Robert Niven, CEO of CarbonCure, on the potential to turn thousands of concrete plants into carbon removal factories

Episode 6 of The Carbon Curve is with Robert Niven, Chair and CEO of CarbonCure Technologies.

Carbon removal (or CDR) is often represented as a process that involves pumping captured CO2 back underground where it belongs. But we can actually use CO2 removed from the atmosphere in every day products like plastics, fuels, and building materials. This is a burgeoning industry known as “carbontech” - where innovators are working on carbon neutral, and even carbon negative, products.

One application that’s really intriguing to me is the process of infusing CO2 into concrete. Which means that concrete can potentially serve as a carbon sink, permanently locking away atmospheric CO2 while also reducing the amount of cement needed in the concrete mix - further reducing this essential product’s carbon footprint.

I think this could be really impactful. Concrete is the second most consumed material in the world, second to water. If concrete production was a country, it would be the third largest greenhouse gas emitter on Earth, contributing to roughly 7% of global CO2 emissions. Additionally, because of chemical reactions integral to its production, concrete is really difficult to decarbonize.

Thankfully, there are companies that are using CO2 to make concrete less carbon intensive. I wanted to speak to a leading company that’s working to solve this problem directly, to learn more about their technology, and find out about what businesses and governments can do to help drive greater demand for low carbon concrete.

In this episode, Na’im and Rob discuss:

• The carbon intensity of the concrete industry

• An overview of CarbonCure’s technology

• CarbonCure as a carbon removal company, and using carbon removal credits to erase low carbon concrete’s “green premium”

• Policies that can support the scale-up of low carbon concrete, as well as opportunities for cities and communities to help drive demand

• What Canada do to help commercialize more carbon removal companies like CarbonCure

• The next six months for CarbonCure

Relevant show links:

• CarbonCure’s website, resources, and careers page, (Twitter and LinkedIn)

• CarbonCure’s mission to reduce concrete emissions by 500 million tons per year (PDF)

• Carbon180 report on federal strategies to support low carbon concrete, by Shuchi Talati, PhD, Chris Neidl, and Na’im Merchant

• OpenAir Collective’s work on Low Embodied Carbon Concrete Leadership Act (LECCLA)

• This Is CDR episode (YouTube) on combining DAC and concrete with Chris Neidl and Na’im Merchant

• Carbon Curve post on companies at the cutting edge of carbontech (May 2022)

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to this podcast on your favorite podcast app or subscribe via The Carbon Curve newsletter here. If you’d like to get in touch with Na’im, you can reach out via Twitter and LinkedIn.

Na’im Merchant is an advisor and thought partner to start-ups, policy groups, and research organizations on scaling up the climate technologies to meet the monumental challenge removing billions of tons of CO2 from the atmosphere to combat climate change. Every two weeks, Na’im will release a short interview with individuals advancing bold new ideas and taking a collective action approach to scaling up carbon removal.