Art has a unique ability to explain complex, oft-emotional topics in an understandable way. And that’s why Carbon Upcycling Technologies (CUT) is engaging with visual artists to educate the general public about carbontech. CUT offers their artist-collaborators free materials and tech support, encouraging the use of CO2-derived materials to create pieces that ‘showcase the carbon capture and utilization industry.’
Madison Savilow is the Chief of Staff at Carbon Upcycling Technologies and Venture Lead of CUT’s new consumer brand, Expedition Air. On this episode of Reversing Climate Change, Madison joins Ross to discuss the technology Carbon Upcycling uses to create solid materials like concrete, plastics, and consumer products out of CO2 and share her take on the tradeoffs associated with working with some of the largest players in the energy sector.
Madison explains what inspired CUT to launch Expedition Air, describing how a consumer brand helps educate the general public about carbontech and what other companies in the space are following suit. Listen in for insight into Expedition Air’s collaboration with artists Annalee Levin and Luis Merchan and learn how Madison and her team are using visual art to market carbontech.
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Carbon Removal Newsroom, the news show that ran alongside this one, is over. Its episodes are still up, on the feed Climate Workers Anonymous now uses.
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Resources
Expedition Air Artist Collaborations
Expedition Air Artist in Residence Program
Annalee Levin on Reversing Climate Change S2EP52
Apoorv Sinha on Reversing Climate Change EP078
Rob Niven on Reversing Climate Change S2EP16
Newlight Technologies on Reversing Climate Change EP014
Full Transcript
Ross Kenyon: Hello and welcome to the Reversing Climate Change podcast. I’m Ross Kenyon. I’m the creative editor at Nori’s Carbon Removal Marketplace. Today I have with me Madison Savalo, chief of staff at Carbon Upcycling and venture lead at Expedition Air. Hey, Madison. Hi, thanks for having me on. I’m so happy to have you on. I think what you’re doing is very cool. You’re involved in art and carbon removal. You’ve been working with my friend and patron, actually, Annaleigh Levin. I’ve never described myself as having a patron, but It makes me sound very early modern, Renaissance era.
I imagine that the art side is a recent appendage onto carbon upcycling’s core business. So maybe digging into carbon upcycling is a good place to start. What technology are you using? What are you trying to do? What problems are you trying to solve? Give us this rundown.
Madison Savilow: So our primary technology is carbon utilization. So we take gaseous CO2 and we sequester it into inorganic solid powders. They’re pretty broad. They range from industrial waste like fly ash, bottom ash, steel slag, pet coke. You’ll recognize a few of those as just byproducts from industrial processes, but we also use natural materials. So things like graphite, talc, Yellowstone, different types of clay, really, really broad feedstocks. And we process those through what we call our reactors. We have several of them on our site that we’re located at the moment.
But yeah, essentially just embedding those with CO2 and offloading them to an industry such as concrete, plastics, pharmaceuticals, solar panels, and now into the consumer products and art sectors. So yeah, it’s been pretty, pretty interesting in that sense. But yeah, art has definitely been a new foray for us. So I think Annalie was the first one to use our material in art. She reached out to us a couple of years ago now, and we’ve been just back and forth talking to her and really thinking of ways that we can support her work.
And through that, we came up with our Artist in Residence program.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, this is so cool. I love that exists. And also Annalie is just fantastic. You’re listening right now, Annalie, did we just make you blush? Are your ears burning? Yeah, let’s get to that in a bit. I still want to dig in a little bit farther to carbon upcycling. And I don’t know if you’re listening and you can hear those Canadian O’s, those process sounds. You’re clearly up north. And as I understand it, somewhere in Alberta.
Madison Savilow: Yeah, we’re based in Calgary. Yeah, I have been told I have a distinct Canadian accent. So yeah, you’ll hear that throughout for sure.
Ross Kenyon: Why Alberta? And is it in relation to just oil and gas and all the new fees in Fort McMurray? See, I’m trying to show off that I know about Canadian geography. Canadians are always like, wow. Yeah.
Madison Savilow: Wow, that was super impressive. Yeah. So no, that’s it’s kind of why we started in this region. So our three founders were based in Calgary at an oil and gas company. And then they got some research funding to start a project using CO2 and the utilization process that we now have. So that’s how it started in Calgary. We’ve always been based in Calgary, but we ended up staying here and we’re located at a natural gas plant because of our involvement in the Carbon XPRIZE.
So the XPRIZE is a really big foundation that runs global competitions. And I think they’ve become more popular lately just because of the Elon Musk funded prize that’s coming up. Who? Yeah, it’s this guy called Elon Musk. Yeah, he funded 100 million. I don’t remember what it was, 100 million, I think. Yeah, yeah. So it’d be a really large carbon capture prize. But before that was our Carbon XPRIZE. And that was based in On utilization and showing value from upcycled CO2.
So that was the competition we were in. And there are five teams scaling up in Calgary next to a natural gas plant. And there was five teams scaling up in Wyoming. So there was two tracks to this prize. And I think that was one of the main reasons they did focus on Calgary as a location for the XPRIZE is that it’s connected a lot to the innovation sector within energy. And it was just a really great area for us to demonstrate the use of CO2.
Ross Kenyon: Some of those links scare people as well. It depends on how you look at it, right? On the one hand, if you’re able to get some of these oil and gas companies to move over and to think more about various ways of upcycling CO2 or using greenhouse gases productively or more intentionally. Intensively, or using captured greenhouse gases for material processes. That’s a pretty big win, but people worry that this sort of gives a new social license for them to operate. It prevents the scale out of fossil fuel industries.
This has got to be a common criticism of sort of your feedstocks or your interaction. How should someone be thinking about these interactions?
Madison Savilow: Wow, we jumped right from starting an artist in residence program to some of the difficult questions. We’ll get to the fun stuff too. Sorry, yeah. That’s gotta be one of the most difficult questions in our sector, right? About the social acceptance of this and which industries we’re tied to. And yeah, exactly to your point, right? Like that’s really the trade-off is which industries we’re supporting. And I think what people don’t necessarily realize about the energy sector And even just oil and gas more specifically is that there’s so much innovation and the efficiencies within the sector really give it a cutting edge advantage on helping startups like ours and other technologies grow.
So I think you have to balance that difference between should we stifle some of these technology companies and these startups by making it socially unacceptable for them to interact with oil and gas companies? Or do we actually promote that innovation and let them grow and engage and actually make a big difference and working with some of the largest emitters in these sectors? So I think that’s the approach that a lot of carbon tech companies have taken. Even with our customers on the concrete side, concrete’s a massive emitter, but we work directly with them because that’s the material that we’re trying to introduce to the market is a low carbon concrete.
Yeah, lots of tradeoffs there. And that’s a very difficult question. I think there’s a lot that goes into that. But yeah, we’re just trying to make the biggest impact we can in reducing emissions.
Ross Kenyon: I don’t know. I don’t know how to feel about it myself. I think your answer is intriguing. I might be naive. In fact, we had David Roberts, formerly of Voxon, and that basically came up like, am I naive? Because I would like to see... Oil and gas companies run the process in reverse as the slogan has gone in the last couple of years. That would be amazing. But does the political economy that we exist within allow for such a transition or will it be more like Their tactics on delaying action on climate for decades?
Will it be like tobacco companies? Will it be purposefully obscuring the role, letting them burn for extra decades? I hope not. Because if you can turn that infrastructure, because their industries seemingly might die. So you think that they would probably want to find something else? I’m open to this being very naive. In fact, if you write me and say, Ross, you’re very dumb. That’s not how it’s going to work. I don’t know. What do you think about all of that?
Madison Savilow: Yeah, I think, you know, the key word there, obviously, is transition. Like, I think we all have to take that into consideration. And obviously, the faster, the better that we can get away from our reliance on fossil fuels, that would be, that’d be fantastic. But I mean, you also have to take a look at what our reality is to at this moment, and we are reliant on them. Creating that bridge to a cleaner economy, I think, requires us to work with these larger players and people that hold a lot of the funding and have this experience in innovation.
I think that’s really how we get to that next step. And to your point, too, we don’t want all of So we had your colleague Apoor Ivan seemingly a year and a half or two years ago. I wasn’t on that episode, which means I didn’t listen to it. I’m just kidding.
Ross Kenyon: Kristoff and Alessandra did that one. What’s happened in that time? So if someone goes back and listens to that original episode, which you totally should, it’s super interesting. What has changed in the last year and a half, two years?
Madison Savilow: Yeah, I mean, I did listen to that when it came out. I can’t remember much of it right now, so I’m hoping I’m not taking away from his original podcast, but a lot has happened. We’ve scaled our technology a ton. I guess in just the time that we’ve been in the XPRIZE, we’ve scaled our technology over a million times just as a matter of demonstrating it for this competition. How is that even possible? Well, we did start off with a reactor that was about the size of a cookie jar.
So if we start small, it’s easier for us to multiply that. But yeah, we now produce over 20 tonnes of material in a batch. So yeah, I think it’s just been a really interesting process to see our technology. We have been pretty single-mindedly focused on the XPRIZE. And so now we’re transitioning out of that. It ended in December and we’re just awaiting the results. But yeah, we’re focusing now on business development and getting licensing agreements and really Really showcasing how our materials can be used in pretty much everything.
So our whole goal is to see the carbon tech sector succeed in that. And we have a lot of different collaborations going even with other carbon tech companies. And I think that’s something that’s been really interesting. Yeah, I think it’s a very fun and intellectually stimulating place to exist for sure.
Ross Kenyon: Who are your customers right now? I guess insofar as you’re able to say, but it sounds like your licensing technology that you’re developing, you’re also selling products that they’re incorporating into, I don’t know, consumer products or the built environment. Where does your work end up?
Madison Savilow: In quite a few places, I guess the top three industries that we’re working in right now are the concrete sector, the plastic sector, and then consumer products. Consumer products, arguably most of our partners are pretty small at this point, but we are starting some conversations with some bigger players and bigger brands, which is really, really exciting to see them want to switch their materials to something that’s lower carbon. The plastics is kind of more on the research front. We did, I guess, speaking of oil and gas companies, we did graduate from the Repsol Accelerator program where we got to engage with some of their plastic partners and really do some big trials on the plastic front.
That was also very interesting too, because anything plastic, you don’t want to contribute to the plastic problem, but you want to make a better product and embed it with CO2. So more trade-offs, I guess. But the concrete industry has by and large been our biggest focus. As I mentioned, we’re able to produce 20 tonnes of material in a batch and all of that is our concrete additive. So we announced a partnership with CMAX. Locally, we work with BurnCo. So they’re just a short drive from us.
We spend a lot of time there emptying Home Depot buckets into the back of concrete trucks, but... Yeah, they’re a great partner. And then Lafarge Wholesome is probably our other main one. We did graduate from their accelerator and we’ve been in contact with them ever since. So if you’ve got a strong back and a passion for carbon tech and are also Canadian, this is where you go hang out. Yeah, this is what we do on our Saturdays. We go to Burn Co. And hang out with the fly ash and it’s good stuff.
Ross Kenyon: Tell me about how it works with concrete. We’ve had Rob Niven on from Carbon Cure before. I know concrete by emissions alone is bigger than many countries. It’s a big deal. So decarbonizing concrete or maybe even making it carbon negative would be amazing. How do you fit into all these processes?
Madison Savilow: Yeah, just your point there about how big it is. My favorite stat is that concrete is the second most used substance on earth other than water, which is just like mind boggling for the opportunity size here. Yeah. Yeah, it’s crazy. Essentially how ours works is, you know, the concrete mix itself, it really hasn’t changed a lot since essentially the Colosseum was built. Like it’s pretty much been the same. Fly ash is a component of that. And what we do is we embed CO2 into fly ash.
And then we put that into the concrete mix. And when we do that, we’re able to reduce the amount of cement by up to 20% and increase the compressive strength of concrete by up to 40%. So it’s a pretty interesting process that we have. To our knowledge, fly ash really isn’t usually pre-treated and we’re able to take very low grade fly ash from landfill and upcycle that. So typically it wouldn’t be able to go into a concrete supply chain because it’s just Too poorly demonstrated of a material.
So that’s something that we’re able to do consistently. And it’s really exciting.
Ross Kenyon: So your feedstock that you’re getting, are you saying that you get fly ash, you divert it from a landfill, and then are you processing it or something? Are you doing something different to it? Okay, fill me in on some of these details.
Madison Savilow: Yeah, so we’re processing it. That’s our CO2 sequestration process. So we take that fly ash, it comes from very low grade systems, either from landfill or diverted, just material that can’t go into the concrete supply chain alone directly. So yeah, we put that into our reactor, we pressurize our vessel with CO2, and then we process that for a few hours and then offload that directly to the concrete manufacturer. So it’s really that pretreatment that allows it to have these performance benefits, like the compressive strength increase, the CO2 embedded in the concrete and into the fly ash, and also the reduction of cement is what allows us to achieve a very high greenhouse gas reduction.
Ross Kenyon: Hmm. Do you interact at all with carbon markets or have you been focused primarily just on more like an insetting approach and allowing your customers to brag about their process?
Madison Savilow: Yeah, I mean, they can brag about it all they want. But no, we do have, I guess in the works was one of the protocols for a voluntary registry. We haven’t done a protocol for any of the provincial markets or the federal systems that we have here in Canada. One of the, I guess, bills that’s really, really interesting for us is the Q45 in New York State, talking about lowering the embodied carbon of the built infrastructure in the region. So that’s something that’s really interesting and something we’ve been in discussion.
So that would be amazing. But that was essentially just a tax credit. And there’s a few other countries that are doing something kind of similar. France is working on one as well. So there’ll be a leader in that as well with their embodied carbon reduction. And I think that’s really how we’re playing into this mostly. I think in the future, hopefully we’ll be able to see some of our material in a credit system, hopefully either federally or even in the US somewhere. But Okay.
So you said concrete, plastic? Consumer products.
Ross Kenyon: Consumer products. How’s this last one going? And maybe this is a good place to bring up Expedition Air.
Madison Savilow: Yeah, absolutely. So that when we started in 2019, we started making consumer products in just small pieces. The reason we started that originally was for marketing of our technology, as well as of the general carbon tech space. We felt that a lot of people didn’t have much education or any resources to really believe that this material existed. And we wanted to give people something tangible that they could have themselves and feel like they’re playing a part in this. And I mean, each consumer has buyer power and they’re showing what they support and what materials they support with their purchases.
So really the whole goal of Expedition Air is to democratize carbon tech and show bigger players that this is something that consumers are looking for. So yeah, we really didn’t focus on it too much, actually, since 2019. We had a lot of inbound inquiries from people wanting to use our material in their projects, in their small, you know, consumer brands and in their art. And of course, sending them just the A small jar of material was kind of not the greatest use of our time when we had some bigger players wanting to have bulk orders of material.
So instead of stifle it, we decided to embrace it and start a consumer product brand. So it kind of segmented it out from our main business. Which is on the industrial side. And we branded that as Expedition Air. So that’s live now. We launched that at the beginning of March. And yeah, it’s been going well so far. We have six main partners in that, plus a whole carbon offset section where we operate. We offer carbon offset packages for different events of people’s lives.
That’s more of an education thing as well. It really showcases to people what their impact is. But yeah, wanting to get consumers engaged and the general public aware of what carbon tech is and that they can use these products in their daily lives. But of course, we know that one purchase of these products isn’t going to change the world, but the small accumulation of these actions will.
Ross Kenyon: I think so too. And I think one part of this that is often left out of discussions about whether or not individual action matters in this kind of way is I think what this shows is imagination and hopefully encourages other people to be really creative. And I don’t know that’s always tracked so well in these conversations. It’s sort of been like, well, look at how much corporations can do to spend here, how much a tax would do. Compare that to the measly, everyone buys offsets, blah, blah, blah, or something like that.
I like to think of this as maybe this will inspire someone to do something and invent something, or I don’t know. That’s sort of how I think about it. Do you think about it that way too?
Madison Savilow: Yeah, absolutely. And that came into some of the things we’re doing now with other carbon tech companies. So it’s not just carbon upcycling material we’re showcasing on here. We’re also showcasing some material or some products, I should say, from Clean02. And we have a couple discussions going with other carbon tech companies. And that’s exactly it. We want other carbon tech companies to be a part of this, for people to go away with this mission in mind that all products should be enabling a low carbon future.
And to do that, we do need the support of consumers, artists, technical support, everyone. Everyone needs to be a part of it. And yeah, we just want to make it accessible for everyone.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, I love that. There’s some really cool things on here too. A bunch of things from Annalie Levin. The link to that show is in the show notes too. You should go back and listen to that one if you haven’t. She has a worry stone. There are crayons made out of captured CO2, I think from the fly ash from you guys, right?
Madison Savilow: Yeah, she has a few things in there. I think the black crown is made from our graphitic nano platelet. She’s used talc. She’s used fly ash. She has more material of ours than I think we do individually. So it’s pretty cool.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, no, I like that. And I see things like the clean O2 soap, which I’ve been meaning to buy some of that. I feel so negligent. But how is that? Is it pretty good consumer experience?
Madison Savilow: Yeah, no, it’s all the products are really, really unique. And that’s what I like about them. I think they’re all pretty creative and different, like things you wouldn’t expect to be made from captured carbon. And that’s the whole point is to explore that use. And then also one thing I haven’t seen yet, but I really, really like is there are paintings. Why are there paintings on here? Yeah, so we worked with an artist in Columbia and he’s fascinating. So he reached out to us and wanted to make negative paintings.
So he paints everything in a negative color and you need a filter to switch it to a positive color and actually see what the full painting is. He uses our graphitic nanoplatelets, he took them, he made paint out of it, and all of these paintings are representative of climate action. He’s also, the design for each of these photos he was explaining to me was done with an AI program where he’s looked at thousands and thousands of photos and come up with a design to make them accessible. Representative of different world sites and world heritage sites that are going to be affected by climate changes as the world gets warmer.
So that’s something that’s also pretty neat too. So he’s just, yeah, he’s probably the one of the most talented people we’ve worked with on that front on the painting side. So we’re really excited to explore that collaboration further.
Ross Kenyon: I’m going to try to peer inside your business model a little bit. You can tell me if I’m unveiling any trade secrets that you want to run away from. One thing I really like about Expedition Air and this approach is And Nori, we’re very similar in that because a lot of what we do is, in some cases, it’s difficult to understand because it isn’t very consumer facing. There’s a strong B2B sort of orientation at the heart of what we do. But we think carbon removal is so much more than that and really important.
And so trying to engage people. One of the ways we started And this is what the podcast is from the beginning, is how do we educate our existing and future customers? How do we talk about why carbon removal is important? How do we help grow this ecosystem insofar as we can? It seems like this is a similar kind of...
Madison Savilow: No, that’s exactly it. We really want to have that engaging side where people are starting to enter these conversations and starting to learn what carbon tech is. Even some of the comments and stuff we get on our content is just people not believing that this is possible. It’s been like, no, no, it is. We’ve been working on this for ages. There’s so many other companies also working on these different types of materials. And the more people look into it, the more they understand how this fits into the overall ecosystem.
So yeah, that’s exactly it.
Ross Kenyon: What’s the response been like? Well, it sounds like some people are just incredulous, which fair enough. I mean, I sort of feel like a little kid when I look at it too. And talking to Anna Lee, I’m just like, whoa, really? You can do this? But I imagine some people have been just supportive. Some people probably hate you too because it’s the internet. Yeah, probably. Hopefully most people just think it’s amazing, right? You know, you’re trying to do something impactful when you do have haters.
So I guess that’s maybe something to take away from it. I’ve never seen that. So I was just running my mouth. I don’t know. I assume it’s, yeah.
Madison Savilow: No, it’s true though. Like there’s some people that, you know, they say like, oh, how much, what is your carbon balance and how much CO2 is actually sequestered in those. And each product is very different. Some of these are pretty much purely our material being used. Like the worry stones, for instance, those are like highly concentrated carbon tech material in there. And others are just literally sprinkles. So like, it really, really depends on the material. And I think What people need to realize too is that it is those incremental usage of carbon tech material that’s going to start to make a difference and open the door for larger technologies to come in on the industrial side once people become aware that this is a solution for the industries they’re involved with.
I think that’s the thing, too, is people are looking at this from a very micro scale of like, what is this one crayons carbon footprint versus what is this doing on a larger picture and the education standpoint of this? And then the other side of it, some people just absolutely love it. They already get it. They understand carbon tech and like, oh, this is the coolest because, you know, there really aren’t too many consumer brands that are doing this type of material. So, yeah, there’s definitely the two sides to everything.
Ross Kenyon: For sure. I always love things like this. Even if you told me the amount of carbon on net sequestered in a painting was infinitesimal, the mere fact of trying to do it at this stage where it is so uncommon I think is really important. I love all of this stuff, though, too. I don’t know if you’ve seen Ether’s work with the Diamonds, Ryan Shearman. There’s your little shout out there. I think what you’re doing is really interesting, I think. But I’m sure people come at Ryan.
Ryan, I’ll let you come on sometime. We can talk about this. I’m sure people are like, diamonds for rich people, diamonds for the horribly corrupt and wasteful wedding industry. Oh, it’s nothing. It doesn’t even make a dent. And I don’t really get that criticism at all. I find it to be... Really short-sighted. I think people are going to ask about it. I think it’s going to make people think. And I think that’s really the stage that we’re at is trying to get more and more people into carbon removal.
And so I think we try to be supportive almost to a fault. One other thing, I’ll pull the curtain back on this one for you too. When we had Rob Niven on, I think Kristoff was a little hard on him. It was sort of like wanting to understand like, is this actually carbon removal or not? And in some ways that question was not as important to me as, are you making a dent in decarbonizing the concrete sector? That answer is seemingly an affirmative yes. So almost who cares at some point, this needs to be done.
So yeah, I don’t know. I love all these things. I just try to be supportive. Unless it’s like, obviously, A scam or doesn’t work or is shady in some way, but I almost never encounter that. Sorry, I didn’t mean to just like rant at you. Go ahead.
Madison Savilow: No worries. No, I see both sides. So I see that there does need to be the validation of the technologies to make sure that they are making an impact and they’re not claiming more than what they do. I think that’s I think, yeah, that’s the main thing, right? Like if they’re claiming more than what they do, then you’re you’re just greenwashing. So you’re not really effective. And if you claim just a small amount, that’s fine. Like if you can only do a certain amount and you know the extent of what your technology can do.
That’s okay, but it just needs to be clear in that sense. But then I also see the other side too, where we need to be supporting all types of these technologies. And if something’s not 100% made from CO2, but a portion of it is, or it’s just partially made from CO2, That’s still helping the problem. Like we’re in a climate crisis. It’s not like we have to wait until we have a 100% perfect answer and 100% perfect solution. We just need all the solutions going at this time.
So that’s something that I think is notable. And we don’t want people with that type of criticism killing these industries where they are making even just the smallest bit of impact to make things better.
Ross Kenyon: I think that’s very wise. And I share that sentiment too. And I should put an asterisk on my entire comment, which is that, you know, false claims, which are just fraud. This statement does not apply in those cases. I think being conservative, I think is really smart too. Like you don’t want to over promise and under deliver. That doesn’t make sense for a business. It catches up to you too. I don’t know. I agree with you. I think all these things are cool within reason.
So long as you’re not lying or Madison’s coming after you. Yeah, we’ll find you. We’ll track you down. What’s next? I know there’s another big push you’re making trying to do a lot more in art, which the first time I heard about it, I was just blown away. I’m so happy that you’re doing this. I think it’s really important. It’s a great act of leadership. I actually gave you a shout out actually on Clubhouse with Apoor was on there. I said, whose idea was this?
I couldn’t remember when Madison told me. He said, oh yeah, that was Madison’s. I said, oh, give her a raise. So I’m looking out for you, okay? Yeah.
Madison Savilow: Yeah, you tell them that I should get a raise. That’s good. Thank you for that. Yeah, I love this art stuff. I think it all stems, too, just from my amazement of what artists can do. I’m probably the least artistic person I know. And so being involved in this scene is just me being jealous, pretty much, of just all the artists. Yeah. Yeah, getting them involved in using cleaner materials. I don’t think the artist community has the biggest carbon footprint to start with, but I think it has this really unique ability to draw people in and explain really complex and emotional topics to people in And that’s exactly what we need for mitigating climate change.
We need people, first of all, to understand the facts behind it and then delve right into what the solutions are and how we can work together with both innovative solutions and natural solutions. So I think that’s really what drew us to this program is that we just need to have a connection between general public and just the broader audience that we’re speaking to and getting them involved with these carbon tech solutions.
Ross Kenyon: One of the questions that we get asked too, and this is going to tie to our shared sort of weird marketing strategy. If Nori is ever successful to the point where a book is written about us or anything, they’ll be like, how come you paid Ross’s salary to do So podcasting things and other creative things. You could have had an engineer for the same price. You could have had a soil scientist. There are like many, the opportunity cost was high. Why’d you do it? And I think there are many ways in which it’s been a valuable experience and been really useful.
I’ve always been the hardest to look at it in that kind of way. Be like, is this worth it? Like this isn’t just vanity, right? Like there is something that’s happening here. Especially if your customers are relatively few, like Nori’s business as well. We have B2C customers, but more of our business comes through B2B transactions. They typically aren’t reached by this sort of like educated layperson, general audience kind of brand marketing, indirect. It’s not like I’m pitching people on the show about Nori.
And some... Does anyone out there listening know that I work at a company that sells things that you can buy? I feel like there’s probably someone who’s like, oh, cool. I didn’t know that. So how are you able to justify it given that your customers, it seems almost like an act of charity or thought leadership or something that’s beyond just your core business, which makes it hard to justify. What led to this? It seems so indirect.
Madison Savilow: Well, it is and it isn’t. I think it directly stems to us and our lack of marketing of our company. I think sometimes we struggle with that, but I think we’re definitely getting better in that sense, at least. But yeah, I think there’s just a direct correlation between us wanting I mean, if we went into every business development conversation and the baseline of knowledge of that person we’re talking to is that they already understand what our carbon tech solution is, that saves us so much time. It seems so much explaining.
It saves them shutting the door on us in some cases where they just don’t understand. So if there’s any way for us to increase the awareness of the sector at large, as well as what our materials can do, I think it’s definitely worth it. I guess we didn’t financially put too much into this program. It was really organic the way we grew it out. And we pretty much just offered some free material and some technical support and hosting them at the site we already have here in Alberta.
So it was fantastic. Pretty simple in that sense, I guess. And it’s definitely not something that takes too, too much of my time on the artist side. So yeah, it’s just been really exciting projects. And I think that was definitely a highlight of last year, other than the XPRIZE, was getting to work with different artists. So you’re saying by comparison, Nori is relatively wasteful. That’s exactly what I’m trying to get at, Ross. I didn’t want to outright say it, but...
Ross Kenyon: Message received. Yeah. I got it. Mm-hmm. No, that’s been good. I mean, it certainly grabbed my attention very strongly. I already knew about y’all though, so it wasn’t a surprise. But are there examples of other things like this? I guess I saw Carbon 180 has been receiving... the proceeds from NFT sales recently. If you’re listening and you don’t know what this is, sorry, how could you not? I feel like everyone has been talking about non-fungible tokens, art being sold on the blockchain for ludicrous amounts of money.
But I’m trying to think of other things that are involved in this sort of creative imagination. Is there anything that you can think of that’s even related to this? Yeah, I know Air Company. I don’t know if you’ve had them on or if you know of them. No, it sounds really familiar. And I’m sorry to say that I don’t tell me some more.
Madison Savilow: Yeah, you should definitely look them up. So they were a favorite at the ACCTC. That’s where we were located for the XPRIZE. They shared the bay next to ours, but they made vodka. So they were definitely a favorite on site.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. Oh, yes. I’ve seen I’ve seen these ads. Yeah, I should have known this one.
Madison Savilow: Yeah, they’re fantastic, but they don’t have anything specific with their material that they’re making. But they do have this big crossover between art and, I guess, air and like the air company brand that they’ve created. So that’s something that’s kind of unique. And then more on the consumer product side, air company being included in that, selling vodka and hand sanitizer. There’s a few other companies too, like New Light. They’re a technology company that was in the XPRIZE and they partnered with us actually, but they have co-built.
Ross Kenyon: They’ve been on the podcast too. Years ago, like three years ago. Like ages ago.
Madison Savilow: Yeah, yeah. So they started Covalent and that’s their consumer brand. So they make products and different materials and they embed it into their offering online as well. So that’s kind of unique to see these technology companies now stemming out with new brands. So we’re one of a few that are doing this, but I’m hoping to see more as well and other ways for us to collaborate and create different types of products made with crossover materials. That would be neat to see.
Ross Kenyon: Wow, that is cool. So is the understanding correct though, that many of these companies are producing, I don’t even know the technical term, intermediate products that are going, they’re not the end user products. So it’s important for these brands to create a brand, I guess you could even say through some sort of And that’s sort of the main value as I see it. So is that the common understanding of what’s happening?
Madison Savilow: Yeah, exactly. Because you get a wider audience that way too. And at the end of the day, I mean, if we’re selling into industrial markets, you will be interacting with our product at some point and you just may not know it. So it’s important for people to know what their houses are made of and what their plastic products are made of and what their vodka is made of. So I think there’s ways for people to build out a brand around that and make sure that the carbon tech portion is involved in all materials.
So Yeah, definitely an education standpoint and an awareness and branding standpoint too. Great. If someone’s listening and they’re an artist, how should they get involved? Well, they should definitely contact us and we can try and set them up with some material or do a trial run of some sort of artistic piece. I think that’s a big, big focus of ours this next year is rolling out, first of all, our second Artist in Residence program. So that will be launching shortly. And then after that, we do want to engage with many more artists in different capacities.
So we have some new projects up our sleeve here that will be rolling out soon. But Yeah, definitely contact us, reach out to us on our site, look us up on LinkedIn, we’re available there. So yeah, we’d love to hear from any artists or consumers that are interested in this technology.
Ross Kenyon: Are you going to be, because I think it was Annalee Levin Solo was the first artist in residence, right? Yeah. Are you going to be choosing a second or is there going to be like a class or a cohort? How are you, or is it too early to say?
Madison Savilow: Yeah, so we do have a couple artists that we’re interested. So we want to be inclusive with this. It’s not a huge financial thing for us to do it. It’s just really sharing our material. That’s kind of what we’re giving to it or technical support or marketing support and then getting... Expedition Air involved on that brand side. So if we can, we’d love to support multiple artists and do a cohort and see some different types of products made. They don’t necessarily all have to be commercial.
Most of them are. I know Annalise started her own company out of this, which was fantastic. So she does Captured Carbon Studio. But if there is an artist that already has a studio or has products for sale and just wants to swap out materials, definitely something we’d be open to.
Ross Kenyon: I’m wondering how many people listening either are that person or know someone. Surely if you’re listening, you know some artist who wants to be involved in something like this, right? I think artists in general probably could get on board for this.
Madison Savilow: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, we’re pretty flexible too. So there’s many different ways to engage with us. And if it’s not in their realm to do a full artist in residence program where they have to produce a piece at the end of the six month term that we’ve set, that’s okay. If there’s easier ways, just want to try some material, you know, contact us and we can try and coordinate something. But yeah, it’s really, really interesting year coming up in the artist world for us.
So we’re pumped.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, I’m too. I’m very curious to see how that all plays out. It’s very exciting to me as well. I have a question. I’m almost not even sure how to ask it. It sort of hurts my brain to ask it. Can I try? Go for it. What does the carbon tech industry look like from the inside? How are people competing or trying to get contracts or license their technology? What’s the landscape look like? Is it collaborative? Are people fighting over the same?
Is it sort of a monopsony where there’s only a couple of buyers and you’re all fighting over the same buyers of your end products? How does it work?
Madison Savilow: Yeah, really great question. I guess that’s a question for any sector, right? Who are your competitors? How does it work? That kind of thing. It is a very collaborative space. I’ve noticed I think that’s something that’s really unique and actually very appealing about the CCUS sector is that a lot of these companies are working towards a larger vision of mitigating climate change. Like it’s a very large vision. So we’re working together in that sense to work towards that bigger goal. There are competitors.
It’s kind of twofold. So you’re competing on a carbon utilization standpoint, but you’re also competing in whatever sector your end materials are going into. So that’s very interesting from the utilization standpoint, not necessarily from the capture side or the storage side. Those are very separate in the way they act in that sense. But yeah, we’d be competing against other companies in the concrete space, existing materials, materials that don’t have CO2 in them but are low carbon for other reasons. The plastic space also for the same reasons as well.
So that’s kind of neat. I think one of the things that’s unique about our technology, though, is that it’s very compatible with other carbon tech solutions. So it’s not that you have to just only select our material. There are other ways for you to overlap this or layer different technologies on top because ours is just an ingredient or an additive within that material. Many ways you can look at the competitive landscape of this industry. Give me an example of a case where your product would be within the same end product as a different carbon upcycling technology.
Yeah, I guess the prime example would be what we did for the XPRIZE. So I mentioned New Light already. They had a resin that was derived from CO2. And we actually partnered with them and we merged teams in the XPRIZE. So there was originally the 10 teams, including New Light. And then we merged. There was nine teams and Air Company joined to make up the 10. So that’s my carbon drama. But they... So yeah, we were partnered with New Light because they had the resin, the bioresin made from CO2, and we had a nucleator or a plastic additive also made from CO2.
So those two technologies were compatible in that sense, and both are carbon tech. So that’s really just a pure example of how we can collaborate within this industry and not necessarily be competitors.
Ross Kenyon: In the future, do you imagine switching from a feedstock that is more of this carbon utilization coming off of, I’m not sure where your feedstocks come from now, but I imagine it’s from an emitting industry to something that is maybe on net, is using direct air capture and is carbon negative. Is it as simple as just switching feedstocks?
Madison Savilow: Yeah, so on the CO2 side, absolutely. So we call ourselves CO2 agnostic. So we can use CO2 from any source. We have some tanks from Climeworks, from Carbon Engineering on our sites that we’ve done and used for certain clients that wanted material made from direct aerosol. And then of course, we have the point source emission that’s right there. So we’re able to pull from the nat gas plant that we’re located at. But yeah, we’re definitely CO2 agnostic. We just have to be above 80% purity for it to work well within our system.
So that’s really the metric that changes that side. And then on the solid feedstocks, so the powder that we’re sequestering or storing that CO2 into, Both industrial wastes like the fly ash, bottom ash, all that I mentioned, but we also use natural material or natural posilins is what they’re called. So those include graphite, talc, yellowstone, clays, really, really broad. We’ve even used crushed glass from construction sites. It’s pulverized down to powder and then we sequester CO2 into it. So both sides are pretty flexible.
Ross Kenyon: Are you sequestering CO2 through that process that you started out with where you’re putting it in some sort of kiln or oven and just feeding CO2 into it and it’s reacting?
Madison Savilow: Yeah, so it’s actually not an oven. Our process works better at ambient temperatures. So we call it the reactor. I don’t know if we need to come up with a better name for this because that is not descriptive. But yeah, we just put whatever powder material we’re working with into one of these vests. Pressurize it with CO2 and we rotate those vessels for anywhere from a couple hours to a couple of weeks. But that’s the primary technology. We do change around a few things depending on the material, but that is the core technology and the platform tech that we use for each of those feedstocks.
Ross Kenyon: Okay. But anything that you do will work with carbon dioxide. That’s a key focal point of carbon upcycling. Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Is there any integration with something like methane that’s possible or is that just out of your wheelhouse?
Madison Savilow: I mean, our whole process is built around the CO2. I think us being a carbon upcycling company, so to speak, it’s our name. I think that also speaks to our ethos and what we’re trying to do and Mm-hmm. Would you say carbon tech in general uses a lot of intellectual property and is relatively proprietary or not so much? Yeah, definitely. I think every company has their own IP and I think that’s what makes it unique to what makes each company special in their own way and what allows them to be competitive.
So yeah, absolutely, for sure.
Ross Kenyon: With the three sectors that you mentioned with concrete, plastics, and consumer goods, is it a monopsony where there is just like one big buyer who is absorbing all of these inputs? Or is it distributed? I think concrete in general is like very geographically distributed because of the production process. But it wouldn’t surprise me if there was just a couple owners of all of those distributed units. How’s all that work?
Madison Savilow: Yeah, they’re all regional, really. There are some really big players in the concrete sector, like Lafarge Wholesome. Cimex is one of our partners as well. So those are just two examples of some of the bigger companies that have global operations. But yeah, because the concrete supply chain is localized in the sense that they get their different ingredients, so to speak, from local sources and local supply chains, that is something that we have to keep in mind as we’re scaling and licensing our technology out. So if we wanted to see larger reactors put on a site for a concrete manufacturer, we would then have to play into their local supply chains and make sure that we have everything set up in a local climate and everything is accessible right there rather than us shipping this material.
Same for the plastics. There’s a lot of different plastic companies. And I think plastics is a little bit more nuanced, too, because there’s so many different types of plastics, different resins, different ways of processing it, molding. It’s a whole thing. So that would act the same way if we’re trying to license out a reactor. It would likely have to be at a plastic site and they would be processing or pre-treating, I guess, that material before it goes into their end product. Is this the same for consumer products, too?
Yeah, consumer products are a little bit more varied too. We would probably start off by us manufacturing those materials first. They’re just used in such a small quantity to start off with when you’re doing the original testing. And then if you get into some bigger brands, obviously, And then you could start discussing maybe having a reactor at a manufacturing site. It’s a little bit of, I think, a trickier supply chain to set up, but that’s really our goal too, is to see our material being put into those supply chains that are intact, those sales channels that are already set up.
It’s going to be a lot easier go for us to make a big impact if that’s already in place rather than us building it from scratch, which we still are. We still are offering stuff on our e-commerce site that’s available, but that’s our goal is to get in touch with larger companies and start working on their decarbonization strategies.
Ross Kenyon: That’s very cool. Curious to know what will be the next carbon tech marketing stunt. Not that it’s merely a stunt, but I’m wondering what else will people do to try to make an obscure process interesting to the general public?
Madison Savilow: Oh man, I just think we need better communication and education out there about what’s happening and I guess what the real facts are. Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know what the next steps will be or what different tactics. I think our team is very limited for our marketing ability. So I don’t know if we’ve already reached our limits with this Artist in Residence program, but we’ll see.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, no, I think it’s really fascinating and I’m happy you’re doing it. Well, any thoughts that you want to leave us with? Anything we didn’t get to that we should have? No, I think these questions were fantastic. I really enjoyed this chat. Annalee Levin’s work. Annalee is a patron of Nori’s Patreon and has been on the show before. Her art is really cool. Hey, Annalee, we’re making you blush again. And yeah, I think this is really a magical, important, I think it’s good for the entire sector to be doing things like this.
So thanks for sticking your neck out, Madison, and coming out with a cool idea that is, I don’t know, that science and industrial business people are always thinking in this way. So I definitely respect the creativity of it. Well done.
Madison Savilow: Yes. Thanks so much for having me on. This was really great to chat with you.
Ross Kenyon: Me too. And if you like the show and you want to help us out, if you could please give us a good rating and review on iTunes, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your show, wherever you listen, there’s usually an option to rate or review. Would be much appreciated. And thank you so much for listening. Well, thank you so much for listening. If you like the show, please rate and review it in Apple Podcasts and or Stitcher. It really helps us a lot to get this content to a wider audience.
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