Decarbonisation is not about removing Carbon overnight!

Decarbonisation Is Not About Removing Carbon Overnight — It Is About Removing Fossil Carbon from the System Much of today’s global tension — economic, political, and even military — traces back to one deeply embedded belief: That energy security depends on controlling oil and gas. Energy has been framed as a matter of national security because fossil fuels are: • finite, • unevenly distributed, • extractive, • and geographically constrained. This framing has shaped geopolitics for decades — and it is based on a false premise. Energy itself is not scarce. Access to fossil carbon is. When energy systems depend on extraction, competition becomes inevitable. When they depend on circulation, competition fades. The false narrative The idea that a nation’s security depends on oil and gas control is not a law of nature. It is a consequence of how we designed the energy system. This misunderstanding has led to: • conflicts over reserves, • strategic shipping routes, • price volatility, • and perpetual instability. In reality, tying national security to fossil fuels is not a strength — it is a systemic vulnerability. What Carbon Recycling Technology (CRT) changes CRT addresses the problem at its root. It does not attempt to eliminate carbon from industry or energy systems. Instead, it does something far more fundamental: It removes fossil carbon from the system, slowly but permanently. Captured CO₂ is recycled into usable fuel using renewable energy. That fuel produces energy — and CO₂ again. The CO₂ is recaptured and recycled. Carbon atoms circulate. Fossil extraction steadily declines. Existing infrastructure continues to operate, while the source of carbon feeding the system quietly changes. This is not a disruption. It is a system correction. Why does this restore true energy security When energy is produced from: • local renewable sources, • recycled carbon, • closed-loop fuel cycles, Then energy security no longer depends on: • owning reserves, • controlling supply chains, • or projecting force. Energy becomes distributed, resilient, and non-weaponisable. CRT replaces the logic of scarcity with the logic of circulation. Beyond climate — toward stability The world is not fighting because energy demand exists. It is fighting because the current energy model rewards control and extraction. Decarbonisation done properly does more than cut emissions: • it removes the incentive for conflict, • reduces strategic dependence, • and restores long-term stability. Carbon is not the enemy. Fossil carbon dependency is. A quiet but irreversible transition CRT does not promise an overnight change. It enables a gradual withdrawal from fossil carbon without collapsing systems. Power plants still run. Industries still operate. But with each cycle, fossil inputs lose relevance. As fossil carbon fades from the system, the false link between energy and national security dissolves with it.

Correct Power-system Sequencing :Firming first

Correct Power-System Sequencing: Firming First A reliable, affordable, low-emissions grid is built by sequencing infrastructure correctly. Firming is not a backup — it is part of the primary system. STEP SYSTEM ELEMENT PURPOSE 1 Define system requirements MW, MWh, ramp rates, inertia, seasonal balance 2 Build firm dispatchable capacity 24/7 reliability, peak coverage, contingency response 3 Secure firming fuel Gas supply or renewable fuels for dispatch certainty 4 Scale renewables within firming envelope Low-cost energy without destabilising prices 5 Targeted transmission upgrades Connect firming, renewables, and load efficiently 6 Decarbonise firming fuels (CRT) Maintain stability while eliminating fossil inputs Key Insight: When renewables are built ahead of firming, scarcity sets prices and emergency interventions replace proper dispatch. When firming is built first, renewables reduce prices as intended. CRT role: Carbon Recycling Technology decarbonises firming fuels last — after system stability is secured — using the same dispatch logic, assets, and reliability standards.

The AI energy gap.

The AI Energy Gap: Why Alphabet’s Vertical Integration Signals a Deeper System Shift Alphabet’s reported acquisition of Intersect Power for USD 4.75 billion has been framed as a renewable-energy play. That interpretation misses the deeper point. This is not primarily about solar or batteries. It is about control of firm electricity in an era where digital growth has collided with physical system limits. The AI race is no longer constrained by algorithms, models, or chips. It is constrained by power availability, interconnection delays, and grid reliability. ⸻ The Real Bottleneck Is No Longer Software For years, compute scaled faster than infrastructure planning. Cloud platforms assumed electricity would always be available somewhere on the grid, at an acceptable price, within a reasonable timeframe. That assumption is now broken. Across major markets: • Grid interconnection queues stretch into multiple years • Transmission upgrades lag demand growth • Scarcity pricing increasingly sets wholesale prices • Data centre expansion is delayed not by capital, but by electrons In that context, Alphabet’s move is rational — even inevitable. When power becomes mission-critical, outsourcing it becomes a liability. ⸻ Vertical Integration as an Energy Strategy By acquiring a utility-scale energy and storage developer, Alphabet effectively brings electricity inside its strategic boundary. This enables: • Co-located compute and generation • Bypass of congested grid queues • Predictable long-term power costs • Reduced exposure to market volatility • Greater control over reliability and uptime In other words, Alphabet is not just scaling AI. It is re-engineering its energy supply chain. This is vertical integration driven by physics, not finance. ⸻ Renewables Are Necessary — but Not Sufficient The sustainability narrative around this acquisition is valid, but incomplete. Solar and batteries alone do not guarantee: • 24/7 availability • seasonal adequacy • resilience during weather extremes • independence from system-wide scarcity events What Alphabet is really buying is optionality — the ability to shape its own energy system rather than wait for one designed for a different era. This mirrors a broader lesson now emerging across the economy: Energy systems must be engineered before they are optimised. ⸻ The AI Race Is Becoming an Infrastructure Race What we are witnessing is a shift from: • abstract competition (algorithms, models, software) to • concrete competition (land, power, firming, fuels, grids) AI infrastructure now resembles heavy industry more than consumer software: • large fixed assets • long planning horizons • deep dependence on energy reliability • exposure to system-level constraints Alphabet’s move signals that leading firms no longer trust the public grid alone to meet their needs — not because the grid is “broken,” but because it was never designed for this load profile. ⸻ A Broader System Lesson This development reinforces a pattern already visible in power markets globally. When: • renewables are scaled ahead of firming, • dispatchable capacity is discouraged, • grid expansion lags demand, • and system boundaries are poorly defined, the result is not abundance — but scarcity pricing, volatility, and bottlenecks. Alphabet is simply responding faster than most. ⸻ The Question Ahead As AI, electrification, and digital infrastructure continue to expand, the critical question is no longer: “How fast can we build compute?” It is: Who controls the firming, and who waits in the queue? Those who integrate energy and compute will move first. Those who rely on legacy system assumptions will move later — or not at all. Alphabet’s acquisition is not an anomaly. It is an early signal of how the next phase of the energy-digital transition will be built.

After Electrification,what powers the system?

After Electrification: What Powers the System? There is a growing belief that everything — including steel — can be fully electrified in Australia. Electrification is indeed essential and delivers rapid, low-cost emissions reduction where energy demand is flexible and interruptible. However, electrification alone does not close the energy system. 1. Electrification Is Necessary — but Not Sufficient Electrification works exceptionally well for low- and mid-temperature processes, buildings, and flexible industrial loads. Heat pumps, electric furnaces, and thermal storage are already displacing gas with strong economic outcomes. These solutions represent the first half of the decarbonization process. 2. System vs Surroundings: The Missing Boundary Most electrification pathways implicitly rely on the surrounding system for stability — surplus renewables, legacy firm generation, fuels for backup, and seasonal balancing. When these are excluded from the boundary, electrification appears complete even though fuels remain essential. 3. Why Steel Cannot Be ‘Electrons Only.’ Steel production requires continuous, high-temperature energy, chemical reduction, and material stability. While electric arc furnaces are suitable for recycled scrap, primary steel production still requires a reducing agent and a stable energy supply. Electrons alone cannot provide carbon chemistry, seasonal storage, or an uninterrupted baseload at the national scale. 4. Carbon Recycling Technology (CRT): Completing Electrification CRT converts renewable electricity into renewable fuel by recycling carbon in a closed loop. Renewable hydrogen provides energy, carbon acts as the carrier, and CO2 is continuously recycled. This enables firm, dispatchable power and industrial heat without fossil fuel extraction. 5. A Complete Net-Zero Stack • Direct electrification – lowest-cost abatement • Short-duration storage – flexibility • Renewable fuels (CRT) – baseload and industrial continuity • Carbon recycling – system closure and permanence Conclusion Electrification changes how energy is delivered. Carbon recycling changes what energy is made of. Together, they form a complete, thermodynamically sound pathway to true net- zero — including steel.

Carbon is not the enemy but the broken Carbon cycle

Carbon Is Not the Enemy. A Broken Carbon Cycle Is. Decarbonisation has become one of the defining challenges of our time. Across industries, regions, and boardrooms, there is now broad agreement on one thing: emissions must fall, and they must fall quickly. Encouragingly, innovation is accelerating. Low-carbon materials, recycled industrial by- products, cleaner manufacturing processes, and improved efficiency are all moving from research labs into real projects. Concrete with lower embodied carbon. Steel made with fewer emissions. Power systems with more renewables. These developments matter. They represent genuine progress. Yet, as momentum builds, it is worth asking a deeper and more uncomfortable question: Are we fixing emissions — or are we fixing the system that creates them? Carbon Reduction vs Carbon Recycling Most current decarbonisation strategies focus on reducing emissions intensity. Less carbon per tonne of product. Less CO2 per megawatt-hour. Less waste per unit of output. In materials like concrete, for example, carbon dioxide can be captured and embedded into the product itself, while industrial by-products replace part of traditional cement. These approaches reduce embodied carbon, improve material performance, and make productive use of waste streams. They demonstrate something important: carbon can be reused, not just emitted. But they also reveal a distinction that is rarely discussed openly: Embedding carbon once is not the same as closing the carbon loop. In most materials-based solutions, carbon enters a product and stops there. The surrounding energy system — the system that generated the emissions in the first place — often remains unchanged. The Question We Avoid: Where Does the Energy Come From? Decarbonisation cannot be separated from energy. Electrification only delivers emissions reductions if the electricity itself is carbon-free — not occasionally, but continuously. Twenty-four hours a day. Seven days a week. Similarly, recycling carbon into products only delivers true net-zero outcomes if the energy used to capture, process, and manufacture those products is also clean. This is where many well-intentioned strategies begin to struggle. They optimise within a narrow boundary — a factory, a product, a process — while the wider system continues to rely on fossil fuels somewhere else. The result is often a shift in emissions rather than their elimination. Nature’s Clue: Carbon as a Carrier Nature offers a different perspective. In natural systems, carbon is not treated as waste. It is a carrier — continuously recycled through closed loops, powered by external energy from the sun. Carbon atoms move, transform, and return, without accumulating endlessly in the atmosphere. The problem we face today is not the existence of carbon. It is that we have broken the carbon cycle in our energy and industrial systems. Inspired by this principle, Clean Energy and Water Technologies Pty Ltd (CEWT) has focused on a different framing of the challenge: What if carbon were treated not as something to eliminate, but as something to recycle perpetually — while clean energy does the real work? This question sits at the heart of Carbon Recycling Technology (CRT). From One-Time Storage to Perpetual Circulation CRT is not about storing carbon once and walking away. It is about redesigning the system so that carbon circulates continuously instead of accumulating. At a conceptual level, the distinction is simple but profound: Carbon becomes the recyclable carrier. Renewable energy — particularly renewable hydrogen — becomes the fuel. Emissions are not offset or diluted; they are structurally prevented. Fossil fuels are not supplemented; they are progressively displaced. In this model, carbon is reused again and again, while clean energy supplies the work required to keep the cycle moving. The result is not merely lower emissions, but a system that is net-zero by design, not by accounting. Why Materials Innovation Alone Is Not Enough Low-carbon materials are essential. They reduce emissions in construction, manufacturing, and infrastructure. They should be scaled rapidly. But on their own, they cannot deliver 24/7 zero-carbon baseload power, eliminate fossil fuels from energy systems, or decarbonise fuel-dependent sectors such as power generation, steel, or large-scale digital infrastructure. These challenges are not materials problems. They are system problems. Without addressing how energy is produced, stored, and used across time — not just at moments of surplus — decarbonisation remains incomplete. System Boundaries Matter Many debates around net-zero become confused because system boundaries are poorly defined. If emissions are counted only within a factory fence, solutions can look effective. When the surrounding energy system is included, the picture often changes. True net-zero requires clarity about both the system and its surroundings. It requires asking not just what is emitted, but where, when, and why. CRT is built around this discipline. It treats the energy system and the carbon cycle as inseparable. Complementary, Not Competing This is not an argument against carbon capture, low-carbon materials, or electrification. It is an argument for integration. Materials innovation reduces emissions within products. System-level carbon recycling addresses emissions at their source. Together, they form a pathway from carbon minimisation to carbon neutrality by structure. The Real Transition Ahead The energy transition is often described as a fuel switch or a technology upgrade. In reality, it is something deeper. It is a transition from linear carbon use to circular carbon systems. From treating carbon as waste to recognising it as a recyclable carrier. From compensating for emissions to designing systems where emissions do not accumulate. Carbon is not the enemy. A broken carbon cycle is. Fix the cycle — and net-zero stops being a distant target and starts becoming a property of cycle itself.