Can we science the s*** out of it? It’s a famous quote from the Martian movie but it’s also true, science can offer solutions to problems it just needs time and resources. So could biotechnology help us do that for carbon removals?
That is the hope of Stigg Arff who used his own cash from selling a fintech business to set up the Carbon Technology Research Foundation. Its goal is to find solutions from nature and engineer them to help remove our extra emissions.
For a money man I asked why he was attracted to climate science?
Stig told me: “I’ve been driven by climate change ever since my studies, so I’m actually blessed. My first degree was as a physicist. And there’s been a lot of things going on in this area of science and new technologies. And I thought in a way this was perfect timing, because everything that’s going on in the biotech sector really enthused me, it really inspired and motivated me that that is probably where the solution lies in terms of the net zero transition and the idea was to finance research.”
Biotechnology has been a bit of a buzz word but what is it?
“I would say it’s tinkering with nature, basically. I mean, you know, tinkering with how life is programmed so you can change a bit of the programme and thus change the properties of that programme. And that is what we’re trying to do.
“We’re trying to take properties from life, which is is very apt in terms of carbon sequestering. And then reproducing that property in other organisms. Why would we want to do that. Because in order to capture enough carbon you need huge biomass basically.
“Currently we’re emitting 35 gigatons of carbon every year. The nature or the biosphere in which we live has a turnover of 350 gigatons. That’s ten times the amount that we’re releasing. So, you know, it’s really a simple back of the envelope calculation. If you can improve the turnover by 10%, you’ve solved the problem!”
How does Stig hope to do that?….listen to the podcast for the answers, it’s fascinating as Mr Spock would say! Please subscribe too!
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