The Exchanges

Q Okay, so where did you land? What's the, what's the new, what's better than sulfur?

A Yeah, so, so, so we believe there is a better solution than sulfur, and essentially we came up, we designed two kinds of particles, which have, which one of them is composed of amorphous silica. Just to give you a sense, amorphous silica of the type that we're using is used in toothpaste, is food additive, is naturally occurring, And the other one is a composite particle composed of a core of amorphous silica surrounded by a shell of calcite. Calcite is a material that you can find in, in limestone, in eggshells, and so, so the idea was to develop particles that are composed of materials that are naturally occurring, that are known to be safe, And a few additional features that they have is that they are much better than sulfur in making sure that you don't negatively impact the ozone layer. They are much more inert, and they're biodegradable, which means that once these particles fall on the ground, essentially they recycle back into the natural cycle, becoming again structured material for, for these natural creatures, because One of the things you want to make sure is that you don't end up with bioaccumulation, you know, after 50 years understanding that these things piled up and you have no good way to, to get rid of it. So, so we believe that having something that naturally biodegrades is, is very important.

AI assessment note: “we designed two kinds of particles, which have, which one of them is composed of amorphous silica”

Q What do we know about effectiveness? Um, obviously we, we won't know until you, until you do it at scale entirely, but in principle, relative to sulfur, should you be able to get the same amount of reflection with more particles, less particles? How should we think about that?

A So the short answer is that this is pretty similar. Our article, to be very, very straightforward, is not much better than sulfate with respect to the effectiveness and not much worse than sulfate. So up to, I'd say, A few tens of percents, which is not a, it's kind of similar. One feature which is different in terms of the optical properties is that one of these particles, what we call this core shell particle, is much better in the sense that it does not hit the stratosphere. One of the features that you have with sulfate is that while it cools airs, It, it's the stratosphere, because to say it in a simple manner, it, it, it's, it acts itself as kind of a, a, an absorbing material to the infrared radiation that is outgoing from Earth. So the reason we came with the more, I'd say, sophisticated Korscher particle is to avoid this phenomenon, which enables you, if needed, To go to, to higher level of cooling. We believe that for, I would say, to provide cooling, which is comparable to the heating of the last 50 years, our simpler particle, the one which is composed of amorphous silica by itself is enough, but if you need to go higher, the second more complex particle is, is favorable.

AI assessment note: “So the short answer is that this is pretty similar.”

Q doing this at scale, are concerning. Which of those do you view as the, the The biggest deal, which are the ones that we really do need to watch out for, that you're the most concerned with, and relatedly, how are you planning to address and avoid those as you consider deployment? We'll get back to what it would take to actually deploy. But what should we be worried about?

A The short answer is that all of them. I think that only if you're able to eliminate or significantly mitigate all these side effects that you've mentioned and a few others, this should be worth the consideration of policymakers. And I'll elaborate with your permission a little bit. We, we just released one of the, we released a series of eight papers. The first one had to do exactly with the question you're asking. What is the set of Requirements, or what is the set of concerns you need to address in order to be able to establish the safety of this technology? And, and going to your list, I think it falls in three buckets. The first one, you've mentioned toxicity. I'd say more generally impacts on, on human health and the biosphere. And, and there are a bunch of them. The good news about them is that we have Well-established criteria for other use cases and protocol how to establish safety. So, so you don't need to invent new criteria. You can use the, the existing one. The second one is, I would say, impact on the chemistry or the composition of the stratosphere. You don't want to deplete the ozone layer. You don't want to end up with the stratosphere that is composed of other, uh, gases than, than you started with. And a few other considerations. And the third one, as you've mentioned, is climatic impacts. And, and you've mentioned some of the impacts on crops, the changes in…

AI assessment note: “The short answer is that all of them.”

Q do you think the governance should proceed? Who should dictate whether you are able to both, um, test, and as you said, you're going to try to test in a manner that is Responsible and starts at small scale, etc. But so who should be setting your path, first of all, and second of all, who should be determining whether we inject at the million ton scale at some point?

A Yeah, the short answer for both is governments in plural. I think that all decision making, exactly as you're saying, both with respect to the R&D and testing phase, and with respect to deployment should be done by governments. I don't believe there is any other way this could work. We would definitely not participate in any endeavor that won't be conducted under, I would say, Clear and strict regulation and adequate governance by governments. This is stated at our website. I keep saying it. Every interview, ah, our, our investors are aligned with this. This is a very, like, as much as it is important to us to develop a safe technology, it is important to us to make sure that this will be done the right way. By the way, I think it's also the prudent way to run this company. Uh, but also on, on the value perspective, I think this is the right way to do. I, I want to mention something short with respect to the beginning of your question saying it's very cheap. Anyone, not anyone, but any, many players can do it. I'd say there are many ways you can deploy this technology the wrong way. We started Stardust because we believed That governments need good options, right? Like if you want to start dispersing toxic material in the sky, you don't need stardust, you don't need all the sophistication, you don't need governance. So the, I believe that having a safe option essentially lowers…

AI assessment note: “the short answer for both is governments in plural.”

Q regional. They can be pretty big, obviously, uh, you know, you can, you can see an effect that crosses from one region of the world to another, but in practice, for you, if you want to create this Global cooling effect. Do you need to be injecting at a series of locations simultaneously around the world to get the global blanket? Is that actually how it would work in practice?

A So, yes, you're right. The short answer is that it's preferable to, if at some point we do deployment, and again, we'll probably talk later on who decides on deployment, who perform deployment, but you'll, you'll probably, uh, They want to do it from, I would say, more than one location. Exactly for, for the point that you're making to get a more optimal coverage. In fact, ideally, Shell, you'd like to cancel as accurately as you can the warming effect of greenhouse gases, because if you're doing this, you are, I would say, restoring Past conditions, and, and this is a very good way to either eliminate or, or mitigate some of the unintended consequences. So, so, so bottom line, yeah, you'd like, you don't need many places or many, uh, points of, uh, injections. You'd probably like a few in the, a northern hemisphere, a few in the southern hemisphere. I would say two or three on each hemisphere, and maybe one around the equator. Should be enough. There is another point, which I think is worth mentioning, which has to do with it. One of the problems with, with sulfates, apart from, from what we've been discussing, is the fact that you cannot do testing at small scale of sulfates. And the reason for this, since this is something sometimes people overlook, is the very high background that you have currently at the stratosphere, you have like few 100,000 tons of sulfates and it's fl…

AI assessment note: “two or three on each hemisphere, and maybe one around the equator. Should be enough.”

Q increasingly clear that it is possible, and that the costs are roughly what we think that they will be, that it creates sort of a disincentive to take the other actions to decarbonize that are necessary. Why would we figure out a new way to make steel or cement if we can just Get a half a degree of cooling for ten billion dollars. Like, how do you frame that?

A First of all, I think it's a very valid concern to, to, to state it out loud and clear. I will add to it, this is the moral hazard, right? If we do this, we, the incentive to do other things, it goes down. I will add to this, there is also a moral imperative. The moral imperative, and, and, and they want to, to, to balance both concepts, but the moral imperative essentially says, how do I make sure that if governments need to evaluate options, say in five or 10 years, They have good options on the table, right? And, and, and you need to balance these two. This is the real world. You need to, ah, ah, ah, ah, deal with the moral asset, and I'm not saying it's an easy problem. I, I know that people are working about ideas, you know, pre, ah, ah, providing technology only to governments who are actually following, you know, emission reduction, ah, ah, ah, ah, A goals or a other, other options of combining the two technologies one way or the other in, in a bucket. But I would say you always need to, it's, it's always a game of alternatives and, and you need to, to balance this moral hazard, which is a serious concern with the moral imperative, making sure, you know, that when, when our kids are at our age, Right? They have a word which is more or less as good as the one we got from, from our parents. I would argue that, you know, Having no option is not a good balance for this. You …

AI assessment note: “balance this moral hazard, which is a serious concern with the moral imperative”

Q All right, let's start with a walkthrough of the technology itself. What are you actually planning to do, and how's it going to work?

A Okay, so first of all, let's start by saying, Shell, this is not a new concept, right? I know that you had several episodes discussing it. We didn't invent the concept. So, so maybe taking one step back, I'll walk through the concept very quickly, and then What we believe is unique about our technology and our approach. So the idea essentially is to create a shielding layer. I, I often like to think about it kind of, you know, the ozone layer, which is protecting airs and, uh, uh, composed of, uh, ozone molecules and protecting us from malicious sun rays. So to add one additional layer, which we planned it will be composed by, by status particles and will protect us from overeating. By reflecting a tiny portion of, of incoming sunlight. Less than one percent is enough to essentially stabilize temperature, and you can even take temperature down a little bit. So, so this is the, the fundamental concept, and when we came across it the first time, it was like four years ago, First of all, we were very curious. At that time, the option that people were discussing was sulfuric acid. And the reason is that this is what volcanoes emit when, and whenever there is a volcanic eruption, which is powerful enough, it creates a similar effect naturally. These tiny particles go, go above the weather layer, Create the shielding layer, and this way, a stabilized temperature. And I think the firs…

AI assessment note: “to add one additional layer, which we planned it will be composed by, by status particles”