# Paul Needham: from solar cells in India to gigantic carbon sponges Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-impact-equation-7063562/paul-needham-from-solar-cells-in-india-to-gigantic-carbon-sponges Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-impact-equation-7063562/paul-needham-from-solar-cells-in-india-to-gigantic-carbon-sponges.md Podcast: [The Impact Equation](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-impact-equation-7063562) Published: 2026-01-25T15:12:39+00:00 Episode link: https://shows.acast.com/the-impact-equation/episodes/697632e7f4b515342e04ffad Audio file: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/6717d40883ac9fccacca0682/e/697632e7f4b515342e04ffad/media.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-impact-equation-7063562/episodes/paul-needham-from-solar-cells-in-india-to-gigantic-carbon-sponges Duration seconds: 2106 ## Resource In this episode, we go deep into chemistry and mining with Paul Needham, CEO of ARCA, a company using carbon mineralisation to turn mine waste into giant, permanent carbon sponges. In 2025, Arca signed a 10-year deal with Microsoft to remove 300,000 tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere. Certain rocks naturally react with COâ‚‚, pulling it out of the air and locking it away forever as stone. ARCA has found a way to massively accelerate that natural process, transforming mining tailings from an environmental liability into a climate solution. Paul's no stranger to scaling impact: he previously built Simpa Networks, bringing pay-as-you-go solar to hundreds of thousands of people in rural India. In this episode we learn about scaling pay-as-you go solar in India and how carbon mineralisation turns mining waste into carbon removal at scale.   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-impact-equation-7063562/episodes/paul-needham-from-solar-cells-in-india-to-gigantic-carbon-sponges/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-impact-equation-7063562/paul-needham-from-solar-cells-in-india-to-gigantic-carbon-sponges.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.