Crystal: [00:00:00] I’m Crystal DiMiceli, and welcome to the Forces for Nature show. Do you find yourself overwhelmed with all the doom and gloom you hear of these days? Do you feel like you, as just one person, can’t really make a difference? Forces for Nature cuts through that negativity. In each episode, I interview someone who is working to make the world more sustainable and humane.

Join me in learning from them and get empowered to take action so that you too can become a force for nature.

Welcome to another episode of the [00:00:45] Forces for Nature EarthX conference series. Where I bring you behind the scenes of my experiences during the EarthX conference, and up close and personal with some of their incredible presenters. When we talk about solving the climate crisis, it’s easy to think that the solution is as simple as stopping our use of fossil fuels.

That’s not simple either, but just cutting off the emissions is not enough. The reason is that carbon dioxide doesn’t just disappear once we stop emitting it. The CO2 we’ve been pumping into the atmosphere for over a century has accumulated to dangerous levels and that carbon isn’t going anywhere unless we actively remove it.[00:01:30]

It’s this legacy carbon that’s already heating the planet. To truly combat climate change, we need to draw down that excess carbon that’s already in the atmosphere. That’s where carbon capture comes in. Not as a replacement for stopping emissions, but as a necessary partner to it. We need to capture and store the carbon we can’t avoid emitting, and also start pulling carbon out of the air.

So how do we do this? There are different ways of capturing carbon, and my personal favorite is nature based. Nature has been capturing carbon very efficiently and to no cost to us for millions of years. Trees, plants, soil, and [00:02:15] oceans. naturally absorb carbon from the atmosphere, storing it in their ecosystems.

And it’s not just carbon capture. Nature based solutions support biodiversity, protect water resources, and improve soil health, making these ecosystems more resilient. Reforestation, for example, not only absorbs carbon, but also helps restore habitats for wildlife and protects against erosion. Sustainable agricultural practices, like regenerative farming, allow the soil to absorb and hold more carbon than traditional methods, while also producing healthier crops.

It’s a win win win. But here’s the thing. Nature [00:03:00] can’t do it all by itself. Ecosystems face serious threats. Wildfires, deforestation, droughts, etc. can all destroy these carbon sinks, releasing the CO2 they’ve stored back into the atmosphere. What’s even more, There’s already so much carbon in the atmosphere that nature alone can’t capture enough to make the difference we need.

We have to support natural systems with other approaches. This is where technology comes in. Technology such as direct air capture, which pulls CO2 directly from the air, kind of like a robot tree to put it in the simplest terms. Or carbon capture and storage, [00:03:45] otherwise known as CCS, where carbon is captured from industrial sources, such as power plants and factories, and stored deep underground, where it can’t escape back into the atmosphere.

These technologies, while promising, are getting a lot of pushback from critics, and so I wanted to learn more about them from a proponent of it. Today’s guest is Daniel Cardenas, the founder of CarbonX, a Native American owned carbon solutions firm. Daniel brings over 20 years of experience in carbon management, and his unique perspective as a member of the Pit River Tribe in California provides a fresh lens through which we explore this topic.

Daniel sheds light on how carbon [00:04:30] capture works, the three steps of its process, capture, transport, and sequestration, and why it’s gaining traction. Especially with the support of the Inflation Reduction Act. He also addresses the critiques that I bring up, discussing both the pitfalls and the potentials of carbon capture.

I learned a lot, and I’m grateful to EarthX for providing a space for all solutions to be brought to the table. I’d love to know if you learned something new today too.

Hi Daniel, thank you for joining me today.

Daniel: Well thank you.

Crystal: You’re here at EarthX talking about carbon capture, its potentials and its [00:05:15] pitfalls. But before we get into that discussion, can you first tell me a little bit about yourself?

Speaker 3: So I’m Daniel, I’m 49. I turned 50 in a couple of weeks. Uh, and, um, I’m a native, Native American.

Uh, my tribe is called the Pit River Tribe in California. I live in Wyoming currently. I have, uh. An ex wife and six Children. Five of them are adults now. So I’m really proud of my Children. And a lot of what I do is for them.

Crystal: Tell me more about what you do.

Speaker 3: So I have I have this firm Carbon X LLC, which is a Native American carbon solutions firm.

So I’m trying to build a business, a private sector business. I want to leave them, uh, a business. I want to create wealth for them. An opportunity that I didn’t have using [00:06:00] carbon what I know. So I’ve I’ve worked in the carbon management business for over 20 years. And now that it’s getting traction because of the I.

R. A. Inflation Reduction Act. We’re here talking about it. So I formed a company carbon X a couple of years ago. And so I came up with this idea to, as a play on carbon X, either a world without carbon or carbon next, what are we going to do with the next generation of carbon? And so it can go either way, but I came up with that.

Crystal: So when you say it, you’ve been working in the carbon management business, what does [00:06:45] that look like to somebody who. Is it very familiar with that? Can you paint a picture for me?

Speaker 3: Well, basically, the basics of carbon management, uh, for the purposes of now are capturing carbon, whether it’s from an industrial emission, capturing it from the air with direct air capture, and then transporting it via pipeline, usually.

Okay. And then sequestering it in the ground, uh, geologic sequestration, uh, and that’s permanent. And so, basically, in my mind, there’s three major areas of carbon management. The capture, the transport, and the sequestration. right now, uh, a lot of this industry [00:07:30] is, it’s really new. Because of the, as I mentioned, the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Bill put a lot of resources into this burgeoning industry.

But it’s been around for like, 40, 50 years.

Crystal: Oh,

Daniel: I thought I didn’t know, you know, uh, from, from sort of hypothetical to scientific and a lot of research and development, but so in my mind, um, it’s been around because, uh, part of, uh, the things that you may be familiar with in terms of, say, enhanced oil recovery, uh, Um, one of the ways that we get more oil out of the ground, uh, through, uh, piping CO2 into the ground, I’m, I’m simplifying it, but that’s basically the process is, it’s called tertiary [00:08:15] production, so basically when you have a, uh, an oil well, you have initial production, which is primary production, that’s just drilling a well and getting as much oil out as you can, um, you know, pressures go down.

Uh, and then there’s a thing called secondary production, which is an operator will put mostly water. They’ll flood the oil well with water to try to get more oil out. And that’s called secondary production. And then when that when you can’t get any more in the production starts to go down, you have a tertiary production, and that’s mostly CO two or some other gas.

there’s ideas to use ambient air. Uh, they’ve used other kinds of gases to do that as [00:09:00] well. Because the issue with, carbon management is you have CO2 that you either capture from a industrial source, like a power plant or chemical plant or cement plant and you have the CO2. What do you do with it? Uh, Under the IRA, the 45Q tax incentive incentivizes companies to store that CO2 in the ground in geologic sequestration.

There’s other ways, there’s a couple of ways to do that, but the simplistic way is it just goes down to the ground. Or, CO2 can be converted into other products. CO2 is a basic building block. So you can make chemicals, fuel.

Crystal: I’ve heard of actually a company that [00:09:45] creates diamonds out of sequestered CO2.

Daniel: Well, yeah, there’s a lot of different ways that the issue is how much energy do you want to put into the product that you’re creating? That’s the whole issue with director capture. It takes a lot. It’s a very energy intensive, um, Capturing the CO2 also has, uh, an energy, bill as well to it. So, the, the, this whole industry is based on how well you can use energy in a more efficient and cheaper way to, to sort of create a product or an industry around it.

That’s what’s important right now. The incentives help to do that, to get us along, because the bottom line, right, is whether you believe or not, you know, I believe [00:10:30] that in order for us to resolve our climate issues, one of the primary solutions is we have to capture CO2, right? I mean, we have to emit less CO2 and we have to capture CO2, whether it’s through our oceans, whether it’s through our plants and trees, soil.

I don’t know. You know, there’s that’s natural ways of capturing CO2, but we have to, go beyond that and like it or not, we have to capture the CO2.

Crystal: There’s so much of it. I

Speaker 3: mean, that’s part of the debate and why we’re here is discussing our beliefs and you know, there’s a whole rainbow of, of beliefs.

Some people think that CO2 is just, uh, or capturing CO2 is just. It’s keeping [00:11:15] the the fossil energy industry alive, right? So wanted to

Crystal: ask you about that.

Daniel: It’s just a means to do that. Others think that, um, you know, there’s all kinds of different views. You know, I personally, um, am an all of the above believer in energy and actually I don’t use the term energy transition.

I use the term energy evolution. So I actually believe that we’re evolving our uses of energy. Uh, we’re not, uh, transitioning, you know, this winter for a couple of weeks, I burn wood in my, um, fireplace. I’m pretty sure wood’s probably one of the first ways we got energy, um, way back when and we’re still using it.

So I think we haven’t [00:12:00] transitioned out of wood for, for energy. So we’re not going to transition out of fossil energy. We’re just going to use it differently. Some fossil energies, we may. not use as much, maybe like coal or oil and gas or wood, but we’re going to evolve and make those ways that we use them more efficient.

Crystal: Yeah. So you bring up a lot of different points that I’ve heard a lot of one sided arguments against carbon capture. For example, that it’s super expensive. So who’s going to pay for it? It’s super energy intensive. And are we just encouraging the fossil fuel market to create more oil through its use?

What do you say to arguments like that? I

Daniel: [00:12:45] mean, we’ve seen examples of carbon capture happening in the industry prior to IRA all over the world. It’s technically possible. I mean, we have a lot of research and development. Just Google carbon capture. and sequestration and you’re going to get hundreds and thousands of, of articles and papers and books that have been done by the scientific community.

So it’s not something that just came about over the last decade or so because of our politics in this country. There is a divide as we transition again, that’s the term that everybody uses. I use it, but like I said, I don’t, I don’t believe in that term. But as we transition. You [00:13:30] know, what’s the the route to go?

And so we’re having these debates about Solutions and To me, it’s it’s a it’s an honest debate and but you’re right, you know, there there are issues it is expensive It’s expensive because the first projects are always more expensive as you do more you learn you become more efficient We adapt right humans are adaptable and resilient.

I think At our core. And so if we nurture an industry over time, it’s going to be more cheaper. And so

Crystal: like solar,

Daniel: like solar, exactly. You know, for a long time, I wasn’t believer in solar. Um, but you know, I’ve seen, uh, I’ve learned more about it and that’s another thing in this country we’ve forgotten is that we used to [00:14:15] value learning new things.

Right. We can have an opinion and we can have our sort of stance. But if we get more information, if we get more data, we can change our minds and then say, Hey, maybe I was wrong.

And we,

that used to be a, a principle that used to be something that we value. Now, if we change our mind, we’re waffling, we’re, we’re, we’re, you can’t trust us somehow if we don’t stick to our stance.

I think that’s wrong. So I have changed my mind about renewable energy.

Crystal: The more you learn.

Daniel: Yes. And so now I’m, I’m, I’m, I can be a very strong advocate for fossil energy. as well as a very strong advocate for solar and wind and other renewables. To me, there, [00:15:00] there’s nothing wrong with that because I truly believe in an all the above approach to energy uses in the us.

There’s gonna be some areas right in, in the southwest, in in the desert areas where solar’s gonna be really good. Uh, some places on the coast in the Great Plains winds a really good resource. Some places have oil, some places have gas, some places have coal. Some places have a lot of biomass. Whether it’s an ag area or a forest area.

So we’ve got to use all those places, um, especially in our country, you know, for our energy independence, energy security, you know, all the above. That’s how I look at it. So I don’t see any problem. I don’t see any, you know, I’m not selling anybody out. I can be the biggest renewable support as well as the biggest fossil energy [00:15:45] support.

I don’t see any, any problem with that.

Crystal: And at the end of the day, we all want a better world. We all want to clean our world and we have to get there though. Also in the most pragmatic way possible. And so if we turn our heads to any potential solution, we’re kind of chopping ourselves off at our knees.

So that’s also why I’m so excited to be here at EarthX is that it’s going to help me see other sides that I don’t necessarily get exposed to. And I’m so curious to learn more. So another question I have regarding carbon capture. Is one of the complaints is that it requires new pipelines, like a tremendous amount of new pipelines.

How come we can’t use the pipelines that are already in existence?

Daniel: Well, I [00:16:30] mean, I’m not an engineer, so I can’t explain it from a, from a technical point of view, but Each of those pipelines was created for a specific commodity, whether it was water, whether it was oil, gas, propane. There’s a bunch of industrial gases that, there’s hundreds of thousands of miles of pipeline in our country.

Um, and we can’t just, you know, repurpose them because they were all engineered different. They’re different ages, they’re different sizes, different compositions of, you know, how they were created over time. We have the same issue with the folks in the hydrogen industry, whether or not we believe hydrogen is a thing.

Some of them just want to repurpose all our oil and natural gas pipelines for hydrogen. And that’s [00:17:15] what I’ve read is that that’s not possible just because, again, because hydrogen’s a different kind of a gas. And so. You know, technically, we would be shooting ourselves in the foot if we try to repurpose most of our infrastructure.

Because it would leak, it would, it would break. It would cause more harm than, than good. At the end of the day, I believe. And we know, right, you know, that this is the sort of conundrum that we’re in is that, you know, most of us want, like I said, a cleaner Earth because of, we want to live in a clean environment.

It’s not just because of climate change. But climate change is there. It’s already happening. It’s been happening. We’ll continue to happen. And so we’ve got to To act and and we also know the [00:18:00] flip side is that it’s gonna take more infrastructure to get us there Not just more pipelines, but more transmission for power generation, you know more ports for importing and exporting Various fuels like hydrogen and co2 and and so it’s just gonna take more And we’re not even accounting for for growth or natural growth in our population Growth because of AI and data centers and Bitcoin and all these different things that are using power We have to take into consideration as well.

So moving forward. We’re gonna need a tremendous amount of infrastructure Even if we could pay for it all, it needs to go someplace. And further is most of that [00:18:45] infrastructure is metal. It needs other metals and needs, uh, critical minerals, copper, zinc, you know, the lithium, you know, the, there’s 50 plus metals that the government is saying that these are very critical to our defense, to our, to our energy and national security.

And those need to be mined as well. So not only do we need all this, these pipelines and power lines, but we need these new minds, hundreds and thousands of them, not just here in the U S but around the world. And that’s going to have an impact too, just to get us to that point where we, where we can fight climate change.

So, We’re kind of in a, we’re stuck in an area where we don’t know which way to go because we don’t really understand all the implications to the Paris Accord, we don’t understand [00:19:30] all the implications to what we want.

Crystal: I struggle with that too because I know the renewable technologies that are out there aren’t impact free.

They, they do have tremendous impact in their mining and whatnot. But I, I guess the way I’ve been looking at it is the Earth has a fever. for listening. Which is climate change, and when a person has a fever, we have to treat the fever before we treat the disease, and so I feel like maybe that’s where we’re at right now, is that we have to treat the fever that the earth has, and then we’ll address the disease of all the mining impact, and et cetera, afterwards.

It’s not a perfect solution by any means whatsoever, but we have to keep that in mind. You know, nothing is a [00:20:15] hundred percent clean and nothing’s a hundred percent great. How, how can, with all of this new infrastructure needs and, and whatnot, how do they make carbon sequestration profitable?

Daniel: Well, again, that’s the $64,000 question, or, uh, hundreds of billions of dollar question I guess that, that are gonna be put into it is.

I believe personally as an entrepreneur and as a business person that we, we have a, um, business model that can be profitable beyond the 45Q. So, so, In this industry, under the IRA, it was 45Q, which existed before, was a certain amount, and it got increased under IRA, and then the length of time was increased to 12 [00:21:00] years.

So you’ll hear in the, in the market, we’ve got 12 years of 45Q. That, that’ll get us to a certain point, and for the most part, most of the projects will be able to be, If they do it correctly and they capture enough CO2, the amount of tax credit that they receive over those 12 years will be able to pay for those, uh, infrastructure.

And so after year 13, you have a situation where the infrastructure is 100 percent paid off. So there’s no, there’s no, um, cost. So what that does is it forces us to think differently about then who pays after the feds have done their share. It’s, it’s the private industry that’s gonna have to pay, it’s the, it’s the utilities, it’s the factory owners, [00:21:45] it’s the, the, the fuel companies that are gonna have to pay.

And then I would cough up a little bit of money to pay for carbon capture as a

service, basically.

So I strongly believe that we have the magic, the special ingredients and the special sauce to get it done. Right now, I’m coming up with a business plan and business model. That’s what my firm, CarbonX, is doing right now to take us beyond the 45Q.

Crystal: Very cool. Final question. You’re coming at this with a really unique perspective as an indigenous person, as a Native American. How does that differ from other perspectives, and how do you navigate the landscape that you’re in?

Daniel: Well, [00:22:30] again, I’m looking at it from an entrepreneurial standpoint. There’s a lot of forces, there’s a lot of cultural things going on right now, a lot of political stuff, as you know, in our country.

Some of it good, some of it bad. And, um, You know, I, I tend to, I believe in the markets, good or bad, uh, I believe that the markets can help environmental issues, right? Like what we’re dealing with, with climate change. You know, we just got a new, uh, regulations that came out from this, from the Biden administration regarding the BLM.

They, uh, are saying that people can lease federal lands for conservation, right? That’s, that, that’s, this came out last week. And so it’s very controversial. And so, you know, and that means that, that, that now folks who want to, uh, [00:23:15] invest in federal lands can, can do so. But I strongly believe that we can make money off of it.

You know, one of the things, nobody looks at, at Indian country, at entrepreneurs from, from Indian country, native entrepreneurs. Nobody really takes us seriously because we’re put into this, to this box that we were the first environmentalists somehow. You know, not that we don’t care about the environment and that we don’t care about clean air and clean water because we do, but we’re seen in a romantic way as the first environmentalist and that’s all we care about.

Um, so I’m looking at this from a different lens is that I want people to take us seriously. And so they should think about tribes, tribal people in this space. And, [00:24:00] you know, I want to do good for the environment. But I also want to leave a legacy for my children. I want to be able to, uh, to latch on to the American Dream.

I’m a, I’m a believer that it’s not dead. Uh, it’s, it’s, it’s evolving. And just like, like I said, we’re an energy evolution. We’re evolving the American Dream. We’re, we should be able to look at things in different lenses. One of the things you said earlier about climate change being a disease or, or, and, and the solution is, is medicine.

Um, you know, if we, if we today went a hundred percent clean energy, meaning all our electricity that we use was from solar and wind, we would still need oil and gas. [00:24:45] Why? Because oil and gas makes everything that we use. So it makes the. Microphone that I’m talking into right now, this table, our clothes, toothpaste, your makeup, everything is made from oil and gas.

So in order for us to actually quit oil and gas, we need to come up with new inventions for almost everything that we use. So if our lights and, you know, the electric vehicles and everything that we use electricity for were replaced today, We’re not, we’re not going to be done with oil and gas, so we’ve got to move beyond these sort of like arguments, you know, it’s not, everything’s not black and white, it’s not a zero sum game, it’s very nuanced, and so, you know, to answer your question, including why I’m doing this [00:25:30] and why I’m looking at, at the issue from a, from a native lens, because we’ve, we’ve been left out of the conversation, uh, for so long, we, we’ve never been part of the conversation regarding the energy transition.

Transcribed We’ve just been told by our friends and allies that it’s a good thing. And so they never came to us to actually talk to us about it. And so really, I want to use this opportunity to be able to create a business, create a legacy, help the environment, make money, but also create a platform for my children.

who are young right now, they’re, 21 years old, their generation is really going to be tasked with creating the solutions to the problems that, that the older generations have [00:26:15] created. And so I’m trying to create a model of business for them to be able to do that.

Crystal: Thank you so much, Daniel.

In everything you’re saying, I hear opportunity. We, we have opportunities. It’s a huge challenge, but there’s also so much opportunity coming our way. And I wish you so much luck in your endeavor. Thank you so much for joining me on Forces for Nature. You’re making a difference

Daniel: Well, thank you.

Crystal: Cutting emissions is critical, but we also have to take an active role in removing the carbon that’s already in the atmosphere. Nature based solutions are some of the most effective, beautiful, and beneficial ways to do this. But nature needs help. Carbon [00:27:00] capture technologies are an essential part of the broader solution, if they’re done well.

Though Daniel brought up a lot of pragmatic points about the impacts we will have, even in a clean energy future. To tell you the truth, it made me feel a bit overwhelmed, because we’re creating another set of problems to fix our current set of problems. Although we need to move in this direction, and I believe that the best way that we can minimize our impact is to use less.

Buy less. Buy less products. Use less electricity. Use less oil by turning down the thermostat in winter and wearing a sweater inside. The less we can live with, the less resources we [00:27:45] need to take from the Earth. And for what we do need, by combining natural and technological carbon capture, we stand a much better chance of stabilizing the climate and protecting the planet for future generations.

What are your thoughts on climate capture? In Apple and Spotify, click on the link in the show notes to send me a text and let me know. I’m curious as to what you think. Don’t forget to go to forces for nature. com and sign up to receive emailed show notes, action tips, and a free checklist to help you start taking practical actions today.

Do you know someone else who would enjoy this episode? I would be so grateful if you would share it with them. Hit me up on Instagram and Facebook at becoming forces for [00:28:30] nature, and let me know what actions you have been taking. Adopting just one habit could be a game changer, because imagine if a million people also adopted that.

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