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Climate Now Episode 61

June 21, 2022

Is there a profitable approach to carbon capture and storage?

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Featured Experts

George Peridas
Director, Carbon Management Partnerships at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

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George Peridas

Director, Carbon Management Partnerships at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

George Peridas is the Energy Program Director, Carbon Management Partnerships at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He is responsible for promoting partnerships that result in the advancement and deployment of carbon management solutions and technologies, including the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, or so-called negative emissions. George’s recent experience of over a decade in the environmental NGO world has made him well versed in the fields of policy, legislation and regulation relevant to climate change, carbon management and energy, and keenly aware of the spectrum of views that need to be reconciled in order to reach meaningful consensus in this field.

George’s background in energy markets consulting and scientific research in an academic environment enable him to translate complex information into lay language in order to advance multiple goals.

Jonathan Kusel
Executive Director at Sierra Institute for Community and Environment

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Jonathan Kusel

Executive Director at Sierra Institute for Community and Environment

Jonathan founded the Sierra Institute in 1993 and has directed the organization ever since. He received a Ph.D. in Natural Resource Sociology and Policy from U.C. Berkeley, where he was an instructor before launching Sierra Institute. His dissertation focused on how rural northern Sierra communities changed following the departure of their wood products anchor businesses. This work, at the intersection of community and forest and watershed health formed the basis for the Sierra Institute’s mission and approach. He also holds a Masters in Forest Science from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

Joshuah Stolaroff
Chief Technology Officer at Mote

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Joshuah Stolaroff

Chief Technology Officer at Mote

Joshuah Stolaroff is the co-founder and CTO of Mote Hydrogen. He previously ran the Carbon Capture program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and led projects at the intersection of advanced manufacturing and clean energy.

In this Episode

In the international carbon offset market, the average price of removing one tonne of CO2 from the atmosphere is still below $15 USD, nowhere near enough to cover the costs of carbon capture and storage (CCS). As Dr. Sheila Olmstead (University of Texas, Austin) explained in a recent Climate Now podcast episode, this is why CCS is one of the few climate technologies not experiencing exponential growth. “Unless there’s a market for captured CO2, then it doesn’t make economic sense… to adopt these carbon capture technologies.” 

But what if, instead of making captured CO2 the only marketable product, the capture is accomplished while also producing other goods and services?

Climate Now spoke with three pioneers developing startup programs in California that plan to use biowaste (that is, agricultural residues or vegetation cleared from forests to increase their resiliency to drought, fire or infestation) to produce hydrogen fuel and CO2. The technique is called ‘bioenergy and carbon capture and storage,’ or BECCS. The hydrogen can be sold and the CO2 captured and stored underground. Join us for our discussion with George Peridas of Lawrence Livermore National Lab, Jonathan Kusel of the Sierra Institute for Community and Environment, and Josh Stolaroff of Mote, to hear how this approach could make CCS economically feasible, perhaps even profitable, while also providing a benefit to local communities already experiencing the worst impacts of climate change, and an essential service for the well-being of our planet.

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