Western Standard - Cory Morgan Show - Colin Craig

00:00:00.000 Welcome to the Cory Morgan Show. I'm going to shift things, you know, I'm usually sour going on about things and grumbling about things. A lot of people on the left are sour about things grumbling and going on about things. But we got some, some positive content coming today with the guest I got coming on. His name's Colin Craig. He's with secondstreet.org. You might remember from the Taxpayers Federation. He's been busy with a lot of things and Second Street's putting out some, some great policy briefs and papers. And we've been trained, you know, to think that carbon, carbon is a pollutant, you know, carbon dioxide is a pollutant.

00:00:29.980 I mean, like people like to point out, we exhale it. It's not uncommon. Trees breathe it in. Carbon dioxide isn't all bad, but there are concerns about the levels of carbon dioxide we're producing and how it might be impacting the environment. That's a whole separate discussion. But what we do have going on are some really innovative, creative companies and people with ideas on what you can do with the carbon. Then if we don't want it going off into the atmosphere, I mean, carbon capture is something we've talked a lot about in the West and in oil and gas production facilities and things such as that.

00:01:00.080 Using it for even oil recovery by pumping it underground. But then that's the end of the product. It's gone, which still may be very good for the environment, but it's not making anything out of it. Well, what they've come up with is a list of 25 products that are made through captured carbon. Things we can make, you know, that have value from bicycles to even yoga mats as we'll go into.

00:01:22.980 And a number of the things that they listed on that. There's even some pretty cool and neat things that can be made out of carbon. You know, the future doesn't have to be bleak. Carbon doesn't have to be tossed away as a waste product or hidden away as a pollutant. We can actually make something of it.

00:01:36.780 And as we carry on with that, it will solve a lot of those problems without crushing our economy as some people seem to feel is the best way to manage to do that.

00:01:45.780 And before we go to Colin, I just want to remind everybody, be sure to take out a membership with the Western Standard if you have it already. It's 10 bucks a month. It's well worth your time. Go to the westernstandardonline.com. Check out the membership button.

00:01:58.780 Take a free trial. You'll get some free paywall free content. You can get straight in there. Check it out. You'll find it's a good investment and it keeps us going. We don't take tax dollars. Nobody's offering tax dollars. And we can keep coming up with this good content for you to enjoy. So we appreciate the members who have already subscribed. And if you haven't already, please help us out and take out a subscription. So without further ado, let's get on to Colin Craig from secondstreet.org.

00:02:28.780 We'll see you next time.

00:02:58.780 Yeah, yeah, no, for sure. It's been, it's one of the definitely one of the cooler policy briefs I've ever worked on my colleague, James Skinner. He was the one that was the lead writer and I helped with finding examples in that. But what we wanted to do was take a look at climate change and emissions from a different perspective.

00:03:17.540 Because so often in public discourse in Canada about climate change, it's doom and gloom. You hear politicians routinely calling CO2 pollution and so forth. And I think what we've seen is a bit of a paradigm shift occur.

00:03:33.220 Where entrepreneurs are saying, well, wait a second, CO2 is actually used to make lots of different products. So instead of letting carbon dioxide release up into the atmosphere, why don't we capture it and make cool things with it?

00:03:47.600 So we thought, well, let's take a look. Let's try and find some of these cool examples that entrepreneurs are working on, but also examples of where companies are doing cool things to reduce emissions in the first place.

00:03:58.320 So we came up with a list of 25. We wanted to put it out there and talk about this issue from a more positive and optimistic perspective, rather than the doom and gloom scenarios that so often dominate media coverage of the issue.

00:04:14.540 Yeah, well, in carbon sequestration, I mean, people can understand that you're just taking it, you're stuffing it underground or somewhere to contain it.

00:04:21.780 But then it is a lost resource in that sense. And now you're going to take something and perhaps make a tangible, valuable product out of it.

00:04:29.260 So I'll start with one that really jumped out. And most people can relate with the benefits of it or perhaps the non-benefits, but is vodka.

00:04:37.200 So how on earth does vodka come into a list of carbon products?

00:04:42.100 Yeah, this is probably my favorite too. And I'm not a big vodka drinker, but I think it's just awesome that they've been able to make vodka using captured carbon dioxide.

00:04:51.340 I've actually got a bottle of it. It's called, put it right there. Maybe your viewers can see it or not. It's called the Air Company.

00:04:58.700 That's the name of the company. They're in New York. And what they did was found a way to make vodka using just two ingredients, carbon dioxide and water.

00:05:08.240 And I think a lot of people are wondering, well, how on earth do you do this? And it's actually quite simple.

00:05:13.200 When you write out the formula, the chemical formula for ethanol, which is the main ingredient in vodka, you'll see that it's got three elements in it.

00:05:22.340 And that's it. It's got carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. And of course, we can find those three same elements in carbon dioxide and water.

00:05:30.640 So what they've been able to do through the magic of the technology that they've developed is basically create ethanol.

00:05:38.860 And then with ethanol, you add water to it to water it down. And that's how you get vodka.

00:05:43.220 So they've been able to produce the vodka. It's very, very pure. I've tried a little bit.

00:05:48.800 It's very, very smooth. Vodka is quite nice, actually.

00:05:52.380 It doesn't give you that same burn that you might get from some of the cheaper stuff that I grew up on, at least in my...

00:05:57.640 Yeah, the old high school bottle of Smirnoff, yeah.

00:06:00.860 Yeah, so it's pretty amazing. They're actually trying to get into the LCBO in Ontario to start selling in Canada.

00:06:08.540 But it's awesome. The company is also creating hand sanitizer using captured carbon dioxide.

00:06:14.120 They have a perfume that they just released.

00:06:17.400 But there's also a ton of really cool examples in Canada, including many right here in Calgary.

00:06:22.420 So one example I love is a company, they started up, they're called Carbonova.

00:06:29.300 And what they do is they're making carbon nanofibers.

00:06:34.120 And if you've ever picked up a really lightweight badminton racket or maybe a bicycle that's got a lightweight frame,

00:06:40.040 it's not uncommon to see that it's a carbon fiber material that helps make that.

00:06:44.260 And so this company is basically creating that same material, but through a different process.

00:06:50.680 And their process involves captured carbon dioxide.

00:06:54.860 And so I think that's really cool.

00:06:56.680 Once they're up and fully running and producing their material, they think they can make it relatively inexpensively

00:07:02.140 and capture a lot of carbon dioxide along the way.

00:07:05.560 So it's really cool what they've been able to come up with.

00:07:08.920 I'll give you another fun example here in Calgary.

00:07:12.240 A company was the individual was in the, I believe, heating and ventilation and plumbing that line of work.

00:07:21.740 And what he realized was that if you could capture carbon dioxide from a building's heating system,

00:07:28.600 instead of it going up into the atmosphere, if you capture it, there's a way that he could make soap out of it.

00:07:34.060 So that's what that company has been doing.

00:07:36.300 They're called Clean O2.

00:07:38.120 And that's pretty awesome.

00:07:40.240 There's been lots of different examples that we came across that were just pretty amazing to see that entrepreneurs can do what they're doing.

00:07:47.360 Another example from New York actually is a company called Aether Diamonds.

00:07:51.200 They're making diamonds from captured carbon dioxide.

00:07:54.620 So I think the sky is really the limit in terms of what entrepreneurs are able to do.

00:07:58.520 Yeah, and this list really reflects just that principle like technology, innovation.

00:08:05.220 We don't have to just shut things out, shut them down, throw them aside.

00:08:09.320 Like we come up with new ways of doing things and we can mitigate problems that be created.

00:08:14.640 And one that I liked in this list too that was kind of an irony was yoga mats.

00:08:18.720 So they don't have to be, you know, sourced from hemp and other such things.

00:08:23.040 We could have a captured carbon yoga mat out there.

00:08:26.580 You can, yeah.

00:08:27.420 And in that case, I believe what they do is they take carbon dioxide, they fuse it together with some other materials.

00:08:32.900 It's one of the ingredients, but it's great.

00:08:35.800 I mean, it's, you know, to be able to get a yoga mat and it's partially made with captured CO2.

00:08:40.520 That's certainly a, I think, a step in the right direction.

00:08:43.800 And, you know, when I, when I think back about, you know, to my first comment about how discourse in this country is so negative, you know, you see these stories about kids dealing with ecological anxiety and they're concerned about climate change and that like to the point where they're worrying about it at night, they can't sleep.

00:09:00.040 I mean, that's crazy that we're doing that to the next generation.

00:09:02.400 And I think what we need are for leaders to say, hey, wait a second, let's inspire these kids so that they could be the next entrepreneurs that are finding a way to use CO2 to make cool stuff instead of letting them, you know, have sleepless nights and dealing with anxiety.

00:09:17.320 It's pretty, pretty terrible what's happening.

00:09:19.820 Yeah.

00:09:19.960 On that front on your list, you have blue M&Ms.

00:09:22.200 I mean, there's not many kids who wouldn't like blue M&Ms.

00:09:25.160 It's a nice positive product of carbon fitting I've heard of.

00:09:28.860 Yeah.

00:09:29.180 And I love that example.

00:09:30.420 It's from Ontario.

00:09:31.280 It's a company in Markham called Pond Technologies.

00:09:34.080 And what they do is awesome.

00:09:36.040 Basically, from a smokestack, instead of letting the CO2 go up into the atmosphere, what they do is they capture the CO2, they pump it into a tank.

00:09:45.640 The tank has a bunch of algae in it.

00:09:48.160 And basically what happens is the algae eat the CO2 and then they grow and expand.

00:09:53.740 And eventually you can process that algae into all kinds of really useful products, nutraceuticals.

00:09:59.760 They're working on biofuels and then a material called the phycocyanin, at least I think I'm pronouncing it right.

00:10:07.280 And that's a fancy way of saying the material that's used to make blue food coloring.

00:10:14.080 So that can be used in things like M&Ms.

00:10:16.820 So it's pretty awesome what's going on.

00:10:19.920 I think we need a lot more discourse on these examples.

00:10:23.460 They're positive.

00:10:24.260 We should be inspiring people.

00:10:25.560 I think if politicians talked about these examples more, you could get more exposure for these companies.

00:10:30.400 And with more exposure, it might be easier for them to attract some venture capital.

00:10:36.300 So if they can have more money, then they can expand their operations, maybe work on even more projects.

00:10:41.300 That's, I think, the way that we're going to address emissions in this country rather than sort of this doom and gloom discourse that dominates so much of how we discuss it.

00:10:51.840 Yeah.

00:10:52.340 So, I mean, at this point, a lot of this is still in its infancy.

00:10:55.020 And we're not obviously going to be able to drink ourselves into a carbon-free world.

00:10:58.440 But, I mean, a lot of people are willing to put in their best effort on it, I'm sure.

00:11:02.040 But this is how a lot of technology gets discovered that can be scalable and actually start making a very real impact on our carbon emissions from a number of industries, I imagine.

00:11:10.440 Oh, I think you're completely right.

00:11:13.240 This is – many of these companies, I think, are still in the early stages.

00:11:17.320 But they're getting better, just as most companies do.

00:11:19.980 Most companies don't start off like, you know, the Ford manufacturing plant in Ontario where it's just absolutely enormous.

00:11:25.400 Because you start off small, you develop your technology, you refine it, you continually make it better.

00:11:31.400 And as you sell more products, you have more money coming in that you can invest in new technology and new ideas and just keep getting better and better and better.

00:11:38.600 And like I said, I think one of the cool things about doing research for this report and seeing some of the examples my colleague found was that there's so many things happening right here in Canada.

00:11:49.860 And that's positive.

00:11:50.900 We need to talk about it more.

00:11:52.040 We need to think about how we can support this sector.

00:11:56.540 You know, I'll give you another example.

00:11:58.260 So often in – if you go on the federal government's website, you see how they give out research grants.

00:12:03.460 And at the same time, Ottawa keeps telling us that we're in a climate crisis.

00:12:08.080 Well, I know that in my own personal life when something is sort of at a crisis level, emergency level, that's what you focus on.

00:12:14.120 So why are we using federal research dollars to fund half of the crazy stuff that they're spending money on when those dollars could be used towards helping out in post-secondary institutions with channeling more students into research related to carbon tech instead of, you know, looking into, I don't know, 8th century Japanese haikus or some of the crazy stuff that you see Ottawa spending money on.

00:12:38.900 If it's an emergency and it's a crisis and it's an important issue, then start – it's time, I think, to start directing some of those research dollars towards this issue instead of some of the distractions.

00:12:49.440 Yeah, and as you said, it's great just to see something positive.

00:12:52.900 We're getting nothing but gloom and doom these days, whether it's the pandemic or the economy or you name it.

00:12:56.920 So, I mean, we've got to retain some faith.

00:12:59.160 We've got creative people out there.

00:13:00.700 We've got innovative people.

00:13:02.200 We have – problems do get solved.

00:13:04.420 I mean, they aren't insurmountable.

00:13:05.820 So I really appreciate you guys taking the time to show that list.

00:13:08.620 Like, there's a lot of things coming out of this, you know, positive things that can be made out of carbon.

00:13:13.420 And people have been trained to think it's a negative.

00:13:16.160 So you guys have some other stuff coming up.

00:13:18.820 Where can we find more information about what Second Street's up to and what can we look forward to in the future?

00:13:25.240 So if people go to our website, secondstreet.org, they can see all of our policy briefs, the one that we've been talking about.

00:13:31.580 We've done lots of research on health care, natural resource development.

00:13:35.100 We've got a lot of material coming out on that in the near future.

00:13:37.360 And we've also got a couple short little videos on this very topic so they can share them with their friends and provide some optimism out there instead of, you know, as we keep talking about the doom and gloom.

00:13:48.440 There's some good stuff happening.

00:13:49.580 We should talk about it.

00:13:50.360 We should tell our friends.

00:13:51.800 And that's how we're going to address this issue.

00:13:55.460 Right on.

00:13:56.140 Well, thanks again for coming on with me.

00:13:57.800 And I'm looking forward to talking to you again soon.

00:14:00.320 Thanks a lot, Corey.

00:14:01.320 It's always a pleasure.

00:14:01.920 Okay, I think that's out of the door.

00:14:09.820 Perfect.

00:14:10.520 Thank you, sir.

00:14:11.160 I appreciate that.

00:14:11.840 And if you flag it for me, if I don't see it once it's live, then I'll share it on our channels too.

00:14:18.860 Yeah, you bet.

00:14:19.380 And I'll send you a heads up.

00:14:20.340 And if you guys get anything, you know, coming out or breaking, hey, give me a line.

00:14:23.620 We're producing more now and get the word out.

00:14:26.780 Like I said, genuine.

00:14:27.960 Yeah, it is nice to see something positive.

00:14:29.480 You know, you guys came up with, well, these other people came up with it and you put it all together. 0.99

00:14:33.820 Like, guys, it doesn't all have to be shit. 0.98

00:14:36.700 Yeah, it's, I think it's necessary, especially for our side. 0.98

00:14:41.980 You know, we're always trying to talk about, well, what do you do with this issue?

00:14:44.720 It's a political issue.

00:14:45.700 It has to be addressed whether people like it or not.

00:14:47.720 I think this is a positive way of talking about it rather than, you know, some of the other things that people have brought up.

00:14:54.600 But anyway, we'll stay in touch on this.

00:14:58.860 And I appreciate the chance to chat with you and your audience.

00:15:02.180 Great.

00:15:02.380 Sounds good.

00:15:02.800 Thanks, Carl.

00:15:03.580 Okay.

00:15:04.040 Take care, sir.

00:15:04.660 Take care, sir.

Western Standard - December 22, 2021

Cory Morgan Show - Colin Craig

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