For the inaugural episode of Waste to Value, I connected with Lew Epstein, CEO of Lot21, a non-profit content platform and resource for advancing climate action across the built environment to help decarbonize the world.
Lew’s environmental advocacy began decades ago with the emergence of the forestry stewardship movement and has since expanded to encompass a broader range of carbon removal solutions focused on restoring our climate.
Our conversation delves into the topics of Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) and waste-to-value solutions, highlighting the evolution of these areas and their impact on climate action and sustainability. It explores the challenges, advancements, and applications of CDR, as well as the local and global impact of waste-to-value initiatives.
Transcript of Episode 1: “Solutions That Work”
(edited for length and clarity)
Justin R. Wolf: Before we get into the weeds on CDR, I’m hoping you can give us the cliff notes version of Lot21, how you founded this organization, what its guiding principles were in its nascent days, and how those principles and mission have evolved since then.
Lew Epstein: It began when I thought I was first going to be focusing on reforestation. And the reason for that is because it’s a domain I knew. I had been planting trees for over 35 years ⁓ and have understood and watched the evolution of that field in terms of forestry stewardship, in terms of what can we do as individuals, as organizations, where is it most needed. And over the course of time, literally decades, how it evolved from just a reforestation initiative to replant essentially the resources we were using in industry, whether it’s furniture or paper industries or packaging, into something which was also a climate solution. And when you reframe it in that way, and you feel like you’re motivated to do something about climate change, you realize that reforestation is great, but it’s not enough. There simply isn’t enough land to plant enough trees to make the difference that is needed now.
And since the world has been slow walking its way forward in response to climate change, there is a need for a far more diverse portfolio. And so that led me to learning about what other categories or approaches there were, both natural and technological, and what it was I could do about it. And coming from the design industry, I realized that there was a lot of focus on climate adaptation or resilience. There’s a lot of focus on emissions reduction. And that’s impacting industries worldwide. And we see the lion’s share of investment and focus in that area. And there is a ton of work to do there. But when it came to carbon removal, it is the newer, lesser known, and more needed area to focus on. And so through a query with the design community, I quickly learned that the term CDR or carbon [dioxide] removal, was not known, or if it was known, it was only to a small degree, and there was a disconnect between that knowledge and what they could do about it as designers. And a common question that always came up was, I care about this, what can I do? Or, I don’t know what to do.
I look at the trajectory of direct air capture in its short lifespan, what it says it’s designed to achieve, and I think about it as a category like transportation or even automobiles, as opposed to determining that what I see today is all that it’s going to be.
JRW: What is one of the biggest misconceptions about CDR, about carbon removal technology?
LE: Yeah, in terms of technology, what I would say is there’s a fixation on the current state of CDR, and direct air capture in particular, it’s a quick target to say it’s too expensive, it needs an enormous amount of energy, it doesn’t capture enough to make a significant enough difference for what we need to do. And while all of those points may be true, they’re true looking backwards at where the industry was a few years ago. It’s not looking at the advances that a number of key direct air capture companies have made just in the past five years. And it is absent of acknowledging the sort of norms of technology’s evolution.
A good example would be solar. You could denigrate solar all day long. A generation ago: it’s too expensive, it’s not efficient enough, it’s not as scalable as it needs to be to really move the needle. And because of the expense and lack of throughput, I’m going to stick with fossil fuels. Now, fast forward 25 years later, the story is very different. And you could take that story and lay it over the evolution of batteries, the evolution of the automobile, the evolution of so many technologies, whether they’re industrial or commercial or consumer oriented. And so I look at the trajectory of direct air capture in its short lifespan, what it says it’s designed to achieve, and I think about it as a category like transportation or even automobiles, as opposed to determining that what I see today is all that it’s going to be. And therefore I’m not interested or thinking it’s a foolish idea to be investing in this. I think quite the opposite. I see great potential. I see it as a necessary approach, but not the only approach, of course. We truly need a diverse portfolio.
JRW: I feel conversations around direct air capture, people have one particular vision in mind, whether it’s a facility in Iceland or conjuring images of that giant vacuum cleaner in the movie Spaceballs. And it’s like, so we’re just sucking it out of the air and then doing what with it, storing it underground? I admit, in the very early days I approached it from that simplistic vantage point.
I want to get into the waste-to-value paradigm, and we can also touch on the specifics of BiCRS (biomass with carbon removal and storage) and then back to BECCS (bioenergy, carbon capture and storage). But at the end of the day, what is the waste that we’re talking about, specifically with BiCRS?
LE: The process in which you create the output, the value, you’re essentially taking forestry waste and agricultural waste. There are solutions in which you can draw the waste from wastewater plants. And I have a number of different kinds of waste to value examples I can cite from solids and liquids and gases.
There are numerous waste streams, most of them organic, and through the process of pyrolysis, which is essentially burning the biomass content in an oxygen-free container - and these containers vary in size from the size of a Weber grill to massive tanks the size of a shipping container …
JRW: The pyrolysis is typically conducted at comparatively lower temperatures than you would a kiln to break down limestone.
LE: Correct. And you can fire it up using renewable energy sources … Once the biomass is pyrolyzed, it becomes this char material, typically referred to as biochar. And the biochar itself is one of the most amazing and promising forms of CDR and the waste to value story, because it has so many applications. Applications in the industrial market sector, commercial market sector, consumer market sector, and also agriculture, which is pretty fascinating and goes back to its roots.
JRW: But where are those biochar applications branching off from soil remediation and from helping for agricultural use? What are the other industrial uses that you’re referring to?
LE: Examples include floor, wall, and ceiling tiles, concrete, asphalt. It can be, as we’ve noted, a soil amendment replacing types of fertilizers. It can be used as a pigment, or a replacement for what’s called carbon black, which applies to lots of different industries, whether it’s inks and dyes for paper or textiles, automotive tires, or really tires across industries. It also can be used in bio composites. So it can be a filler in bio plastics or polymers to replace petroleum based products, which then ultimately leads them to become a carbon negative plastic.
Another example - which is surprising because it’s so carbon rich - is it can be engineered to be electrically conductive, making it a candidate for low-cost sensors and electromagnetic shielding.
JRW: Interesting. So really you’re taking these biomass sources, whether from forestry or agricultural waste, and instead of that waste either being burned directly, which would release the carbon that it had been sequestering over its life, or being left to rot on the forest floor or in the field, as it were, which would then over time break down and release the carbon that it has sequestered, you’re isolating it, putting it through pyrolysis, and essentially storing it forever in this new byproduct.
LE: Exactly. And across that range of byproducts, the more they become bio-based, the more they can be cycled through again and again. And so when we think about circular economy and circular design principles, this notion of creating a closed loop system is further enabled by this kind of approach of waste-to-value using biochar and other outputs from emissions, be it gas, be it solids, or be it liquids.
JRW: Okay, so let’s take the shift from BiCRS to BECCS, because I’m interested in where this is being applied. What are some of the industries and companies that you’ve encountered where those same biomass sources are being sourced, not to be broken down into biochar, but to be converted into energy? How is this being applied?
LE: So what’s interesting is it’s a bit of a twofer. You’re using biomass waste in a purposeful way as opposed to as the examples you cited, where it is either burned in an open field or just decomposed, which becomes CO2 in the atmosphere. And instead, in this case with BECCS, it’s being turned predominantly into energy or for heating. An example would be in Sweden, which has the most integrated energy model. They’re using the biochar as a byproduct for district heating. And that’s the cornerstone of their national energy strategy. And what’s really interesting there is now you have a mix of CDR with policy, and how it’s supporting an energy policy, a climate policy, all in one. And I find that exemplary.
Then in China, you have a rural energy transition. So China views biochar as a solution for rural energy security. And what they’re referring to is their clean heating transition in their northern provinces. They’re taking bio-waste, they’re pyrolyzing it, and they’re turning it into energy for heating. Two different countries, very far apart, and essentially using [BECCS] in similar ways.
When we think about circular economy and circular design principles, this notion of creating a closed loop system is further enabled by this kind of approach of waste-to-value using biochar and other outputs from emissions, be it gas, be it solids, or be it liquids.
JRW: I like that you bring up Sweden and China. I particularly like that you cite two examples that are, you can’t say opposite sides of the globe, but definitely East and West, and how these different applications are being integrated at scale. I’d like to elaborate a little bit on the motivations for why I wanted to launch this podcast in the first place, which was not so much to focus on pie in the sky solutions. I feel there should be a lot of capital invested in those efforts, those moon shots. But I wanted to focus on the stuff that, maybe they still have one foot in the lab, but they’re one step beyond proof of concept. And if there isn’t scalability happening soon, there is the potential because there has been market adoption at some level. So I wanted to focus on solutions that actually work, that have past proof of concept. And we know that it can work because it is working, even if it’s not happening on our shores, even if it’s not happening here in America.
We read about such solutions and we immediately infer that there’s something science fiction about them. There’s something that abandons our sense of realism, that this is not the world we’re operating in, even if it does work. So why should we adopt it? But it is working and it is being scaled in other parts of the world. So I like very much that you bring up those two examples of Sweden and China.
LE: Thank you. I agree with your not only the premise of why create this podcast and what’s the need, but also that it’s important to have grounded optimism or be a climate pragmatist when telling these kinds of stories. And that’s very much our approach at Lot21, trying to share the stories of success, of exemplary work from around the world, so that people increase their awareness. And then hopefully we can go back to that answer of, well, I don’t know what to do or how could I do this? And then through the examples of what others are doing, literally all around the world, whether it’s still in the labs or at a prototype level or a pilot project level, or in its early evolution, which is a good way to describe direct air capture now, you begin to see the parts that you can touch, the parts that resonate with you and the parts that maybe resonate with you in a way that you can say, well, of all the things that are going on, this particular initiative is something I could see myself contributing to. Or when I’m working on my next design and I need a filler in my product, I’m going to find out what else is available because there are numerous options today. And there are different price points based on their sort of evolution and market climb and the sort of typical innovation bell curve. But even if it’s a matter of, well, this is what I can use today, there are policies in place that support it. There are subsidies.
I know the companies to turn to for the material itself. It is measurable, reportable, and verifiable by third parties, which means it’s trustworthy. All of those things can happen, and they’re going to be continuing to happen over the course of the next decade and more. And so it’s a question of where can I make a contribution? Where can I participate in this if you believe that it’s important? And maybe even drawing a timeline. Today, I can only play in this area because I need to be pragmatic, but I’m going to continue to watch these other areas because if they continue to evolve in the trajectory that they have been already, then I’m going to have more choices and maybe I’ll be able to participate in new ways and maybe I’ll be able to share those resources with other people so that more people participate and we can start to move the needle faster.
JRW: Really what I hear you talking about is approaching the design community, approaching the manufacturing community, the industries that are producing the materials that furnish our buildings and so forth, and really speaking to those people about how to act at a local scale, to help scale these solutions to find the right filler, the right additives, to make the conscientious decision maybe based on external factors or their own internal motivation. Because they know they need to do the right thing or they have to fulfill certain ESG benchmarks. The external versus the internal motivation, whatever the motivation, making the right choice. But you’re talking about acting local.
LE: I live in New York City. I can give you some examples within New York State that I think really bring this point home, of CDR’s waste-to-value story. I can point to companies today using CDR to transform waste into value that didn’t exist 10 years ago. They’re applicable. They’re scalable in the built environment and also in upstate farming regions. And it’s exciting to watch them create this new frontier. And we’re simply in the early years. I can point to New York State universities with CDR-related curricula and labs, and I could also point to the state and municipal policies that support CDR’s growth, which goes hand in hand. If I didn’t live in New York state and I was in Minnesota, I’d tell you the Minnesota stories. California, of course, lots of stories there. But I could go around the country. What brings me joy, frankly, is discovering the states who you would sit there and say, I had no idea that they had this policy or they were using biochar and had subsidies available for their farming community. Or they had a buy-clean policy for low-embodied carbon concrete in which they’re using synthetic limestone made from captured air and transformed into this aggregate instead of the typical cementitious materials that are used. And so there is a lot going on. I truly find it thrilling to see this evolution.
JRW: Yeah, I agree with you. There are great stories often found in the places where we wouldn’t expect to find them. At least they wouldn’t make the top five or top 10 of people’s lists if you ask them to make an educated guess. And without getting too deep into the examples because we’re short on time, I can think of examples across different industries and sectors and in places like Texas, Alabama, Idaho, just three states that I know of where there are, whoever the stakeholders were, whether privately funded or publicly funded or some combination of the two, they clearly saw the business case for pursuing one waste-to-value solution or multiple waste-to-value solutions. And it all penciled out, but maybe the marketing efforts of those solutions are lacking because they know the political climate in which they operate. They don’t want to lead the conversation with carbon sequestration or carbon removal or even mention the words climate change together in a single sentence. Instead they say, we’re going to lead with performance, we’re gonna lead with our bottom line and we’re gonna lead with ‘this is good for everyone.’
But I digress on that front. I would like to ask just one more question, a general one at that. Other than CDR, what is a particular area within the broader waste-to-value umbrella category that has you really excited? A particular waste stream, whether it is forestry products or agricultural or aquacultural or, you know, something that’s not even tied to the building industry. What is something that’s really captured your fascination in recent weeks or months?
LE: Well, if we go back and break down waste streams into three categories: gases, liquids, and solids … From the gases, I know we’ve talked a bit about direct air capture, but two different approaches to how we capture that. And one is the direct air capture that we’ve discussed, and the other is point-source [capture], like from a smokestack. And the interesting thing about gas is, unlike all the plastic we see floating in waterways that disgust us, solids and liquids are visible. The gas is invisible, yet highly valuable! Because once you capture that and transform it, you can transform it into, as I mentioned earlier, synthetic limestone aggregate for concrete. And concrete being the second most widely used material in the world next to water is a huge domain in which to have an impact. And so if you’re driven to make a difference regarding climate change, even if you don’t want to talk about it in ways that you know are going to make the sale hard, but you do talk about its cost, its performance, its durability … then its impact on climate becomes the secondary or tertiary story. And you’re really going in with a strong business case. You can use this transformed material in carbon negative tiles, roofing shingles, wallboard for commercial applications, create diamonds, polymers for textiles, footwear, furniture, packaging for consumer market sectors. And CO2 is also the primary food for algae, which can then be harvested and processed into biopolymers.
Just gases alone are what I’m excited about in terms of a circular economy, circular design principles, and turning waste to value. I think it’s a fascinating time to live and watch this evolution.
And then when it comes to liquids, wastewater from food and beverage factories, from local municipalities, huge waste streams that can be transformed into value streams through a number of different means. There’s another which is interesting and that’s bio-lubricants. Every year, restaurants and food processing plants produce millions of tons of liquid fat and oil waste. These oils are chemically modified to create high-performance lubricants for heavy machinery. But unlike petroleum-based lubricants, these are biodegradable, making them ideal in environmentally sensitive areas such as offshore wind farms and forestry equipment. That’s a cool waste to value story.
JRW: Yes, it is. I’ve worked in a few restaurants back of house in my day and we’ve had to empty out those fryers and it’s grueling work. You don’t want to be cooking the French fries in five-day-old oil. But once it’s picked up by the anonymous truck, you wonder where it’s all going.
LE: Yeah. And so the prevailing question, I think, for waste today, as in so many other instances, is: to what end? And if we can see ourselves as participants in the determination of those ends, how can we turn it into value?
JRW: Well, the future is here, or if it’s not, it’s around the corner.
LE: And we will make it so.
