“There's a natural chemical reaction that takes place between the fizzy water and the basalt deep underground,” Charles explains. “It’s mineralized safely away. It cannot leak. It's very promising. What we have in Iceland is currently a pilot plant, small scale capturing and storing just 50 tons a year. But within the next 12 months, we’ll be expanding operations and capacity in Iceland for larger scale capture and storage of CO2.”
Charles says she expects that in the years to come, the biggest challenge will be scaling up. “In the last 10 years, we have achieved quite a nice scale up from these milligrams of CO2 on a lab scale. Now we’re capturing thousands of tons of CO2. The challenge lies in replicating that same kind of scale up—moving from capturing thousands of tons to hundreds of thousands, and at some point, millions, even billions of tons to become truly climate relevant.”
Charles said she feels like we may be at a turning point where green tech is starting to attract more support and attention. “What was instrumental and pivotal for our technology, looking back to two years ago, were various climate reports that came out. We had these climate scientists stating really explicitly for the first time that this kind of technology is needed to make global climate targets. That has triggered a wave of support across the board, including from the private sector. Also, corporations are setting very ambitious climate targets, and including direct capture technology in their portfolio of solutions.”
Teaching students to use AI for good
As CEO of AI4ALL, Tess Posner is on a mission to make sure artificial intelligence is developed responsibly—and that more diverse people will have a hand in shaping the direction of the industry.
“We know that AI technology is one of the most critical forces that will impact every industry in every part of our economy, and will get incorporated into our everyday life,” says Posner. “Over 80% of Americans use AI technology regularly, according to Gallup. A lot of times, it might be in ways you don't even realize, because it's really becoming more common.”
What Posner finds most interesting about AI is that it's powering decision-making systems. Increasingly, it’s becoming incorporated into interviews and hiring policies, financial systems, and even credit scoring algorithms.
“At the same time, we've seen all this research about racial and gender bias creeping into AI systems,” says Posner. “On the one hand, AI is becoming more embedded into the ways that people access key aspects of the economy, like employment or credit. On the other hand, there are issues of race and gender bias. That's a huge problem that could exacerbate existing equity issues in the economy and marginalize certain groups.”
Posner believes part of the solution is solving the diversity crisis. “Our mission is to foster the next generation of diverse leaders in AI and ensure that we have voices shaping this technology that truly represent our society,” she explains. “With that, we’ll see a more creative set of solutions, and a wider array of problems being solved with AI. It will mitigate some of these issues by having the right people in the room who can make equitable decisions.”