ļ»æWelcome to another episode of the Meridian Point Podcast. Today we're joined by Raciel Castillo, founder of RC Technologies, a groundbreaking company developing direct air capture technology to combat climate change. There's a mission with a purpose I can get behind. A passionate innovator who transitioned from executive roles in media production and technology to tackle what he calls the biggest challenge we all face, Raciel leads a team of engineers working to revolutionize carbon capture. Their unique approach uses urban infrastructure to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and convert them into sustainable products. He brings not just technical expertise but an inspiring vision for how technology can help create a cleaner, more sustainable future.
Without further ado, I'll invite Raciel to the stage. Thank you for joining us, Raciel. It's a pleasure to have you.
Let's start with your origin story. What inspired you to enter the climate tech space and specifically focus on carbon capture?
It started as an answer to a question. I was working in a different sector and technology that I'm still working on and bringing to market. I was finding a way to digest more information without doing so much work. I was listening to podcasts in the background, and one was about science. The only thing I heard from the hour-and-a-half program was 'there's all this gas in the atmosphere.' I immediately said aloud in my living room, 'Surely we can remove it.' I sketched out our first technology. I didn't have any clue what I was doing. I just knew what it needed to do. I put my sketchbook down and went back to work on my other company. That's how it started. Over time, through research and development, it took shape. Here we are five years later, removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.
Did you have a background in this? You say you put a sketch to paper, and that was the vision that started this. Was this your background, your engineering background? I'm assuming it's a chemical reaction that has to pull COā‚‚ out of the air.
I didn't have a background then, but I certainly do now. I just knew what the technology had to do. I didn't know there were other players in the industry or that there was a small industry of people already doing this for ten years. I started with that first sketch and decided to revisit it later. Six months in, I realized I should see if someone else was doing this. There were two companies: Carbon Engineering was one, and Climeworks followed after, licensing Carbon Engineering's work. To me, they're essentially the same company because they use the same process.
I'm fascinated by disruptive technologies like these, especially going from an idea on paper to a prototype. Can you walk us through that process?
It looked like three whiteboards nailed to my living room wall with sketches and words. I build and see the vision first, then everything else follows. Before I knew about others in the space or the industry components, I had designed the technology and strategy. It snowballed from there. You write everything on the board and begin to branch out. It transformed into an ecosystem of technologies to solve the biggest problem we're facing: climate change.
It's definitely in the news, and we hear it's dire. The situation is dire, countries aren't doing enough, governments aren't doing enough, people's behaviors aren't changing fast enough. We're told we're going to go extinct, destroy the planet. Can you put some context behind that? Maybe give us some hope. Can we make the necessary changes to avert disaster?
Absolutely, one hundred percent yes. That's why I'm confident in not only my company but in the world at large. Many people are tackling this problem from different angles and degrees that the average person doesn't know about. This message of doom and gloom persists because there's a lack of knowledge about what's happening behind the scenes. While some companies and governments aren't moving fast enough, others are ahead. That's the reality. We have enough time to get the ball rolling. The ball has already started rolling, and we have enough resources, money, technology, intelligence, and human power. We have all these things working in our favor. We just need to come together more rapidly to form the solution to climate change.
Let's focus on what RC Technologies is doing. Your approach seems unique - you're using rooftops and urban infrastructure rather than requiring large land areas for carbon capture devices. What led to this decision?
When sketching different housing mechanisms for the technology, they came in various shapes and sizes. That's what I love about our technology and carbon capture in an urban setting - you can be as creative as possible. We have the ability to be versatile in our design and approach to capturing carbon emissions in the urban landscape. It started with one particular design that will ironically come in the future at RC Technologies. We were targeting urban areas, where most emissions come from cities. I focused solely on building the unit. I created this box, but realized it needed to be much bigger. The urban landscape approach was always the focus. I never had interest in remote areas because deploying all resources there limits our ability to approach climate change effectively and focus on the capture yield.
Using the approach of turning cities into carbon sinks became our tagline. I lived in a windy city while developing this portion of the technology. Walking around at night or early morning when the city was empty, I saw different possibilities for unit placement. Looking at wind patterns in major cities with tall buildings, the wind seeks paths. When you're on a rooftop and look over the edge, you notice that gush of wind coming up. Instead of using fans, we let the air do what it does and place our unit next to it. It's a beautiful symbiotic relationship between the wind entering our unit and our ability to capture emissions.
It started small and snowballed into rooftop placement, highway placements, bus stations, retrofitting bus stations into large carbon capture units, even buses themselves and crosslights. I saw all these as carbon capture units. We can convert cities into carbon sinks through this and other methods like planting trees.
Since seventy percent of emissions come from cities, it makes logical sense to have carbon capture close to the source of carbon emissions - highways and cities. Your device is passive, relying on air movement to funnel through. What happens to the COā‚‚ after capture?
We take it from our units back to our facility for further processing. We then transform it into materials like graphene and synthetic jet fuels. We're trying to limit materials that maintain a carbon-neutral aspect and focus more on the carbon-negative effect of utilization pathways. Graphene is one pathway; synthetic jet fuel is another. We need to do this. If we start there and create cleaner fuels, we create an entire portfolio of reusable and recyclable materials needed across several industries.
Graphene was touted in the early 2010s as silicon's replacement. Silicon is in all our devices for data transfer and memory. Graphene can do it in less space at higher capacity and faster. There are many applications. While graphene is our primary focus, we can make numerous materials from COā‚‚ - shoes, almost anything. By putting COā‚‚ into the circular economy, we're creating jobs, new forms of consumerism, cleaner materials, more sustainable materials, more effective materials across the board.
Utilization is the way forward. I never wanted to focus on storage until we realized we could do above-ground storage, and even then only if customers absolutely require it.
This requires creating not just new uses but new products. Will you develop these, or do you expect the market to find ways to use these raw materials?
Absolutely, and it's not just us. Other companies are creating bioplastics from seaweed. We can create a reserve for supply chains to tap into. Companies are creating bioplastics and architectural materials from nature-based solutions and byproducts - waste. Companies are creating tiles from fungi. It's an industry-wide approach to leaving behind old methods and developing new ways of doing things, not just in our actions but in our approach.
You mentioned having hope, maybe more than hope. You're optimistic about solutions because you're in this industry and see the innovation happening - new technologies being developed to create products that don't harm the environment, products that decompose easily, or end up being carbon negative, which is what we need since we've put so much COā‚‚ into the atmosphere. What would you say to those who believe this is just a hoax, that we're going through a natural warming cycle?
It would be wonderful if that were true because then we wouldn't be fighting for our lives, which sounds dramatic but is reality. Much of the controversy around climate change and denial has come from large oil corporations using technologies like direct air capture and carbon capture. In the industry, these are different things. Carbon capture is point source - capturing emissions directly from company processes. Direct air capture removes COā‚‚ from the atmosphere after it's left the point source. Oil companies using this technology to prop up their business can be seen negatively. There are some positives because we're still primarily dependent on oil for power and energy. As the transition continues, we'll depend less on oil and more on renewable energies and other methods for energy creation.
The biggest argument is that companies use these technologies incorrectly. That will always happen in business. Some people don't care, while others like me and many others do care and want to do the right thing.
There are those who say carbon capture isn't something we should spend money on - we should put all our effort into moving away from oil and carbon-producing fuels. Carbon capture just gives us a crutch to keep burning oil. What would you say to that?
We have never not been in partnership with nature, never not focused on a natural approach. My biggest fear is putting all our efforts into nature-based solutions when there's an expectancy of high drought levels, which would create forest fires and burn our efforts to the ground. I used to think carbon capture was the only solution. While I was never outside the nature-based approach, it's not my area of expertise. I focus on technology because I know what it can do. I understand why people fear that. Our biggest advantage is having all these technologies available. If we can work together collaboratively to bring all these working technologies and effective solutions up and running quickly, it works in everyone's favor.
I had a conversation on LinkedIn before Climate Week in New York with someone who positioned us as being on opposite ends. I said this isn't the conversation - I fully believe and support nature-based solutions. I'm interested in bringing technology to the forefront, but we can partner together on this and bring both solutions to life. With the many technologies and solutions available, we should focus on what works. Both approaches work - one is just more fragile and takes longer. Nature-based solutions take longer to remove COā‚‚. Will they work? Yes. We know that because we live on this planet. But my biggest fear is their fragility. We shouldn't put all our eggs in one basket.
You said we live in partnership with nature. I don't know that's true. Maybe in our history as hunter-gatherers we were more in partnership with nature because our population was lower. We were the apex predator, but our numbers were low. We lived in partnership with nature, harvested it for clothing and food, and left a minimal impact compared to now. That's shifted over the last couple thousand years, particularly the last couple hundred. I don't know if we'll get back in balance in my lifetime, but hopefully in future generations. What do you see in the next ten to twenty years in the climate scene?
I see us getting back to those roots of incorporating nature into our everyday lives. I've always focused on the future while living in the present. I understand your concerns, but I see a future where we're okay - where we've made it out alive and not just hanging by a thread. A future where we've thrived through the chaos and transition, and we're thriving afterward. This absolutely incorporates nature. Nature must be part of it. We live on a natural planet. While we may not be the most in touch with nature, the underlying relationship is that it is nature. We won't live in some cyberpunk reality.
They are building that huge building in Saudi Arabia or Dubai - the several-kilometer Line building. It's a totally artificial environment where you never step outside. It's all indoors, climate-controlled. You need that environment because it's 130 degrees in the summertime. You couldn't survive outside. But the thing that worries many people is that we're a world with nations in different stages of development and governments in different stages of maturity. Just in this country, we're going through a leadership change that may affect the efforts of people like you who are actually doing something - building a company that will help us get back in balance with nature. How do we sustain change with this political yo-yoing every four or eight years?
First and foremost, go with the flow. In the beginning, I kept tabs on everything in this industry - policy, technology sector changes, nature initiatives, company activities. Something new happened every day until I couldn't keep up. I decided to focus solely on the technology and let everything else fall into place. It may seem laid-back, but this movement has to happen regardless of position. Many climate deniers now see how real climate change is when they don't get the same snow they did as children, when summers are hotter than twenty years ago. People see these tangible effects and realize climate change might be real.
Regarding administration and world leaders, particularly in this country where it changes every four years, people will eventually have to deal with the reality that climate change is real. Everyone in industry, policy, and government knows this. How quickly each government moves will differ by country and state, but we'll all end up at the same place. I don't send messages without hope and positivity, but we must be aware that so many parts are moving in this direction that you'll either get left behind or have no choice but to act. We've seen many people at lower government levels and state levels who are younger, aware, and actively doing something with the education and information from the scientific community to back their approaches.
It's not a one-time thing - it's a movement becoming a way of life. Everyone else will catch up. People forget the government is for the people. We have the ability to protest, but we won't need to much longer because these effects are real. We get less snow, the ice caps are melting, summers are hotter. These aren't news articles or imagination - they're real things.
Right now your company's pre-revenue. What keeps you motivated during these times while trying to get your company off the ground?
The fact that all this is inevitable, that this came through divine sources, and my belief in my company, myself, and what we can do. Our approach is more effective and efficient than almost everything else in the technology landscape. I see us ahead of everyone else, even though we're pre-revenue. I'm looking at what's to come, not what is. I'm not worried about not making money now - I know we'll make money and be okay, not just for the company but for the planet. That's always been our focus.
Companies creating these conversations aren't taking action yet, but soon they'll have no choice but to act or close down. We've been here doing this work, and now they can benefit. Ideally, we'd get those clients now because they're aware of their impact and their lack of action. They're in different stages of action or movement. It's just a matter of time. I'm not worried and never have been.
You're going to be the next Elon Musk of carbon capture.
I've heard this before. Thank you - it's a big compliment. To all entrepreneurs working on what others call mind-boggling projects, keep going. Let what people say fuel you, or ignore them. Soon they'll ask for your blueprint and call you brilliant, saying they always believed in you when they were talking down to you. Don't waste time on negativity. Focus on your product, vision, company, and solution. Everything else will fall into place. Just don't ever give up.
Thank you, Raciel, for appearing on the show. The theme is about disruption and innovation, and you embody these words like no one before. You'll disrupt this industry and provide solutions for this country and the world. Thanks for showing up.
It's my absolute pleasure. Thank you, Kumar. I appreciate it, and I will definitely talk again.
Thanks for watching, everyone. We'll see you in our next episode.