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  • We're just outside this unassuming building

  • in Berkeley, California, where a team of 50 people

  • is working on one of the biggest problems for climate change.

  • Founded by three Stanford graduates,

  • Twelve is trying to take captured carbon

  • and repurpose it so that it can re-enter the supply chain

  • and become the building block for everything

  • from shoes to your next fancy car.

  • We're going to speak with Kendra Kuhl, one of the three

  • co-founders and the chief technology officer.

  • And she's going to give us a tour of the lab

  • and just answer our questions about how feasible is this.

  • Could you explain just in the most basic terms

  • what is it that you've done and what are you aiming to do?

  • Because when I read it on paper it

  • sounds just like crazy, ambitious, and perhaps

  • like too pie in the sky.

  • It sounds extremely difficult.

  • So the core technology of the company

  • is a catalyst that allows us to break apart carbon dioxide

  • molecules and reform the carbon and oxygen and hydrogen

  • from water into new compounds.

  • So we can take carbon dioxide from anywhere.

  • Instead of that carbon dioxide being emitted to the sky,

  • transform it back into essential products.

  • Or we can, if coupled to direct air capture,

  • suck that carbon out of the air and then make it

  • into something useful again.

  • The idea of reusing the carbon we've already extracted

  • is a key part of the circular economy, a grand hope

  • that society can re-engineer the way goods are designed,

  • manufactured, and recycled.

  • The concept is being embraced by some of the world's largest

  • companies, including Apple, which

  • says that it hopes to make all of its products using

  • recycled materials; and Ford, which is already building

  • 3D printed car components out of what it calls waste powder.

  • As the late architect Buckminster Fuller

  • once said: "Pollution is nothing but the resources we are not

  • harvesting.

  • We allow them to disperse because we've

  • been ignorant of their value."

  • So if it's such an important idea,

  • why aren't there hundreds of start-ups trying to do this?

  • I think it is hard.

  • The other inputs are renewable electricity and water.

  • And so we are reliant on the growing impact

  • of renewable electricity on decarbonising our grid

  • in order to really transform the CO2 emissions.

  • Earlier this month, you had your first series A funding round.

  • I think you raised $57m.

  • Where are you now in terms of the proven technology?

  • So today in our lab we have a system

  • that does kilograms per day transformation of carbon

  • dioxide.

  • We want to go up to tonnes per day.

  • OK, so show me what we have here, Kendra.

  • Yeah.

  • This is the system that we use to deposit that catalyst

  • and make a layer onto a polymer electrolyte membrane.

  • And then that's what goes into our system to do the carbon

  • dioxide transformation.

  • So sorry, is this an additive manufacturing type thing?

  • Yeah, similar, but super small scale.

  • The layer that we're depositing is much thinner.

  • How thin?

  • Are we talking about like hair-length thin?

  • I can't tell you exactly how thin...

  • Oh, really?

  • Oh, that's proprietary.

  • ...because that's part of our core technology.

  • But...

  • ...it's thin!

  • This does look a lot like a 3D printer in terms of how it's...

  • Yeah, we have a solution containing catalyst, additives.

  • And then it's just a solvent that those other components

  • are dispersed in.

  • And then that's fed into one of these nozzles

  • and then forced down by an air stream onto the substrate.

  • And the solvent dries, and it leaves behind the solids.

  • But you can already see we can coat really large areas.

  • Right.

  • And so it's totally unclear to me as to what happens next.

  • So once you've got this coating, then what?

  • Ultimately, we can put this into a cell that's

  • as big as this deposition area.

  • At scale, is this machine...

  • is much, much larger, or do you have many of these machines?

  • I think it's a different layout.

  • So more of a roller conveyor belt type

  • of process, more continuous production.

  • This is a relatively small system, to be honest.

  • You can make this as big as your whole room

  • or your whole facility.

  • I mean, I think technology gives us options.

  • And so we have choices.

  • And so we can choose to do something about climate change

  • because we have technology like this.

  • Right.

  • So we're not doomed, or we might be doomed.

  • Or you hope we're not doomed.

  • Yeah, I don't think we're doomed.

  • I mean, I think some of the beauty of the solution

  • is that it doesn't require you to be

  • a believer in carbon dioxide being an ill or not

  • and causing climate change.

  • We aim to be cost-competitive at scale.

  • And so there won't be an economic cost

  • to using CO2-made materials.

  • The other thing we should look at is the actual prototype.

  • This can transform kilogrammes per day...

  • Oh, really?

  • ...of carbon dioxide.

  • You do a prototype that's doing that?

  • Yeah.

  • OK.

  • One of the advantages of these types of systems is that they

  • are kind of like...

  • kind of just run on their own.

  • Like you turn it on and it goes.

  • It is like a dishwasher!

  • It's like a dishwasher, literally.

  • You don't have to be tweaking things or tending things.

  • Every three months you have to replace a filter but it's

  • not like rocket science.

  • Anyone could do it.

  • Right, I think anyone could replace the filter.

  • So yeah, the next scale from here

  • would be kind of a couple of shipping

  • containers' worth of volume, but probably not in a shipping

  • container, probably a skid.

  • And it would look like a scaled up version of this,

  • essentially.

  • But it's a little bit like a chemical plant, but quiet,

  • operating at ambient temperature,

  • and no kind of smells or fumes or anything

  • that you might associate with a typical chemicals plant.

  • This almost looks like a caricature of an actual thing.

  • Mad scientist lab or something, right?

  • Yeah, yeah, what are we looking at here, Kendra?

  • Yeah, so to develop our catalysts

  • that transform carbon dioxide we've done a lot of testing

  • and optimization.

  • The stand is designed to allow us

  • to control the input of carbon dioxide, water, electricity,

  • and then measure what's the energy utilisation that we're

  • getting out of the cell, what's the temperature, what's

  • kind of the optimal operating conditions.

  • So you're sort of tweaking the inputs,

  • running the same process and seeing what the outputs are?

  • Yeah.

  • So we're iterating as rapidly as possible on the conditions,

  • the materials, and then also the cell hardware

  • to really achieve the performance

  • that we're looking for.

  • This is an artificial tree.

  • OK, so describe what an artificial tree

  • is because the concept, mind boggling.

  • Right.

  • Think if a tree takes carbon dioxide from the air,

  • water from the ground, and sunlight

  • as the source of energy, and it makes carbon dioxide

  • into sugar.

  • Our devices are similar because they take carbon dioxide

  • and water from the inputs that we're feeding to them,

  • plus energy in the form of electricity

  • and then can transform that carbon dioxide into not sugar,

  • but other kind of intermediate products.

  • So this might be a silly question.

  • But like decades from now, if the Brazilian rainforest is

  • like continue to be reduced at the rate it's been cut

  • in the last 30 years...

  • I mean, I don't want to in any way say we can make up for that

  • and that's OK.

  • But is it just like more and more of these

  • will end up doing the work?

  • Like, are we having more and more artificial trees

  • in the absence of real ones?

  • I mean, the energy has to come from somewhere.

  • So the energy here can come from the sun

  • when we couple it to solar panels.

  • But I would say trees provide a lot more benefits than just

  • CO2 mitigation, right?

  • I mean, it's a whole ecosystem.

  • This is obviously a piece of metal.

  • So I would not...

  • I would not trade a tree.

  • OK, you'd prefer real trees.

  • I'd prefer we keep all the real trees

  • and have these systems in addition to that.

  • Yeah.

We're just outside this unassuming building

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