Sustainability In Your Ear

Carbon removal strategies will play an essential role in drawing down CO2 levels. A carbon removal industry is developing that includes natural options like planting trees and restoring prairies and wetlands, pulling CO2 from the atmosphere with Direct Air Capture, and various technical approaches that engineer changes in the environment or rely on injecting CO2 into deep geological structures. But will the industry be a good neighbor to the human communities and the natural world? That's the question asked by our guests, Nikki Batchelor, director of the $100-million XPRIZE Carbon Removal program, and Alayna Chuney, managing advisor at Carbon180, an NGO working to reduce and reverse the impact of carbon emissions. The XPRIZE, funded by the Musk Foundation, awarded 15 $1-million interim prizes during 2022 to the most promising entrants on a path to deliver a viable carbon capture business that can remove at least 1,000 tons of CO2 per year. The remainder of the prize will be presented by Earth Day 2025. Following the first round of awards, the XPRIZE team and Carbon180 surveyed entrants to understand their commitment to environmental justice. In February, they released a report, From the Ground Up: Recommendations for Building an Environmentally Just Carbon Removal Industry, that summarizes their findings and presents recommendations about how the nascent industry should engage with the communities where they operate. Nikki and Alayna were the report's lead authors, and they discuss environmental justice, community involvement, and how to achieve an equitable carbon capture industry. You can learn more about the XPRIZE for Carbon Removal at https://www.xprize.org/ and Carbon180's mission and work are explained at https://carbon180.org/

Energy generation and distribution are experiencing the kind of disruption that transformed many other industries over the past 20 years. But the electric grid is a stubbornly rigid physical infrastructure that will require vast investments to modernize. Dr. Tim Lieuwen, Regents’ Professor and executive director of the Strategic Energy Institute at Georgia Tech, joins the conversation to discuss accelerating the pace of electrification of transportation and modernization of the electric grid to support renewable energy generation and distribution. The changes that will follow the reorganization of the grid will also transform our relationship to energy as fundamentally as the introduction of electricity and power distribution lines in the late 1800s. It will be a challenging, fascinating, and sometimes terrifying time for energy companies, investors, and consumers.Dr. Lieuwen is the author of four books on the physics of combustion and gas turbine engines, as well as a member of governing or advisory boards for Oak Ridge National Lab, Pacific Northwest National Lab, and the National Renewable Energy Lab, among others. Discover how the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law contribute to rapid progress in renewable power and electrification of the economy. We also explore how long fossil fuels will stay in the energy mix and the lessons of Texas' 2021 winter storm power outages. You can learn more about him at https://ae.gatech.edu/directory/person/timothy-charles-lieuwen

Transportation in the modern world needs to make more sense. We pay tens of thousands of dollars for vehicles that sit unused about 95% of the time. We have designed an infrastructure based on car-centric population centers that have become hard-wired into the map and prevent the evolution of flexible alternatives to the internal combustion vehicle. With logistics and cloud technology, a car can be shared, and a new financing option can help. Meet Ezra Goldman, cofounder and CEO of Upshift, a San Francisco-based company rethinking the car lease, delivering vehicles for use on the days they are needed, and reallocating them to other users when they would be sitting idle. The company is doing a fund-raising campaign on WeFunder, a crowdfunding platform. Upshift hit its first goal, raising about $105,000 to accelerate its deployment of "fractional auto leasing" of hybrid and electric vehicles in San Francisco. The WeFunder campaign ends on April 30th and will support Upshift's expansion in Washington, DC.Uber and Lyft proved that car use can be maximized by connecting a driver and someone needing a ride or delivery. But that model still relies on the idea of static ownership, and many alternatives are possible now that the digital infrastructure has matured. Ezra explains why fractional leasing saves money and reduces the environmental impact of driving. He is an MIT graduate with a Master's Degree in Urban Planning, Design, and Mobile Technology, and he studied for a Ph.D. at the University of Copenhagen. Ezra also spent four months as a Lyft driver in 2017, an experience that convinced him never to use gig workers at Upshift. You can learn more about Upshift at https://www.upshiftcars.com/ and check out the WeFunder campaign at https://wefunder.com/upshift

The evolution of plastic recycling is essential to cleaning up a plastic-addicted world and eliminating the need for oil extraction. Meet Jodie Morgan, CEO of Nexus Circular, who discusses the company's progress and a flurry of news that has placed it at the forefront of the next generation of plastics recycling. In June of 2021, we talked with Jeff Gold, founder and CEO of Nexus Circular. At the time, the company had been operating a test facility for a couple of years. Nexus Circular developed an advanced chemical recycling technology that can make plastic as recyclable as metals, in which only a few percent of the material is lost each time it is processed. By contrast, traditional mechanical recycling technologies are effective only once or twice before the plastic molecules are degraded and become useless.Recyclable plastic does not justify buying more plastic. Still, the prospect of recycling mixed Plastics #2, #4, #5, and #6 to make new plastics means even landfilled plastics could be mined to replace raw petroleum as a feedstock. In January, Nexus raised $150 million to build additional capacity and launched a ten-year agreement to provide recycled plastic to Braskem America. In February, Nexus announced a long-term partnership with Chevron Phillips Chemical to make a circular form of polyethylene, the plastic used in food wraps, shopping bags, and detergent bottles. Given their progress, could a Nexus Circular IPO in the offing that might represent the first next-generation sustainable company to go public and ignite a stock market rally in green investing? You can learn more about Nexus Circular at https://nexuscircular.com/

Wasted energy flows into the environment all over the world, and an immense 247 trillion gallons of wastewater heated to an average temperature of 60.8F contributes to warming local waterways and the oceans. We could recapture the heat energy for other uses before returning water to rivers, lakes and the oceans. The process of harvesting that lost energy is known as wastewater energy transfer, or WET. Our guest, Lynn Mueller, CEO of Vancouver, BC-based SHARC Energy Systems, is a pioneer of WET technology. SHARC has installed its system in Vancouver to serve 6.4 million square feet of home, office, and hospital and educational space. Among other projects, SHARC is working to blend its WET technology with geothermal sources of energy to provide renewable heating and cooling energy, along with hot water to residents of a 316-unit affordable housing project in the Bronx section of New York City. A study by King County, Washington, found that reusing heat captured by WET systems reduced the carbon footprint of an office building by 34% and the footprint of a mixed-use buildings by 71%. WET technology is installed to allow warm sewage to pass through a thermal exchange system that captures the heat energy and transfers it for use generating electricity, warming water and building interiors. Once cooled, the sewage continues to a water treatment plant, where the sludge extracted can be converted into biofuels, and reintroduction into the environment without contribute to thermal forcing of river and ocean temperatures. These systems are efficient: WET energy costs 20% as much as generating the same amount of energy from other sources. You can learn more about SHARC Energy Systems WET technology at https://www.sharcenergy.com/

Take a deep dive into plastic recycling and the environmental impacts of plastic, aluminum and glass beverage containers. A recent lifecycle analysis published by the National Association for PET Container Resources (NAPCOR), the industry group whose members made the 485 billion polyethylene terephthalate, or #1 plastic, bottles that lined the shelves of groceries and convenience stores around the world during 2021. These bottles and frequently end up as litter in the environment. Lauren Laibach, director of data services at NAPCOR, joins the conversation to discuss the organization’s new analysis, which shows that PET bottles have a lower environmental impact than glass and aluminum beverage packaging.According to the report, which compared the packaging needed to deliver 1,000 gallons of beverages and not by comparing similarly sized bottles and and cans, PET bottles require 80% less energy to produce, create 80% less solid waste by weight, and use 53% less water during production. In addition to the reported energy, waste, and water reductions, PET packaging purportedly has a 74% lower global warming potential and generates 68-83% fewer acid rain- and smog-forming emissions. In 2021, however, only 28.6% of PET bottles and packaging were recycled, which lags behind the EPA’s reported 2018 data for metals, when 70.9% of steel cans and 50.4% of aluminum cans were recycled. NAPCOR’s Executive Director, Laura Stewart, said that the new lifecycle analysis shows “A PET bottle is 100% recyclable and can be made with 100% recycled content.” That is an inherently controversial statement and we’ll do our best to tease apart these complex findings. You can read the NAPCOR study at https://napcor.com/lca-report

Earth Day 2023, which takes place on April 22, marks the 53rd year that people have come out into the streets to rally for planetary responsibility, joined park and environmental cleanups, and participated in climate learning events. The first Earth Day was the largest public demonstration in history as of that that time. Michael Karapetian, the Great Global Cleanup Campaign Coordinator for Earth Day Network explains how to participate in this year's Great Global Cleanup events, which will be focused on improving the management of waste, particularly food waste. Cleanup events give everyone — individuals and organizations — the “opportunity to see the positive, tangible impacts their actions have on our environment and in the fight to create a waste-free world.” Getting out to clean up a park or a beach, where finding plastic litter is a powerful reminder about the choices we make when buying and disposing of items made with plastic, which range from fast-fashion polyester clothing to bottles and cigarette butts. Michael also provides updates about Earth Day Network's End Plastic Pollution movement and discusses recent reforestation projects in India, where the Canopy Project is planting mangrove trees in coastal areas. You can find local cleanups and learn how to participate in Earth Day events all year long at https://www.earthday.org/

eBay estimates that sales of used goods on the site earned $4.6 billion in 2022 and avoided sending 73,000 tons of usable products to landfills, which contributed to reducing carbon emissions by 1.6 million tons. Renee Morin, Chief Sustainability Officer at eBay, returns to the show to discuss the findings of the 2022 eBay Recommerce Report, a survey of more than 11,000 small sellers on the marketplace. Forty-two percent of the people surveyed said they rely on eBay to earn extra cash and 56% said they participate because it is less expensive while 93% reported that they believe it is important to shop in ways that are better for the environment.Renee discusses how sellers are changing as new generations grow into adulthood, embrace buying and selling used goods, and develop habits and income strategies that involve selling products instead of sending them to a landfill. eBay services, such as its Authenticity Guarantee and Refurbishment program, are critical to creating a trustworthy used-goods marketplace. She also reports on eBay's waste diversion efforts and how improved insight into its GHG emissions, particularly the shipping-related Scope 3 emissions that represent 99.01% of its carbon impact, will help the company reach its 2030 sustainability goals. You can read the third eBay Recommerce Report at https://www.ebayinc.com/impact/sustainable-commerce/recommerce-report/

If we intend to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, the future of local transportation must look a lot different than today’s car- and heavy vehicle-dominated traffic. The U.S. Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy reports that 64% of trips, across all types of transportation, involve traveling less than 5 miles. Only 2% of trips reach more than 50 miles. Local transportation is ripe for reinvention and my guest today is working to introduce electric bikes and light vehicles that can displace the car and truck. Meet Bill Klehm, Chairman and CEO of eBliss, an electric bike maker developing more than 30 new eBike models designed for local personal and business use. Bill brings hefty transportation credentials to the alternative transportation startup. He led the launch of Ford’s customer service division, developed the CarFax vehicle history report, was CEO of Fallbrook Technologies, which introduced a novel transmission technology for bicycles, and was president of Ford’s Visteon Climate Control Systems LTD.Bill and his team launched eBliss in 2022 and several models are currently available from EVOKE and The Ride. eBliss bikes feature European Union-certified batteries and the ccompany is developing a comprehensive recycling program to ensure materials and bike components are reused and recycle to reduce the carbon and water impacts compared to to using virgin materials. We discuss the future of battery technology, including how to eliminate the threat of fire from eBike batteries, along with eBliss' plans to delivery highly personalized electric bikes, light vehicles and delivery vehicles that combine human and electric power. Bill contends that moving past cars in local transportation will create a healthier and more prosperous lifestyle, including the dawn of the three-bike garage. You can learn more about eBliss at https://ebliss.global/ and you can browse their bike offerings at https://www.rideevoke.com/ and https://theridebikes.com/

Is plastic recycling at a turning point? Meet Emmanuel Ladent, CEO of Carbios, a Clermont-Ferrand, France-based company that has developed an enzymatic plastic recycling technology that promises to make plastic a circular material with 95% yields, comparable to aluminum. The Carbios technology recycles polyethylene terephthalate, or clear and colored PET, better known as Plastic #1, which is the basis for making billions of single-use bottles and thermoform containers for produce, as well as the polyester used in clothing. Carbios' process requires no sorting of PET and polyester, relying on much lower temperatures than mechanical recycling, so it requires less energy water. Emmanuel explains that the Carbios process produces two monomers, the chemical basis for making new PET, which can be recycling many times contrast to the two or three cycles today's PET recycling can deliver.Plastic recycling has stumbled and greenwashed its way through a slow evolution and created a lot of distrust among consumers and governments. Chemical, molecular, and enzymatic plastic recycling have all appeared in the last several years with promises that plastic can be turned from a linear waste-creating system that fills landfills with pollution to a circular economy that keeps all, or virtually all of the plastic we use in circulation without the need for virgin plastic made from oil. If we can recycle PET efficiently, and create the infrastructure and consumer habits that support recycling PET at global scales, it would be a huge step forward to a circular economy. You can learn more about Carbios at https://www.carbios.com/