“There is enormous procurement power that is not really being used very well. If governments specified buying carbon sequestered materials, they could use the same dollars they’re using now and have some sustainability progress to show for it.”
This newsletter issue features Brent Constantz, Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Blue PlaneA serial entrepreneur with expertise in biomineralization, Dr. Constantz led three medical device companies to advance mineralization technologies for orthopedic bone cements and cardiovascular calcification. He later founded Blue Planet to address global climate concerns with aspirations to permanently sequester gigaton quantities of carbon dioxide in the form of carbonate materials. He holds an Earth Sciences PhD from the University of California, Santa Cruz and is an avid outdoorsman and scuba diver.
As a graduate student, you studied in the Caribbean, researching how corals use CO2 to make their skeletons. How did you go from corals to cement?
I chose to work on biomineralization because I was really interested in structures. In fact, I started off as an architecture major at Berkeley. However, when I saw some of the natural structures, like diatoms and other organisms, I thought, “Man, this is really the most exciting stuff around!” And I stopped doing architecture and I instead double majored in Aquatic Biology and Geologic Sciences, bringing mineralogy and biology together. My specialty is called biomineralization–how organisms form minerals. I was really impressed by how fast corals could mineralize!
Later on, when I learned more about osteoporosis and how it was a huge health care expense, I had a light bulb moment: ”If I could create a skeleton in the patient in the operating room, that would really be a huge step forward!”
