Decarbonizing Our Economy

Startup Tri-Valley Podcast – Dave Metz & Susan Houghton & Katie Marcel

Intro

Yolanda

This is the Startup Tri-Valley podcast featuring in depth conversations with the leaders who are making the Tri-Valley the go to ecosystem for science based startups. I’m Yolanda Fintschenko from Startup Tri-Valley. All right. I am so pleased to welcome my colleagues from an event that we hosted together in November of 2024 called Decarbonizing Our Economy.

With essentially our presenting host, I think, was the Livermore Lab Foundation and Startup Tri-Valley collaborated with Livermore Lab Foundation for this event, as did the Innovation Tri-Valley Leadership Group FM3 Research and co-organizers Lawrence Livermore National Labs, Las Positas College all came together to put on this event.

And I am fortunate enough to be with two of my co organizers and Susan Houghton, who is the co organizer. portfolio manager for climate resiliency and carbon management for the Livermore Lab Foundation, Katie Marcel, who is the CEO of the Innovation Tri-Valley Leadership Group, and Dave Metz, who is partner and president of FM3 Research.

Welcome to the pod. 

Susan

Thank you. Thanks for having us. I love you said, welcome to the pod. Sounds so cool. We’re in the pod. So Tri-Valley. So Tri-Valley. 

Yolanda

Love it. We will get so many hashtags out of this. I can’t wait. Okay. Great. Great. Great. Great. So, thank you all for being here. I am actually going to start with Susan and and just kind of, because this is really, I feel like this event was truly the outgrowth of what the Livermore Lab Foundation was already doing with Roads to Removal.

And I want to give you a chance to maybe high level talk about the Livermore Lab Foundation, what you’re doing within it, and connect us to how this, how this event came to be, why, and, and how you did it. 

Susan

Yes, thank you. And so, I’m happy to be here in partnership with everyone because the Livermore Lab Foundation is a 501c3 nonprofit supporting fundamental science and research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Of course, everyone knows Lawrence Livermore National Lab. One of 17 Department of Energy laboratories across the nation, 8, 000 employees, a focus on science, resilience, and in many areas, engineering, computations, and of course, climate and carbon management. And for several years, the lab has been really considered to be a leader in climate initiatives and carbon dioxide removal methods.

Concurrently, the University of California, about two years ago, received 185 million from the state of California to really invest across the state in all UCs and national laboratories Opportunities for climate workforce, development entrepreneurship, innovation and climate management. And so really what we saw in November was a culmination of two really distinct efforts:

Excellent work on a report called Roads to Removal, which involved 12 institutions, 68 authors across the nation, all looking at what can be done to reach net neutrality, both in the state and the nation by 2050, as well as the University of California’s investment in really the next generation workforce and what needs to be done locally and statewide to really ensure that we can move forward with confidence.

Yolanda

Fantastic. Thank you. So, maybe, you know, going from that, how did you get from this mission, this funded mission to reducing it to this decarbonizing economy event here in the Tri-Valley? 

Susan

So, I think the Tri-Valley has long been a leader in really recognizing the need for an informed workforce, a STEM educated workforce, and investment going forward. And we had did a lot of things with the grant. We had four carbon fellows, entrepreneur students who we funded at the laboratory, paired with mentors to work on science research projects. We knew that outreach and education was paramount to the success. So when you think about, you know, Really how you invest in green tech, how you invest in a workforce of tomorrow.

It starts with the basic level of education. And one of the things we’ve learned over the last four years, doing a lot of the roads to removal work and getting to neutral, which was The lab’s report on how California could reach carbon neutrality is we learned that a lot of people have different views of what climate change is, what does it mean to be carbon neutral, that they might know about wind and solar, but they certainly didn’t know about maybe direct air capture or bikers, which is the lab term for biomass remediation.

And what is geological storage and how do I fit forests and ag management into that? So that was really Roads to Removal That was the report. And for many years, we’ve worked with Dave at FM3, which is a wonderful firm. They’ve been a strong partner for us. And we started off really then with, all right, we need to do some baseline work.

So let’s do some baseline work in terms of what is the quantitative and qualitative level that we need to start with. And that’s what led us to Dave’s wonderful survey and research results. 

Yolanda

Fantastic. And that was a big part of the event. And Dave, maybe you could talk a little bit about what it was like, what it was like to do this.

I know before we had the mics on, you were talking about how this was a little bit unique in terms of what you’ve done in other cities. And, in California, other regions across the country as well. And so maybe you could talk about that. 

Dave

So, my firm, FM3 Research, is a public policy oriented opinion research firm.

We’ve been around for about 40 years, and we do work all over the country on a wide range of public policy issues, understanding where the general public, voters, business leaders, other stakeholders stand on a lot of key issues relating to climate, clean energy, and sort of how these fields are evolving.

A lot of that work involves surveys of the general public. It involves one on one conversations with people who are in leadership positions. But what was really unique about this effort was the attempt to cut across a number of those sectors and talk to people who are leaders both in the business community and the nonprofit sector and some local elected officials as well.

And understand what they think about the role of the Tri-Valley right now as our economy is changing, as our climate is changing, and, and some of the barriers and opportunities that present themselves at, at this moment in time. We ended up talking to 44 leaders across all of those sectors.

We used a multi modal approach. Some of them we did one on one interviews where we just talked to them for half an hour and very sort of open ended and wide ranging conversations. And then for others we used a more closed ended survey instrument. And where we just sent them some questions online, they were able to respond to, and we could draw some comparisons between how they viewed these issues.

And I think a lot of the results are really fascinating, they sort of confirm what Susan was describing earlier, which is just the sort of energy and the excitement and the sense of potential that this region has both to sort of reshape its economy. in these fields. And then also help the state achieve its goals to try to do something about the critical issue of climate change that’s been confronting us in so many very impactful ways, particularly in the last couple of weeks.

I think it’s really been at the forefront of all of our minds. 

Susan

Absolutely. So, and I should mention, when we saw these great results, you know, and it, the survey was local. So, we wanted to make sure this was Tri-Valley, listening to Tri-Valley, and then, and then sharing the results with the Tri-Valley.

And of course, that’s what would lead us to, to you, and being able to partner on that survey. It’s a very successful November event and we, I think both the lab and the Foundation, think this collaboration is critical. And along with Las Positas College, which also joined us, we had this one day event where we brought in key corporate leaders. We brought in Katie’s team as part of that to talk about the economic effect and development. Of course, the leaders from Chabot and Las Positas College joined us and then we brought in the authors from Roads to Removal. So when you think about that trifecta of, you know, the economic experts, the elected officials, the scientists, as well as the students and the general public, how can we converge together and what can we do?

To take the Tri-Valley, along a leader, always been a leader, but now to the next leadership level and how to get there. 

Yolanda

Absolutely. And I said, Thank you so much that this was an extraordinary event. We were really fortunate to be able to pull together and do this. It was a long event. It was from 8: 30 until noon and past that people took lunch and stayed.

And it included everyone from policy makers who attended. And students from the Las Positas College chemistry class. There are a lot of students and faculty who attended and I, I know that and of course we had founders, we had investors from startups here in the Tri-Valley and Katie, this I’m very narrowly focused on the startup ecosystem, but it really cross cut everything that ITV does, Katie. So I was wondering if you could maybe comment a little bit on what your goals were for the region from this. And, and, you know, knowing what we know and we can come back maybe to David to get into the results. Like what were you hoping would happen as a result of this event?

Katie

Well, we were very, very pleased and grateful to be included in all of this. Innovation Tri-Valley Leadership Group is 15 years old right now and we’re an economic development organization committed to the innovation economy in the Tri-Valley. We are a mixed group representing the business sector and so all of our leaders represent the business economy of the Tri-Valley.

So, That’s San Ramon, Danville, Pleasanton, Dublin, and Livermore and that encompasses Bishop Ranch, Chevron, and San Ramon, all the way through to Daybreak Labs in Livermore, including Sandia National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Lab. So it’s an incredible environment of innovation. And I was not surprised that that’s a lot of the survey results because our leaders tend to be very accessible and very connected to one another.

We’re very grateful that we have this accessibility to really global leadership in this field. So at Innovation Tri-Valley Leadership Group, we were We were able to bring in Andrew Wong, who’s one of the lead authors of Roads to Removal, about a year ago, to one of our board meetings, and our meetings include leaders from the business sector, but also electeds education leaders, and non profit sector leaders.

And so, it was a really electric kind of moment for all of us. to be in a room together and realize that we have this access to this opportunity. I would say that, you know, the Tri-Valley has always been a leader in emerging technology. The Lawrence Livermore National Lab has been here for 70 years.

We have a culture of innovation. It’s in our veins. And so catalyzing this kind of movement is exactly what ITV was designed to do and that’s where we are right now. We’ve got a lot of elected officials who are very interested in this. I was really pleased to see the survey. Most of our leaders are quite aware of what’s going on. Most of them are working on this. They actually had some really great ideas of how we can move forward And so we’re really in the middle of it. We’re really in the middle of exploring where we are with this but it’s an exciting time and All of the scaffolding is really in place.

And as Susan was alluding to our Our education sector is, is at the ready. We’re very nimble. We have Las Positas College here, which is the number two community college in California, number four in the country. They currently have a memorandum of understanding with UC Merced. So the scaffolding is in place really to anticipate and prepare for this next generation of leaders.

We even have, I think it’s the Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District. There’s a group of students there that have created an entire climate literacy plan for the Tri-Valley. So, we have multiple generations of ability. We are centrally located in the center of the Northern California mega region.

We’ve got access to all of our Central Valley workers, skilled labor, and then we’ve got more PhDs in one square mile than anywhere else on earth. I love that fact. I always, I always try to quote that because people go, really? Wow. You know, and then you go, well, the lab is one square mile. So yeah. And there are two labs.

Susan

I’m really glad you said that, Katie, because I think one of the things we learned from the Roads to Removal Roadshow, and you know, typically when academics write reports, They will, you know, it’s great, gets published in science, nature, maybe who we did this report, but the lab foundation was fortunate that we received a million dollars to really take the science on the road.

And all of 2024, we went to a myriad of states. We were in Wyoming, we were in North Carolina, we were in Pennsylvania went to Merced, and we learned that people were just gravitating for the information. And I think that’s what we saw at the November event. And what’s come out very successful from the November event is the city of Livermore, to their credit, wants to now bring in state policy leaders, city staff, planners from all over the state to say, now how do we.

How do we affect our permitting? How do we do zone changes? How do we create carbon business parks that could lend towards this? And that is really the power of this. I remember specifically in Pennsylvania, we had planners drive three or four hours away from other counties because they said, just tell us what to do.

Just tell us what to do. Every city and county has to write climate action plans, and there are going to be little things you can do, and then there are going to be big things you can do. What can you do, what can Roads to Removal do, along with the expertise of the communities together, to be able to make a difference?

And that difference might change because the Rhodes mantra is every region has a story, every region has an opportunity. So it’s finding what was important in our region and what’s important statewide. And I think, Dave, you saw that in some of the other surveys that we’ve done of what’s so different in Kern County versus what’s different here, for example.

Dave

Yeah, for sure. And I mean, I think in this survey work, there are a couple things that really stood out from the leaders that we talked to that really align with what Katie was describing in terms of the advantages that this region has. The fact that it is proximate to both the sort of Central Bay Area and Silicon Valley and also the Central Valley.

And so you can draw on skilled workforces, both blue collar tradespeople and some of the top scientists. in the world and engineers and they’re all right here. The fact that you have land and space where there is both light manufacturing and warehousing and, and, and plenty of room for that as well as the white collar workforce that comes from the labs and, and from other sources.

And you also have an environment in which the incentives to do innovative work in this field are really in place. The state of California is one of the most aggressive in the country in terms of the goals it has set. to, to take action on climate change and the resources it provides to, to sort of further that work.

And that’s something that the public knows about. It’s something that the leaders that we talk to know about. And at a somewhat turbulent time in our politics, it’s something where there is great public will. to take action on these issues. It is something we’ve seen repeatedly across California in surveys.

Three quarters of the public say we need to take action on climate change. I want to see more innovation, advances in technology that will help us to solve this problem. So that provides a great environment for the kinds of breakthrough leadership and changes in, in business practices and the growth of that green workforce that this region can provide.

That’s not to say that there aren’t some challenges here too. You know, this is because of all those reasons, this is a really desirable place to live and the cost of living is high. And obviously when you’re trying to attract skilled workers, that’s something that plays in, but relative to Silicon Valley, the cost of housing here.

It may be high in sort of national terms, but it ain’t what it is in Palo Alto. And so that provides regionally, I think, some competitive advantages too, where you can attract a workforce that has a high quality of life here from all the amenities that, that are available, but it is more affordable in relative terms to, to some of the sort of competitor regions that, that we have here.

The other thing that we heard people talk about though was regulatory barriers, that it is hard to get projects permitted and regulation moves slowly. We obviously have seen this in a variety of realms in California. And that is not an infrequent complaint. And it’s one that I think we have seen more consciousness about trying to address over the course of the last couple of years.

At the government level when people realize the speed with which we need to act to sort of spur these innovations and make a meaningful difference on climate change. So I think we’re hearing lots from the leaders. We talked to suggest that they recognize that this region is perfectly positioned to really be an epicenter of growth in the green workforce moving forward.

Susan

And I would argue that’s why your organization, Yolanda, is so important because we need entrepreneurs. We need startups. You’re seeing really a change when it comes to science investment. You know, long you have always been the three letter agencies that invest in science. The laboratory gets their budgets from the Department of Energy, Department of Defense.

There’s NSF grants, but we need that private investment. And so the partnership of private investment. Philanthropy grant makers like ClimateWorks, Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment, Breakthrough Energy, they’re the agencies that invested in roast removal and said, If not now, then when?

And if not us, then who? So we have to get the message out there. And that’s why I think what you’re doing, really, with your entrepreneurs, that was the whole heart of what this UC grant was about. How do we build entrepreneurship in this industry? Then get them funded, then get the impact into the Valley area, and move forward.

Yolanda

Right. Thank you so much, Susan. So Susan, David and Katie, you’ve touched on so many things, and I want to try and synthesize it a little bit. And I think building on what you said, Susan, yes, I think for Startup Tri-Valley, for iGate, what we’re doing at Daybreak Labs, absolutely. The ecosystem building that we’re trying to do around climate technology and getting that infrastructure to encourage startups is very important.

And we heard from an investor on the panel about the, the importance of that and the importance of, for example, having clean energy available for scale up projects. That’s something that, again, that’s an infrastructure thing that policymakers can actually influence. And one of my favorite mantras is policy drives markets.

I think we’ve seen that again and again. So I think having the policymakers participate in the survey come to the event, strive to understand what are the opportunities and the challenges and raise their hand, as you said, to say we would like to dig into this Roads to Removal. And come up with near term, mid term, long term things that we can set and in place.

And I think one of the highlights of the roads to removal that really impressed me is the focus was actually even, even though I represent a group that’s innovating new technology. The actual focus was on things that regions could do right now, and I think that is something that is incredibly important, and that the fact that especially cities and policymakers, state policymakers recognize there are steps that can be taken immediately, and then there are midterm and long term things that can be done is very important.

And to your point, Katie, this, this Innovation Tri-Valley Leadership Group really coalesces the leaders in workforce development. In what I like to call cornerstone companies and industries. So these are not startups. These are some ike that participated in our panel and as well as, as other business leaders, small business leaders nonprofits, there’s, there’s a lot of coalescing here and bringing it back to you, Dave, I think.

One of the things that’s so interesting to hear is based on what what you’ve said about the results is it sounds to me and of course maybe it’s a little bit biased because they responded to the survey but what you got was a lot of buy in from industry leaders as well as policymakers that this is on the critical path for success for the region so this isn’t this isn’t This may be a good hearted goodwill thing to do, but primarily it sounds to me like the respondents feel like this building in climate resiliency using technology and policy and existing tools, developing future tools is on the critical path for their companies to succeed. Did I hear that correctly? 

Dave

Absolutely. I mean, the kinds of support and assistance that people were asking for were basically get out of the way. Don’t, don’t limit us. Don’t put barriers in our way that will keep us from taking advantage of the opportunities that are present.

Make it easier for us. to bring in workers and have them find places to live. You know, don’t drag out the process by which we need to get permits approved. Streamline our ability to to get investments in the capital that we need in these industries to to sort of move things up at, at scale. There was not, we weren’t hearing ambivalence or uncertainty that this is the right path to be on.

We were hearing sort of an eagerness to be unshackled and have the opportunity to pursue all of the promise that these technologies offer. 

Yolanda

That’s fantastic. 

Susan

I think  also, I was just going to say, I think also we heard a lot about workforce needs. And that was critical. And that’s where I think Las Positas Chabot can play such an important role.

People sometimes have a misnomer that jobs in climate and carbon or green energy are all PhD level jobs and, oh, I’ve got to be able to be at that level. Not the case. Jobs are needed at every level. High school community college certificate programs, bachelors, and we really saw that there was the survey showed.

People are like, I need this certificate training program. I’m having a hard time finding skilled workers. And then there was a marriage of. Well, the housing for those skilled workers too, which comes in and that’s a long time issue that you all have been working on for many years. And I don’t think we’ll ever be resolved quickly.

But when you think about what can our local community colleges do to invest in that next generation, it is the creation of new workforce programs, certificate programs, marrying it to maybe UC Merced. And that came out loud and clear. 

Dave

Yeah, I just want to reinforce a couple of things that Susan said there.

When we asked the leaders in the survey to tell us what kind of training education preparation they most wanted to see the workforce have, it was the training in career and technical education that community colleges can provide. That was the clear number one choice that they had. That’s where they felt there was a need for more investment.

So, exactly what Susan was describing. And, I will also say in our research across the country over the years, when we talk about economic opportunities that come in these industries, There is a tendency for when people think about them, they think of people in white lab coats. They think of people who are scientists, who have those many, many PhDs that we have in the, the one square mile here.

But, you know, when you have these businesses, there are people at every kind of occupation, from security and administrative and janitorial to all kinds of levels of, of scientific expertise that need to be employed in large numbers. And Emphasizing that creates a lot more enthusiasm for expanding these industries because people understand it isn’t, especially at a time when, you know, there’s growing concern about the wealth inequality in our country and the gaps between those who have a four year college degree and those who don’t, understanding that the available opportunities benefit people with all those kinds of backgrounds and preparation really helps to build momentum and public enthusiasm.

So the message Susan was describing is critically important to deliver. 

Susan

I think, and two, you see in areas where there might have been some industry transitions, a good example is Kern County, oil jobs have kind of gone by the wayside there, but some of the skill sets that you see in the oil industry are skill sets that that can be transferred to geological storage and direct air capture.

And so how do we help communities do that transition? It’s via the community colleges and opportunity to do that retraining. I think that’s a huge opportunity for that as well. I think what we need to think about long term is what exactly what ITV has been doing with your vision and, and how do we strengthen those pillars to be prepared for when, when The funds do start to roll in and the permits change and all the stars are aligned and we’re set to go.

Katie

Yeah, I would say we are open for business. That is our motto in this sector. We are definitely open for business. And because of the accessibility. With this emerging technology, we’re able to quickly learn and adapt and be open for business. As Susan was talking about the city of Livermore, for instance, there’s some fear around some of this transfer and energy transfer and with access to the actual global leaders right here, we’re able to learn what we need to learn to create new zoning around this technology and sector influence policy.

We also here in the Tri-Valley, while we are in California, we don’t have a lot of multi layers of bureaucracy here in the Tri-Valley, and so many of our elected officials are at the table really learning how to create political will to get this done. So open for business is kind of the motto in this.

We’re all we’re, we’re also in the Tri-Valley really looking to, to to lead even further. We’ve got agencies that have California climate goals that they’re trying to reach while in the Tri-Valley. We’re speeding it up and making our goals sometimes five years ahead of that. And that really has to do with the nimbleness and accessibility of this region.

I think anticipation is also important. So, you know, when you think about energy, Think of, it’s broader than just CDR technology. I mean, there’s some Fusion opportunities emerging on the horizon, we’ll just say that. And how can California be a leader in Fusion? And how can California be a leader in the entire ecosystem of how to get us to the next level?

The Tri-Valley plays an important role in that. 

Katie

And that’s actually a great example of Open for Business when Lawrence Livermore National Lab achieved fusion ignition two years ago that opened up a new world of industry kind of descending on our region and looking to grow, scale and build here.

And again, that was It’s a moment of a moment of launch really for this region, and we’re kind of in the middle of it now. We’ll see. We’ll see where we end up, but the open for business motto is really kind of the umbrella of our goals here. 

I think it’s easy to forget that there are secondary industries.

Susan

So I’m really glad you said that, Katie, because supply chain is going to be an issue for the entire green energy clean tech kind of market. But there are opportunities for secondary businesses that may not need those PhDs but can be suppliers to come in. To your point, Has to be done also, though, with green energy in terms of that.

So making sure that the utility infrastructure access to power is there and it’s the right kind of power. 

I think that’s what’s so important about that next event that the city of Livermore is planning for and hosting. This region is fantastically connected between the cities and operates as a very coordinated region much of the time for especially around infrastructure, which is necessary.

Yolanda

So any of these critical path innovations technologies where you know, we’re working together to define how the workforce will be educated? How do the policies interact? And of course, the greater Bay Area is also doing that. So these, this region is plugged into that, but there is an element of I mean, there’s only so much you can do locally and a lot of things are driven by the state.

And so getting, you know, collaborations across all the local governments in the state and also being able to pull in state, state officials and state policymakers is really critical to moving forward. And I think you just kind of moved us into one of the key next steps. So. I want to bring us back a little bit to each of you, the high level after this event, what are the top three things we learned?

And I think we have one key translational step, which is this next event. And I’d like to hear maybe from you, David, if you can give the top three things we learned from the Climate Workforce Development Survey, and then maybe what you see as being three key opportunities, and then I’ll, I’ll move it around to each of you.

Dave

Yeah. I think the main things that we learned were one, just the, the sense of the enormous potential, latent potential that the region has, and the sense that all of the building blocks that are necessary for the success of these industries moving forward are present. And that enthusiasm isn’t always there when we do this kind of work.

There’s a lot of regions where people are more skeptical about it. They say, well, we have other traditional industries we’ve typically relied on. Do we really want to shift our attention to this sector where the political and regulatory environment and the The, the success of the technology isn’t always clear, and we’re not seeing that from the people that we talk to.

There is a confidence that this is the right path to be on. But then the second thing that I think is clear from the survey is that there are specific kinds of help that people want to take advantage of. Some of that is a little easing of the regulatory environment to make it possible to move things along quickly.

The second thing is money and investment. One of the things that the leader said was most helpful was to have more grant money. Federal grant money was something they talked about a lot. And those kinds of things I think will make it possible to capitalize on the potential that people see here.

And then I guess the third thing I would point to sort of goes back to what Susan was saying, coming from some of our research with the public, which is that there is an important role for public education here as well. When we talk about carbon removal and storage, this is something the average person on the street hasn’t thought about much at all.

And when they hear the technology explained to them, they can have some reservations about whether this is something they want done in their community. They like the idea of jobs and they, they see the, the, the need for the actual removal of carbon, but the mechanics of how you get it done, where you store it, how it transports it.

All of that stuff requires community conversations. And so in a number of these industries, I think there is, in addition to making sure that business has the opportunities to succeed, there’s also got to be some work done to bring the public along with them. We certainly don’t see anything in the research that suggests that there is real public opposition.

It’s just. a great unknown to them. And so starting that conversation in, in ways that Susan has described in the work that the lab has done going around the country and, and talking to folks and, and especially here in California is an important companion to the work that can be done to provide business with the opportunity to succeed.

Yolanda

That sounds fantastic. So what, if I heard you correctly, we, the, the three Three top things is we have all the building blocks to succeed with decarbonizing economy, and that’s everything from Having the right technologies having the right workforce having sort of the right education system and having the policymakers Aligned and having key business leaders and is that across like can you talk a little bit about the industries that you saw represented in the sort of industrial component of, “Yeah, I mean, we had folks who were working on everything from battery storage to solar and micro grids to energy efficiency technology aviation. Yeah, it was it was a real diverse array of different sectors that all connect to the green workforce and in one capacity or the other.”

Fantastic. So that was key. And then also this idea of translating it to a next step into in, in terms of making the average person understand sort of the definition of what could direct carbon capture and storage look like? And, and then, and, And having the conversation, the education, and bringing, bringing all of that in.

And I know there was a second one, a third one that you said, and I just lost it. 

Dave

I think I said it’s the opportunity that the building blocks provide. It’s the, the need for public education to bring the public along. And then it’s, yeah. 

It’s permitting. It’s, yes, it’s removing some of the obstacles. Yes, exactly.

Yolanda

So, and, and we did have, have the, I mean, we can see the policy makers are already aligned in that with this, this event. So there’s a, there’s a key next step from the standpoint of, of the goal of not only roads to removal generally, but specifically as we narrowed it down to creating awareness, building awareness and at this event.

And through the Climate Workforce Development Survey. So, so it sounds like we have a key next step that’s already coming out of it. I think so, and 

Susan

I have my three if you’re ready for my three. Okay, so building on what Dave said, I think climate carbon education, energy education is paramount. It’s a journey.

It’s not a project. And just as we all learned about that energy and fourth and fifth grade. The Lab Foundation for the last four years has really developed CD R  and carbon management lessons that have now been in classrooms across California. More than 3000 students in California have learned about CDR technologies, and this is called the climate in the classroom program.

We’ve done this as a number of DOE grants that we’re right now we’re in Pixley, California, Tulare County, where we are educating 2000 students and 25 teachers have dived into 19 hours of immersive lessons on everything on how you know, climate change is happening to what are the solutions to jobs and how you communicate it.

And we have to do that just like we all learned about recycling. right? We all learned about the three different bins. It has to start there in terms of because starting at the high school level gets folks interested in what they’re going to do in community college and those jobs and that filters up through the workforce.

So I would say that’s my number one as part of that. I think my number two is that we do have entrepreneurs If you’re just eager to take the next step, then that is not always going to succeed, but we have to be okay with that risk. Science is about failure, and technology advancement is about failure.

And you learn often more in those failures than you do in the successes, and you learn how to reposition and what to do. So is every new CDR technology going to make it? Probably not. But are we going to learn powerful lessons around the way? Absolutely. And those lessons are what is going to make that evolution or transformation. The third lesson I would say is we can’t leave our workforce behind. We have a commitment and a community commitment to make sure that the economic development, the workforce development comes through and because we all rise together. If we’re all doing it, it can’t be the haves and the have nots.

It’s got to be the investment back in the community. So those are my three. You didn’t ask me next, but I just went ahead and that’s perfect. 

Yolanda

No, that is absolutely perfect. And so if I heard you correct, it was the three were really K through 12 education. I would say high school, high school education, and that’s where the Lab Foundation focuses, right?

Entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship, and then coming back again to education. But here we’re looking at the sort of post high school workforce development. Training and education. 

Continuing it out. And it’s really lifelong, lifelong education 

that, yeah, one of our 2040 goals. 

Susan

Right. We’ve done a lot of work in Kern County, I think, as folks know for the last, since getting to neutral came out and they were very cautious about, you know, the words evolution and transformation because they didn’t want to feel like evolution suggests.

There was something primal about you in the beginning and you’ve evolved to this better person. Well, in the oil industry, they don’t, they don’t feel that. But transformation is how we transform our general area, our, our best practices to incorporate some of these green technology ideas in that. And whether again, it’s the little C or the big C that your carbon management directives and green energies are going to go into, there’s a way for you to impact at all levels.

And we just have to recognize that it’s okay. If your city is just starting off, it’s just going to do a climate action plan. You go, let’s start with that. And then you build upon that in terms of the economic development zones opportunities from there. 

Katie

Fantastic. I thought a really powerful takeaway from the event actually was our representative from the VC world, Jason Sydowfrom Next47 and his comment about oil and gas and traditional energy and their ability to scale like none other and our openness right now to be able to lean into those traditional energies to be transformative.

And that was a real takeaway for me in learning how we can really partner. across sectors that we aren’t necessarily thinking about right now. 

I would agree. I think sometimes there’s a hesitancy to label, and I would suggest that we need investments of large companies, small companies, nonprofits, you know, startups, and if everyone works together to do that, and I think that The scalability of the oil and gas industry, quite frankly, to start to institute those practices is what’s going to help transform those regions.

And we can’t leave them behind. It can’t just be about the new companies coming in and the new technologies. It’s a process. 

Yolanda

Absolutely. And speaking from my experience in studying innovation, you can see ecosystems where you see startups succeed, where you see something like a South San Francisco and biotechnology succeed.

If you want to have that same effect in climate technology, you need an existing big company who’s funding early stage companies. And then acquiring them because of this available ability to scale. So, I mean, you hit the nail on the head Katie, bringing up this point from Jason, is without that complete ecosystem we won’t see the kind of transformation that we’re hoping to achieve.

Yeah. That’s really powerful. I love your comment 

about disruption, too. We have to allow for, we have to hold space for disruption here and for people to try and fail. And I do think that the size of this region does allow for that, does allow for some of that disruption. Yeah. So my three takeaways if, if, if we’re, if we’re there, if we’re there, we’re there.

Katie

Really overwhelmingly to your point, Yolanda, policy creates markets. I think there’s a good amount of work to be done on that level removing barriers. I think that another next step right now is really this responsiveness of our educational institutions and affecting curriculum. There were several educators there that day that are now working on adjusting their curriculum to be able to support this workforce.

I, overwhelmingly, think about the actual job descriptions. It’s, it’s so surprising sometimes when you’re looking at Dave, you were mentioning you know, climate and our awareness right now, wildfires, wildfire management is one of these jobs that we’re talking about. It’s welding, it’s engineering, it’s electrification.

And so yes, our community colleges are key in this and our career and training education. And then to your point, Susan, about not leaving our workforce behind. I was really pleased to see that what bubbled up from a lot of our leadership and this survey in particular was the housing component and realizing that affordable housing is a climate issue.

It’s an economic development issue. It’s a climate issue. And if we’re talking about investing in this technology, we also have to house the people that are doing it. And we also have to be responsible about Building housing and creating these opportunities for folks. So that was, that was really a great takeaway for me that we as a society here in the Tri-Valley are really thoughtful about our workforce and taking care of them.

Yolanda

Fantastic. So once again, policy, education, and housing, and the significant role that’s playing in workforce development and economic development. 

Susan

I would say housing plays a significant role in climate and energy. I mean, we saw from the fires that just happened. I would bet that emerging industries are going to be those green building, fire resistant houses that are now going to, If I were in the construction industry, that’s what I would be looking at.

Because how can you prevent houses from burning? 

Yolanda 

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So I think one, one last question and then, and then we can kind of wrap things up in case I missed something that you wanted to say. One, one thing each, what most surprised you that you took away from either the event or the survey and I’ll everyone’s looking.

Susan

I can start. You can start. Okay, so, we all heard the phrase, all politics are local, all benefit priorities are local. And, you know, some people, it’s housing that is the big thing for them. Some people, it’s jobs. Some people, you know, it’s investment in their education system for their kids. So I think making sure that when we go into the regions, we create industries and opportunities that reflect the true nature of what not just is available economic wise, but what our citizens want and what the residents want in the area.

And then I’ll just do one little plug cause I didn’t get to do it yet. That if anyone does want to understand more about the wonderful report that the laboratory did is that roads to removal. org that’s roads. Number two, removal one word dot org. This is an interactive website videos. You can actually go in, you can go down by County, you can see what the opportunities are County by County, all 3, 192.

I think counties in the United States were mapped and you can see what. clean tech energy opportunities, CDR opportunities exist. And so that’s a great resource that will exist for a while. 

Yolanda

Absolutely. Thank you. And we will put that link in the show notes. For those of you listening or watching, you can find that.

Dave

And let’s see. 

I guess, one of the things that I thought was most interesting or surprising from the research was the views that some of our respondents had when it comes to CDR technology. We offered them a list of words and phrases that might describe what the technology offers, and there were roughly equal numbers that said the best descriptors were hopeful and growing.

but also challenging. And I think that, you know, when we talk to the general public, they know nothing about it. They haven’t thought about it. It’s something that’s entirely new to them. But the fact that we have leaders in this region who are recognizing both the potential in terms of the good it can do for the planet, but also the sort of opportunity that the technology can be successful, but then also recognizing that There’s a way to go in sort of a lot of a path that has to be navigated to sort of obtain those benefits.

The fact that we’ve got leaders in the region who are conscious of that I think speaks well to, again, that energy to sort of keep moving down the road on this technology that’s present here and may not be present in other parts of the country. 

Yolanda

Fantastic. So it’s the, what, what surprised you is that there are no rose colored glasses is what it sounds like.

Dave

There’s a pretty accurate perception. They’re bifocals. They’re rose, but then there’s also the sort of reality of, you know, there’s, there’s work we need to do. Maybe their learning hasn’t gotten quite there yet, but they, they, they’re hopeful. They know it’s going to be challenging, but that’s okay. You know, we’re not going to be risk averse here.We’re just going to. 

Yolanda

That is the nature of any innovative technology, I think. And so the fact that they’re, they know enough about it to put it in that bucket and say, this is one of those things, It’s a problem that needs to be solved and, and we have the tools to do it. 

Dave

Absolutely. Whereas I think there’s other places where, you know, there’s just not, they haven’t, they haven’t engaged with it on the, the same level that, that leaders in this region have.

Yolanda

Got it. And Katie?

Katie

 I, I love the hopeful and challenging and I really, I think what, you know, is surprising to me and, and really delightful is the multi generational approach to this. I’m really pleased that the generation that’s in leadership positions right now has that hopeful and challenging perspective.

Because over there were a couple of hundred students that showed up to that event. And Generation Z, not only are they, they’re hopeful I don’t think they’re looking at the challenges. They are moving full steam ahead and they are holding our feet to the fire. And so the fact that the generation in charge right now is aware and hopeful and aware of the challenges, I think is right where we need to be.

Because the takeaway for me is that generation is going to take us where we need to go. And, and they, like I said, they are holding our feet to the fire. 

And that goes to the very nature of what this grant was all about. The entrepreneurship, the investment by the state of California into this UC system and with the million dollar grants that we got here at Livermore to have the next generation of entrepreneurs. 

Yolanda

That’s amazing. So anything that I didn’t ask that you, you wanted to put out there for our audience? 

Susan

Well, I think that we should afford the audience, I mean, no, we don’t have the corner on good ideas. I mean, if people have good ideas, we’re open for business, we’re open for business.

So, challenge it. Come on. That’s just doing it. Got to think out of the box. If you don’t think out of the box, you won’t get to where you need to go. 

Yolanda

Fantastic. And, and, and people who want to challenge it. So I, this reminds me actually of the podcast we did with Drew Wong where he, he said, read the Roads to Removal critically and came up with questions and it sounds very, very similar.

Susan

Oh, I assure you, lab scientists, they love debates. So having nothing more than somebody to go to, well, my perspective is different. Oh. That’s fabulous. Let’s do that. Because at the end, it always makes for a better product, you know, to hear Dave. And that’s what was so powerful for Roads to Removal is what we heard from Indiana farmers was so different from Wyoming ranchers.

And the takeaway, if you ask the road scientists and team that we took around the country, that was more powerful than anything else. Because sometimes we get caught up in our world. And we don’t realize that the value of America is the diversity and the diversity of thought is what makes for better products and better science research.

Yolanda

Fantastic. And so when they have those questions, they can, or challenges, they put them in the Roads to Removal. They can go…

Susan

Actually Roads to Removal has an opportunity just to do that. So you can ask a question of Roads to Removal. You send it to carbon at livermorelabfoundation. org. We will have scientists answer.

They would love it. Please do go to the Roads2Removal website and ask questions. 

Yolanda

And we will make sure to have that email in the show notes. Thank you. Great. And Dave, 

Dave

No, I think I don’t have anything to add. This has been a great conversation. 

Katie

Yeah, me too. This is just an exciting time and, and in the Tri-Valley and we’re, we’re very excited to be a part of this.

Yolanda

I love it. Well, this has been a fantastic conversation and I, I really appreciate your time and this discussion so much for joining us for this discussion of the opportunity, the challenges and all the ingredients that we have in place to address these challenges and the important next steps that are already happening as a result of the Climate Workforce Survey and the event that we had in decarbonizing our economy.

Susan, Katie, Dave

Thank you. Thank you all for being here. It’s been great. Thanks for putting us together, Yolanda. 

Thank you so much.