Reversing Climate Change 384: Graphyte's Strategy Is a Masterpiece of Simplicity—w/ Barclay Rogers & Hannah Murnen
So many people think they need to dream up wild new tech to be successful at carbon removal. But one of CDR's most ascendent companies is relentlessly simple. They're so linear that I scrambled to make sure I wasn't missing something... In fact, if you've ever received coaching from me about simplicity, this is where I'm sending you from now on.
I recently completed Noah Deich and Dr. Jen Wilcox's UPenn continuing education course, CDR Executive Education Program/Purchasing Carbon Removal Credits. It was wonderful and I highly recommend it.
It did require a few homework assignments and a group project based upon a project developer. I chose Graphyte and their work putting waste biomass into bricks, wrapping them in polymer, and burying them underground. This is part of the class of projects called BiCRS (pronounced "bikers"), or Biomass Carbon Removal and Storage.
Today's show has Dr. Hannah Murnen, Graphyte's CTO, and Barclay Rogers, Graphyte's Co-Founder and CEO, on to correct my homework from the course. I've never had a show quite like this.
My sincere respect to each of them for digging into this with me and sharing their numbers. Not everyone in CDR is willing or able to do that, and I'm so happy we got to do that together.
This show also inspired me to make an episode about linearity vs. holistic thinking in CDR. If one focuses on carbon efficiency, Graphyte makes so much sense. But are we optimizing only for solving climate change, or is this a polycrisis that requires a much deeper and interconnected approach? What you choose may say just as much about your values and how you perceive the problem. Stay tuned...
This Episode's Sponsor
Listen to the RCC episode with Ryan Covington from Philip Lee LLP
Resources
Subscribe to the Reversing Climate Change Substack
"381: Carbon Removal's False Peak as Mapped by Noah Deich"
S2E25: The DAC-up plan for climate change—w/ Dr. Jen Wilcox of Worcester Polytechnic Institute"
Graphyte's page on its registry, Isometric
The 2024 Project Design Document (PDD) for Graphyte's Loblolly project
UPenn's Purchasing Carbon Removal Credits course
CDR Executive Education Program
Carbon efficiency is how much of the carbon remains after the source material has been converted into a form of carbon removal, e.g. Graphyte loses very little carbon back to the atmosphere between waste biomass, processing, and burial. Biochar has a lower carbon efficiency because more carbon is released during pyrolysis. It isn't the only factor that matters, but has major repercussions for calculating net removals and which project types are suitable for which goals.
I had to dig to figure out where I got the Nintendo insight from, but it originates from Richard Rumelt's Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters.