Yeah.

Welcome to the Aaron Harbor show.

Today we are in Houston, Texas at Ceraweek by S&P global.

Welcome to the Aaron Harber Show.

My guest today is Keith Crosland, the CEO of Carbon Negative Solutions.

Keith, thanks for joining me.

Thank you for having me.

Hey.

My pleasure.

You know I want to talk about the concept that you've put together and the business.

But first tell me a little bit about yourself.

Sure.

So as mentioned, I'm CEO and co-founder of Carbon Negative Solutions.

So that's where I am today.

But yeah, I hav a very interesting background.

I started up my journey in life in the Bronx, New York.

I was born in the late 80s, so grew up in the 90s.

It was very interestin time to be in the Bronx, right?

And so my family we suffer from a lot of poverty, a lot of socio economic, things that I'm sure a lot of your viewers may have read about over the years.

Bronx burning crack epidemic, things like that.

And then, yeah so we survived and we made it, and then we moved outside of the Bronx, for my high school years.

Then Hudson Valley went to school there and then really learned a lot about lif in the years after that, which, really got me to where we are today.

You're being modest because you have an extraordinary number of accomplishments.

You're a serial entrepreneur.

You've had a lot of very significant successes in a wide range of fields.

So that's, you know, I was interested in carbon negative solutions and, and how you decided to, to take on this topic.

So let's start with what carbon negative Solutions does.

Yeah, absolutely.

So carbon negative solutions, we enable heavy industry, companies to turn their unusable industrial waste into carbon negative cement products.

So what that means in more layman's terms, as we take garbage and turn it into cement.

So what's the process that you do that and what garbage, as it were.

Do you take.

Sure.

So industrial waste feedstocks is the garbage that we use.

So high alkaline rich materials.

So cement waste, steel waste.

Kawase municipal solid waste incineration.

So we take that, we mix it with the plant CO2.

So they're carbon that's going in the air.

And those two things together through our processing then gets our, cement supplement that replaces cement in concrete.

So concrete's a production of concrete use of concrete, accounts for actually, 8% of greenhouse gases.

I don't think most people realize what a substantial contributor to greenhouse gases the concrete industry is.

So tell me what your solution, how your solution works to reduce that number.

Yeah, absolutely.

And you're right.

It's a huge has a huge, huge global carbon footprint.

And another thing that's not talked about as much is industrial waste as a huge, huge industrial, carbon footprint.

So in fact, industrial waste is the second most produced product in the entire world, second of everything.

And the most produced item is cement and concrete.

So we're using the industrial waste as an input to supply the most demanded product in the world.

Submitted concrete.

And so yes, we take the CO2 directly from a plant.

So, capture directly and we blend it with the industrial waste to make these cement alternatives.

Those are to turn it and then go into the cement.

So partially replace it in concrete.

So what makes this sustainable.

Yeah.

So a few things.

The first is we're taking this industrial waste which is out in landfills or ponded.

This is poisoning groundwater.

It's killing millions of people annually.

Right.

So that's the first thing.

It's a remediation.

The second thing is we're using a plant CO2.

So what would be going out of their smokestack?

It's piped into our processes.

So we're using that as an input.

But then the third thin is we're actually decarbonizing two heavy industry sectors at once.

So if we had a coal plant and we're using their CO2 and their waste, we're using that as an inpu and they're being decarbonized.

But then our end product which is the cement supplement then is used in concrete and is decarbonizing their operations as they're using roughly half the amount of cement they need to produce because our end product is there.

So why do you feel this is important?

Well, this is extremel important for a lot of reasons.

Right.

The CO2 gets a lot of coverage as it should, because we're at a point, in the Earth cycle where we need not just carbon neutral, but we need carbon negative.

We need to actually reduce the particles per million of, CO2 that's in the, in the air.

And so this is very important to come with applications that actually do that, that are sequestering CO2 while providing a in product of, of high use.

So to a layperson, how would you describe the difference between carbon negative concrete and regular or standard concrete?

Let's take low carbon and then we'll go to carbon neutral.

Then we'll go to carbon negative.

So low carbon.

What you're essentially saying is, hey, this is the standards in which we've been producing concrete, right.

Well, if we can do that with less using less carbon, then that's a win.

And so that's that's one way that many companies are attacking that.

The problem with that is we're in a capitalistic societ and you naturally want to grow.

So if everyone's effort if we reduce CO2 emissions by 50% in these products, but you're growing in this industry is going to double in production in the next few decades.

You're right back to 2025 levels.

And we spent a lot of money and resources.

Carbon neutral is great.

It also has a great place, but that just means you'r turning off the tap right today.

That does not address the actual particles per million of CO2 that's in the atmosphere driving, and climate change today.

Right.

And that's the even lag because, as you know, the carbon cycle, you know, things are being gassed, the gases are releasing slowly.

So we're going to feel the effects of today's actions in about a decade.

So carbon neutral is a better effort, but it still doesn't address, climate change.

When you have carbon negative, you're actually sequestering.

So now we're making use of that atmospheric CO2 and putting it in a product.

It's kind of like sucking it out with a straw.

Right.

And putting it in something of use.

How do you scale, carbon negative solutions in particular?

For us, it's we're in, a huge, huge market with, with a lot of scaling opportunity because as I mentioned, we're taking industrial waste the second most produce material, and we're using it as an input to produce the most demanded material in the world.

Right.

So that's a whole market to itself.

Correct.

And and, you know, as far as using industrial waste as a cement input, that's not a novel concept.

Science is developed that in the 80s.

And that really took off.

The problem is, a lot of the waste that's out there today is not up to standard to do so.

So there's governing bodies and engineering bodies for getting this waste into concrete.

So with our process and our technology, we're able to enhance that waste and get it through those channels to make to be made new.

So it's a huge, scalable, opportunity.

What do you thin may be, 1 or 2 of the greatest misconceptions, about carbo negative construction materials?

For one, many people think that it's a novel material and that because we use machine learning, that there may be some risk because we're talking about critical materials that build our bridges and our, our homes.

So many people think it's novel and they're, they're, they have hesitance, for that reason.

But all we're all we're doing is enhancing something that's already in 40 of the infrastructure out there.

There's industrial ways to meet the grade.

So it's comin from the landfills, the ponds, all of that great stuff that's contaminating today, putting an through the cycle.

So that's definitely one of the misconceptions that we'd love to dispel.

What kind of resistance are you getting or do you get from traditional concrete producers and users?

Yeah.

So we're a little further up the chain.

Where are the end user for us?

Is the cement companies.

Right.

And so they push it down to concrete.

But some of the, some of the resistance, if you will, that we get is number one scalability.

It's like the chicken or the egg problem.

Right.

They're looking to purchase hundreds of thousands of tons of material.

And we're not quite ther yet.

Right.

And so we aspire to.

But unless you come with that type of volume, you know, you may not meet their radar.

And it's only but so many cement companies in the world.

And so we have to get up to that volume and incur the cost before we have, you know, the end users approval.

What about different countries?

And I don't kno if you you've taken a look at, but my assumption is the the interest, demand and regulation of all of this differs country by country.

Any examples of how anothe country looks at this challenge?

Yeah, absolutely I'll give you a great example.

I was speaking to leaders from Singapore, which is an interesting market because they use municipal solid waste incineration, which is one of our inputs.

And so here in America, we have a lot of land.

So we built landfills, and that's how we get rid of our stuff.

But there are many companies that, countries that don't have the same amount of land.

They're still using municipal solid waste incineration, and that generates, energy as they do it, electricity.

So in, in, Singapore, they're actually struggling because they have all of this ash, all of this municipal solid waste incineration that's really taken up all of their space, and they need a use for it so that they can have more buildable land.

Right?

This is an end product of the incineration process.

Correct.

And so that's where our solution could benefit a lot.

Right.

They could get some of their land back because we make use of that ash into a construction material that they can then use to build up without using up that land with contaminated ash.

Do you think they'll do something?

I believe so I again, I think that there's, scalability challenge for sure, but they're very, very interested.

Yeah, it seems like a win win.

What kind of competition do you have?

So our competition is the carbon mineralization market.

It's a very it's a emerging market.

It's it's a carbon capture utilization industry.

So it's in its infancy.

But our competition, they're they're focused on carbon credits at the moment.

And so the actual end product of they're using CO2 and mixing is more limeston and calcium carbonate materials, where we are really focused o optimizing the use case of that end product.

So as it stands now, there are several entries in the space, but they're more focused on the carbon credits and actually having permanent storage, less of the utility of that end product.

So given the, the, you know, the reality of, of who the big players ar and the fact they're really big, and then the competition that's out there, but kind of the, the fact that a lot of this is, is literally in its infancy.

What what do you see as the greatest challenges, to, to the marketplace, to carbon negative solutions in particular It's really a scaling challenge.

And many of these industries are old legacy industries which are used to operating, you know, in very traditional manners.

And so when you introduce this technology, it sounds great, but you need to really, really have scale to move the needl for anything that they're doing, whether that's environmentally or economically.

So our business model, we said, and we co-locate at the industrial site and remediate their waste and turn it into these cement products for them to sell.

And so we just need to get to a scale where that makes a lot of sense, and they can decarbonize their operations simultaneously.

Does it make sense to to connect with and maybe in a, joint venture fashion or some other type of, organizational manner with an entity that, that can bring that can scale you up pretty fast?

I mean, that may that may mean losing your independence to a certain extent.

But I mean, that could be an order of magnitude difference in terms of or two orders of magnitude difference in terms of, you know, your progress.

Sure.

And we're open to this, you know, the what the challenge that we're tackling.

It's not all economic focus, right?

There's there's huge environmental impact.

There's a lot of stuff that goes undocumented, that's environmentally impacted.

And unfortunately, where much of this waste is, is in disadvantaged communities right, where they're the first exposed parties to some of these contaminants and the likes.

So we're ultimately intereste in and partnering up with anyone who can scale us up faster, so long as everything makes sense for all the parties involved.

What about the fact that, you know, we have a new administration?

My guess is, you know, there's not an emphasis, to put it politely, on decarbonization.

In fact, I mean, we we have a president who thinks climate change is a hoax, who has administrativ leadership, folks in leadership positions who, don't think, climate change is, a significant enough issue to, to make a priority.

How do you think that's going to impact, your business?

But but maybe, more importantly, because of its ultimate impact on you, the decisions that some of the, the big companies we've been talking about are making, where clearl a lot of companies are already de-escalating their efforts in the environmental arena, as we're aware.

Yeah, there's there's a lot of changes going on and new administrations in place and there's different priorities.

But what I will say is amongst both sides of party lines, the waste side, it's still a big issue.

And so whether we're talking to, the coal industry or whether we're talking to steel industry waste is somethin that they're looking to handle.

So when we're bringing to the tabl a option to monetize that waste, that really flips things upsid down, regardless of, you know, which side of party line you said.

So you're going from roughly a $200 a tonne expense with carbon taxe and with with this waste to over $100 net revenue, net of our fee.

That is right.

And so I think that's in everyone's best interest, regardless of which administration.

The carbonation piece is just a piece where you can also decarbonize your operation, but you're still be profiting from ridding this waste.

And with that comes other opportunities, because when you don't have that waste on your campus, you can build out facilities, do other stuff with that land use.

So one of the aspects of the the process of either decarbonizing or simpl tackling, the concept of carbon emissions has been the issue of a carbon tax.

And in the past, Democrats politically were vociferously supportive of a carbon tax.

Republicans opposed a carbon tax.

And then over time, they kind of switched positions where, Democrats seemed to lose interes in the concept of a carbon tax, and thought they coul accomplish their goals through regulatory fiat, regulatory processes.

And Republicans who were unexcited about having regulations imposed on businesses were saying, well, maybe, mayb we should look at a carbon tax.

What's your take on a carbon tax?

Is, is there a carbon tax?

You think coming in in the future?

Or also, as we just discussed with this administration, is that, you know, a nonstarter?

So, yeah, I believe that th pendulum will continue to swing.

Right.

And so depending on which administrations and party, I mean, in power, they're going to prioritize carbon one way.

Or maybe they won't.

But I believ the reality of what's going on in nature in our world is happening.

And so we're headed to a crisis.

And so I believe it will become that much more pertinent to actually address this at a future time.

And when we are addressing that in the future, we're going to need even larger solutions and larger incentive to do so.

So I do believe there will b a time where there's carbon tax.

I don't think it's in the foreseeable future, but I believe it's going to be drastic.

But one of the things that I heard that may be of interes to this current administration is a carbon tariff, where when we bring in import items, you know, they have to have a certain level of carbon embodiment that meets our requirements.

That way, we get world players who want to sell into the US on board with doing things in their country to sequester carbon.

And it's not just us bearing the cost and and they innovation, bu our neighbors who are, you know, polluting the same atmosphere that we all live under with, with, industry.

So I believe that's one area where it could be on the foreseeable docket.

Well, certainly with this administration, if you you call it a carbon tariff, the odds of it happening probably greatly increase.

But, you know, there already are certain countries that do have environmental requirements, constraints that that you have to meet, in your trade policy or with products, so that if that's something that we do, whether on a reciprocal basis or along the lines of what you're saying, that could result in not only good progress, but that also could open up a lot of markets for you.

Yes, absolutely.

There are some leaders and countries that are looking to deploy our technology, in their nation, and they may have less restrictions as far as standing a business, but more emphasis on climate change and climate action.

And so we certainly had, discussions with multiple companie in multiple different countries.

Some of them already have stronger tax incentives or even tax credits in place.

You know, Europe i one of the leaders in this area.

And so they're one of the leading, target audience that we get inbound interest from.

So I would think, especially in the European Union, given the vast difference in, available open space land area compared to the United States, where we have, as you mentioned, these vast expanses, where you can have landfills as a solution.

Certainly.

And many European countries, you don't have that luxury, I would think, because you'r solving 2 or 3 problems at once, that the potential ther should really be, extraordinary.

And as you look globally, based on population density, I would think, of course, Singapore is a great example, Hong Kong, but in terms of on a country basis, I would think Europ should be a huge target for you.

Yeah, absolutely.

We we believe the same.

And it all it all just gets back to scaling, right?

Everyone wants a solution that can deal with the scale that they have today, and that technology takes a little time and so we're proving out a phase by phase level by level to grow there.

But there's certainly a lot of interest.

And unless you know something that we do not, we don't think waste is going anywhere.

So it's an open market and there's enough room for a lot of players.

And we certainly see ourselves playing in the market.

Well, you know, speaking of waste, one of the things that that has intrigued m is the cost of using a landfill where, you know, 20 years ago, you could bring a ton of material there and pay $5 or whatever.

You know, ten years ago it was $100 to and of course, it depends on the material.

You know, today it might be $500.

So a lot of companies, across the board, you know, not just construction, but, you know, also, obviously manufacturers have to be if they're looking at the trajectory of those numbers and, and they're they're seeing that likely.

And, you know, in ten years, those fees will probably be between 100 and 500% higher than they are today.

So preparing for that time means doing something now.

So I would think that would be a huge selling point for you.

Absolutely.

I mean, our motto really flips the traditional motto on its head, right?

Rather than thi traditional pick up charge you and then dump, drop off and be charged and keep the middle of the spread in the middle.

What we're doing is we're empowering those industrial companies to monetize that.

Right.

And so we don't want to go as far as incentivizing them to make waste.

But what you have in reality is you have the players that are creating a lot of wast now have a new revenue stream.

And so, yes, you're I, I agree with you that you have to plan for the future.

These costs are rising.

As land costs rises, it's goin to rise linear with that cost.

So today, constructing a commercial sized landfill, you're talking well into the hundred of millions of dollars, right.

And so that's something that you have to account for.

You have to see how much capacity you have before you have to make those decisions.

But why not, you know, engage with companies like our where we can help you monetize and avoid those build up.

Two questions about landfills.

So is there any possibility of having an arrangement, with some of the massive landfills where when products come in they're diverted to a facility?

You might have number one.

Number two, is it possible to do anything with an existing landfil in terms of the material there?

I mean, you know, I'm aware some landfills, they just dump everything everywhere.

Others.

So do divide the landfill.

And, and put certain materials in one place versus another.

On the other hand the idea of extracting materials and processing them obviously is a long shot.

But, any consideratio of those two concepts, either, doing something new where you have diversion on site or doing something with materials that are already there.

The class of materials that we're working with are often are already sorted because EPA requires those things to be sorted.

So these landfills that we speak of in our world are actually on these facility campuses.

So take coal for example.

Right.

You'll have you'll have multiple landfills at a coal site.

And some of these landfills are the size of small towns.

You're talking hundreds and hundreds of acres, if not thousands.

And that's just specific to coal ash.

So that's the type of landfills that we're operating in is alkaline rich industrial waste that's normally separated already.

But where I believe there's real opportunity and we're moving to this is, you know, we went with the landfill, we be in the US, we went with the landfill market given our grand amount of land.

Right.

But the municipal solid waste incineration is a very interesting concept with our platform because municipal solid waste incineration that generates electricity.

So you're taking this waste, you're remediating, and when you're burning this, you're producing electricity.

The shortfall of municipal solid waste incineration has been that the actual, waste byproduct is 30 to 40% of the cost.

No one wants it near them.

And that's the ash.

Well, that's where we come in.

And the ash is something that we use as a encase.

So you can envision a world in which you have all of that and you dropping your waste off your incinerator, creating electricity in that ash from the incineration is used and upcycled into a construction material.

Then you have a closed loop.

So I'm very hopeful that we actually move to that type of market versus the landfill drop dump.

Worry about it another decade.

Well, I also think looking at the future in terms of the landfill model, you have a lot of things going for you.

One is there are a lot of as as cities, as municipalities expand, they're now getting closer to or encompassing landfills, which nobody, no, n citizen around the them likes.

So that means for new landfills, they're pushing them out further.

If they push them out further, that means the transportation cost of the product goes up as well.

That makes it more expensive acquiring the land for it, even if you're further out, that's way more expensive.

So, I mean, I think the the economics are definitely, definitely in your favor long term.

Well, if you had to come up with, an energy truth that you think the American public is not aware of, if you had a concept that that you thin is important for people to know, give me an example of what what one might be an energy truth.

Hopefully this falls under, under a category, but I hear a truth is, I believe that we're all hypocritical in a way, about energy and even carbon use.

I believe that, we we love the convenience and enjoy the warm heat.

And, you know, our cars.

If you look on a freeway any given time, there's one perso in every single vehicle, right?

So we enjoy those liberties.

But then with the headlines, we we like to blame or point fingers and say, you know, this industry or the likes is is responsible and they're evil, they're bad and so forth.

But there's a lot of things that we can do ourselves.

If we truly felt that way or wanted to send signaling or messaging, we there are certain decisions that we can make.

So I think in general, I think to a certain degree as Americans, we're hypocritical because we love the quality of life that we enjoy.

And so that kind of feeds the demand for some of these industries that we vilify.

So that's what I would say.

Yeah, I, I would guess tha most Americans really don't know what their carbon footprint is and, and what the elements of, you know what are the greatest contribute to that, even if, you know, most people, obviously, I think most people on the right and lef do care about the environment.

If there's one thing that Americans could know that they don't know, is there any one fact or one subject that you wish people knew more about?

Sure.

So we've certainly spok about some we've talked about, the impact of carbon negative versus carbon neutral or low carbon.

So I think kind of getting into that makes a lot of sense.

But I recently did a presentation.

So one of the things that I presented on was that the average American produces roughly 5 pounds of waste per day.

Right.

And that's up from two and a half pounds in 1960.

So we're talking about just a 65 year period.

And we've doubled our waste production per person with a growing population.

Right.

So that's one thing that's probably almost doubled our population too.

Right?

So factor in those numbers.

Right.

And so that's one thing I would throw out again is we as individuals we have some control right.

We can do this.

But as a consumer driven natio and that's what drives our GDP.

Right.

Consumerism is we are often the problem that we're, you know, projecting saying that we don't want.

So I would I would throw that out.

There is just something that everybody can monitor and try not to be as wasteful as if there's one thing and maybe that's it.

But if if there's, something more, more direct in terms of the country overall, not necessarily necessarily even relate to, you know, carbon emissions.

But if there was one thing you could change about America, well, any, any topic that they talk the party system easily, the party system I believe that we've inherited, good bones as far as the way this country runs.

But I do believe that we've been putting a lot of Band-Aids and trying to reinterpret things that were written from a long time ago, and we're all failing at that.

What's the spirit of this in the Constitution?

What's this?

But we're living in a modern day society with real problems that relate to today, and it's hard to reconcile those two.

So I think there's a lot of banter and bickering that go back and forth.

And with party lines, which I believe personally is a form of groupthink.

And it kind of puts us in this box where we're all labeling on one team.

And this team is is great.

We don't like your team, but we're not actually using critical thinking to think through these challenges to to innovate, to do all the things that the Founding Fathers did at their time.

We're just stuck on how to interpret this.

And which team are we on, where do we stand?

So that's what I would say.

Yeah.

When in reality we should all be on the same team, at least for certain topics.

Yeah that that one part about United and the United States exac Keith, thanks so much.

Thank you.

You really appreciate.

All right.

That was Keith Crosland, the CEO of Carbon Negative Solutions.

I'm Aaron Harbor.

Thanks for watching.