View Posts By:
Richard Maltzman
Dave Shirley
Recent Posts
The Flip-Side of Biomimicry
A citrus fruit schools us on material science and project leadership (Part 2 of 2)
A citrus fruit schools us on material science and project leadership (Part 1 of 2)
Black Tape Over the Engine Light
Saving the Sahel (Part 1)
Categories
6th,
6th Edfition,
6th Edition PMBOK,
7th Edition,
7th Edition PMBOK,
8th Edition PMBOK,
8th Edition PMBOK Guide,
Activism,
actuarial,
actuary,
adapt,
addition by subtraction,
Africa,
africa,
agriculture,
airforce,
ajaita,
Alaska,
amazon,
analogous,
analytics,
ancient,
and more power,
antarctica,
anti-science,
apple,
apps,
architecture,
arctic,
arrakis,
Artificial Intelligence,
asch paradigm,
Assistant,
asthma,
astronomy,
automobile,
automotive,
autonomous cars,
b,
bankhar,
Banksy Crypto,
basalt,
baseball,
bats,
batter,
beauty products,
benefit,
benefits,
Benefits Realization,
beyond epica,
biases,
bicycle,
big data,
big dfata,
big dig,
bike,
biodiversity,
biomedicine,
birdhouse,
blockchain,
blood,
blue blood,
blue trees,
bluefin,
bluefin tuna,
book review,
boston,
boston university,
Boyce,
Brazil,
brazil,
Breakdown Structures,
BS,
building,
buildings,
built environment,
built environment,
bumblebee,
cake,
capacitor,
car,
Carbon,
carbon,
carbon capture,
carbon negative,
carbon neutral,
carbon pool,
carbon sequestration,
carbonate,
careers,
CEO,
ChatGPT,
chatGPT,
chatgpt,
chatgpt,
chess,
China,
china,
chopsticks,
citrus,
cli-fi,
climate,
climate change,
climate resilience,
climeworks,
Clumsy,
CO2,
co2,
CO2 Utilization,
coalition,
cobalt,
coffee pods,
cognition,
cognitive,
Collabortion,
colombia,
concrete,
Conflict,
construction 5.0,
cool projects xyloscope,
cooling,
coral,
corn,
cost of good quality,
cost of poor quality,
cost of quality,
crazy,
criticism of project management,
cryptocurrency,
CSR,
csr,
data,
data analytics,
data privacy,
datacenter,
dataset,
death spiral,
Decision Making,
decomposition,
Defense and Climate,
definition of a project,
deforestation,
dependencies,
dependency,
desert,
DIKW,
dikw,
dimopoulos,
disposal,
dna,
DOD,
dogs,
dolphins,
dream,
drilling,
drink,
dune,
dune,
dutch,
early start,
earth,
eatlocal,
eco-tourism,
ecological,
economic,
economics,
EKC,
electric grid,
electricity,
electronics,
elysis,
embodied carbon,
emerging technologies,
empower,
Energy,
energy efficiency,
environmental degradation,
escalate,
escalation,
ESG,
extreme weather,
fallacy,
FARC,
farming,
finance,
fish,
fish brains,
fishing,
fix,
fixing the earth,
flint water,
Flint Water Supply,
flood,
flooding,
Food supply chain,
food waste,
forest,
forest for the trees,
forestation,
forrestgump,
frank herbert,
Fruitcake,
fungus,
fusion,
Galvao,
garage,
gas,
gasoline,
geese,
gender equality,
gender partnerships,
generational differences,
Generative AI,
gladwell,
gold,
Goodness,
google,
Government,
GPT,
great pacific garbage patch,
green,
green building,
green buildings,
green energy,
green iguana,
green project,
green project management,
greening,
guest post,
gyre,
harkonnen,
Harvesting Benefits,
hawasina,
hedgehogs,
heursitics,
historical data,
hlb,
holitsic,
holland,
horseshoe crab,
human-caused climate change,
hydrogen,
hydrology,
ice,
iceland,
ignition,
iguana,
imagery,
impact,
india,
inequality,
information,
initiatives,
injection,
insurance,
intelligence,
interacting risk,
internal combustion engine,
invasive species,
investment,
isomer,
issue escalation,
issues,
ITER,
jobs,
Jupiter,
justification,
kids,
kill point,
knowledge,
koch brothers,
Kuznets,
laboratory,
LAL,
landscape mode,
lapampa,
launch,
LCA,
Leadership,
Leadership,
life cycle analyses,
life cycle analysis,
lifecycle,
Linkedin,
liquid,
lizard,
local,
long term,
long-term,
long-term thinking,
look up,
loud,
maintenance,
maker,
makermovement,
malcolm gladwell,
management,
marathon,
marine biology,
market,
mars,
Martin Luther King,
mean,
megawatt,
MeHg,
melting,
mercury,
metal,
Microgrid,
microplastics,
migration,
military,
millennial,
mindset,
minerals,
mission,
mitigate,
MLK,
mongolia,
museum,
museum of london,
nature,
nematodes,
net gain,
Net Project Success Score,
net zero,
netherlands,
network,
New book,
New Jersey,
New Practitioners,
new york,
NFT,
nitrogen,
noise,
noreaster,
norway,
nova,
NPSS,
NREL,
ocean,
ocean cleanup,
ocean life,
oil rig,
oil rigs,
oklahoma,
oman,
only murders in the building,
opportunity,
overall risk,
oxygen,
packaging,
pareto,
PBS,
permafrost,
persistence,
peru,
Pharmaceutical,
planet,
planet.com,
planning,
plant,
plasma,
plastic,
playground,
pm,
pm education,
pmbok,
pmbok guide,
pmnetwork,
PMXPO-2018,
podcast,
pollutants,
pollution,
poop,
poor,
portfolio,
power,
power skills,
privacy,
privacy concerns,
professors,
program,
Program Management,
project,
project leader,
project leadership,
project management,
project management 3.0,
project on fire,
project progress,
Project Success,
project success,
projecticity,
projectleadership,
projectmanagement,
projects,
psychology,
pulse of the profession,
purple bacteria,
purpose,
quiet,
rainforest,
rationale,
reef,
refugees,
renewable,
renewables,
Repair,
repair,
repeatable process,
repeatable processes,
repurpose,
research,
resource breakdown strucuture,
Resource Management,
reversing climate change,
revisionist history,
rich,
rigs2reefs,
ripe,
risk,
risk avoidance,
Risk Management,
risk mitigation,
risk response,
risk responses,
river,
robots,
rocks,
rules of thumb,
rural,
rural India,
russia,
Sarcasm/Irony,
satellite,
saudi,
schedule,
sci-fi,
Science,
science,
science-fiction,
scientific american,
screaming monkeys,
sea,
sea life,
Sea-Level Rise,
sea-level rise,
seagreens,
seawall,
seawater,
seawater temperature,
seaweed. beat;es. farming,
secondary risk,
selena gomez,
sequestration,
shipping,
skyscraper,
SLR,
smart cities,
smart city,
smelting,
social,
social pressure,
soil,
solar,
solar panels,
solar perovkites,
solar saheli,
sonic,
sponge cities,
SRI,
stage-gate,
stagegate,
stakeholder,
stakeholder management,
steward,
stewardship,
storage,
strategy,
stupid,
success,
suffer,
sulphur,
sunk cost,
supercapacitor,
supply chain,
survey,
Sustainability,
sustainability,
Sustainable Investing,
Sustainable Tourism,
sybiosis,
symbiosis,
system 03,
TBL,
temperature,
terraform,
terraforming,
test,
threat,
threats,
totem,
touchscreen,
tour,
tower,
Trains,
transparency,
transportation,
trash,
tree,
tree species,
trees,
trillion,
triple bottom line,
triple constraint,
truth to power,
UMass,
us army corps of engineers,
USDA,
vacuum,
value,
venus,
vision,
voice,
voltage optimization,
vw scandal,
washing machine,
waste,
wastewater,
water,
we mean business,
whales,
Whirlpool,
wind,
wisdom,
women,
Women in Project Management,
wood wide web,
woonerf,
Work Breakdown Structures (WBS),
world breakdown structure,
worms,
xian,
xylotron,
Yale
Date
A few weeks ago I wrote about the pomelo — how its thick, air-pocketed rind has inspired engineers designing better crash-protection and packaging, simply by copying what evolution already perfected. That's biomimicry: nature solves the problem, we study the solution. This piece is about the other side of that coin. Instead of mimicking what nature already does well, we're now trying to engineer our way around problems nature is increasingly struggling to absorb on its own — pulling carbon back out of the air and ocean we put it into in the first place. It's a useful contrast, because the two approaches reveal very different things about cost, value, and who's actually paying for the difference.The inspiration for this post comes from an episode of How We Survive, which is a spinoff podcast of Marketplace, called Carbon Burial at Sea: A Promising Climate Solution - or Another Engineering Experiment?Carbon Burial at Sea: A Promising Climate Solution—or Another Engineering Experiment?Marketplace's How We Survive explores one of the more ambitious ideas in climate mitigation: capturing carbon dioxide and storing it in the ocean or deep underground before it can contribute to global warming. The episode follows two different approaches.- An experimental project off the coast of North Carolina, where researchers are studying whether adding the naturally-occurring mineral olivine to seawater can enhance the ocean's natural ability to absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide.
- Using captured CO₂ from a Norwegian cement plant through an elaborate transportation and storage system that ultimately injects the gas more than a mile beneath the North Sea. This is called the Northern Lights project.
The podcast emphasizes that these projects – although ambitious - are not science fiction—they are operating today. Sure, they remain in the early stages of technological maturity – but they have momentum. Why is this important? Cement manufacturing alone accounts for roughly 8% of global carbon emissions, making it one of the world's most difficult industries to decarbonize. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) offers one of the few technically feasible pathways for reducing emissions from such sectors. Yet the reportingin Marketplace also makes clear that these projects are enormously complex, expensive, and heavily dependent on government funding. Norway's Northern Lights project, for example, has required billions of dollars of investment while still operating well below its intended capacity. Governments – like project managers – are increasingly looking at the long-term collection of benefits, not a fast payoff.
The episode does not present carbon capture as either a miracle solution or a failure. Instead, it examines the difficult questions surrounding scale, economics, environmental risk, and governance. Scientists discuss concerns ranging from ocean chemistry and marine ecosystems to the possibility of CO₂ leaks from underground storage. Industry representatives describe the engineering challenges of building entirely new infrastructure for capturing, transporting, and permanently storing carbon. Environmental organizations express concern that some fossil fuel companies may use carbon capture to prolong continued oil and gas production rather than accelerate the transition to renewable energy.
Again, we se the need for a project leader to work vigorously across functions. The conclusion is nuanced: carbon capture may become an essential tool for industries such as cement and steel, but it should complement—not replace—efforts to reduce emissions at their source.
One very interesting and thoughtful aspect of the carbon capture effort, led by the petroleum industry, is that consumers, and especially environmentalists, need to be wary of the idea that the industry will use carbon capture not as a solution as they wind down production of carbon-heavy fuels, but rather as an ‘excuse’ to keep producing or even to increase the production of oil and gas. I found that a key takeaway and one that embodies the idea of systems and critical thinking – so important for project leaders, especially in the age of AI.
I highly recommend the podcast - worth a listen!
Posted
by
Richard Maltzman
on: July 06, 2026 03:55 PM |
Permalink
