity enhancement over time.
Certainly we are nowhere close to a full deployment in any location. We’re at the very early part of an engagement where we want to do some initial studies to make sure that it is safe. And so there’s an education process kind of both ways. And that’s something that I think has to happen in order for both parties to make a decision about whether or not it’s an appropriate site An appropriate project area for us to go ahead and do an ocean alkalinity enhancement project.
Radhika Moolgavkar: So I watched some of the video of protesters in Cornwall and I actually was pretty impressed with both their seemingly acknowledgement of the need for CDR. They even seem to have pretty good understanding of the technology. So I thought you guys must have done a pretty good job of educating the community about that. Burt it was still this sense of like, Don’t test it in our surf. If it’s safe, maybe bring it. So, and I think this is not a theme that’s limited to planetary or oceans. It’s a theme we see throughout CDR, right?
That many people understand its need, but also don’t want facilities and testing happening near them. So how do you address that real fear that scientific answers cannot, you know, Asajj, or maybe asked a little differently, how can, The broader industry start connecting emotionally with local communities and build the trust needed to let these testing and facilities be built. Not sure who’s best to answer it, so I’ll leave it to you too.
Pete Chargin: Let me take a crack at that to start. We Planetary did not do a good job before our first public engagement with getting information out to the public about the technology itself, The specific planetary approach to building alkalinity and sourcing alkalinity and then adding it into the ocean. So not the technology. We didn’t do a good job about that. We didn’t do a good job about explaining what our process is and what we thought kind of in the long run this might be. And so that gap left a void and nature abhors a vacuum, right?
And so there was an outpouring of fear Based on an unknown. And from that point, it’s been very hard for us to recover and actually rebuild that trust. And so because we didn’t have good information available at the beginning, people thought, and understandably so, that we were actually trying to hide something. And it was actually just the opposite. We thought it was kind of obvious because we swim in these waters every day, so to speak. We live in this every day. And so I thought, oh, well, these answers are obvious.
People will just figure it out. And we’re here to explain it a little bit. And so connecting emotionally is the second question that we do need to figure out how to do because it isn’t just about facts. Facts are very important in this conversation. And even though there has been a lot of emotion with many people in Cornwall, when we’ve engaged with either individuals or small groups in a time where it’s not super high pressure, where it might be a small group. People come to understand it, and they, by it, people understand the project and the need for it, and they can make a decision about, well, yeah, that actually sounds like a pretty good idea.
They may still decide, oh, I don’t want you to put this into our waters because, for whatever reason, they don’t want it in their area. Not because they’re experts in it, but they just don’t want it there. The upside to themselves personally. And, you know, everyone has the right to their own opinion and a right to try to protect their own corner of the universe. That’s certainly an understandable thing. At the same time, we as a society have to figure out, well, where are we going to deploy climate solutions that can be a real positive?
We believe, and if you look at the Date of Climate Removal 2023, ocean alkalinity enhancement is potentially the largest form of carbon removal, like by two and a half times greater than direct or capture. And so we as a society have to figure out how do we find these sites that are going to be good for ocean alkalinity enhancement and at the same time, make sure that we listen well to the Community and come to some kind of mutually agreeable decision. If there are, you know, two or five or 10 or 100 or 300 people who don’t want something to occur in their backyard.
What happens in a population of 100,000 I mean, what is that process who makes that decision. that’s an open question, I think it currently has an answer there currently is a regulatory. Body that decides whether or not this project can go forward. We at the CDR community need to decide is that is society’s current answer. Do we want to continue to use that answer?
Radhika Moolgavkar: So what’s next for planetary for the St. Ives project, both in terms of public outreach and regulatory approval, Pete?
Pete Chargin: So from a regulatory approval standpoint, We have been asked by the regulator there. It’s called the Environment Agency. The EA has asked for a bunch of information from us. We gave them a proposal. We started early last year to do an initial trial, which we completed last September. We then applied for the next test, the next project, and we gave them a proposal in November. They gave us initial approval. In December, and they encouraged us. They said, we’re very encouraging of this. They asked for more information. We gave them that information in February of this year, and we are now waiting for them to go through all of their evaluation, including, I think, some kind of independent assessment.
So from a regulatory approval standpoint, in Cornwall, we are waiting for the go-ahead from the local regulator. In Halifax, we’re actually a little bit further ahead, and the local regulator has said, there’s one more item that we need to do, but it’s kind of a checkbox item. And so they’ve approved this next project. From a community engagement point of view, we believe that this is actually good for the community, and we want to be there with the community for a long period. And so we are in it for the long haul.
And so we continue to reach out to members of the community. We continue to answer questions. We continue to have community engagement sessions that are hosted by different groups. We recently had one with a local member of parliament. We will have one shortly with another regulatory agency there, another community government group. And so we continue the process of listening and listening to be educated and continuing to inform people for educating them outside. So we continue to listen and learn from the community and we try to continue to educate and inform what our plans are and what our proposals are and what our long-term vision is for helping to improve and maintain The waters of Cornwall, because if we don’t do anything in Cornwall, those waters will continue to get acidic.
I’ll get more acidic and there will be fewer crustaceans and over time, the fishing industry will collapse. That is something that scientists tell us is true.
Radhika Moolgavkar: So I think I’d love to hear from both of you what lessons you learned from the St. Ives Bay project. Will, I’ll start with you and then move on to Pete.
Will Burt: Yeah, a lot would be the answer to that lessons we’ve learned. I think moving back to what you had said previously about the protesters and them having a really good handle on things. I think part of that is attributed to the work that Pete and Mike and myself to a lesser degree put in After those initial discussions, there was, as Pete said, this quite a lot of misinformation that was spread about the specifics of our project and a lot, a lot of work was put in with specific groups and on, you know, through our website and through emails to sort of write the narrative.
So I think that is one reason why that did shine through in those protests. And as Pete said, one of the key lessons learned there was not providing readily accessible information. We came in personally thinking that we had all the information, but people obviously wanted to learn more and going to our website led To more questions than answers. And that led to things sort of spiraling in the wrong direction. So the lesson, as Pete already alluded to, is that you have to make sure there’s a really solid footing for the project scope that people can go and read on their own time.
And we came into those initial meetings in a space where people were coming in With a bad mindset based on what they had learned elsewhere. And I think a lot of what we said in the meeting wasn’t heard because, rightfully so, people had come in, had been given the wrong impression. So it’s easy to look in hindsight about that preparation and knowing how much more we could and should have done. Burt there really was, that was a really key element that was missing. From my perspective, someone asked me last week what, A company like ours needs like what’s something that could be done right now to help us along this path.
And one thing I thought about is, you know, you had had a question in here earlier about what industry can do to make people feel more comfortable. Well, the reality is people aren’t going to be totally comfortable with industry making these decisions in the first place, right? It needs to be coming from other sources. And so there’s a fairly big scientific community building of truly interested people who want to learn about these solutions. They really believe that this type of ocean alkalinity enhancement Potentially could be viable and safe and big and impactful and a lot of those folks are in a situation where they don’t feel comfortable speaking about.
How they think about this work, you know it’s still fairly controversial they work at universities or government agencies and they they sort of feel as if they can’t share. That openly about it, my idea was, you know, this sort of thing needs to become more mainstream from people that aren’t planetary technologies, people who just, you know, are a world leading scientist in, say, ocean acidification, someone who studied it their entire career, and now think, okay, this is a really viable solution, I really want to figure out if this works, because it might be big.
And so having that voice at the table... It’s going to make a big difference. Not to everybody. Some people may not want to hear from scientists either. Burt it’s going to be a big step up from the private company that people, for right or for wrong, make assumptions that we’re in it to make money. And you can draw that parallel quite easily. And in a lot of cases, it’s probably fair. Burt people from Planetary Tech have come into this company from a lot of You know, odd spaces because we all believe in the facing the challenge at hand.
And, you know, the whole making money thing is just something we don’t think about. And so, but that’s not going to be compelling to the public. So that’s one thing I would say I would love to see happen in the near term. And I’ll let Pete talk about more lessons.
Pete Chargin: Yeah, I’d like to amplify something that Will said. There is not an appreciation in the eyes of the public Or in the minds of the public, that the ocean is a very important player in the fight against climate change. And so one thing that I would, if I could ask anyone to do, it’s like, let’s make the oceans a real thing in terms of addressing climate change. That’s very important. Burt the lessons that I take away from our interactions in Cornwall are first, be transparent early. Right. We feel like we’ve been transparent, but we started a little bit late.
So and I mentioned that a couple of times. Burt second, especially for I mean, the way that the industry is being funded now is through private means. And most companies are for profit companies. And so that’s the entire industry up to be not trusted. Right. Because there is. Perhaps one could, from the outside, look at this and say, your primary motivation is money. And so while I don’t think that’s the case of Planetary, I know that’s not my personal place, it’s a reasonable place for someone outside to think. Your primary motivation is money.
And so in addition to being transparent early, find someone who can audit you. And so we have an external auditor who will audit our carbon accounting, for example. We also have an external auditor called EML Applications. They are an external body. Find organizations that can review what you say and vouch for it. Just say, yes, what these people are saying either is true or by the way, no, that’s not true. And it’s something that the that the public can trust so that there is not necessarily this conflict of interest. That’s one of the things that, you know, when I’ve spoken to people who say we want you to slow down at any of the different sites where we are starting and we say, why is that?
And The reason that I hear mostly is because we want an independent evaluation of this approach generally, and that’s for the scientific community to provide, I think, but then also in my specific case. So that’s the lessons that I learned in addition to the lessons that Will has mentioned.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Well, Pete and Will, thank you so much for your time. Really quickly, Pete, give us an In like 30 seconds, what’s your one piece of advice for the broader CDR community before I say goodbye to you both?
Pete Chargin: My piece of advice to the broader CDR community is transparency early and with an auditor or a verifier and listen very closely. Put yourself in their shoes, not in your shoes, trying to promote something, but understand it from someone else’s perspective.
Radhika Moolgavkar: Well, Pete, well, I really appreciate the work you’re doing. I really appreciate you guys taking a leadership role in this community outreach. I wish you the best of luck in all of your projects. And thank you so much for joining me.
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