This month, there’s been a flurry of business news in the CDR world. We’re taking August off from the show, but before we go we’re going to dive into 10 stories that broke in the last few weeks, that have big implications for the carbon removal industry. On this episode hear about companies putting CO2 into concrete, plastics, and fuel, new investment funds, announcements of new engineered carbon removal facilities, and analysis of the macroeconomic conditions the industry is facing. To explain ...
Aug 01, 2023•44 min•Season 4Ep. 34
Last week Octavia Carbon announced they are planning to build a DAC plant in the Great Rift Valley in Kenya, the first such plant in the Southern Hemisphere. The Valley formed as a result of three tectonic plates meeting in one place. This phenomenon has created unique geology, which the entrepreneurs at Octavia feel could be an ideal place to capture and store CO2 underground. An hour away in Nairobi, they are building commercial-scale DAC machines and planning to deploy their technology with p...
Jul 25, 2023•31 min•Season 4Ep. 33
We’ve been covering a lot of US state and federal CDR policy in the last few episodes. Today we’re taking a much-needed international trip and discussing some critical stories happening across the globe. Zimbabwe’s government has announced new regulations on voluntary carbon offset trading to prevent greenwashing and ensure that local communities benefit. Carbon credit schemes in Zimbabwe have been unregulated. The new policy mandates that all carbon projects register with the program, ensuring ...
Jul 18, 2023•32 min•Season 4Ep. 32
The Xprize’s Carbon Removal prize has been one of the most exciting stories in CDR. As it seeks to pump $100 million towards carbon removal projects, the organization is also taking steps to ensure that funding supports companies that benefit, rather than harm, the communities they work in. This is no small detail, but in fact a main question about the future of carbon removal: can it become embraced by local communities who will host projects? We’ve been focusing on that very question on this s...
Jul 11, 2023•40 min•Season 4Ep. 31
If you’ve been following the development of CDR policy, you’ve probably heard of the volunteer advocacy group OpenAir Collective . Just a few weeks ago our guest Sebastian Manhart said on this show “There’s no state that has policy movement that OpenAir collective didn’t have their fingers all over. I’m really impressed by the results of this kind of grassroots activism." Now, OpenAir is working to pass SB308 in the U.S.’s largest economy: California. This proposed bill mandates that high-emitti...
Jul 04, 2023•29 min•Season 4Ep. 30
This conversation is a re-run of a segment from an episode we released earlier this month. On this episode we welcome a thought leader in free-market environmental policy - Todd Myers , the Director of the Center for the Environment at the Washington Policy Center . His 2022 book, “ Time to Think Small : How nimble environmental technologies can solve the planet’s biggest problems,” sheds light on how compact, innovative technologies are giving individuals the power to safeguard endangered wildl...
Jun 30, 2023•32 min•Season 4Ep. 30
CDR startups are under pressure from numerous sources including current economic downturns, criticisms from the United Nations about carbon removal methods, and problems within the carbon offset market. Despite these challenges, significant investments continue to flow into the industry. This is largely due to the perception among investors that CDR plays a crucial role in reaching the goal of net-zero emissions. In this episode our business panel analyze the impacts of three recent significant ...
Jun 27, 2023•38 min•Season 4Ep. 29
On this episode we’re joined by Sebastian Manhart, a tech entrepreneur and policy expert who is serving as the Senior Policy Advisor at Carbonfuture , a purveyor of high-quality CDR credits based in Germany. He is analyzing the growth of CDR policy worldwide and has recently published “ CDR Policy Maturity ” across all 50 U.S. states. This comprehensive report maps each state’s progress based on factors like specific CDR targets, funding incentives, and legal frameworks. We’ll hear about what st...
Jun 20, 2023•35 min•Season 4Ep. 28
Since last year’s landmark climate legislation, members of congress are looking for niche areas of climate progress. Enter the Carbon Removal and Emissions Storage Technologies (CREST) Act , a bipartisan piece of legislation aimed at accelerating carbon removal and storage solutions. It was introduced by U.S. Senators Susan Collins and Maria Cantwell and also has a bipartisan version in the House, the CREST Act tasks the Departments of Energy with initiating research programs and exploring the f...
Jun 13, 2023•27 min•Season 4Ep. 27
An important climate body at the U.N. is causing controversy as they seek to define use of CDR, and many supporters of carbon removal are not happy. The UNFCCC is in the process of figuring out how carbon removal fits into emissions reduction plans. A recent draft statement caused a stir among advocates of CDR and climate experts, as it described CDR as 'unproven' and ‘not contributing to sustainable development’. Many CDR advocates have contested these claims, especially given the crucial role ...
Jun 06, 2023•54 min•Season 4Ep. 26
Robert Höglund refers to himself as a "chronicler of CDR" or Carbon Dioxide Removal. He has established himself as an authority in this area, providing enlightening insights through his popular blog, Marginal Carbon. His significant contributions to Milywire, a CDR fund, coupled with his extensive involvement in various roles as a Climate Advisor, have further solidified his status as a thought leader. Recently, Robert attended Carbon Unbound , the world's first conference solely focused on carb...
May 30, 2023•37 min•Season 4Ep. 25
Following 2015’s UN Paris Agreement, each signatory country submitted a strategy indicating how they intend to decarbonize their economy. While much of the work comes from cutting emissions, plans can also include a ‘residual emissions’ category- that’s where carbon removal comes in. But recent research from our panelist Holly Buck and her colleagues found no standard definition of residual emissions. Residual emissions are significant; most come from agriculture, industry, and mobility. Crucial...
May 12, 2023•30 min•Season 4Ep. 24
Last year Planetary Technologies won the Carbon Xprize Milestone award for their ocean-based CDR method. That same year they started testing their ocean alkalinity enhancement process in a small trial in England, partnering with the local water company. The test showed improved alkalinity and reduced CO2 in local waters. Now the company plans to do a longer, 120-day test this summer, hoping to remove 200 net tons of CO2 from the water. Planetary has conducted public outreach about their plan, an...
May 05, 2023•32 min•Season 4Ep. 23
In December 2022, the carbon credit platform Puro added a methodology for enhanced rock weathering (ERW) credits. This announcement opens the door for the ERW to be sold into the billion-dollar voluntary carbon marks. ERW is one of the oldest known forms of carbon removal, long studied by geologists. But it is only recently that a growing number of startups are applying the science of this technique on a larger scale. Other businesses are taking note. Microsoft is expanding its carbon removal po...
Apr 28, 2023•41 min•Season 4Ep. 22
About one year ago we were joined on this show by Toby Bryce , who works with the volunteer-advocacy group the OpenAir Collective on a variety of projects that support the growth of carbon removal. Toby told us about the groups work advocating for state-level legislation called the Carbon Dioxide Removal Leadership Act in New York State. Since then, the legislation has been proposed in several more states, and the group’s network of policy advocates has grown along with it. Today we’ll talk to T...
Apr 07, 2023•38 min
The ramifications of Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse two weeks ago are still rippling across the global economy. SVB was a major lender to VCs, and served silicon valley: two factors that meant its rapid demise will affect the climate tech industry. SVB worked with 1550 climate tech companies, and gave the industry billions in loans. Other banks may fill the void to support this lucrative sector, but many carbon removal companies are now spending time figuring out their financial stability, rathe...
Mar 24, 2023•39 min•Season 4Ep. 20
Blue carbon has emerged as a popular climate solution, with offset marketplaces like Verra and Gold Standard eyeing blue carbon methodologies and Salesforce and the World Economic Forum teaming up to announce their own blue carbon credit framework at COP27 last year. Crediting for blue carbon usually means protecting ecosystems like mangrove forests, seagrass beds, and salt marshes. It can also include restoring these ecosystems when they’ve been degraded or destroyed. A recent paper published i...
Mar 03, 2023•26 min
The Emission Trading Systems is the cap-and-trade carbon market that Europe has been using since 2005 to decarbonize its economy. Companies have to pay to pollute, and this week that price hit an all-time high as it traded for over 100 euros/ton. In the first segment of today’s show Na’im Merchant and Asa Kamer discuss the significance of that milestone, what it might mean for the CDR industry, and news that Lanzatech became the first carbon capture company ever to go public. On the other side o...
Feb 24, 2023•46 min•Season 4Ep. 17
Should carbon removal be included in institutional climate plans? It’s a debate that’s taken place across business, government, and science in recent years. The rise of the net-zero framework has sharpened the focus on how and when organizations should decarbonize. And how carbon removal fits in. Last week two influential organizations weighed in on how they plan to use carbon removal in the coming years. The Net-Zero Owner Alliance , a UN-convened group of 84 large investors, declared that thei...
Feb 10, 2023•26 min•Season 4Ep. 16
In January, a team of researchers led by the University of Oxford’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment released a report titled “The State of Carbon Dioxide Removal.” The authors called it the first global assessment of the field and what gaps need to be closed to scale carbon removal. The 101-page report covered how much CDR currently exists, the research landscape, existing policy support, and the gap between current plans and what will be needed to reach climate goals. It containe...
Feb 03, 2023•38 min•Season 4Ep. 15
Where are the buyers? That’s the question CDR-observer and climate advisor Robert Höglund asked in a much-discussed recent post . Höglund points out that while significant growth occurred for CDR through voluntary markets in 2022, the number of large buyers is low and growing slowly. He called the market “upside down”: lots of marketplaces, fewer companies doing removal, even fewer buyers. Today we’ll look at his post and use it as a jumping-off point to discuss some recent headlines in the busi...
Jan 20, 2023•42 min•Season 4Ep. 14
In 2021 the U.S. congress passed the bipartisan Infrastructure bill , which alongside funding for roads and bridges, included $3.5 billion for 4 DAC demonstration hubs . Each will be a large-scale DAC facility, and they may be the first engineered CDR built at scale in the U.S. Since the bill was passed, DAC-watchers and interested entrepreneurs have been waiting for more information on what the funding would be spent on and who would be eligible to receive it. In the meantime, the DOE under the...
Jan 13, 2023•39 min•Season 4Ep. 13
Last month, the non-profit Carbon Drawdown Initiative published a blog post featuring pictures of 11 projects across the world where researchers were spreading basaltic rock dust onto farm fields. This technique is known as enhanced weathering, and the post shows an upward trend in popularity. According to the post, the projects photographed cumulatively spread 50,000 tons of rock dust onto farm fields last year, with another 500,000 planned for this year. These pilot programs are conducted by a...
Jan 06, 2023•35 min•Season 4Ep. 12
It's our last business episode of 2022. It's been a newsworthy year for startups, corporate commitments, and investing in carbon removal, and December has been no different. This week we'll talk about a grab-bag of headlines: Prince William came to the U.S. to give a promising carbon storage startup $1 million (among other things). A major investor doubled down on their climate fund at a time when general VC funding is drying up. An on-the-ground look at one DAC company's foray into bringing CDR...
Dec 16, 2022•39 min•Season 4Ep. 11
Back in April of this year, Stripe, Alphabet, Shopify, Meta, and McKinsey announced a joint project to invest $925 million into carbon removal by 2030. Using an Advanced Market Commitment structure, the group aims to provide a source of stable demand and revenue to potential CDR companies to help the industry grow. In November, Frontier offered a new resource to the CDR industry- a database of “Carbon Removal Knowledge Gaps.” In a blog post announcing the release of the work, the authors said, “...
Dec 02, 2022•34 min•Season 4Ep. 9
The U.S. elections provided a boost to a President who has overseen climate action, world leaders are gathering in Egypt for COP27 to discuss our climate future, and what could be the next Enron has crashed crypto. What does it all mean for the business of carbon removal?? Join us this week to learn more- Susan thinks this election was a big win for climate voters, and provides some data about the unexpected impact that bloc has begun to have. Na’im reflects on the lesson’s of the FTX collapse a...
Nov 18, 2022•43 min•Season 4Ep. 8
We planned an episode this week about carbon removal policy in the next Congress. At the time of recording we still don’t know which party will control either chamber. Since it looks most likely that the GOP will win at least the House of Representatives, we focused this episode on the prospect for bipartisan CDR policy opportunities. While Joe Biden and the Democrats retain control of the White House, they likely can’t pass legislation without Republican votes like they’ve been able to do for t...
Nov 11, 2022•38 min•Season 4Ep. 7
If you’ve read about carbon removal online, you’ve seen the refrain, “just plant trees”! It’s true that a living tree draws down co2 as it grows, but can mass forestation slow climate change? That math of forest carbon sequestration is complicated. But a lot of government climate plans, ESG investing rules, and most of the carbon offset markets are relying on forest projects to deliver CO2 removals. A new study from Israeli researchers sheds some light on the forestation carbon math. Specificall...
Nov 04, 2022•38 min•Season 4Ep. 6
Just a few years ago, DAC technology existed exclusively on a lab bench. This year the industry raised over $1 billion in VC funding, with over 50 funded startups in existence. While there are still technological hurdles to overcome to bring CDR to scale, funding also needs to be diversified and innovated, something we’ve discussed before on this show. Tech money continues to pour into CDR. Just this week, two large new funding mechanisms for CDR companies have been announced. Terraset is a new ...
Oct 28, 2022•36 min•Season 4Ep. 5
In July, over 40 carbon removal startups announced the launch of a new industry group: The Carbon Business Council . Since then, the list of members has grown past 70 companies. The group’s goal is to serve as a “resource for our members, lawmakers, the energy industry, and the environmental community to advocate for the responsible growth of the carbon management industry.” They recently published an Ethical Oath to Restore the Earth, which many members have signed. This pledge states that sign...
Oct 14, 2022•36 min•Season 4Ep. 4
