0:00

ABC Listen, podcasts,

0:02

radio, news, music and

0:05

more. The

0:18

simplest way to reduce carbon levels in the atmosphere

0:20

is to stop pumping the stuff out there in

0:22

the first place. But burning

0:24

fossil fuels is a habit we humans

0:26

are finding hard to break. Another

0:32

teasingly simple idea for cleaning up the

0:34

environment is to build some

0:36

kind of clever device that can capture

0:38

the CO2, treat it and

0:40

then bury it underground. Again,

0:43

an obvious solution, but as

0:45

we've heard on future tents many times in the past,

0:48

carbon capture and sequestration or CCS as

0:50

it's also known is

0:52

anything but simple. It's costly and hard

0:54

to scale up, which is why it's

0:56

still more of a pipe dream than

0:58

reality. But

1:02

then there's this new facility they've recently

1:04

opened in Iceland. It's

1:06

also about sucking up large amounts of

1:08

carbon and sequestering it. But

1:10

the approach being used there isn't

1:12

CCS. It's

1:14

called CDR, carbon dioxide

1:17

removal. And having probably

1:19

confused you at this point, I'll now hand

1:21

over to an expert to explain the difference.

1:24

The key distinction to say

1:26

about this facility that separates

1:28

it from carbon capture and

1:30

sequestration is that this is

1:32

a facility that removes carbon dioxide from

1:34

the atmosphere as opposed to preventing

1:37

CO2 from going into the atmosphere

1:39

from an existing emissions source like

1:42

a power plant. The

1:44

big difference here between what we

1:46

call CCS and CDR is

1:49

that CCS, carbon capture and

1:51

sequestration, is basically capturing

1:53

that CO2 coming out of, for example,

1:55

a natural gas electricity plant and preventing

1:58

it from going into the atmosphere. and

2:00

then carbon dioxide removal is just

2:02

removing ambient carbon dioxide

2:04

from the atmosphere. So

2:07

you can think of Iceland's giant carbon

2:09

sucking machine as a kind

2:11

of oversized air purifier. But

2:13

can it work? Is it large enough

2:15

to make any difference to Earth's atmosphere?

2:18

That's the question we start with on today's

2:20

programme. And

2:23

we'll also go several kilometres beneath the

2:25

planet's surface to find out

2:27

why a group of Icelandic scientists and businessmen

2:30

are mucking about with magma. Hello,

2:40

Anthony Fennell here with a programme

2:42

that's all carbon, rocks and

2:44

very hot things. Now

2:49

Climeworks is the company behind this

2:51

new CDR plant, Christen Mammoth

2:53

by the way, and Rudy

2:55

Kaysar is from the non-profit organisation

2:58

RMI, the Rocky Mountain

3:00

Institute, which works to help

3:02

improve sustainable transmission in the energy sector.

3:05

Let's get his thoughts on the significance of Mammoth.

3:08

One way to think about it is

3:10

sort of retroactive trash cleanup. So if

3:12

you imagine that there is carbon dioxide

3:14

that's being emitted from all kinds of

3:16

different sources into the atmosphere, this is

3:18

a way to retroactively clean that up.

3:21

Now it captures the carbon dioxide. What does it

3:23

actually do with it then? There's many

3:25

things you can do with capture and

3:28

CO2. In fact, there's a lot of

3:30

industries that use CO2. So the food

3:32

and beverage industry uses a lot of

3:34

carbon dioxide, obviously in drinks. There's other

3:36

industries that use it to make dry

3:39

ice. Medical facilities use carbon dioxide. In

3:41

Iceland, the goal is to sequester the

3:43

CO2 so that it doesn't again go

3:45

into the atmosphere. And what

3:47

they do in this facility in

3:49

Iceland is they mix that CO2

3:51

with water to make a kind

3:54

of carbonated water, and then they

3:56

inject it underground into a basalt formation

3:58

where the carbon dioxide actually... reacts

4:00

with some of the basalt rocks and

4:02

forms another type of rock. So it

4:04

reacts with a silicate rock

4:07

to form a carbonate rock. And

4:09

so that carbon dioxide actually turns

4:11

into a rock where it is

4:13

then sequestered permanently.

4:15

So this facility, it can take 36,000

4:17

tons of CO2 out

4:21

of the atmosphere every year. That

4:23

sounds like an awful lot, but it's a

4:25

drop in the bucket really, isn't it? Given

4:27

the level of carbon that's being emitted every

4:30

year by factories and by manufacturing. Yeah,

4:32

that's right. So if you

4:34

look at what humans are

4:36

emitting with just yearly activities

4:39

globally from burning fossil fuels,

4:41

making cement, steel, all

4:43

of the industrial activities, driving

4:45

cars, flying planes, running

4:48

electricity plants, we emit about 40

4:50

billion tons a year. 40 gigatons is the

4:53

term that folks will often use. And so

4:55

this 36,000 tons is several

4:59

thousand times less than that. So in

5:01

the sense of what impact does

5:03

this one facility have on the total

5:05

climate math? It's quite small, but this

5:07

facility is a big step forward for

5:09

figuring out how to do this type

5:11

of cleanup. And the idea is that

5:13

this is another stepping stone on a

5:16

path towards doing this at a scale

5:18

that will really have impact. So some

5:20

people will write this often say, look,

5:22

we've seen the promise of carbon capture

5:24

and storage. That really hasn't

5:26

come to fruition. This is just another, yes,

5:28

it's a variant, but it's just another trick

5:30

if you like, that's not really going to

5:32

help us in any significant way in

5:34

the future. You don't accept that? Yeah,

5:37

I mean, I would say there are a

5:39

lot of things that need to go right for

5:41

the world to hit its long term climate

5:43

goals. And if you just look at the amount

5:45

of carbon dioxide that's being emitted and

5:48

the effect that that's having on

5:50

overall warming around the Earth, there

5:52

are going to be a lot

5:54

of different changes needed to address

5:57

that. That's the goal of policymakers, if that's the

5:59

goal people to address that, it's going

6:01

to require reducing the emissions in the first

6:03

place, and then also removing some of the

6:05

emissions that are still going up and some

6:07

of the emissions that have been put up

6:10

there. And I think if you look

6:12

at the climate math, both of those types of

6:14

activities are going to be essential. And so if

6:16

we think about how we are today, but looking

6:18

out to 2050 or 2100, what that climate

6:23

map looks like, we need to

6:25

start incubating these types of solutions,

6:27

like this facility in Iceland, so

6:30

that by those later years, we figured it

6:32

out. And if we really need it, if

6:34

we figure that we really need it, we're

6:36

ready to deploy it. What's the

6:38

business model for this facility? So this

6:40

is another question, I think, facing carbon dioxide

6:43

removal, right? Ultimately, with

6:45

carbon dioxide, as I've kind of framed it

6:47

already as retroactive trash removal is like this

6:49

is trash that we've been sort of putting

6:51

out on the curb for 50 years or

6:53

even since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

6:56

So over the last 200 years, we've been

6:58

putting trash out on the curb and no

7:00

one's been picking it up. If

7:02

you look at trash removal around

7:05

the world, municipalities require people to

7:07

pay for trash service, right? And

7:09

if they didn't require that, we know

7:11

what it looks like because it was most

7:14

cities prior to 50 or 80 years

7:16

ago, as you just sort of had people throwing trash

7:18

out in the street or they threw it in their

7:20

rivers. There's not an individual incentive

7:22

to clean up your own trash. And so

7:24

I think right now, if you look globally

7:27

at what's happening with carbon dioxide removal, there

7:30

are wealthy individuals and certain

7:32

leading companies that are paying

7:34

to clean up emissions

7:36

that they count against their

7:38

own companies' emissions. But to

7:40

get to a scale where this is really

7:42

impactful, I think it will require

7:44

some kind of policy effort similar to what

7:46

has been done with municipal trash cleanup. And

7:48

I think there's many ways that that could

7:51

look in the long term, and we're certainly

7:53

not quite there yet, and we're figuring it out. But

7:56

I think that in the long term, it will require

7:58

some sort of policy action to make happen.

8:00

But in the short term, as you say,

8:02

this is really part of a kind of

8:05

a carbon offset approach for large polluters. Is

8:07

that right? I think, you know, a

8:09

lot of the people that are purchasing right now

8:11

are, like I

8:13

said, wealthy individuals or companies that are

8:15

leaders sort of in offsetting their own

8:17

emissions. But I think

8:20

that there's another motive underlying a lot

8:22

of the current purchasers, which is that

8:24

there are people who believe that these

8:26

types of solutions will be important in

8:28

the future, and that their efforts right

8:30

now of paying a high premium to

8:32

do these removals will help incubate an

8:35

industry that can come down in cost

8:37

such that one day, you know,

8:39

it could actually be providing large scale

8:41

removals through some kind of public procurement.

8:44

And there are other plants like this

8:46

one in Iceland that are being proposed

8:48

or are being built at the moment,

8:50

aren't there? Yeah, that's right. So,

8:52

you know, the biggest effort to do this

8:54

currently is in the United States, the bipartisan

8:56

infrastructure law, which was passed in 2022,

8:59

allocated three and a half billion

9:01

US dollars for building out for

9:03

large direct air capture facilities that

9:05

capture up to 1 million tons

9:08

of CO2 per year. So this

9:10

facility in Iceland, again, 36,000 tons,

9:12

right, it's a build on the

9:14

previous facility, also in Iceland, that

9:16

was 4,000 tons a year, a

9:19

major increase from 4,000 to 36.

9:21

Some of these facilities that are now being

9:23

scoped and built in the United States as

9:25

part of this direct air capture hub program

9:28

are at half a million tons, so

9:30

500,000 tons, with the potential

9:32

to scale up to a million tons

9:34

a year. So, you know, those are,

9:36

again, a level sort of beyond

9:38

and I think signal the type of scale

9:40

that's possible and that people are looking at

9:43

in the future. And actually, the first of

9:45

those facilities is in Texas, it's

9:47

called Stratos, it's being built by OXI,

9:49

which is an oil and gas company.

9:51

And that facility is expected to open

9:53

in 2025 with a capacity of half

9:55

a million tons a year. So

9:58

this is a technology that we are going to be

10:00

seeing more of in the future? I think

10:02

so. Oxy actually, since I mentioned

10:04

them, they have announced plans to build,

10:06

I believe, 30 or 35 of

10:08

these facilities by 2035. And

10:11

I think there's also appetite beyond

10:13

that. If you look at carbon

10:15

removal, voluntary carbon removal markets, the

10:17

amount of pre-purchases, so this is

10:20

people paying for removals before they

10:22

have occurred as a way to

10:24

sort of signal demand and also

10:26

provide money to build those facilities

10:28

far outstrips the actual supply of

10:31

those removals right now. So demand

10:33

currently is much greater than what the

10:35

market is supplying. And I think that's

10:37

going to drive near-term deployments of these

10:39

facilities. But again, I think to get

10:41

to long-term scale, we would need something

10:44

more looking like a public procurement model. Drew

10:47

Dicasa, the manager of the carbon

10:50

dioxide removal team at the Rocky

10:52

Mountain Institute. Sequesta

11:02

in carbon sounds easy in theory, but

11:04

the process can be tricky in practice.

11:06

Injecting CO2 into the earth in gas

11:08

form is one option. But

11:11

once stored, the gas is then vulnerable

11:13

to tectonic movement and can leak back

11:15

into the atmosphere following an earthquake, say,

11:18

or some other geological fault. Left

11:21

underground, CO2 will eventually form

11:23

into rock. But that

11:25

process can take a while, which

11:27

is why geochemist Gautry Gostinisic has

11:29

been working on ways to speed

11:31

up the mineralisation process. Her

11:34

secret weapon? Microbes.

11:37

Bacteria. So first

11:39

of all, what microbes

11:41

does is accelerates the

11:43

process from two years to

11:46

a week, ten days kind of a time. So

11:49

the rock that we use reacts

11:51

with the carbon dioxide gas and

11:54

makes the calcium carbonate, magnesium carbonate

11:56

kind of carbonate minerals. What

12:00

microbes do is, if we can

12:02

put the microbes into the system,

12:04

there's an enzyme, reactive enzyme that

12:06

they release out. And

12:09

that reactive enzyme increases the

12:11

rate of these reactions, speeds

12:14

them up. So by that

12:16

way, rather than taking us non-biologically

12:18

without the microbes, the process to

12:21

do it in two years, now

12:24

it's taking us in the lab conditions up

12:26

to 10 days. So the

12:28

microbes increase the speed of the

12:30

actual process, but there's

12:32

also an advantage in terms of it

12:34

diminishes the likelihood of

12:36

leakage of CO2 over time.

12:38

Is that correct? Correct. The

12:41

type of rock that we use here, we

12:44

use the chemical property of the

12:46

rock, chemistry of the rock to

12:49

lock the CO2. Other

12:52

than when we use sedimentary rock,

12:54

for years and years people use

12:56

that, they're not worried

12:58

about chemically locking the CO2. What

13:01

they do is they pump the

13:03

CO2, use the pore space,

13:05

put the CO2 into pore. But

13:07

if something happens, which always happens

13:09

like an earthquake, that CO2

13:12

releases back to the atmosphere.

13:14

However, if you use a

13:16

rock and use its not

13:18

physical properties, such as porosity,

13:20

but the chemistry to bind

13:22

the CO2 with its minerals,

13:25

then once that mineral is stabilized

13:27

with CO2, it's there

13:29

forever. It doesn't need to leak back

13:31

to the atmosphere again. Now

13:34

these particular microbes weren't easy to find, were

13:36

they? You had to actually go down into

13:38

the Earth's surface quite a way in order

13:40

to extract them. Well, some of

13:42

the microbes that we found at that

13:44

depth, four kilometer down the Earth, what

13:48

you can do is you

13:50

need to study these microbes

13:52

to see that, can they

13:54

handle the pressure, temperature of

13:56

these reactions? Sometimes what you

13:58

need to do is, need to play

14:01

with the genetics of these microbes so

14:03

that they can handle the high pressures,

14:05

high temperatures, so they can live longer,

14:07

so that they can do their job.

14:11

And then we repeat the experiments with

14:13

the microbes to see if

14:15

they can accelerate and they

14:17

beautifully accelerate. Can the microbes

14:19

be used at scale? Is this a process that

14:21

can be scaled up? That's

14:24

what we are trying to do right

14:26

now. We have a patent pending. Now

14:28

what we are trying to do is,

14:30

okay, everything is happening in the laboratory

14:32

environment. Can we carry this to the

14:35

large field process? And

14:38

that's the next step that we are trying to do.

14:40

Yes, you can do it. It takes

14:42

just a larger amount of rocks to

14:44

use, larger amount of

14:46

microbes to use in

14:48

a less controlled environment such

14:50

as fields, right? So we

14:52

are trying to currently working

14:55

on a project to scale this up. If

14:58

that works out, a

15:00

lot of energy companies,

15:03

carbon dioxide sequestration companies are

15:06

going to go after this

15:08

technology. And the type

15:10

of rock that we are using is

15:12

very common on Earth. Rather than a

15:15

sedimentary rock, it's an igneous rock, a

15:17

rock formed from magma, very common basalt.

15:20

So there's a lot of basalt in a lot of

15:22

places on Earth. The bacteria

15:24

that you're using as an accelerator,

15:26

how readily available is that likely

15:29

to be? The main

15:31

makeup of the bacteria is

15:33

less readily available. They have only

15:36

a certain amount of life conditions,

15:38

but those are constrained at this

15:40

point. The most important thing actually

15:43

is not finding the microbes. After

15:46

finding the microbes to engineer

15:48

them, bioengineer them, to play

15:50

with their genes, to make

15:53

them suitable to the process.

15:56

So if you can do that, is there the potential

15:58

that you can use different types of microbes? Exactly.

16:01

So then you are not only restricted

16:03

to what we find in here. By

16:06

engineering, changing the biology of the

16:08

microbes, you can make even more

16:10

microbes suitable to this kind of

16:12

a job. Associate Professor

16:14

Gocha Eustonisic from the South Dakota

16:17

School of Mines and Technology. To

16:20

the oceans now and to the work

16:22

of another geochemist, Jess Adkins. His

16:24

focus is on trying to clean up the

16:26

shipping industry. Shipping is

16:29

one of those hard to decarbonize

16:31

industries. It just doesn't electrify well.

16:33

You can't build big enough batteries

16:35

to power the ships that go

16:37

across the Pacific or go across

16:39

the Atlantic. For the transoceanic part

16:41

of shipping, shipping altogether is about

16:43

1 gigaton of CO2 emissions or

16:45

about 3% of global emissions. And

16:47

a very large chunk of that,

16:49

well over 50% of it is

16:51

the transoceanic stuff. And there just

16:53

isn't a good electrification solution to

16:55

that. So what Professor

16:57

Adkins and his team have been trialing is

16:59

a process where they capture the CO2 emissions

17:02

from a vessel's exhaust system and

17:04

then treat it with a

17:06

limestone and seawater solution which converts

17:08

the CO2 into bicarbonate ions.

17:11

Those ions can then be released into

17:14

the ocean as neutral salts. That's

17:17

the theory, but there is still

17:19

a degree of uncertainty involved. The

17:21

environmental impact should be divided up into

17:23

two categories, a chemical one and a

17:25

biological one. And so we understand the

17:27

chemistry very, very well. This is not

17:29

controversial in my field of oceanography and

17:31

climate where I come from. I'm a

17:33

professor at Caltech and I've been studying

17:35

the ocean's role in natural climate change

17:37

for the last 30 years or so.

17:41

This reaction is the natural one the Earth

17:43

runs to buffer atmospheric CO2 when the more

17:46

it comes out of volcanoes. And

17:48

so that chemical aspect we understand

17:50

very well. There haven't been very

17:53

many ecological or biological studies of

17:55

what happens when there's some excess

17:57

bicarbonate. That's largely because there's already

17:59

so much bicarbonate in the ocean, we

18:01

don't really think anything's going to happen. But

18:03

just because we don't think so doesn't mean

18:05

we shouldn't go out and test it. And

18:07

so I want to just be clear with

18:09

your listeners that there's very strong confidence on

18:11

the chemical side of no environmental impact. And

18:14

it's still being worked out by us

18:16

and by a lot of other researchers

18:18

and labs around the world, if there's

18:20

any biological impact, though it seems pretty

18:22

unlikely that there will be. The

18:24

reactor needed to convert the CO2.

18:27

How large would that be and how

18:29

would that affect shipping itself? Yeah, that's

18:32

a great question. We get that from

18:34

the owner operators a lot. The answer

18:36

is dependent on how much of this

18:38

CO2 you want to actually mitigate,

18:40

how much you want to avoid. We

18:42

take up something like four to 5% of

18:45

the total volume on a Panamax-sized bulk

18:47

carrier. These are some of the bigger

18:49

ships. They're like 63,000 dry weight tons,

18:52

dry bulk carrying, grain carriers, things like

18:54

that. So that's not significant, but that's

18:56

still a cost, isn't it, to the

18:58

operators in terms of lost cargo potential?

19:01

It absolutely is. And we've been developing

19:03

with our partner, Lomar Labs, who's part

19:05

of the Lomar Libra Shipping Group, developed

19:08

some techno-economic models to try to understand

19:10

just how costly that is. And

19:13

the lost cargo space is actually

19:15

the smallest number in our overall

19:17

costs. It's much more

19:20

expensive than the lost cargo space

19:22

to have actually the mining, crushing,

19:24

and transport of the limestone, and

19:26

then a bunch of the parasitic loads associated

19:28

with having to move a lot of water

19:31

around on the ship. So why would a

19:33

shipping company, why would they want to take

19:35

this approach, given the costs involved at this

19:37

stage, at least? Like all

19:39

industries, the shipping industry is quite focused on

19:41

the bottom line. But just recently,

19:44

just January 1st of this year, every

19:47

ship that goes into the European Union has

19:49

to pay a tax under the EU ETS,

19:51

the emissions trading system, which at the beginning

19:53

of this year was trading at about $100

19:55

US a ton. And

19:58

so they're under very strong regulatory pressure

20:01

to decarbonize. They are one of the

20:03

first industries to actually be existing under

20:05

a carbon tax. It's regional. It's only

20:07

for the EU. But last year, 128

20:09

million tons of

20:12

carbon equivalent was emitted by ships that went into

20:14

the EU. And so at $100 a ton, we're

20:17

talking about $12 billion in taxes. They have

20:20

a lot of incentive to try to decarbonize

20:22

and get offsets to that number. And where

20:24

are you at in terms of the development

20:26

of this technology? We have moved

20:29

out of the lab, and we've built

20:31

prototypes at about 1,200th scale in a

20:33

parking lot

20:35

at USC, the University of Southern California, where

20:38

it's been out from Caltech and USC. And

20:41

we've built a second version of our prototype

20:43

down at the Port of LA on the

20:45

docks there at a place called Altussee. Some

20:48

people would say, why go to

20:50

this expense? Why go to this

20:52

effort when we should be dedicating

20:54

our resources toward renewable technology that

20:56

can power shipping? What would your

20:58

response be to that? To take on the

21:01

question in a little bit larger context of

21:03

why do carbon capture or carbon dioxide removal

21:05

at all, I think we

21:07

could. And in fact, we did ask ourselves that

21:09

question and chose to not answer it or do

21:11

anything about it in the 1960s and 70s. And

21:14

it might have been

21:17

okay then to play this dichotomy

21:19

between alternative energies and carbon capture.

21:21

But because we've delayed making

21:23

a decision about doing anything about our

21:25

CO2 problem, today, it's not an option.

21:28

We have to do both. Carbon capture

21:30

and storage is no substitute for trying

21:32

to electrify every single part of the

21:34

economy that we possibly can. But even

21:36

if we do that, we're still going

21:38

to cook. We have to start

21:40

taking CO2 out of the atmosphere, and

21:43

we have to start reducing emissions. We don't have

21:45

a choice anymore. This is coming from my background

21:47

as a 30 years being a climate scientist. Professor

21:52

Jess Adkins from the startup

21:54

company Kalkeria and Caltech, the

21:57

California Institute of Technology. Enough

22:00

about carbon, now let's talk about

22:02

magma. And a project in

22:04

Iceland where they're hoping to drill down

22:07

into an underground magma chamber. A chamber

22:09

which was discovered by accident during a

22:11

drilling operation earlier this century. Our

22:16

mission is to create a gateway to magma

22:18

to learn how magma behaves and why it

22:21

sets us so quietly. It's a

22:23

mission towards inner earth or

22:25

near magma and this is something that has never

22:28

been done before. The research

22:30

facility undertaking this new exploration effort

22:32

is called the KMT, the Kraftler

22:35

magma test bed. Its

22:37

CEO is Bjorn Pergudmundsson.

22:40

After this accidental encounter in 2009,

22:42

they basically realised the immense opportunities

22:44

that were involved in basically knowing

22:46

an exact location of the magma

22:49

chamber and also on such a

22:51

shallow depth. So then the

22:53

KMT project started to evolve and the

22:56

opportunities that people saw there in terms

22:58

of all technology and energy extraction. It

23:01

turns out when they took the well in

23:03

2009 and they started a flow testing the

23:05

well, measuring the power of the well and

23:07

so on. It turned out that was 10

23:10

times more powerful than the conventional well in

23:12

Karbala. So reaching this depth

23:14

and getting so close to the

23:16

magma turned out to basically deliver

23:18

super heated fluids that were tremendously

23:21

powerful and were basically very clear

23:23

the implications, the opportunities in terms

23:25

of energy extraction were immense. So

23:27

you believe then do you that

23:29

it could potentially be a significant

23:32

source of geothermal energy, is that

23:34

correct? Yes, definitely. What this

23:36

basically showed us that when we are

23:38

utilising these geothermal fields or how we

23:40

have been doing it in Iceland and

23:42

in other places, of course, that we

23:44

are basically just skimming the surface. If

23:47

we go deeper and closer to the source, the

23:50

power basically increases exponentially as you

23:52

go closer to the chamber itself.

23:55

So this is an opportunity to

23:57

access much more energy than we

23:59

have been utilizing up to this point

24:02

and basically lowering the cost

24:04

as well because the well itself

24:06

can be much more expensive than

24:09

a conventional well if you're getting 10 times

24:11

more power. So it's about an

24:13

access to much more power and also

24:15

lowering the cost. I imagine drilling into

24:17

a magma chamber would come with huge

24:19

challenges. What sort of equipment

24:22

do you actually need to do that

24:24

given the immense heat that would be

24:26

involved? Yeah, this is about heat, pressure

24:28

and also the corrosive nature of the

24:30

fluids which increase when you go closer

24:32

to the magma. I mean

24:34

that's one of the main challenges of drilling

24:36

so close to the magma is basically being

24:39

able to develop wells that can withstand

24:41

these extreme conditions and that

24:43

is what we have been doing with our

24:46

and developing with our engineers. We have been

24:48

doing extensive material testing but the

24:50

technique itself is very similar to how

24:52

we have been drilling into you know

24:54

super field in Iceland up to this

24:56

point. We don't have to change the

24:58

technique that much but of course everything has to

25:01

be much more sturdier than it is you know

25:03

both in terms of the well itself and also

25:05

the well head being able to

25:07

handle the enormous pressure, heat and

25:10

the corrosion that is involved in this with

25:12

these fluids. These are the main challenges in

25:14

terms of preparing for the project. Very

25:17

unlikely that this can trigger an eruption.

25:19

We expect that when we enter

25:21

the magma that the magma will flow to

25:23

some extent up well maybe you

25:25

know in terms of you know

25:28

five to ten meters or something like that but

25:30

we don't have any concerns regarding an

25:32

eruption or creating a one. And

25:35

what's the time plan for this? When might

25:37

you drill the first hole and have the

25:39

first results? Yeah the plan is to

25:41

drill in 2026 or 27 of

25:45

course it depends a little bit on technical

25:47

development that has to take place and also

25:49

we still need to fund the drilling itself

25:52

or the infrastructure to keep the timeline. Is

25:54

it likely to be a costly endeavor? Yeah

25:56

I mean we are estimating the cost being 105 million

25:58

US That

26:01

also includes a lot of the

26:03

research that KMT is committed to

26:05

do to enhance the development of

26:07

extremely hot or super hot

26:10

geothermal worldwide. So there

26:12

is a significant cost to this, but what about

26:14

the potential? If indeed it does work? I

26:16

mean, the potential is basically huge. There

26:19

are magma chambers located throughout the

26:21

world, basically, usually in relation to

26:24

volcanoes and so on. But

26:26

this does not only create opportunities in

26:28

terms of drilling into magma. I mean,

26:31

what is going on in the geothermal

26:33

industry today is a lot of development

26:35

in terms of drilling very deep into

26:37

the crust and into very extreme conditions.

26:39

So these wells that we are developing

26:42

can contribute significantly to that. People

26:44

are talking about geothermal anywhere and so

26:46

on, basically just drilling hard enough into

26:48

the crust to enter these sorts of

26:51

conditions. And also we

26:53

see opportunities in the more far

26:55

future maybe to drill offshore, producing

26:57

energy and potentially e-fuels and so on and

26:59

shape them onshore. I mean, of course, the

27:02

oil and gas industry has a lot of

27:04

experience in terms of drilling onshore. So if

27:06

we can pull our resources together with the

27:08

oil and gas companies, that

27:10

can create tremendous opportunities in terms

27:13

of green-based potential. Beyond Paul

27:15

Goodman, speaking to us there from Iceland.

27:18

Now, next week on Future Tense. Permaterianism.

27:20

It's an economic and philosophical theory

27:23

that argues for a cap on

27:25

personal wealth. Reach the

27:27

cap and every dollar you make after that

27:29

point goes to the state to be used

27:31

for the betterment of society. I'm

27:34

sure I don't need to tell you it's a controversial

27:36

concept. We

27:39

need to think about how we

27:41

organize society. So that is at

27:43

the political organizational level. And there

27:45

I think we need to reduce

27:47

inequalities such that wealth concentration becomes

27:50

far less but there's then also

27:52

the moral level, the

27:54

ethical level. We've

27:56

not advocated a hundred percent tax for

27:58

anybody. I've get a

28:01

90% tax on people above

28:03

a certain level. People can

28:05

become more wealthy and

28:07

I think that's okay. It's just

28:09

they should pay a high percentage

28:11

of their income as taxes and

28:13

a higher percentage as they

28:15

become more and more wealthy. There's

28:19

a great quote from Louis XIV's finance

28:21

minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, who said, the art

28:23

of taxation consists in plucking the goose

28:25

so as to get the largest amount

28:28

of feathers with the least amount of

28:30

hissing. He didn't add, unless

28:32

it's a big goose, in which case strangle it. A

28:36

philosophical and economic plan to reduce

28:38

inequality or a very fast

28:40

way to kill innovation. You be

28:42

the judge next week on Future Tense. Currents

28:46

of Anvits is my co-creator and

28:48

co-producer. I'm Anthony Fennell, until next

28:50

time, cheers. You've

28:53

been listening to an ABC

28:55

podcast.