Natural Carbon Capture & Sequestration at the Carbon Institute - Dr. Jeff Creque

Have you ever dreamed of an approach to carbon capture and sequestration that can be deployed anywhere, and has many years of demonstrated success? It turns out farmers have been employers using this technology – plants – for thousands of years.

Dr. Jeff Creque is a co-founder of the Marin Carbon Project and the Carbon Cycle Institute, where he serves as Director of Rangeland and Agroecosystem Management.  Jeff provides senior leadership on carbon farming and land management, informed by thirty-five years of applied experience and theoretical training. He is an agricultural and rangeland consultant and a Natural Resources Conservation Service certified nutrient management planning specialist and technical service provider.

Jeff’s organizational affiliations include: Founding Board Member, Alliance for Local Sustainable Agriculture (Marin); Co-Founder, Bolinas-Stinson Beach Resource Recovery Project; Agricultural Director, Apple Tree International; Co-Founder, West Marin Compost Coalition.

Jeff holds a PhD in Rangeland Ecology from Utah State University, and is a California State Board of Forestry Certified Professional in Rangeland Management.

Transcript

Greg Williams: 0:09

Thanks to our listeners for joining us for another episode of climate money watchdog. And thanks especially to our guest, Dr. Jeff Creek. Jeff is a co founder of the marine Carbon Project and the Carbon Cycle Institute where he serves as the Director of range land and agro ecosystem management. Jeff provides senior leadership on carbon farming and land management informed by 35 years of applied experience in theoretical training. He's an agricultural and rangeland consultant, and a Natural Resources Conservation Service certified Nutrient Management Planning Specialist and technical service provider. Jeff's organizational affiliations also include being a founding member of the alliance for local sustainable agriculture of Bergen County, co founder of the Molina Stinson Beach resource recovery project, agricultural director for the apple tree appletree, international organization, co founder of West Marin compost, I'm sorry, and co founder of The West Marin compost coalition. Jeff holds a PhD in range land ecology from Utah State University, and is a California State Board of forestry Certified Professional in range land management. Jeff, is there anything else you'd like to say about yourself before we get started?

Dr. Jeff Creque: 1:30

That's a that's a adequately sufficient introduction. Thank you.

Unknown: 1:35

All right, skimming the high points.

Dina Rasor: 1:39

Okay, I just wanted to get into a little bit of introduction, my Of course, the person that introduced him was Greg Williams, we always forget to say who we are case people. And my name is Dina razor. And we both run the climate money watchdog, which is made to what we want to do is watch the climate money because there are a lot of it's not a kumbaya situation anymore with all this money. And we want the the climate people to understand there's going to be a lot of sharks circling the water for this money. And we want to make sure it's spent right the first time and spent well, because as all three of us couldn't agree, there's no more there's no more do overs. On climate money. We're running out of time. But I wanted to look at CCS, which is carbon capture and sequestration, they've added a U to it now, but I just am so tired every time I keep changing it. It's CC U. S, sometimes and sometimes CCS but we're going to use CCS, carbon capture and sequestration. And that is finding some way whether you do it the direct source, like a coal plant, or a cement plant, or whatever, you capture the carbon there, out of the smokestacks. As of right now, it leaves a lot, it still leaves a lot of the other unsavory pollution, like mercury and things like that. And you, you, there's several ways to do it. And I'm not going to get into that. But it you carbon, capture the carbon, you change it so that it can be under pressure in pipelines, then you have to build this massive amount of pipelines, where you either use it to extract more oil app out, which nobody wants to do anymore. But now the big thing is you're going to go put it in underground caves, kind of like what we do with nuclear waste. But its carbon, carbon dioxide is highly when it's highly pressurized, like that is we're finding out is very dangerous. And pipelines, it's scary. And we're going to be having a program on that in the future. So that is what they call engineering. It's what they call engineering, CCS. And what Jeff does is, is he's working on a new thing that I hadn't really heard much of till I happened on to him, other than the let's plan a million, trillion tree people. And it's yeah, it's the idea of what they call natural CCS. And I was listening to a carbon capture doe event yesterday, it was hours an hour or so but I kind of listened to it. And they started mentioning it. And when they had the two investor people on it, saying what are you most excited about carbon capture and sequestration and most of them you're literally talking about the pipeline or finding the technology to put it under thing. But the both of those people who were in the in were investment people said we think carbon farming is where is the most exciting thing we've heard. And I thought, Oh, I've got to tell Jeff because and I will send you the name of those two people if you're interested. So anyway, he is doing he is working on carbon farming, and has a test farm out in Marin County, which I'm just on the other side of the bridge on. I'm near Berkeley. So but it's a, I was impressed with that how far it was. And you really need to go to his website, which we will have on our blog. So that you can see the great illustrations, I learned so much about carbon fiber thing in just a short time. So that's the thing that we wanted to talk about. With Jeff today. And I wanted to start out by being obvious this please describe your your organization, which is I'm blanking on carbon cycle, Institute CCI to many things. Please describe what CCI does and its goals.

Dr. Jeff Creque: 6:06

Sure. Yeah, thank you. TCA is really focused on engaging agriculture as a climate change solution. You you suggest to do that. This is something new, actually, we've got three and a half billion years of r&d behind this work. When when photosynthesis emerged, as life evolved on planet Earth, this incredible capacity of growing plants to pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and then use it to build their own protoplasm. And of course, feed all the other organisms on the planet has emerged as a incredible, miraculous really process. And what what we talked about carbon farming is really simply consciously as as agricultural producers, consciously managing working lands in a way that increases their capacity to capture and utilize that atmospheric co2. So CCI really looks at we really looked at the landscape and said, Well, how do we effectively scale this kind of work? You know, it's great. We can we can we know we can do this on farm, we've got some great research that emerged from the Marine Carbon Project work, which started back in 2006 or so in collaboration with UC Berkeley, Jeep biogeochemist researchers. But how do we scale this? And we we looked at the landscape and said, Well, what happened in the 1930s, with the dustbowl, we had a really significant federal response to that crisis. And out of that came the Soil Conservation Service. And subsequently, the Civilian Conservation Corps, and the county level resource conservation districts or conservation districts or Soil and Water Conservation Districts, depending on where in the country you're located. And we thought, Well, why can't we harness that existing institutional framework to scale this work nationally. And so that's really been our focus, really, for the last decade or so is engaging our local resource conservation districts and our local agricultural producers in this effort to increase carbon capture on farm carbon capture and utilization? I would say because what we understand is that increasing carbon capture on farm essentially nicely aligns with producer goals to increase productivity, increased soil fertility, increased soil water holding capacity, and increased biodiversity on farm. So bringing this all together under this umbrella of carbon farming is really what we're all about.

Dina Rasor: 8:53

Okay, then. So explain your the CCI is farming model. I mean, where is it as an actual farm? You know, how many acres How much do you produce? Or are you have it on a bunch of other little test farms out? How are you doing that?

Dr. Jeff Creque: 9:08

So we're we started off with some very intensive research on a couple of different sites in California, one on the coast and in Marin County and one up in the Sierra foothills. One of the UC experiment stations that that initial very intensive you know, plot scale research evolved into farm scale, applied work, first and Marin County, then across the nine Bay Area, resource conservation districts and now we're working with 42 conservation districts across California and several other states across the across the country. So we're we're not we do not run a farm. We engage farm producers and resource conservation districts in partnership to develop what we call carbon farm plans, which are well farm conservation plans focused on the increasing the capacity of the individual farm To capture and utilize carbon on farm

Greg Williams: 10:07

it's worth saying that a lot of the engineered carbon capture and sequestration, sequestration solutions struggle to achieve basic function and they introduce all kinds of new hazards and tremendous costs. We have very different starting point here with the the the approach that you're talking about, if you just leave land alone, it will convert it will capture carbon dioxide and store it in the ground. And in the language of of industrial safety it is it has a passive safety model, you don't need to actively shut it down. If there's an approaching hurricane or something to prevent a meltdown. It's capable of being safe without being supplied with electrical power or being staffed. It is it is a profoundly important advanced and safe starting point than these engineered solutions.

Dr. Jeff Creque: 11:09

I would I would certainly agree, Greg. And I would. And I would emphasize that there is the opportunity with intentional and informed management to exceed the natural what you might call the unassisted carbon capture rate on working lands. And that's where carbon farming really comes into the picture. Because we we recognize that, yes, natural ecosystems, of course, naturally capture and sequester carbon. But we know that through management activities, we can increase the rate at which carbon is pulled from the atmosphere, and transferred into plant biomass and ultimately into the biodiversity and productivity of that landscape. And that's really, you know, that's the, maybe the difference here between an engineered approach, which is geared toward removing carbon dioxide from the global carbon cycle, essentially taking it out of the global carbon cycle. Whereas we're saying, No, we're part of that cycle. And we want to utilize that carbon for the development of the advancement of our working landscapes, and the the the increase in their productivity and fertility.

Dina Rasor: 12:19

Okay, then then, how do you explain a little bit? You know, the website has some great illustrations, but we're in a podcast. So explain a little bit how, you know, everyone always said, Well, you can't, you know, you can put plant trees, but if you cut the trees down, that releases the carbon, and if you do this, you know, if you do that, but there are certain crops that, you know, like the, the worst thing is that we're spending 50% of the corn grown in Iowa, goes to ethanol, which is crazy, because corn takes a lot of fertilizer and work and you know, transportation and, and when you add that all up, that little 10%, or 20%, they put in the gas in burn doesn't make up for nearly all the combines and everything. But there are there are types of plants, you know, types of crops, and I understand and certain types of crops. I've even heard that you've been talking about feeding seaweed cattle now so that they don't burp so much methane, believe it or not, that is a big problem. And so, explain a little bit about how you, you know, you are going to you are going to harvest crops when you cut them down. Are you are you putting the carbon back in the atmosphere? How is it see being sequestered?

Dr. Jeff Creque: 13:41

Yeah, great question. So. So there's, there are a number of what I would call, you know, tried and true conservation practices. Again, taking a page from the the Soil Conservation Service, there are at least three, three or four dozen time tested conservation practices that result in a net increase in system carbon drawn from the atmosphere transformed into plant biomass. And as you say, if you plant a tree and 20 years later, you cut it down and burn it. Yes, you've returned much of that carbon to the atmosphere. But actually, you haven't returned at all because a portion of that stays in the ground as the roots of the tree as well as all the carbon that tree dropped in its leaf fall over those 20 years, all of the carbon that was transferred through root exudates to the soil ecosystem around that tree and ultimately into soil biota. So fungi soil bacteria, in this very complex carbon rich portion of the soil we call the rhizosphere the zone around the plant root. So you raise an important point when you talk about the ethanol equation because we do have to look at the full lifecycle Have these practices and say, well, are Is this a net benefit? Or are we kidding ourselves? Are we just Is this a perpetual motion machine, that actually doesn't work. But what we see is that, again, going back three and a half billion years, what we have seen is a steady accumulation of carbon in the biosphere over that time period, which is why we have the enormous reserves of fossil fuels, right, all of that is carbon dioxide that was pulled from the atmosphere by plants, and transformed, ultimately, over time into these fossil fuels. So we have this huge bank of carbon stored in the earth, in our soils, in our forests, our working lands are grasslands. It's an enormous reserve of carbon, which we, in our infinite wisdom are rapidly burning up, right. And that's, that's how we built our industrial civilization. That's how we managed to feed or try to feed a half billion people on the planet. But what we know and understand very well now is that we have drawn heavily on those carbon reserves to the point now, where we have vastly depleted them, not just the fossil fuel reserves, which of course, we are burning as rapidly as we possibly can to our own detriment. But also our soil, our soil carbon, particularly, which is why we've lost an estimated at 50 to 80% of our soil organic matter globally, due to our land management practices, up to a third of the surplus carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today is a direct result of the way we have managed or I should say, mismanaged our natural and working lands, and whether that's cutting down our forests, burning the Amazon, plowing up our deep, rich prairie soils, on and on, much of that excess co2 in the atmosphere is a direct result of our discharge of biospheric carbon to the atmosphere. And so the opportunity there is to at least capture recapture that 27 30% That came from our working lands. And as we now understand, we can even do better than that. So the opportunity is there. The question is, will we will we take the necessary steps to actually realize that opportunity?

Dina Rasor: 17:28

Yeah, and then the question is, then, the other thing is the one thing then you think about United States is you think about the, you know, there are farms all over the country, but that, you know, the the really productive farms, the ones that really feed us in the rest of the world of courses in the Great Plains. And I'm just wondering if the, if you could, can this modeling scale up large enough for a agribusiness kind of farm in the Midwest, where they have huge combines when they're addicted to corn? And you know, you're trying to get them to grow something else? Is there a way to, to scale it up? So could you possibly put to these large agribusiness farms, which probably, you know, use tons of fertilizer and which is another carbon problem and, you know, pollution problem? And and all the things up to that what you're doing now on a smaller scale?

Dr. Jeff Creque: 18:37

Well, that is the question, right do we do is that the model of agriculture, it's actually going to feed the world long term. Know that those large industrialized farm systems work because of their intensive use of fossil fuels, whether it's in those large combines and tractors or in the production of synthetic fertilizer. So we talked about efficiencies. But when we really look closely at those systems, we say, well, they're efficient because we have externalized, the actual costs, the actual environmental costs associated with those large farms. So if we begin to if we really take a lifecycle assessment perspective, and we say what are the actual costs to society, of that model of agriculture, we find it maybe it's actually not doing what we think it is, it may be producing large quantities of grain, but at what cost to soils, climate, human health, the health of our of our groundwater, our surface water, our, our oceans. All of these costs which we have externalized if we in fact, make connect the dots between our and Industrial agricultural system and the global environmental crisis, we see a nexus there, which needs to be accounted for, and that we're not currently accounting for it. So the question is, can we feed the world with a carbon focused approach to agriculture? I think the real question is, can we feed continue to feed the world with a model we're using? And the answer, I think, is unequivocally No. Because as we can see, the biosphere is in is in real collapse at this time.

Dina Rasor: 20:30

Yeah, well, they call it Earth overreach. In other words, where you're taking out more than the Earth can replenish back in. But I was, so I'm also wondering on that, what about what about now you have to be certified to be an organic farmer and you know, have organic food and stuff? And I'm sure there's all kinds of cheating and stuff on that. That's just the investigator and me but but do organic farms do fare better in their practices and closer to your mere farming model than the big agri businesses? Or do they are when you get a label that says organic? It's not as kumbaya as you think it might be? I

Dr. Jeff Creque: 21:18

know, cci is more or less agnostic on will work with any farmer. And the the, the operative concept for us is, what's the net flow of carbon in that farm system? Is it into the farm or out of the farm? Now, look at the history of organic farming, and you go all the way back to Sir Albert Howard or Fred Sykes. Any of the early organic farmers, organic farming really was carbon farming, the focus on building soil organic matter as the key to farm fertility, right, we've kind of lost that perspective with the USDA Organic Program, that that has somehow faded into sort of a, you know, a footnote somewhere in the in the in the ranks. But the reality is that organic farming and carbon farming in terms of their origins, I think, are very, very similar. is organic farming carbon farming today, it can be and and there are certainly situations where we see organic farms that are not necessarily optimizing their carbon capture potential.

Dina Rasor: 22:30

Okay, then let's start talking about money. I happen to see today that the infrastructure bill is putting six, at least at least, and Greg and I think we can find more at least $6 billion into the engineering, engineering, CCS. And I'm wondering, I know you're working with local communities and governments, Have you received any money from the state of California.

Dr. Jeff Creque: 23:05

We have. Indirectly, we work with, as I said earlier, we work with conservation districts, and individual farmers. And there are a number of grant programs through various institutions, agencies in California, whether it's Department of Food and egg Wildlife Conservation Board, the Coastal Conservancy, they are all providing funding for carbon farming at this point. And so we will partner with a resource conservation district, for example, that is developing its carbon farm program, and then we will contract with them as a as a contractor to assist them in building up their carbon farm program. So in that sense, we do we have received state funds, and also through the USDA very similarly. For example, we partnered a few years back on a Regional Conservation Partnership Program Grant, in our area, engaged nine resource conservation districts and we were a partner on that grant. So we have received both federal and state funds, but generally obliquely as as contractors, with with conservation districts.

Greg Williams: 24:11

So just the the tally I came to, for the amount of money just in the in the initial $850 billion. That's listed on the bill.gov website for the Biden's initial infrastructure program was $12 billion for an engineered carbon capture and sequestration solutions. That's more than twice the entire amount that was sent through the Department of Agriculture, most of which has much more to do with wildfire mitigation than it does with with direct carbon, capture carbon optimization solutions. And then I'd further point out that even at $12 billion, is dwarfed by the amount of money we're spending on so adding people to the moon again. So I really want to salute your approach to making use not only of practices and technologies that have been around for billions of years. But these human institutions that have been around for what's now approaching a century to find useful resources in useful quantities to make significant positive changes towards improving our carbon footprint.

Dr. Jeff Creque: 25:31

Yeah, thanks, Greg. And there's no question, you know, that we could use more funding. For example, state California, does not provide core annual funding for its conservation districts. Now, some states do. California does not. So our our partners in the resource conservation districts are constantly scrambling and even competing among themselves for very limited grant funding. And we would strongly argue for significant state funding to make sure that those conservation districts have the capacity on a permanent ongoing basis to provide the technical assistance to their regional producers to actually do this work at scale.

Dina Rasor: 26:13

And have you have you been hearing through the grapevine and these various groups that ended up hiring you that there may this the States or the federal grant grants, is there any noise from Washington at all that, that anyone's beginning to realize that this might be a smarter thing than having pipelines that can blow? co2 pipelines blow up spectacularly? I've seen pictures of the the idea of maybe the we should be spending more money on this. Is there any? Are there any environmental groups or anybody else who are starting to pick up on this? Or is this still flying and pretty under the radar?

Dr. Jeff Creque: 26:56

I think it's it's definitely getting some traction. In fact, there was a grant offering just a few months ago, put out by USDA a billion dollars soliciting ideas for how to support essentially support carbon farming in the United States. And the idea here is that they're seeking whatever ideas can come to the table, they want people to put forward and I My understanding is that for that $1 billion solicitation, I think they got$18 billion in requests for support. So you can see a huge and growing interest in this work from and it's coming all the way from, you know, industrial food companies, you know, Kellogg, you know, bear on, you know, all of them, all the way down to the resource conservation district level and even individual farmers. So, definitely, this is a grow a very rapidly growing area of interest, I would say, including the USDA.

Dina Rasor: 28:01

Do you see more? Do you see more of the money coming from private industry private investment people or the the federal and state?

Dr. Jeff Creque: 28:12

I, at this point, see more money coming from the federal and state? Most of our funding is philanthropic. So we've been well supported by of philanthropic foundations, and others doing this work have also been supported by philanthropy. But I think if we looked at the broad scope, it would probably balance out with the with government funding, probably exceeding that at this point. Now there are folks talking about investment opportunities in carbon farming or this type of approach. And that that is an emerging discussion, I guess, more even than an opportunity at this point. But I think there is more and more discussion around investment in what some have called regenerative agriculture as a as an investment opportunity, and that's, that seems to be a growing area of interest.

Greg Williams: 29:12

To what extent is that dependent on there being an active carbon credit market, in other words, is part of the economic model selling carbon credits to

Dr. Jeff Creque: 29:24

it? It could be but the reality is that when you look at the the agricultural, carbon market, you're looking at values for carbon dioxide of anywhere from a few dollars to maybe $25 a ton. And at that level, you basically don't even break even as a producer, trying to do the work, comply with the verification and monitoring requirements that go along with those kinds of protocols. You'll there are a few ag protocols under the California cap and trade system. Totally And unutilized, completely unutilized. And because it's simply not worth a candle for a producer to engage with those protocols. So until we see a real price on carbon, carbon dioxide of current social cost of carbon, and I think federally is currently $51. The reality is that, you know, when we, when we look at other sources, we see values as high as $600 a tonne. So it's point, the real value of carbon capture on farm capture and utilization, I would say on farm has to be recognized and hopefully rewarded accordingly. And that, of course, is one of the several of our farming partners have said, Hey, if you pay me the real price of doing this work, I will do it in spades. But if we're not getting paid, it's really hard to justify the extra effort involved. So now, the exception there is that some of our producers have seen real significant increases in their production, they seen increases in their the market value of their products, because they can tell a story around that product that gives them a premium for it. And again, just the onfarm benefits in increased productivity, increased water holding capacity, increased drought resilience in California is huge and growing, of course. So there are real, both ecological and economic benefits to implementing carbon farm practices. But at the at the social level, if you will, a socio economic level, we're not seeing a too much recognition of those values.

Dina Rasor: 31:45

What about in the Midwest? You know, I, I've spent time in the Midwest and Kentucky, Ohio, places like that. And they don't like anything new?

Dr. Jeff Creque: 31:58

Well, there is there is some interesting work going on. I know the Corn Growers Association, and some of the big commodity soy corn. Those folks are getting into the carbon market because they're you're talking about acreage, that to where that low price for carbon adds up to the point where it's worth it to them. And so they've partnered with, as I mentioned earlier, some of the large corporate ag groups and develop their own programs. So that is happening that is happening for those now. They tend to be focused on single practices like implementing cover crops, for example. Not that those aren't valuable and useful. And in fact, do you see Quester additional carbon, but our approach is to take a whole farm approach, look at all the opportunities, not just individual practices, but whole farm approach, and try to identify all the opportunities on farm for carbon for enhanced carbon capture. And those numbers tend to be much larger than, say implementing a cover crop, even if you're implementing a cover crop on, you know, 15,000 acres. So there's, there's parallel, I would say they're parallel efforts, but quite distinct.

Dina Rasor: 33:10

Okay, and from a from a environmental and safety point of view, and how safe is carbon farming, to the environment and also to the workers and everything else compared to the CCS in coal plants, where you're scrubbing out carbon and putting in the pipelines and then shoving it underground? Because that is one of the things that I see as a potential nightmare to engineering, CCS is they will have to build more pipelines than what we have right now in oil pipelines. Now, that's going to happen, right? I mean, I just know that they blurred in there. And they're actually more dangerous than oil pipelines, because they blow up but what I can't imagine anything and carbon farming that's dangerous if you're not using the chemicals and, you know, and all the other things that you know, if you're not even using the big the big combines and things. Yeah, I'd

Dr. Jeff Creque: 34:14

be hard pressed to identify safety risks associated with photosynthetic captured carbon dioxide. Yeah, I think it's kind of a no contest. They're very low risk, I would say. I'm sure there must be some risks somewhere. I haven't seen it but we'll assume it's not zero. But yeah, it's it's apples and oranges as far as

Dina Rasor: 34:38

what about what apart from pollution point of view? Because of course, you know, the pollution potential is very high on the other.

Dr. Jeff Creque: 34:46

Yeah, I, if anything, what we see when we begin to increase the carbon content of our soils, we tend to increase their catonian exchange capacity, in other words, their capacity to hang on to nutrients. So we see our soils becoming less Lee, we see less nitrogen and phosphorus, for example, leaving the farm in in groundwater surface water. And we have the opportunity by implementing carbon farming at scale to alleviate the need for such things as synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, for example. And here we are. In California where we import into the state, nearly half a billion tons of, of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer every year, about 71% of that amount ends up in our groundwater. So we say what are we what are we actually doing here? You know, we, we are taking advantage of this enormous resource that we have, both in the atmosphere in terms of atmospheric nitrogen and atmospheric carbon, but also just our waste resources in California. And we've seen some movement, SB 1383, which is requiring the diversions and a bill to composting and ultimately, we hope onto agricultural soils. And there's, you know, there's an emerging awareness at the state level, that this, this solution addresses so many ancillary issues across the state, so many environmental issues that are tied to our failure to manage our carbon resources. So by turning our attention to the central role, and I emphasize the central role of carbon in our working land dynamics, if we can understand that, understand the centrality of carbon in our farming system systems, we can begin to move this entire thing in the right direction. So that's really our focus is building that carbon literacy amongst our producers and our and our technical service providers.

Dina Rasor: 36:50

What's your thinks of beer as your is your biggest challenge right now, and getting people to go mainstream and having go mainstream and farming and everything else? You know, because I was, I was sort of surprised that, you know, I've been researching the stuffer for a year now and I have not run into this. And of course, then I surprised that they were mentioning it at the CCS thing and Doa did. What do you think's the biggest challenge and how, how confident are you that you can capture some interest in Washington, maybe if you've got big ag behind you, you're better off than that will fight off big fossil fuel.

Dr. Jeff Creque: 37:34

I think we have the interest in Washington. And we've had it actually for a couple decades. But you know, as politics shifts in Washington, we see emphasis shifting to other things right now I think we see a shift back towards a focus on the potential for carbon farming, whatever you want to call it as a really significant opportunity for for American agriculture. Our biggest challenge is, as I kind of mentioned earlier, is this lack of what I would call carbon cycle literacy. So folks don't actually understand this stuff. And once they get it, which is kind of where we come in, because that's our entire focus is really on education around carbon, the carbon cycle and carbon farming. When when I watch the light bulb go on for a producer, once that that light comes on, it doesn't go off. I mean, once a producer really understands that, since the central role of their relationship with atmospheric carbon dioxide in their farming system, once that understanding is there, that producer takes the ball and runs with it. And we've seen producers do things we didn't even think of advancing their own capacity on farm to their benefit, their direct economic benefit, and ecological benefit to capture additional carbon from the atmosphere, seeing that that excess co2 in the atmosphere as a as a resource as an opportunity to build fertility and productivity on their land. And that's that's really the those are the kind of joyful moments in this work where you see that transition happen.

Dina Rasor: 39:15

Do you have any members of Congress that are sort of excited about this or ready to go or want to want to try this to see about increasing it, and especially in the Midwest states or whatever?

Dr. Jeff Creque: 39:28

Yeah, and I know, I'm not gonna be able to pull up names right now. But there's at least, you know, a dozen or so elites, who we've been in communication with over the years. I just watched a webinar the other day with National Academy, and there were two representatives, federal representatives on that call one one Democrat and one Republican, both clearly very supportive of this approach. So definitely a there is awareness in what in Washington, of all of us.

Greg Williams: 40:05

So before we stray too far from it, do you want to go back and share one of those stories with us about a particularly innovative way of capturing more carbon carbon invented by one of your producers?

Dr. Jeff Creque: 40:18

Sure. One of our one of our folks here, and in Marin County, in fact, we've had several Marion County producers engaged because this is where we started. So a lot of our work has happened here. You know, we started with a carbon farm plan, which outlined a series of opportunities, but but that producer then went on to begin to try a whole host of of soil additives from seawater, to just all kinds of things. And, and, and playing with grazing strategies for their their grass fed beef operation. And we began to see really rapid increase in soil organic carbon in response to these practices, which we had not included in the carbon farm plan, because, frankly, we weren't aware of them at that time. So there's one example we have another producer who, again, a grass fed beef producer, who really felt that planting trees in his pasture was going to be a real benefit to him. So he took on something which folks had talked about in our region, but nobody had done, which was developing the silver silver pasture, which is that integration of trees into a livestock grazing system. And he's now well down the road and beginning to see benefits from that as well. So the list goes on. But it's, it's, it's been really exciting to see. See that adaption of practices that go again, weren't necessarily part of that initial carbon farm plan.

Dina Rasor: 41:55

And one of the things that that stood out to me was the idea of, I guess, instead of having fencing your plant hedgerows. Explain that because you know, I, I've spent enough time in Ireland and England. You know, they that's all they have.

Dr. Jeff Creque: 42:10

Yep. Yeah. Well, that's, that's it's interesting, because when we talk about hedgerows in the United States, we're not usually talking about the kinds of hedgerows. You see. In England, for example, which is a an art right? It's a it's an art and a science has been dealt developed over hundreds of years, utilizing native species to develop what are livestock, impenetrable fences, essentially, but living fences. And the hedgerow concept in United States has been a little bit watered down, we tend to see hedgerows as kind of ornamental, we might use them as field boundaries, but they don't typically stop livestock movement. There are some folks who are starting to play with the idea of living fences, which is it's a much more challenging thing to do than just to plant a line of shrubs, obviously, on a fence line. But I've done some of that work myself playing with some species on the California coast. Seeing what I can do to build a livestock proof fence using Cody brush, for example. And and you know, it's a, it can't be done, it can't be done. We just We just haven't really done it in the United States. And if you remember back to the 1970s when Secretary of Ag Earl Butz declared that everybody should be planting fence over the fence row and people were tearing out their shelter belts and their windbreaks and their and their hedgerows to take advantage of the high price for wheat at the time. We lost a lot of ground during that period because those those well established windbreaks and shelter belts and hedgerows, had all been planted in the 30s and 40s. And all of a sudden, they were being torn out because people didn't see their value. And now we're looking back at that and saying, Hmm, maybe that wasn't such a smart thing to do. And maybe we should be replanting some of those.

Dina Rasor: 43:56

Sounds like a lot of this is you could use the phrase what old is old as new, it sounds like we're kind of going back to the you know, wouldn't must be surprised the Native American farming with much more much better than even organic but you know, they they knew they had to sustain the land and because when the Colonials came over, there was just so much land you could trash land and move west trash land and Midwest and I think the Dust Bowl was definitely a sign of that. So this this is not just helping and carbon This is really actually rebuilding the soil in our country, though it won't blow away and we'll be more productive and also helps in other environmental helps wildlife I'm sure and everything else to help helps environmental goals as well as climate goals.

Dr. Jeff Creque: 44:56

And again, it goes back to what is the meaning. What is the role of color Carbon, in our, in our, in our landscapes in our in our ecosystems, what is the role of carbon? Well carbon, if you will, is the is the mechanism by which solar energy comes into the biosphere. It's how we transfer that solar radiation, how we transform that solar radiation into biochemical energy upon which all life depends. So when we talk about increasing carbon capture from the atmosphere, we're also talking about increasing the movement of solar energy into our farm systems. In other words, we're increasing their capacity to do work, what kind of work well, producing food for one, but also producing biodiversity, holding on to water in our soils, all the things that we think of as environmental issues are driven by that potential to capture solar energy and transform it into all of the processes and structures that make up a functional ecosystem. So carbon in a way is it's shorthand for transfer of solar energy into our working landscapes. And that understanding is part of that that carbon cycle literacy that I was talking about earlier, once folks get that, then you begin to see the infinite possibility here. Because we're really talking about having our hand as a land manager on the most potent lever we could have, which is that flow of energy into our farm system. And we have substituted that solar energy for fossil fuel energy. And that's how we build our industrial agricultural system. But we see where that's taking us. And without an understanding of having taken a wrong turn, we can look back and say, Okay, let's let's try this other avenue. Let's try working with nature instead of against her. Right, that's really the challenge here.

Dina Rasor: 46:49

It doesn't, you can bet you don't have to spend as much money. One of the problems I've found, I've found over the years or looking at federal things that cheap and effective is not something that's it's going to sell because the whole idea is to get how to justify the largest amount of money you can get. And so, you know, that's there's just a lot of times when I there's something that seems obvious to the average person, this makes a lot of sense. But if you want if you understand what Washington lives and dies by it's the size of your budget, and cheap and effective does not make people very excited. But building pipelines. Now. That's a lot of jobs. And it's a lot of money. And that's a lot of money coming into my district. And you know, it's all this the same thing. But I think I think we're going to have to change our attitude because of, you know, there is no time left to mess around.

Dr. Jeff Creque: 47:45

I really I can say without even without having done the analysis that if if the Feds want to shift their spending from CCS to carbon farming, we can spend that money.

Dina Rasor: 48:01

All write him a letter and say, All right, Jennifer Granholm was saying, by the way, that you get building all these pipelines, and second, all this stuff out of the air. I don't what's amazing to me, is that in CCS is that there really hasn't been a successful plant. Yeah, they try to upscale, it just doesn't work. So

Greg Williams: 48:25

go ahead, ask the question directly, you know, how much could you change the the atmospheric carbon problem with$12 billion?

Dr. Jeff Creque: 48:37

Well, I can't answer that question, because I haven't done it. But But what I can say is, as I said earlier, about a third of the excess co2 in the atmosphere is an is a result of the way we have mismanaged the biosphere. So the opportunity to sequester a third of that, what is it now 420 parts per million, a third of the surplus, which is the difference between say 290 parts, and 420 parts per million. A third of that, we know we could re capture and use constructively in the restoration, rehabilitation and infant reinforcement of our our landscapes. What that would cost, of course, is is another question altogether. For California alone, we estimate that we need about $100 million annually 100 million annually, just to provide core support for our conservation districts. Now, scale that across the country, maybe begin to get a sense of the level of money needed just to just to get the conservation districts. Abell staffed up and able to do the technical assistance work that that our producers will need to get this stuff scaled on the ground. Then there's the need for a radically scaled up. Civilian Conservation Corps folks are talking about the climate corps, whatever we want to call it. There's enormous need for funding there. And then there's there's the NRCS budget, which really needs to be ramped up in order to, again, scale all the conservation work that goes along with implementing a carbon farm plan, not to mention the cost of writing those plans as well. So

Greg Williams: 50:25

the numbers I just heard you say, was $100 million a year? You know, that's what approximately one one hundreds, the $12 billion. They've allocated for carbon capture and sequestration, if you assume the California California, that was California, I know. But you know, let's say for the purpose of this discussion that the California is 150 If what we would need for the entire nation? I think we'll all agree that's pretty conservative.

Dina Rasor: 50:57

That's bigger than that. Yeah, it's, it's about it's

Dr. Jeff Creque: 51:01

mind you some states, some states already do this. California doesn't. But there are several states who do support their conservation today. So

Greg Williams: 51:13

but the overall point that I want to make is that the Department of Energy largely is going to spend $12 billion on demonstration projects, an amount of money that it sounds like, would, at some level, fully fund a national effort to make a significant turn in the direction of of carbon farming.

Dina Rasor: 51:35

That this money that we're talking about this 12 billion this is for demonstration projects for demonstration projects. And they had a they had back in the Obama administration, they had a bunch of demonstration projects on coal plants, and they had eight coal plants. And they had only only one that was actually built out of the eight. So all the money that they had done in planning the fact that you know, they had only one and then it had to shut down in a few years. So out of those eight demonstration projects, they all failed. There's money all that didn't work. And so what did they do? They turn around now and say, Okay, now we're gonna have bigger demonstrate restoration projects, which they haven't, the concept just hasn't been proven, either privately or not. And, you know, we can argue all day, but I am the most concerned about pipelines a you know, the All you got to do, we can put it up on our blog is to watch a small pipeline explosion, co2 pipeline explosion, it is. It is a sobering.

Greg Williams: 52:41

So I want to make sure that we have time for any closing questions or remarks as we approach the turn of the hour. I know I found this very informative. But Jeff, are there any final comments you want to make? Or Dean or do you have any questions? You haven't had a chance to to ask,

Dina Rasor: 52:58

you know, Jeff, go ahead. I want to hear what you Well, my words, I think words.

Dr. Jeff Creque: 53:06

Anyways, I think I've, I've touched on all this. But, you know, and I'm sure your listeners are very well aware that we are in very deep trouble. We are in deep, deep crisis, that the climate crisis is not some future thing. It's it's rapidly unfolding around us. All you have to do is listen to the news. So we've built, you know, our modern socio economic, global structure, if you will, on an on an extractive model that completely ignores fundamental ecosystem processes. And we are currently reaping what are really the inevitable results of that delusional framework. We're seeing it in the collapse of our global ecosystems and the extinction crisis, the climate catastrophe itself and, and now the disintegration of our socio ecological systems globally. These are not independent crises, right? These are all part and parcel, and in fact predicted inevitable results of a failure to align ourselves with the basic realities of how the biosphere functions. Now, I like to think we can still pull ourselves back from the brink. That might even be wishful thinking at this point, but I'm going to stay optimistic as long as I'm breathing. So let's assume we still have time to do something about this. It is obvious I hope, to all who are looking at this carefully that we can't do this using the strategies and the models and the systems that got us into this mess in the first place. We have to change the way we conduct ourselves on the planet, that's just obvious. Carbon Farming, you know, it's only one part of the solution, but it does in many ways. Offer a model A framework, if you will, that that I think gives us a good example of how we can provide both for our fundamental needs as a species on the planet, while at the same time supporting the core ecosystem processes that undergird the planet's ecological capacity to support us to support us in meeting those needs. So, you know, again, Carbon Farming isn't going to solve all our problems, but it offers us a doorway into engaging directly and constructively with global ecosystem processes. And, you know, learning as we go, but the fact is, we have understood these fundamental concepts for a very long time. And we can go back, as I said, to the Dust Bowl and realize that the folks who stepped into addressing that problem comprehensively, and as it turns out, effectively, did so by taking a whole system's approach at the highest levels of federal government, and engaging state government and local government in the form of county level conservation districts, they built an entire national infrastructure that addressed that problem at the scale it needed to be addressed at those institutions still exist, and we can engage them if we choose to do so to do the work that we must do, and we must do now at scale, much beyond what we did for the dustbowl, obviously, but the resources that the infrastructure is there, we just need the resources to do the work.

Greg Williams: 56:36

Yeah, I can't think of a bigger intersection of, of idealism, practicality, and ambition. And I want to thank you very much for, for sharing that with us tonight. Thank you. Yes, I hope

Dina Rasor: 56:49

the listeners, you know, have had their mind changed a little bit about thinking about this. And every time you see CCS, you think about is it engineering? Or is it natural, because the natural one is makes a lot more sense, even though it may be cheaper, cheaper, and more effective. So thank you very much. And we appreciate you coming on and come back anytime when you have news. If you you know if the grants are starting to come in or if they're not, we're happy to do that. We are we are interested in making sure that the money is spent well. And not that you know, it's one thing for fraud but it's also there's also waste. There's not a lot of waste in this. This whole sequestration carbon sequestration stuff. We're thanks for. Thanks. Thank you very much.

Dr. Jeff Creque: 57:40

Thank you for the work you're doing to so and thanks for the invitation. Really appreciate Sure. All right. Take care.