You're listening to the Decarbonization Dialogue,
a podcast from Salix. I'm Hannah Walker, and
I believe that the best way to communicate a
message is by being passionate about what you
are talking about. Welcome to Nick Chadwick.
Nick is chief executive and co -founder of Mission
Zero Technologies, which is a collective of scientists,
engineers and creative thinkers on a mission
to reinvent carbon. Nick is an environmentally
driven chemist and material scientist enthusiastic
about renewables, water and semiconductors. Nick
has experienced scaling and building early stage
materials technologies and renewable semiconductors
and sensors and carbon capture. He has a PhD
in material science from University College London
and a master's in chemistry from the University
of Nottingham. I'm told that in your spare time
you're a proud dad and a rock climber and I believe
that you never intended to set up a company or
start a company but here we are. So welcome to
Nick. Thank you. Thank you Nick. Now I'm going
to firstly start, which I don't need you to do,
to say hands up I am not a scientist and I'm
not an engineer and I'm speaking to someone who's
got a PhD and a master's in chemistry so I'm
going to hold my hands up now so we're going
to try and avoid acronyms and highly scientific
language. but which I don't think will happen
in this first question actually, because I'd
love to know how you started and what got you
interested in science and innovation? Were you
one of those kids at school who was always in
the science labs at Bunsen Burnet etc? What got
you started? For me, you know, I was a kid growing
up, I was just quite artistic, like I quite liked
art, drawing, painting etc. I think science is
inherently a creative endeavor in many ways and
so I kind of straddled that. I'm space between
like quite looking creative things but also like
the structure and you know. What i found fun
about science at the time was like the discovery
of the ability to do things are real in the world
things like that so good going either way. I
don't get convinced by my uncle when i was choosing
my levels that should do all science so i can
do science and i will go to a levels i was like
doing this as well as i wanted to. I remember
sitting down with my chemistry teacher things
like after the first time something she was like
you throwing away a lot of potential agents kind
of. fuck your ideas up. I basically went, OK,
if we apply ourselves, we can do something. And
so it kind of went from there. And I think probably
my chemistry teacher showing that faith, essentially,
that you can do something if you turn your hand
to it. It was probably the reason I chose chemistry.
And that's why I became a chemist and then branched
out within chemistry into material science. And
I spent a lot of time in research. So as a reference,
I did a master's in Nordicum that last year was
working on a research project. um that I wrote
a thesis on and then you uh moved to a university
college london to a phd and again working on
things you know you're doing things in the lab
you're working with your hands it's a very creative
thing I sort of think science and particularly
chemistry is a weird mix of like ultra complex
uh flat pack furniture building mixed with cooking
but the cooking could kill you if you get it
wrong um so it's like a it's like a it's just
like a really good challenge like it's very hard
and what you're working with is the fabric of
reality and i think like if you're going to work
on any problem being able to manipulate the fabric
of reality is actually quite a fun fun space
to be in so and the things you're working on
so for instance the the thing that i worked on
in my phd was these are materials that could
take sunlight in and then use that to break down
things at the surface and water so you could
use that to sterilize water break down contaminants
the water viruses things like this and you could
all of a sudden provide clean water and so it's
not like it's just the idea as well that like
science for science sake is interesting but science
for human benefit i think is more to change things
yeah to change things to make the human condition
better so that's that's ultimately what what
drives what drives me because i kind of recognized
it all the things in our world that are good
are usually at the moment anyway technological
yes realized that that's a fantastic start and
all credit to that chemistry teacher that you
had and i always think it just takes one good
teacher and hopefully if we're lucky we've all
had one good teacher who sits on our way and
I have to say I remember my the best teacher
I had at primary school in the very last year
in the states and I still remember her name is
Sandal and she set me on my way and you never
forget those very special people incredible so
well done to the chemistry teacher can you remember
her name? Oh her first name was Anne but um okay
He was born on a first name basis and I was just
thinking it's really bad that I can't remember
a second name but I definitely remember a face
and her. Great teacher. Now let's just move on
to talk about Mission Zero now. So can you please
tell us a little about this and how can companies
like Mission Zero Technologies drive systematic
change and tackling climate change because we've
talked about making a difference. And the biggest
issue of our time is undoubtedly, I mean, we've
got a lot of complex issues going on at the moment,
but at the top of the agenda must be climate
change and the climate crisis that we're facing.
So what can companies like Mission Zero Technologies,
how can they drive this much change in tackling
climate change beyond your immediate products?
Because, and I would also like to talk about
the trust element there, because I think trust
is a big part of this as well, isn't it? That
basic element and value. Of course, yeah. So,
you know, Mission Zero is a startup, a scale
-up, a company that is trying to realize something
new in the world and quite a, you know, complex
technological product that enables that. But
at the start of it is recognizing, I think, like,
opportunities for change that aren't kind of
piecemeal or, you know, kind of like band -aids.
Like, what we're working to do is readdress something
systematic within our everyday experience, our
lives. And so that might sound very high level,
but if I break it down into something that everyone
kind of resonate with, like the house you live
in or the flat you rent, the clothes you wear,
the drugs you take, the food you consume, the
flights you take on holiday, these are all essentially
carbon -based products, right? Everything in
the world that is good in the world at the moment
is basically a carbon -based product. And that
carbon has to come from somewhere. And it predominantly
comes from fossil fuels at the moment. And so
it's not really that, you know, the problem statement
we're trying to solve, or that we always start
with the saying, carbon isn't a bad thing. Carbon
is a good thing. It's what's made the world good
around us for a really long time. It's actually
where we get the carbon from, which is the issue.
And we need to find sustainable sources of carbon
that can meet the needs of different economies
and people's needs around the world. in a reliable
basis. And we think the only way to do that to
transition away from a fossil fuel source of
carbon is to utilize what we've actually put
into the atmosphere already in CO2 and draw that
atmosphere and feed that CO2 as a supply chain
into a variety of products. And the thing that,
you know, the encouraging thing is we know how
to turn carbon dioxide actually into every major
base, every major product that you can think
of for like 70 years. It's actually that we can't
get enough CO2, which is always so silly, right?
Given it's slowly in the atmosphere, building
up and baking us all to death. So that's the
value statement. And so I think if you start
with a really large proposition like that, and
you can articulate a pathway to how you can affect
system change, then actually that's how companies
like Mission Zero can affect the change that
we need and that we want. I think when we come
onto the trust element, I think trust is about
being transparent about what you're doing. and
then bringing people along as well because I
think this is a highly technical field it has
a lot of connotations associated with it but
I think if you were to come and speak to me and
you know understand my motives or the motives
of my team in anything new there are always people's
assumptions about what it is and I think we just
have to do as good a job as we can to say this
is what we're doing this is the why of what we're
doing and then always just kind of lay that out
and make sure that every time we get a chance
to tell someone we're always telling people the
same thing. Okay so we talk a lot about don't
we? Carbon and CO2 in our environment and I think
we've got we've got a lot of targets haven't
we? I think it's by 2050 we've got to remove
I think something like 85 million tons of CO2
have got to be moved annually by 2030 and then
we're talking about billions of tons of carbon
that we've got to get rid of. Now could you explain
what you mean by And it was an anachronism. I'm
sorry that you have used already. Oh, sorry on
the website. It's fine. Yeah, it's cool. It's
the direct air capture because to me that sounds
like really sci -fi. That sounds like what do
you mean? How do you direct air capture? What
exactly does that mean? Can you explain that
in a couple of sentences? Yeah, I actually probably
should have died the first the first bit, right?
So my apologies. Yeah, so mission zero is is
currently building and scaling a specific technology
called direct data capture, or basically you
can you can shorten that to the word DAC, right?
And it's a process basically to separate carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere, separate it from
the air that you return back to the air around
you, and then you were able to separate, purify,
concentrate, and then provide that CO2 as a commodity
stream for a variety of use cases. And that's
what we mean by creating a new sustainable source
of carbon because the carbon that we recover
from the atmosphere via this process is carbon
negative by its definition. And then you can
use that carbon to make building materials, aggregates,
roads, pavements. You can make aviation fuels
to fly planes. You can use it to make vodka,
yoga mats. you know a variety of different uh
different products that feature in everyone i
have to read that twice vodka yes you can make
vodka i read that twice yoga mats you know just
and so this is what i mean is like the process
to turn co2 into a variety of products actually
is very well known there's a variety of ways
doing it and up converting to that complex carbon
molecules that go into your yoga mat or your
clothes or your house etc It's actually just
the supply of the CO2, which is the issue. And
you can't grow or scale or make cheap those processes
if you don't have a supply chain, raw feedstock.
And that's actually what we're trying to do is
create a sustainable source of carbon via this
technology called direct air capture that can
then be used to supply not just the fizzy drinks
market, food and beverage, which is one of the
main uses for CO2 at the moment, but drive change
systematically across a wide range of industries.
You kind of referenced the amount of CO2 we need
to put in the atmosphere. By 2050, there's like
51 billion tons of CO2 that need to be accounted
for global basis. And to really affect the change
that we need to, direct air capture probably
needs to be dealing between one to 10 of those
billion tons. So the goal isn't small, right?
We're really like swinging for the fences here,
but there's a path. It's possible. It's just
how you navigate and achieve that aim by 2050.
Exactly. Now, the goal isn't small and the vision
is obviously big. Tell me a little bit about
what it like to work in. Presumably, you've got
a laboratory. There are a few of you working
in there. Tell us what that looks like and what
your job looks like every day. I mean, you're
chief executive of this company, so there's going
to be a lot of stuff involved in that. But what
about the laboratory? What does that look like?
Yeah, so we're a team of 60 people, near enough
at this moment in time, very product and R &D
and science heavy. And then in an archway underneath
the railway line, we've built our own custom
labs there, basically. So that's where we do
a lot of pilot R &D work, a lot of quality assurance,
testing different materials. We have teams based
there. But then we also have operational sites
where we've built these systems. We deploy them
at large scales on customer sites or with customers.
And we obviously have a whole engineering operations
side of testing, continuous operations. both
in the UK and internationally in Canada. So it's
quite a lot of people traveling around, a lot
of people on site coming back in. A lot of the
time, it can feel a bit like ships in the night
seeing each other. But I think you make that
work all by having the right culture. So it's
very much a kind of trust based culture, trying
to say to people, you've got the responsibility,
go and do you have the autonomy, make the decisions
you need to. And it's just very, there's like
a high level of camaraderie. So we try to go
to a space where it's very friendly. big shared
value isn't there, I mean that's saving the planet,
that looking to the future and I think I mentioned
earlier and you've said you're a dad and it's
looking to that future isn't it, it's trying
to safeguard and future -proof there must be
a level of excitement in that laboratory, in
that work that you're doing something new, your
visionary, your visionaries working together.
Exactly. You know, everyone is here for one purpose
and that's to have a meaningful impact on what
I consider anything. Everyone at the company
is supposed to be the biggest existential crisis
humanity faces right now, which is climate change.
And it has got so bad that we have to do, you
know, we have to find ways to pull out the atmosphere,
circularize it. It's not hard to make the case
of why we're all coming to the office in the
morning, right? It's like we're here to do a
specific job and create a systematic change.
in humanities relationship to carbon via the
technology we're building. It's not hard to hire
basically. Let's say people want to come and
work here. Now you mentioned earlier you alluded
very briefly to funding because there's a cost
obviously to all of this. Obviously there's a
cost to any business but this work doesn't come
cheap does it? Let's talk about funding for the
moment. How have you managed to engage? Because
obviously there's a cost there's the issues of
efficiency and then sustainability and then you're
talking about your supply chains, the environment
regulations you're facing. It's not an easy environment
is it? I mean you've got maybe people's hearts
but there are a lot of issues to overcome. Whenever
you're building something new I think it's always
going to be you know when you start activating
supply chains or talking to policymakers or getting
permitting done there's always like a first of
a kind conversation that happens in that space.
So the company you know we raised venture capital
been quite successful so far brought in like
quite a lot of uh reptile investors such as bill
gates's breakthrough energy people might not
be aware of that name but essentially the venture
fund bill gets kind of spearheaded set up we've
got a lot of corporate investors um and some
specific sustainability and climate change focused
investors as well so like quite a wide base very
well experienced but also in it for the right
reasons from our perspective which is just very
important for us when we bring on investors that
we found people that align with our values specifically
and but it is an expensive expensive thing to
do you know like r &d setting up labs that has
a cost associated with it but you know the systems
are talking about our multi -million pound systems
you know so this is there is a certain cost to
get these things scaled and get them started
and figuring them out the way I like to phrase
it is like if you consider the amount of money
however that's spent on this relative to you
know solar cells or batteries or even research
on fusion things like this right people know
nuclear fusion is um it's actually like a relatively
small amount of money that's been spent on direct
capture globally I'd advocate a more should be
spent on it gonna be such a crucial technology
that will just sit in the background of everyone's
lives, you know, in 2050 when it's a scale. Like,
people will notice it. It's kind of like your
offshore wind turbines. You're like, oh, cool.
That's a direct air capture plant. That's really
kind of where we need to get to. But yeah, it's
just expensive. Everything when you're doing
some kind of new hardware technology is expensive
first. And you only get it cheap by experiencing
it when it's expensive, right? Solar cells are
now the cheapest form of energy on the planet.
But when they started, they were pretty expensive.
And it's something by going through that deployment
phase, scaling, navigating costs and working
to bring it down that you can make that cheap,
which is ultimately what the goal is. So direct
air capture, you said it's something that we're
just going to perhaps take for granted and it
will probably be part of the everyday conversation
in a few years to come. I certainly hope so.
I hope so. But today, how do you think we can
get more people engaged in climate risk and climate
change? Do you think we're doing enough? to keep
people interested today. I mean there's a lot
going on obviously on the political arena etc
but do you think people, I mean there's always
a danger isn't there, we see climate news on
our, we see it on the news every day, climate
crisis, we see flooding, fires etc and it's very
easy to catastrophize and some people might sit
back and think well it's somebody else's problem.
and there's nothing very much we can do or they
just think it's too huge a problem and so it's
for governments and businesses to sort out. What
do you think we're doing right or wrong in this
storytelling of climate change? I think there's
definitely an idea which seems to have become
quite pervasive that as you just said that like
no one has individual responsibility or can affect
some kind of individual change and I think if
everyone you know decided they wanted to make
change when you submit that across the population
change is pretty big and it's pretty effective
but you know we get away from like direct data
capture facility and just talk about like how
you impact on climate change regardless of technology
or something else individuals have massive agency
jay goodall she had an interview which she had
released like after after she passed away and
one of the final things that she said it was
like you have agency you have like ability to
affect change even if you think you're not big
enough basically and i think that's quite a poignant
way of thinking about things like all is not
lost there's no point giving up because for a
lot of people it's like quite far away but you
know i kind of hark back to recently when a wildfire
has basically devastated actually the majority
of like the wealthiest parts of los angeles right
and now we're in a place where those houses can't
even be insured because of the wildfire risk
so it's one of these things where all of a sudden
i think it's going to come knocking on people's
doors very quickly out of nowhere Because it's
not really about a gradual increase in temperature
necessarily. It's about the variability of extreme
events. And that means all of a sudden, extreme
event comes for you. Big storm that was supposed
to happen every 100 years, happens every two
years. And then it blows a tree onto your house
and your house. And so it's things like this
where we just don't want to get to a place where
it's got so bad that it's too far. And so I think
that presence of going, there is still time for
this. We can fix it. But we need to think about
how we do that. And I think so that's the individual
level. But I think if we think about it like
the larger macro, you know, side of things, as
if you're in orbit looking down, I think there's
a responsibility to try and couch the things
that are being communicated in a way that everyone
kind of relate to. Right. If you say climate
change is going to impact GDP by this much, you're
OK. So like the business leaders and the policymakers
might care about that. But. you know, if you
catch that as like, this means that there'll
be this many job losses or a pint of beer will
increase by this much. You can start talking
to people in a way that kind of go like, oh,
OK, like that actually affects me in a different
way. You know, the price of tomatoes has gone
up 40 percent. And, you know, some of these some
of these fruits won't be available. Things like
this sort of crop shortages. I think there's
definitely an opportunity to try and change the
phrasing of how we communicate the impacts or
the, you know, the realities or climate change
will mean for people today. But I'm at least
heartened by polls that show that at least the
UK population is actually quietly very very motivated
by trying to fix climate change and the UK has
a world -leading position in addressing this
for many years. Okay so there's the bigger message
and there's obviously the work that you're doing
but in terms of my penultimate question and I
always do like to ask this question we've talked
about you obviously have a love of the outdoors
because you're a rock climber you want to make
you through your work you want to make a difference.
But in terms of your own personal lifestyle,
do you think you lead this sustainable lifestyle?
You know, we tend to I speak to a lot of people
and a lot of people say, look, I'm no different
from everybody else. It's quite hard to leave
that to lead that perfectly, you know, clean
living lifestyle that's good for the planet.
How about yourself? How do you feel? Yeah, I'm
going to say exactly what you just said is like
by no means am I perfect. And I think it's about
trying to make very targeted Targeted choices
where you can where you've got questions and
the you know the ability. You're going to struggle
to bring people along where you go you must do
this or we must do this kind of thing versus
saying you know consider what your opportunities
are here in the places so for me I try to minimize
any kind of as much air travel as I can give
my job you know usually has like quite a global
focus a lot of meetings can be done you know
remotely these days so try to optimize for that.
I get public transport into work every day, which
is fairly easy because I live in London. But
even if it wasn't, I would try to optimize for
that. If I go rock climbing, I have this love
of the outdoors. And so often, even if I'm going
to someone really far flung, I would still try
to use public transport as much as I possibly
can, even though you're going to someone that's
quite remote, even if it makes it longer and
more difficult. And there were loads of things
I could do, I think, to make my life more sustainable.
I think it's just about making targeted choices
that work for you in your life and not trying
to take this approach of bringing everyone down
if they've not done everything. Thank you and
I think one of my other guests once said it's
just not being too preachy because being told
what to do all the time and understanding that
we all have responsibility yes but we also have
a voice so we can all be the advocates too. So
that's fantastic. And I want one final question
in a very brief question. So we're running out
of time. Direct air capture will hopefully be
part of the conversation, you know, in not in
a few years time. But what next for you then
and for Mission Zero Technologies? Where do you
see it and the company in your own work in 10
to 20 years, which is I appreciate broad time
scale time frame. No I mean we we actually talk
about what we're trying to achieve in like a
third year time frame right so almost hubristic
to stand up in front of the company and say you
know we're a startup and we've got a certain
amount of cash flow but you know our plan is
for like the next 30 years. So really over the
next sort of 10 -20 years the goal for us over
the 2020s is to show the world you can defossilize
a wide range of processes by integrating sustainable
CO2 from the atmosphere into that so whether
that's making carbon negative building materials
that aggregates roads, pavements, concrete blocks
that also lock away atmospheric CO2 as a solid.
Great opportunity there. I'm sure you can geological
sequestration. You could potentially make drinks
fizzy from the air around you. So just demonstrating
that it's real, making it real in people's minds,
building on that momentum, then moving into getting
to much larger. deployments where removing vast
volumes of CO2 out of the atmosphere on a yearly
basis in the 2030s and then looking to scale
that up as we come into the 2040s and the 2050s
to the point where you are having you know a
massive impact on the amount of CO2 that is entering
but also being removed out of the atmosphere
effectively and circularized. Super, thank you.
Well for somebody who I think you once said you
didn't see yourself setting up a company, you've
got a great business, you seem to have a really
great fluid business plan there and an incredible
vision to share and thank you so much for joining
our podcast today to Nick Chadwick from Mission
Zero Technologies. There can be no doubt that
climate change is the biggest challenge of our
time. Today, we must reduce greenhouse gas emissions
to slow global warming. Today, we must act for
tomorrow, adjusting our lifestyles to current
and future impacts of climate change. Today,
we must use our collective wisdom to deliver
on our climate commitments. Today, we work for
tomorrow's world. Don't forget to subscribe to
our podcast channels and please do send your
views and emails to podcast at salixfinance .co
.uk. So thank you once again to Nick. You've
been listening to the Decarbonisation Dialogue,
a podcast from Salix. For more information about
our work and to find more content, please visit
salixfinance .co .uk forward slash podcasts.