Carbon180 released a new report, "Zero, Then Negative: The Congressional Blueprint for Scaling Carbon Removal," and this week on Carbon Removal Newsroom, our panelists dive into some of the report's details! Nori's Head of Methodology, Radhika Moolgavkar, hosts guest panelists Ugbaad Kosar, Deputy Director of Policy at Carbon180, and Lucia Simonelli, Senior Policy Fellow specializing in Direct Air Capture at Carbon 180. Returning panelists Dr. Holly Jean Buck of the University at Buffalo and Chris Barnard of the American Conservation Coalition also join in with questions and thoughts on the report. 

The discussion covers how direct air capture facilities might scale up, how a federal land link program could solve succession problems in farming, the role that prizes have played in human history and how they can be advantageous in the climate space, and why not every climate solution is appropriate in every place. Our guest panelists also describe their ideal three-course meal of carbon removal solutions and explain how tech and land-based solutions can work together to help society reach its climate goals. 

What is Photochemical Carbon Removal?

In this episode of Carbon Removal Newsroom we learn how two professors from the University of Washington went from studying coral on the late Marlon Brando’s private island, to developing an energy efficient process that removes carbon dioxide from the ocean.

Join co-founders Dr. Alex Gagnon and Dr. Julian Sachs of Banyu Carbon, as they dissect their groundbreaking photochemical process. Learn how carbon dioxide is the most abundant dissolved gas in water, making it a more concentrated source than ambient air.

Discover the scalability of photochemical CDR, and why Banyu’s been gaining so much momentum lately. Could Banyu’s process end up being energy negative? In other words, will it produce more energy than is actually required to remove the carbon?

Listen now.

*A special Thank You from our guests to the Seeley Family:

“Thank you to David Seeley and his father who brought Tetiaroa to our attention in 2014 and encouraged us to take advantage of the pristine coral ecosystem there for our research. The Seeley family generously supported our research and that of several others ever since. A kind, fun, and remarkable family we are grateful to have worked with.”

On This Episode

Alex Gagnon

Julian Sachs

Radhika Moolgavkar

Resources

Banyu Carbon

DOE Voucher Program

University of Washington marine research on Tetiaroa

Activate FellowshipOcean Visions Launchpad 

Tetiaroa Society

The Brando resort

Connect with Nori

Nori

Nori’s X account

Nori’s other podcast Reversing Climate Change

Nori’s CDR meme X account

In this week’s science-focused episode of Carbon Removal Newsroom, hosts Radhika Moolgavkar of Nori and Holly Jean Buck of the University at Buffalo are joined by co-host Dr. Jane Zelikova, executive director of the Soil Carbon Solutions Center and joint faculty in crop and soil science at Colorado State University.

This week we’re discussing new research which explores the relationship between geology, climate, and weathering rates across the continental United States, as well as an opinion piece in the journal Global Change Biology, arguing that biological processes will also affect the carbon removal potential of enhanced weathering.

How’s the CDR economic outlook for 2024?

Sightline Climate recently reported that investment for the entire climate tech industry dropped 30% in 2023. Similarly, Pitchdeck released a report specifically outlining carbon removal's recent dip in VC funding. However, Captura just announced a $21.5 million Series A raise.

So is CDR immune to the climate tech investing downturn?

In this episode of Carbon Removal Newsroom, we talk about market responses to uncertainty, the role of large offtake agreements as funding mechanisms, and what stage governments are currently at in their carbon removal journeys.

Tune in to hear about the latest CDR Market Outlook Survey, Kenya’s proposed 15-25% carbon credit export tax, and if what we really need are some experienced solar folks to jump into the CDR waters. 

On This Episode

Susan Su

Na’im Merchant

Radhika Moolgavkar

Resources

CDR Market Outlook SurveyCTVC market reportPitchdeck reportKenya’s proposed taxCarbon Removal Canada

Connect with Nori

Nori

Nori’s X account

Nori’s other podcast Reversing Climate Change

Nori’s CDR meme X account

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 announcements from CDR startups.

• Charm Industrial has secured a $100 million Series B funding round to further their bio-oil pyrolysis approach.
• Carbon to Sea has successfully obtained $50 million in philanthropic funding to progress their work on ocean alkalinity enhancement.
• Newcomer DAC startup, Holocene, has formed a partnership with the Department of Energy to accelerate their next-generation technology from lab to market. 

These developments represent new scientific research supported by philanthropy, fresh cutting-edge technology, and significant funding efforts. Radhika and the business panel unpack what these milestones mean for CDR startups.

Providing expert commentary and analysis on these developments are Na’im Merchant and Susan Su. They lend their expertise to help us understand the potential implications these headlines will have on the future of the CDR sector.

On This Episode

Na’im Merchant

Susan Su

Radhika Moolgavkar

Resources

Charm funding

Carbon to Sea news

Holocene article

Prime Coalition

Na’im’s Carbon Curve episode w/ panel from Carbon Unbound

Connect with Nori

Nori

Nori’s Twitter

Nori’s other podcast Reversing Climate Change

Nori’s CDR meme twitter account

This week, we’re bringing you a panel discussion from the Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy’s annual CDR conference. Our policy panelist, Wil Burns, hosted the conference and led this panel discussion on the role of mandates in growing CDR in the US.

The US government has stepped forward into the role of subsidizing and encouraging CDR in recent years, offering a ‘carrot’ to promote the new industry, in the form of large grants and tax incentives. But what could the government do to present a ‘stick’- requiring CDR using existing regulations?

That’s the topic of this policy panel featuring Dan Galpern, the Executive Director of the Climate Protection and Restoration Initiative, and Stephanie Arcusa, a researcher at the Arizona State University Center for Negative Carbon Emissions. 

Dan spoke about using the Toxic Substances Control Act to regulate carbon emissions, including the possibility of mandating carbon dioxide removal as a condition for allowing ongoing emissions. He argues that the TSCA provides clear authority for such regulation, citing past precedents and legal interpretations.

Stephanie discusses the concept of a Carbon Take Back Obligation, which would require fossil fuel producers to sequester a ton of carbon for every ton they extract. This policy aims to gradually transition to net-zero emissions by creating a demand for carbon removal and applying the policy upstream in the fossil fuel supply chain.

Both approaches aim to address the challenges of scaling up carbon removal and mitigating climate change, but they also raise questions about political feasibility, environmental justice, and the impact on consumers, particularly those in lower-income households.

We hope you enjoy this high-level look at the policy levers that may one day lead to the scaling up of CDR.  

On This Episode

Wil Burns

Dan Galpern

Stephanie Arcusa

Resources

Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy

UN Production Gap Report

Toxic Substances Control Act

EU Industrial Net-Zero Act

CA’s CDR Market Development Act

CBTO in the news

Connect with Nori

Nori

Nori’s Twitter

Nori’s other podcast Reversing Climate Change

Nori’s CDR meme twitter account

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-emitting facilities purchase "negative emissions credits" to offset their climate impact. It would be the first state-level legislation to create a compliance mechanism carbon removal. 

This legislation makes polluters pay to remove CO2, a statewide public-sector source of funds that would have a catalytic effect on the CDR industry.

On this episode we’re joined by one of the founders of OpenAir, a leader of the advocacy effort in California, and the Director of Initiatives at Rethinking Removals: Chris Neidl. 

Chris will help us understand the workings of SB308, its potential contribution towards California's climate targets, and share his personal experiences advocating for this important legislation. 

On This Episode

Radhika Moolgavkar

Chris Neidl 

Resources

OpenAir Collective

Our Ep w/ Sebastian Manhart

SB308

Josh Becker

OpenAir Action Page for SB308

Join a Citizen Lobbying Call

Sign the Support Letter for Companies and Orgs

Connect with Nori

Nori

Nori’s Twitter

Nori’s other podcast Reversing Climate Change

Nori’s CDR meme twitter account

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, rather than developing their CDR products. 

Peter Reinhardt, Founder and CEO of Charm Industrial, told Semafor that “…the SVB collapse will cause a one to two-quarter delay on a lot of things in climate tech. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you look at how much needs to get deployed in the next decade, losing half a year is really not good.”

The business panel also discusses some other recent CDR business news: 

• South Korea’s announced carbon exchange
• a new alliance of carbon removal companies
• Na’im’s work as the ED of the brand-new org Carbon Removal Canada

On This Episode

Na’im Merchant

Susan Su

Radhika Moolgavkar

Resources

NYT Article on SVB’s climate lending

Semafor Article w/ Reinhardt quote

Jeff Snider’s podcast

Na’im on diverse sources of funding

Dai Ellis blog post

South Korea’s new carbon exchange

Carbon Removal Alliance

Giana Amador

Carbon Business Council

Carbon Removal Canada

Carbon Removal Canada jobs- work with Na’im!

Connect with Nori

Nori

Nori’s Twitter

Nori’s other podcast Reversing Climate Change

Nori’s CDR meme twitter account

It’s been a few months since our business panel has gathered to break down the many headlines coming from the world of CDR.

On this episode we’ll talk about some of the biggest news from September: new funds, new deployments, new corporate purchases, and a gathering of the who’s who in carbon removal in New York City. You’ll hear news about

Amazon + Occidental

Microsoft + Heirloom

DOE’s DAC Hubs

Microsoft + Carbon Streaming

Climeworks

The Reykjavik Protocol

Climate Weeks NYC

& more…

Joining us on this episode is our business panel: Susan Su, a partner focused on climate investing at TOBA capital, a board member at the Carbon Business Council, and a board advisor to the Environmental Voter Project and Na'im Merchant the Executive Director of Carbon Removal Canada, an Elemental Excelerator policy fellow and the author of the The Carbon Curve, a newsletter about the policies and technologies needed to grow the carbon removal market.

On This Episode

Radhika Moolgavkar

Susan Su

Na'im Merchant

Resources

Amazon’s deal with Occidental

Microsoft’s deal with Heirloom

Heirloom DAC Hub

Microsoft’s deal with Carbon Streaming

Climeworks in Kenya

Our interviews with Octavia’s CEO

The Reykavik Protocol

Web Summit Climate Track

Carbon Removal Canada’s launch event

Connect with Nori

Nori

Nori’s Twitter

Nori’s other podcast Reversing Climate Change

Nori’s CDR meme twitter account

Last week, Mark Zuckerberg and Pricilla Chan announced their second large set of charitable gifts into the carbon removal field in the last six months. Specifically, the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative announced $44 million in grants towards CDR. Combined with the $23 million they gave in October of 2021, the couple has given $67 million to support carbon removal in the last five months.

They join other billionaires like Jeremy Grantham and Elon Musk, whose giving has shown they also see CDR as an important part of the climate fight.

While a few foundations, such as CZI, have the resources to look deeply at supporting the carbon removal industry, many corporations rely on net-zero plans that lack full detail about carbon accounting and emissions reductions plans. A report released earlier this month by the New Climate Institute and Carbon Market Watch found that the net-zero plans of 25 of the world’s most valuable companies are not specific and don’t explain how they’ll reduce emissions by 2050.

A new coalition announced last week aims to fill this alleged gap in credibility between corporate plans and real action. Microsoft and the Climateworks Foundation announced “Carbon Call,” a partnership between 20 corporates, non-profits, and research organizations. In a statement to Axios, the group is building what they call “a carbon ledger…a global dashboard that tells you what exactly is happening in terms of emissions,” in a statement . Signatories include Deloitte, GlaxoSmithKline, and the UN Environment Program.

The coalition will use their pooled resources and expertise to improve the carbon accounting methodologies used in corporate emissions reporting. Ultimately, they hope this will allow corporate and national emission data to be accurate and directly comparable.

In this week’s business episode, hosts Radhika Moolgavkar, Susan Su, and Na’im Merchant discuss the CZI gifts, how Carbon Call aims to improve corporate emissions accounting, and the short supply of quality carbon removal available to meet the skyrocketing demand.

Back in January of 2021, Elon Musk tweeted that he'd be "donating $100 million towards a prize for best carbon capture technology." If you're following carbon removal, you probably know he has partnered with the XPrizeorganization to launch a multi-stage, multi-year prize program attracting not only attention but applications from a considerable range of serious science and business minds.

Ocean Visions is a non-profit that supports ocean CDR's research and deployment. Now, it is seeking to help some of the most promising ideas in that space get the attention and support that comes with such a visible prize.

Ocean Visions has selected six teams that will receive support to apply for the prize in the form of technical expertise and physical resources like labs and vessels to develop their technique.

On this episode Radhika and Susan are joined by a panel of representatives from the Launchpad: program manager Nikhil Neelakantan and representatives from two of the teams: Dr. Franziska Elmer the Scientific Lead of Seafields, which is building offshore seaweed aquafarms, and Ben Tarbell the CEO of Ebb Carbon which is developing an electrochemical method for CO2 removal from seawater.

They discuss their methods for removing CO2, why they are applying for the prize, and what they’d hope to accomplish with the proceeds. Susan shares her thoughts on prize programs, and how she thinks they can have the most impact.

Plus- Susan is hosting an event! “How Startups Can Engage with Climate Policy” with Anne Hoskins, Chief Policy Officer at SunRun & Peter Minor, Director of Innovation at Carbon180 — 4pm Apr 8.

Sign-up link below-

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeEpNQ8lWvBz9tp70gR5_SOV9IMZB7IRAInjdcq8uBLB4UR7A/viewform

This week on the Carbon Removal Newsroom podcast, Nori's Head of Methodology Radhika Moolgavkar hosts Dr. Holly Jean Buck of the University of Buffalo, and the Director of Sustainability at Bushel, Allison Nepveux. They discuss the Colonial Pipeline hack, how we can extract ourselves from our fossil fuel dependency, the impact of agricultural financing and crop insurance, and we hear some pushback on the Growing Climate Solutions Act.

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 growing number of organizations that believe vast amounts of co2 can be sequestered from the atmosphere by applying basaltic rock dust to working croplands while also improving agricultural yields.

If that’s true, it will represent an affordable carbon removal method with significant co-benefits.

But how can scientists tell that co2 drawdown occurs after the rock dust is applied to the fields? What techniques and experiments will confirm that this process is ready to be scaled up?

On this episode the science panel looks at two recent pieces of ERW news that shed light on the state of ERW measurement-

In December, a group of researchers from the UK published the results of their 14-month study in which basaltic rock dust was spread over soil cores for 14 months. The study found limited CO2 removal compared to their models.

At the end of last year, Puro.earth, one of the largest vendors of carbon removal credits, added a framework to certify ERW credits to be sold on their platform. Previously ERW-based credits have never been available on a large scale in the carbon markets. Even Puro acknowledges "general scientific consensus on best practice … does not yet exist", but they've taken the first stab at connecting ERW with carbon funding streams.

Joining Radhika to discuss the scientific challenges of measuring the CDR potential of enhanced weathering is our regular science panel Dr. Shannon Valley and Dr. Jane Zelikova.

On This Episode

Jane Zelikova

Shannon Valley

Radhika Moolgavkar

Resources

Carbon Drawdown Initiative blog post

ERW soil core study

Puro.earth

Puro ERW Framework

Global Mangrove Loss Halted

Connect with Nori

Nori

Nori’s Twitter

Nori’s other podcast Reversing Climate Change

Nori’s CDR meme twitter account

This week's panelists are all Norinauts! We had on Nori's Director of Corporate Development Alexsandra Guerra, Director of Carbon Economics Aldyen Donnelly, and "moonlighting marketer" Mellina White.

We discussed four topics:

1. Climate justice: Mellina and Ross recorded a bonus episode of Reversing Climate Change earlier this week as a brief introduction to Black Lives Matter, climate justice, and carbon removal. Mellina is back to follow up and also share about the reform efforts of Campaign Zero.
2. Climeworks closed a 73M CHF financing round.
3. Savory Institute and Timberland have a new partnership around regenerative leather for a new line of boots.
4. New rules for the 45Q tax credit.

If you like the show, you can join our community and support us on Patreon, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts/iTunes or Stitcher, tell your friends, share us on social media, etc. Thank you so much for listening!

In January of 2022, New York Assemblymember Patricia Fahy and State Senator Michelle Hinchey introduced the Carbon Dioxide Removal Leadership Act. The proposed legislation aims to use public procurement of carbon removal to help meet the state’s emissions reductions goals by purchasing enough removals to cover the state’s “hard-to-abate” sector’s by 2050- 15% of the state’s 1990 emissions.

Under this law, the state will use reverse auctions to purchase measurable and verifiable removals. The legislation also mandates that community benefits and job creation factor into the auction.

CDRLA was developed by a grassroots, online, volunteer climate advocacy community called the OpenAir Collective. Last year, OpenAir advocates successfully wrote and championed a bill in New York State that aims to decarbonize the concrete sector there. Members of the group are also working on other projects, such as building several open-source direct air capture prototypes.

In this episode Radhika and Chris are joined by OpenAir’s Toby Bryce who describes how the legislation was created through their organization’s open-source approach and how the law will work if it becomes law. Chris dives into how this kind of legislation could work from a convservative point of view, and how reverse auctions can be an effective way for public procurement to support competitive markets.

For more info on CDRLA and OpenAir visit…

• Bill No. A8597 / Senate Bill S8171
• CDRLA FAQ
• Legislative brief
• Support memo
• Join OpenAir
• Follow OpenAir on Twitter
• OpenAir's This Is CDR webinar series

Toby on Twitter

Chris on Twitter

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 wildlife, cut back on CO2 emissions, and combat the issue of ocean plastic.

With his extensive background in environmental policy and public relations, Todd offers a unique perspective on the interplay between the marketplace and environmental action. "Todd's insights are set to provide a clear understanding of the political and social dynamics facing advocates of carbon removal in the environmental landscape."

Just last month, a landmark decision in Washington State made headlines as it became the first in the U.S. to pass its capital budget with funding specifically allocated for carbon dioxide removal, or CDR. This move is groundbreaking as it goes beyond just CO2, marking the first time a U.S. state has endorsed investments into technologies designed to actively remove a full spectrum of greenhouse gases, including methane and nitrous oxide, from our atmosphere.

The state will distribute these funds—totaling $12 million—as grants. Businesses, academic institutions, and non-profit organizations can apply, leveraging this opportunity to further their research, development, and demonstration projects focused on carbon and greenhouse gas removal. This decision is a timely one. 

Todd and Radhika talk about his work on environmental policy, its applications to carbon removal, and the recent news from Washington State. 

On This Episode

Radhika Moolgavkar

Todd Myers

Resources

Washington Policy Center

“Time to Think Small”

Washington State Funding

Connect with Nori

Nori

Nori’s Twitter

Nori’s other podcast Reversing Climate Change

Nori’s CDR meme twitter account

Is Large-Scale CDR Sustainable?

Two recent journal publications point to potential risks associated with large-scale carbon dioxide removal (CDR). Is 10 gigatons annually a realistic and sustainable target? Should we aim for 1 gigaton, or could 28 be feasible? What land use and energy limitations are inherent in large-scale CDR, and what policy measures could ensure a just and scientifically rigorous implementation of this emerging technology?

In this episode, our Policy Panel discusses both the potential pitfalls and the potential necessity of large-scale carbon removal, as humanity continues to emit over 40 gigatons of CO2 annually (and counting).

A must-listen for those who question the viability of CDR as well as those who believe in the "gigatons or bust" approach.

On This Episode

Wil Burns

Holly Jean Buck

Radhika Moolgavkar

Resources

Science paperEnvironmental Science & Technology paperHolly's book Ending Fossil Fuels

Connect with Nori

Nori

Nori’s X account

Nori’s other podcast Reversing Climate Change

Nori’s CDR meme X account

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 show because we feel it is just as important as funding news and scientific advancements. 

In order to help build an environmentally just industry, Xprize has partnered with Carbon180 to write a comprehensive report on environmental justice in the context of carbon removal projects. 

This report discusses the importance of environmental justice for carbon removal companies, the concept of climate justice, and the need for fair distribution of project benefits.

In this episode we’re joined by two of the authors of this report, who are leading the effort build environmental justice into the CDR industry: Nikki Batchelor, the Executive Director of the Carbon Removal Prize, and Ugbaad Kosar, the Director of Environmental Justice for Carbon180.

On The Show

Ugbaad Kosar

Nikki Batchelor

Radhika Moolgavkar

Resources

Xprize Carbon Removal

Carbon180

From the Ground Up report

Connect with Nori

Nori

Nori’s Twitter

Nori’s other podcast Reversing Climate Change

Nori’s CDR meme twitter account

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 their members will not be able to invest in carbon removal to reach their climate goals until at least 2030.

And the European Commission released its draft Green Deal Industrial Plan, a new set of policy objectives to build out their climate infrastructure. It includes support for many decarbonization technologies, but at least one CDR NGO says it doesn’t do enough for carbon removal.

We’re pleased to announce the return of long-time friend of the show Holly Jean Buck. Welcome back, Holly!

On a less happy note, it is the last episode for Chris Barnard as a regular panelist. Chris, you will be missed.

On This Episode

Holly Jean Buck

Chris Barnard

Radhika Moolgavkar

Resources

Net-Zero Owner Alliance

Glasgow Alliance for Net-Zero

NZOA coverage from Reuters

European Commission’s Green Deal Industrial Plan

EC’s Q&A about new plan

Carbon Gap

Carbon Gap post about Green Deal

Reuters article about US/EU trade dynamics

Clean Energy is Cheaper Than Coal Across Whole US, Study Finds

Connect with Nori

Nori

Nori’s Twitter

Nori’s other podcast Reversing Climate Change

Nori’s CDR meme twitter account

An entirely new format! Carbon Removal Newsroom is now a panel show. We are finding our cadence now, and new episodes should come out weekly, biweekly, monthly—we will see—with panelists from the world of carbon removal to give listeners the latest in carbon removal news.

This week's news: Stripe has announced its first negative emissions purchases! Climeworks, Project Vesta, CarbonCure, and Charm Industrial were selected after a rather interesting and open-source vetting process. The panelists discuss issues of permanence, the tradeoffs between various industrial, ecological, and hybrid approaches to carbon removal, and what this means for the sector as a whole.

This week's panelists:

• Noah Deich, Founder and Executive Director of Carbon180
• Tito Jankowski, Cofounder of Negative and the AirMiners virtual community
• Aldyen Donnelly, Cofounder and Director of Carbon Economics at Nori

You can support the show and become a part of our community by becoming a patron on Patreon! Please do if you feel so moved.

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 that a percentage of the revenue goes directly to local communities. 

Deforestation rates in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest have fallen by 33.6% during the first six months of 2023 under the new administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. This contrasts sharply with the record-breaking deforestation rates in 2022 under former president Jair Bolsonaro, who promoted mining and farming in protected areas.

The UK government has announced comprehensive changes to its Emissions Trading Scheme: a program designed to decarbonize the country eventually. The ETS will now include more sectors, set new emissions limits for the power sector, energy-intensive industries, and aviation, and incorporate carbon removal technologies into the ETS. CDR solutions, like direct air capture, BECCs, and nature-based removals, will now be traded in the ETS program. 

Today I’m with our regular policy panel of Holly Buck Assistant Professor of Environment and Sustainability at the University at Buffalo and the author of Ending Fossil Fuels, and Wil Burns the Co-Executive Director of the Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy at American University.

On This Show

Holly Jean Buck

Wil Burns

Radhika Moolgavkar

Resources

New Zimbabwe Regulations

Amazon Deforestation Decrease

Cerrado Deforestation Increase

“Brazilian Amazon Indigenous Territories” paper

Petrobras Increasing Oil Output

UK ETS Changes

Drax BECCS projects

Our Episode on California’s SB 308

Connect with Nori

Nori

Nori’s Twitter

Nori’s other podcast Reversing Climate Change

Nori’s CDR meme twitter account

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. Crucially, land-use sinks won’t offset all residual emissions by 2050- meaning many countries hope new CDR technologies are reliable. 

For the world to meet climate goals, countries must achieve the ambitions set out in their plans. If those plans are not well-defined, it is unlikely they will achieve success. 

Also on this episode, the panel discusses Climeworks’ call to differentiate CDR from emissions cuts, as well as Stanford’s new CDR program and some controversy surrounding it.   

One of the authors, Holly Buck, joins us today to talk about this important research. And returning to our policy panel is another leading expert in the legalities of CDR- Wil Burns, the Co-Director at the Institute for Carbon Removal Law & Policy at American University. 

On This Episode

Holly Jean Buck

Wil Burns

Radhika Moolgavkar

Resources

Holly’s Research on Residual Emissions

Climate Action Tracker

SBTI

Climework’s Announcement

Stanford CDR Program

Chronicle of Higher Education Article on Stanford + Oil Companies

Connect with Nori

Nori

Nori’s Twitter

Nori’s other podcast Reversing Climate Change

Nori’s CDR meme twitter account

The XPRIZE remains one of the top stories in carbon removal and one of the largest funding sources for CDR start-ups. The Elon Musk-backed competition will award $50 million to the winning CDR startup in 2025 and send $10 million to three other runner-up teams.

Over 1000 teams worldwide have applied since the award was announced in 2021.

This month, XPRIZE released the detailed “Getting to Gigaton” report, which provided comprehensive data and analysis of the top 100 teams. A few weeks later, they announced the top 20 finalist teams competing for the grand prize.

The report and the selection of the top teams provide a state of play for the industry by showing what methodologies are most ready to grow to a gigaton scale, according to XPRIZE's expert CDR judges.

Today's show is with Nikki Batchelor, the Executive Director of XPRIZE Carbon Removal, and Mike Leitch, the Senior Technical Lead, about how they selected the top 20, what they found in this report, and what comes next for the competition.

On This Episode

Nikki Batchelor

Mike Leitch

⁠Radhika Moolgavkar⁠

Resources

“Getting to Gigaton”⁠ report

Connect with Nori

⁠⁠⁠⁠Nori⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠Nori’s X account⁠⁠⁠⁠

Nori’s other podcast ⁠⁠⁠⁠Reversing Climate Change⁠⁠⁠⁠

Nori’s CDR ⁠⁠⁠⁠meme X account

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 signed member companies will adhere to a set of ethical guidelines, such as a commitment to ensuring that the industry grows to benefit communities and that companies will support emissions reduction efforts. CO2BC Executive Director Ben Rubin likened it to a Hippocratic Oath for CDR.

Ben joins this episode alongside regular policy panelist Chris Barnard.

On This Episode

Chris Barnard

Ben Rubin

Radhika Moolgavkar

Resources

Carbon Business Council

CBC’s Ethical Oath to Restore the Earth

CBC’s White Paper

DAC Hubs

DAC Hub Regional Manager job opening

Connect with Nori

Nori

Nori’s Twitter

Nori’s other podcast Reversing Climate Change

Nori’s CDR meme twitter account

It’s been a big month in carbon removal funding news.   

Climeworks announced $650 million in new fundraising from an extensive group of private equity and investment management firms.   

Then, Stripe made public a nearly $1 billion plan to take their CDR purchasing program to a new level by partnering with Alphabet, Meta, McKinsey, Shopify, and more to pool their carbon credit dollars and buy removals from companies and facilities that don’t even exist yet. This plan was inspired by programs that have developed vaccines with Advanced Market Commitments.   

Rounding out the month’s big funding news was an announcement from climate-focused VC firm Lowercarbon Capital that they’ve raised $350 million to invest in carbon removal companies.   

Add that to the 15 $1 million milestone grants given in the first round of the carbon Xprize and the extensive public conversation around carbon removal that’s taken place since early April’s IPCC mitigation report. There’s a lot of news to talk about in the world of carbon removal.   

Joining Susan and Radhika to talk about all this is Josh Santos, CEO, and Co-Founder of Noya. Josh also gives some updates about Noya's recent progress.  

Resources: A Revamped Cost Curve for Reaching Net Zero Emissions- EDF https://www.edf.org/revamped-cost-curve-reaching-net-zero-emissions  

Dr. Jane Zelikova is Carbon180's Chief Scientist, and she is one of the contributors of their latest report, "Leading with Soil: Scaling Soil Carbon Storage in Agriculture". Which sorts of policy changes may be necessary to make carbon farming the dominant paradigm of agriculture? Jane shares her expertise on the topic.

"Leading with Soil: Scaling Soil Carbon Storage in Agriculture", a report by Cabron180

"Why is soil carbon measurement so tricky?—w/ Dr. Jane Zelikova of Carbon180", Jane's appearance on Reversing Climate Change

Jane's Twitter

500 Woman Scientists

In this week’s science-focused episode of Carbon Removal Newsroom, hosts Radhika Moolgavkar of Nori and Holly Jean Buck of the University at Buffalo are joined once again by co-host Dr. Jane Zelikova, executive director of the Soil Carbon Solutions Center and joint faculty in crop and soil science at Colorado State University.

We’re looking at two recently published studies which explore the challenges and opportunities around managing croplands and rangelands to draw down and store atmospheric carbon while making agriculture more sustainable.

We start by answering the questions, what is soil organic matter? How is it related to carbon? Then we look at how the results of the first study link to the broader fields of conservation agriculture, soil health, and soil carbon sequestration.

Next we look at the second study, which examines how management of cover crops in temperate climates influences soil organic carbon stocks.

Last, we discuss the upcoming USDA policies that might affect soil carbon, and finishing the episode with a good news story of the week.

Resources

Soil organic matter protects US maize yields and lowers crop insurance payouts under drought. Daniel A Kane et al. 2021, Environmental Research Letters, March 2021

Management of cover crops in temperate climates influences soil organic carbon stocks: a meta-analysis. McClelland et al. 2020, Ecological Applications, December 2020

Off-Season 'Cover' Crops Expand as US Growers Eye Low-Carbon Future

USDA Launches First Phase of Soil Carbon Monitoring Efforts

Soil Health Congressional Bill Tracker

Kiss the Ground 

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 carbon removal businesses. His reflections from this groundbreaking event, which he shared under the intriguing title "Cautiously Optimistic Removers," shed light on the current state and future direction of the CDR sector.

Radhika and Robert delve into his eight key insights from the event, uncovering the crucial issues facing the CDR sector - from the challenges of scale and certification standards to the essential role of public engagement. 

This episode is an inside look at the pressing issues of carbon removal and their significance in our increasingly carbon-conscious world. Why, despite the hurdles, is Robert’s mood was one of cautious optimism? Tune in to find out.

On This Episode

Radhika Moolgavkar

Robert Höglund

Resources

Carbon Unbound

Robert’s Blog Post about the conference

Klarna Announcement

JP Morgan Announcement

Microsoft BECCS purchase

Connect with Nori

Nori

Nori’s Twitter

Nori’s other podcast Reversing Climate Change

Nori’s CDR meme twitter account

In our guest’s corner of the geoscience field, inertinites are well-known to be stable forms of carbon. So Hamed Sanei was surprised to learn that there was significant debate over the stability of CO2 storage in biochar, which is an inertinite. In his view, the science of that question has been settled for a long time, and the answer is clear: biochar is durable carbon removal. 

Biochar represented 92% of permanent carbon removal sales in the first part of 2023. 

It is technologically ready and accessible by a larger share of businesses and populations than other ‘permanent methods’ due to its relatively low-tech production. A recent report found it could one day deliver three gigatons of CDR annually. More investment money is flowing to companies doing biochar, and it has become a staple of CDR portfolios among buyers who are diversifying. 

Not only that, but it is thousands of years old and works as a soil amendment that helps crop productivity. It can be made from various biomass types, and the potential uses are just as numerous.

However, a major question has hovered over the reputation of biochar: Is the carbon removed from the atmosphere by biochar stored permanently, or will it quickly seep back into the air?

However, recent research has drawn some optimistic conclusions. 

Hamed walks us through why there has been debate, what his research has found, and why he thinks the debate over carbon storage permanence needs to be closed so that the biochar community can focus on improving and scaling the use of biochar.

On This Episode

Radhika Moolgavkar

Hamed Sanei

Resources

CDR.fyi- How Much of CDR Sales are Biochar

Report on Global Potential of Biochar

Recent Biochar Purchase from Microsoft

Biochar is 1000’s of Year Old!

Hamed’s Research

The Lithospheric Organic Carbon Lab

European Biochar Industry Consortium

Connect with Nori

Nori

Nori’s Twitter

Nori’s other podcast Reversing Climate Change

Nori’s CDR meme twitter account

On April 22nd, XPRIZE announced the 15 winners of the second round of their competition for carbon removal solutions. Each of these teams has been awarded $1 million to help them compete for the grand prize of $50 million, or 3 $30 million runner-up slots, awarded three years from now.

The grand prize winner may not be one of the 15 Milestone awardees, but these teams are a step ahead of the competition and have already demonstrated an ability to impress the Xprize judges.

This episode features two segments with interviews of Milestone-winning teams.

First, Radhika and Na’im spoke with Carbin Minerals CTO Peter Scheuermann. Carbin’s work with mine waste streams is based on the pioneering research of Dr. Greg Dipple. Peter joined us to discuss how they plan to make mining carbon negative, their testing so far, and how their MRV approach will be “modular.”

In the second segment, CRN producer Asa Kamer fills in as guest host to talk with the two companies who make up the XPRIZE team “Project Hajar”: Mission Zero and 4401. 4401 Commercial Lieutenant Karan Khimji and Mission Zero CEO Nicholas Chadwick join us for a discussion on their DAC to Mineralization approach in Oman, their progress so far, and what keeps them up at night as they scale up.

On This Episode

Na’im Merchant

Peter Scheuermann

Karan Khimji

Nicholas Chadwick

Resources from pt. 1

Carbin Minerals

Greg Dipple

Elon Musk seeks sustainable nickel

Resources from pt. 2

4401

Mission Zero

Hajar Mountains

Jack Andreasen Tweet

Connect with Nori

Nori’s Twitter

Nori’s other podcast Reversing Climate Change

Nori’s CDR meme twitter account

Law structures so much of our lives, but can feel inaccessible to those untrained. It is also in flux! How is the law being changed in response to climate change? Which laws can be adapted to suit our climate-changing country and world? And which are unprepared for new challenges?

Today's episode of Carbon Removal Newsroom is hosted by Radhika Moolgavkar, Nori's VP of Supply and Methodology. She is joined by Romany Webb, the Deputy Director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at the Columbia Law School.

They discuss the evolving field of climate law, its critical role in the development of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies, and the unique legal challenges presented by ocean-based CDR methods. Webb highlights the growing interest among law students in climate technology and emphasizes the importance of legal frameworks in addressing climate change. The conversation delves into the complexities of international and local laws governing oceans, the innovative concept of Community Benefits Agreements for climate projects, and the positive feedback on model law proposals intended to regulate CDR activities safely.

The episode underscores the necessity of a diverse portfolio of CDR solutions to combat the climate crisis and explores the legal opportunities and challenges facing the CDR industry’s advancement.

On This Episode

⁠⁠Radhika Moolgavkar⁠⁠

Romany Webb

Resources

Sabin Center for Change Law at the Columbia Law School

Connect with Nori

⁠⁠Nori⁠⁠

⁠⁠Nori’s X account⁠⁠

Nori’s other podcast ⁠⁠Reversing Climate Change⁠⁠

Nori’s CDR ⁠⁠meme X account

This episode features Dr. Jane Zelikova, Chief Scientist at Carbon180, and Dr. Trisha Shrum, behavorial and environmental economist at the University of Vermont.

Jane organized The Royal Society's new Interface Focus issue on carbon dioxide removal called, "Going negative: An interdisciplinary, holistic approach to carbon dioxide removal". She additionally wrote an article in it, "The future of carbon dioxide removal must be transdisciplinary". Trisha also wrote an article in this issue, "Behavioural frameworks to understand public perceptions of and risk response to carbon dioxide removal". We walk through what this issue covers and then discuss in greater detail Trisha's research and the basics of behavioral economics & science and what that has to say about carbon removal.

Earlier this week the IPCC released its report on climate mitigation. It recommended enormous funding levels to deploy renewable energy to reduce carbon emissions from power generation while suggesting more funding still to research and invent the technologies needed to decarbonize other emitting sectors.

Under any future scenario, carbon removal is necessary to limit warming. Any pathway that leads to 1.5 degrees of warming, and nearly all that lead to 2 degrees of warming, include large-scale use of forestry, BECCS, and DAC.

The report finds that a wide range of stakeholders will need to move fast to deploy high levels of many different types of negative emissions approaches.

Joining Radhika on this episode to discuss this 3000-page report is Simon Nicholson, the Co-Director of the American University Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy.

Simon and Radhika take a look at the recommendations mean, how the report finds CDR scale-up might be achieved, and what are some of the implications for businesses, governments, and civil society?

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, “we’ve noticed a few areas that are underexplored relative to their potential. So, here we’re experimenting with a supply “push.” Our hypothesis is that we can more quickly shake the proverbial tree for the most promising ideas in CDR.”

To discuss the report this week and talk about what they see as big knowledge gaps for CDR are our regular science panel Shannon Valley and Jane Zelikova.

On This Episode

Jane Zelikova

Shannon Valley

Radhika Moolgavkar

Resources

Frontier blog post

Frontier database

Third Way Blog

Rocky Mountain Institute

Sunflower Seeds Ukraine

Connect with Nori

Nori

Nori’s Twitter

Nori’s other podcast Reversing Climate Change

Nori’s CDR meme twitter account

The world’s annual climate summit, COP28, has wrapped up in Dubai. As usual, the massive gathering will end without an all-encompassing deal to fix the climate, but with many new side deals, pledges, and announcements that are very relevant to our climate future. 

Boosters and critics alike will all find lots of fodder from the past few weeks, and for better or worse carbon removal played a role in the deliberations. 

On this episode, our policy panel reflects on the role CDR played at COP, and catch up on some other major industry news as we wrap up 2023 including-

-The COP deal to “transition from fossil fuels”

-Why the Article 6.4 rules on offsets were postponed

-Which countries committed to going “carbon-negative” at COP28

-Record climate capital deployed all over the world 

-“Carbon Removals at COP” coalition

-Frontier’s record CDR purchase from Lithos

-The Road to Removals report

-& the panels highlights of 2023 and what they hope to see in CDR in 2024

On This Episode

Holly Jean Buck

Wil Burns

Radhika Moolgavkar

Resources

‘Unabated’ fossil fuel debate

Holly’s book “Ending Fossil Fuels”

COP’s fossil fuel pledge

Record capital deployed

Carbon Removals at COP

Frontier’s purchase from Lithos

Road to Removal report

RMI’s new CDR innovation report

AGU Conference

Connect with Nori

Nori

Nori’s Twitter

Nori’s other podcast Reversing Climate Change

Nori’s CDR meme twitter account

Hi listeners, we won’t have a new episode this month and will return the first week of September. Due to Covid disruptions our summer break has been a bit longer than anticipated, but we’re looking forward to bringing you our regular schedule next month. Thanks for listening

Dr. Holly Jean Buck of the University at Buffalo and Chris Barnard of the American Conservation Coalition are back with host Radhika Moolgavkar of Nori for another episode of Carbon Removal Newsroom!

This week, our panelists examine the federal budget’s climate change and carbon removal proposals and connect the dots between the budget and the infrastructure bill. We also address the G7 Summit, discussing concerns around whether G7 leaders are doing enough, and pondering why there is no end date for coal. Our panelists look at clean energy standards and President Biden’s suspension of new oil and gas drilling leases on federal lands, then discuss the early heatwave and strained grid in Texas. As always, we conclude the episode with an uplifting environmental win— restored protections to the Tongass National Park in Alaska.

“Inflection Point,” “New Frontier,” “Finally Getting Serious”- are some of the ways the carbon removal field has been described in headlines over the past few weeks. With Frontier Climate, Lowercarbon capital, and Climeworks all announcing big new infusions of money into the wicked problem of pulling CO2 from the air, it’s fair to say the field has entered a new stage.

At a recent panel at Columbia University, Carbon Direct Vice-Chair Nili Gilbert said that she believes there are currently over 1000 companies working on carbon removal. She also noted that of those that are vetted, only 5% will be invested in.

The online newsletter Climate Tech VC found that after the IPCC mitigation report identified a major need for carbon removal in April, over $2.2 billion has been invested into CDR.

Forty-five companies received funding, with $1,100 million flowing to climate tech, $920 million to carbon accounting and marketplaces, and $65 million to MRV (with the other $1b committed by Stripe et al. via Frontier).

Before all this happened, our co-host Susan Su said that if a startup has a good CDR idea, it will access funding. That has turned out to be very prescient in the months since that forecast.

On this episode we talk about some of the big deals that have happened in 2022, the technical aspects of different funding methods, as well as what VC can and cannot do for CDR companies. The group also discuss Adam Neumann’s much-publicized foray into the world of carbon credits.

There’s also one more piece of big news we can announce - Na’im Merchant will be joining us as a regular co-host! That means every month you can hear Radhika, Susan, and Na’im discuss the latest news in CDR Business.

Panelists Dr. Holly Jean Buck of the University at Buffalo and Chris Barnard of the American Conservation Coalition join host Radhika Moolgavkar of Nori for this policy-focused episode of Carbon Removal Newsroom.

In April of 2021, Raj Kumar Singh, an Indian energy Minister, said at a UN conference that rich countries need to be net-negative and remove atmospheric co2 to account for historical emissions. While decades of climate diplomacy focused on emissions to come, Singh worked to shift the conversation towards pollution already emitted.

Later last year, journalist and author of popular climate book The Uninhabitable Earth David Wallace-Wells penned Climate Reparations in New York Magazine.

The long-form piece connected the inequitable effects of climate change, more drastically and quickly hitting tropical and global south countries, with the political outcomes made possible by carbon removal technology.

He points out that half of emissions come from 10% of the world’s population and that climate change has already decreased the GDP of some global south countries, while it has increased GDPs in the global North. This dynamic will continue and will widen already stark global wealth inequalities.

Wells reviews the field of technical CDR and finds that while it could present temptation for delay, it also provides revolutionary possibilities if historical emitters are made to pay to remove their pollution.

He calls this ‘climate reparations’ and quotes philosopher Olufemi Taiwo (who coined that term) “It’s just so clear to me that carbon removal is squarely the kind of thing that fits into the reparations framework.”

In this episode, we discuss the Wallace-Wells' piece and zoom in on climate reparations and climate colonialism, defining these phrases in more depth and explaining how these approaches might impact policies and institutions.

We also discuss the idea that carbon removal is not limited by physics, so what is carbon removal scaling limited by?

We round out the episode with the good news and the interesting news of the week, then we bid a warm farewell to our beloved co-host Holly, who will be going on sabbatical for the year. We will miss you Holly and look forward to seeing you back on the show!

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 contained some good news: CDR is scaling fast, and managed forests are doing a lot of drawdown already- and some bad: we’re not on track to have enough.

Today we’ll review this comprehensive snapshot with our science panel: Dr. Jane Zelikova and CRN producer Asa Kamer.

On This Episode

Dr. Jane Zelikova

Asa Kamer

Radhika Moolgavkar

Resources

State of CDR Report

CarbonBrief article about the report- w/ charts

Guardian article on Verra

Bloomberg article on potential of voluntary carbon markets

Connect with Nori

Nori

Nori’s Twitter

Nori’s other podcast Reversing Climate Change

Nori’s CDR meme twitter account

This week's panelists are Aldyen Donnelly, Nori's Director of Carbon Economics, and Tito Jankowksi, cofounder of Negative (a startup making products out of captured atmospheric carbon dioxide) and host of the AirMiners community.

Here are the articles discussed:

1. "Unilever’s New Climate Plan Puts Carbon Labels on 70,000 Products" by Akshat Rathi in Bloomberg Green.
2. "Impossible Foods CEO says the meat industry will be obsolete in 15 years — ‘That’s our mission’" by Tyler Clifford on CNBC.
3. WRI's webinar on soil carbon: "Why Regenerative Agriculture Is Good for Soil Health, but Has Limited Potential to Mitigate Climate Change".

Here's the link to apply to join the AirMiners Slack community, and here is Cool Farm Tool.

This week on Carbon Removal Newsroom, we’re discussing the latest IPCC Report, the $1 Trillion Infrastructure Bill, and pressure for companies to reach net-zero.

Returning panelists Dr. Holly Jean Buck of the University at Buffalo and Chris Barnard of the American Conservation Coalition join host Radhika Moolgavkar of Nori for this episode.

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 philanthropy that aims to fill CDR’s ‘funding gap.’ They aim to pool $1 billion by 2030 to fund startups directly. Early announced funders are Tim Ferriss and Segment co-founder Calvin French-Owen.

Propellor is a new VC fund that announced its first seed round of $100 million to invest in ocean-based climate tech.

We’ll discuss both announcements with our regular business panel, Susan Su and Na’im Merchant.

On This Episode

Susan Su

Na’im Merchant

Radhika Moolgavkar

Resources

$1 Billion in DAC VC Funding in 2022

Terraset

Propellor

Brian Halligan

Wood’s Hole Oceanographic Institute

Connect with Nori

Nori

Nori’s Twitter

Nori’s other podcast Reversing Climate Change

Nori’s CDR meme twitter account

Do short-term carbon offsets have value? How should their value be calculated for buyers?

Last month, the research non-profit CarbonPlan released an analysis of ton-year accounting of carbon offsets. The report examined how ton year accounting works, its limitations, and how it might be improved.

The CarbonPlan authors also released a critique of the method used by NCX, an offset seller. NCX issued a response post, and the back-and-forth was a visible surfacing of some of the main issues within offset markets.

On March 2nd, NCX announced a $50 million fundraising round from investors including JP Morgan and Marc Benioff, indicating that the uncertainty about offset calculations isn’t dampening the enthusiastic corporate interest in voluntary markets.

As net-zero plans have proliferated in the last year, the demand for voluntary offsets has grown, as has predicted future demand. However, while corporations and governments pledge to remove CO2 to fulfill their climate commitments, climate economists continue to debate some of the most fundamental elements of measuring offset emissions.

Earlier this week, Bodie Cabiyo joined his Carbon Direct colleague Alex Dolginow in penning a thorough blog post titled “Accounting for Short-Term Durability in Carbon Offsetting”.

In this episode Bodie and his Carbon Direct colleague John Dees joined host Radhika Moolgavkar to discuss ton-year accounting, the challenges of measuring short-term durability in offsets, and the current research into alternatives.

A lot has been happening in Europe lately.To break it all down for us, we’re joined by Sebastian Manhart, senior policy advisor at Carbonfuture and Initiator and Chair of the DVNE, Germany's CDR association.The episode discusses three major topics: 1) The good, the bad, and the surprising news from the concluded trilog negotiations on the Carbon Removal Certification Framework - how did reductions make it in there?2) The EU’s proposed 2040 emissions targets which quantifies the cost of inaction at 2.4 trillion euros.

3) The Green Claims Directive, which aims to address a critical issue: 53 percent of all environmental claims in Europe are misleading, and 40 percent are unfounded.Enjoy this power session on EU policy!

On This Episode

Radhika MoolgavkarSebastian Manhart

Resources

The Carbon Removal Certification Framework: Europe's Blueprint for Net-Zero 

From Greenwashing to Green Trust: The State of European Environmental Claims Regulation

Understanding Carbon Removal Policy Across Europe: An Exclusive Analysis

Tech openness letter signed by 350 companies

Connect with Nori

Nori

Nori’s X account

Nori’s other podcast Reversing Climate Change

Nori’s CDR meme X account

We’re back with another business-focused episode of Carbon Removal Newsroom, hosted by Radhika Moolgavkar, Nori’s Head of Supply and Methodology, along with Holly Jean Buck, Assistant Professor of Environment and Sustainability at the University at Buffalo (P.S.— look out for Holly’s new book, Ending Fossil Fuels: Why Net-Zero Is Not Enough, coming out on November 16th!). Plus, we’re joined by our co-host for business-focused episodes: Susan Su, partner focused on climate investing at Toba Capital and course creator for Climate Change for VCs, a course and community through terra.do.

This week, we are taking a look at the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26), the summit in Glasgow which begins Sunday, October 31st and lasts for two weeks. Specifically, we dive into the UK’s announcement calling for a global net-zero commitment by 2050, and what the implications of this goal might be for the carbon removal industry.

Next, we discuss some of the VC funding that happened in October, particularly for CarbonCapture, a modular DAC company, that landed a huge round. Plus, Anglo-Australian mining company Rio Tinto recently announced a plan to invest $7.5b by 2030 into decarbonizing their business. Does their foray into Direct Air Capture signal a trend that big emitters are ready to invest into this technology at the scale necessary to really bring down costs per ton? Or are they looking for a way to avoid emissions cuts? Or both?

We finish the episode with two good news stories from Susan: the first is that electric car sales more than doubled year-over-year in August to over 516,400! Second is that turtle populations in Cape Verde rose from around ten thousand in 2015, to almost 200,000 this year after successful conservation efforts.

This week, we’re discussing whether or not carbon removal hype distracts from the need to reduce emissions and looking at the EU’s ‘Fit for 55’ climate proposals. Panelist Chris Barnard describes the conservative climate rally put on by the American Conservation Coalition, and panelist Dr. Holly Jean Buck explains that our media ecology often rewards climate fear and doom over climate optimism. Our panelists discuss a recent article by Matthew Yglesias, 'What is the climate left doing?' and Holly Buck explains how her sociological research leads her to agree with Yglesias’s perspective in the article.

Other carbon removal news discussed in this episode: Carbon transformation startup Twelve (formerly Opus 12) raised $57 million in Series A funding. Twelve is pioneering a new market category called carbon transformation with its proprietary catalyst technology that transforms CO2 into critical chemicals, materials and fuels that are conventionally made from fossil fuels.

Carbon Engineering, a firm looking to commercialize nascent "direct air capture" tech, just unveiled a new retail offering for its services in partnership with the firm BeZero Carbon.

A recent cover story in Grist discusses soil and forest carbon and features two of Nori's farmers, Kelly Garrett and Trey Hill. The article describes some of the complications around soil and forestry carbon offsets. If you read it and have any thoughts or questions, Tweet us @nori.

The European Union unveiled ‘Fit for 55’ climate legislation proposals.

Plus, we debate how much power low-propensity environmental voters (LPEV) have in elections.

As always, the episode is concluded with a good news story of the week.

P.S., we are releasing Carbon Removal Newsroom episodes on an every-other-week cadence through the end of August. If there are topics you’d like us to cover, reach out on Twitter or at hello@nori.com.

In our first science-focused episode of Carbon Removal Newsroom, hosts Radhika Moolgavkar of Nori and Holly Jean Buck of the University at Buffalo are joined by our new science co-host, Dr. Jane Zelikova, executive director of the Soil Carbon Solutions Center and joint faculty in crop and soil science at Colorado State University.

First this week, we’re looking at new research showing, “Limited effects of tree planting on forest canopy cover and rural livelihoods in Northern India,” and understanding why one researcher referred to the large-scale tree planting program in Northern India as a failure. We explain the significance of these research findings and the potential improvements necessary to ensure that tree planting achieves its stated goals of sequestering carbon dioxide, increasing biodiversity, and improving the livelihoods of local communities.

Plus, a recent Twitter thread from German journalist Tin Fischer tells the story of a “Trillion Trees,” a figure that hardly held substance when first suggested, then took off in popular culture faster than climate scientists could shut it down. While it’s a catchy idea, the scientific paper used to support Trillion Trees in 2017 was widely critiqued for miscalculations and ultimately rescinded. We look at why this idea gained so much traction and what the realistic role of large-scale tree planting might be in drawing down carbon and addressing climate change.

Finally, we put reforestation up against the portfolio of carbon removal solutions, looking at where it fits in and how it should be funded.

We close out the episode with a good news story from Radhika on the winning bears of fat bear week in Alaska!

Let us know what you think of the show by reaching out to hello@nori.com, we'd love to hear your feedback!

Resources

The Oxford Principles for Net Zero Aligned Carbon Offsetting

The Oxford Offsetting Principles & carbon removal, w/ Eli Mitchell-Larson on Reversing Climate Change

The Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) recently came out and announced they would be issuing guidance for how some carbon offsets may be used to address Scope 3 emissions (activities beyond direct business operations and energy). This set off a firestorm of protest within and outside of SBTi, as well as some calls of support.

It was essentially a tabula rasa one could project one's carbon hopes and fears onto: would this lead to increased financing of sustainability efforts, or result in a race to the bottom of low-quality credits finding a new market? Something in-between, or just too early to tell?

In today's episode of Carbon Removal Newsroom, host ⁠⁠⁠Radhika Moolgavkar⁠⁠⁠, Nori's VP of Supply and Methodology, is joined by her business panelists ⁠⁠⁠Susan Su⁠⁠⁠, a venture capitalist at Toba Capital, and ⁠⁠⁠Na'im Merchant⁠⁠⁠, the Co-founder and Executive Director of Carbon Removal Canada, to make sense of this news.

They also cover other CDR industry headlines from April, including sustainable aviation fuel, biochar in the global south, and significant subsidy announcements from Denmark and Canada for carbon removal projects.

On This Episode

⁠⁠⁠⁠Radhika Moolgavkar⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠Susan Su⁠

⁠Na'im Merchant⁠

Resources

"Inside the Controversy That's Divided the Carbon Offsets Market" at Bloomberg

"SBTi is committed to robust governance and will not shy away from debate" by Luiz Amaral, CEO, Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi)

"Carbon Offset Market Faces Chaos as African Mega-Project Collapses" at Bloomberg

"Removals are better than some reductions - The case of electrofuels for aviation" by Robert Höglund

2023 Global Biochar Market Report

Captura's fundraising news

Mission Zero's fundraising news

Earlier this year, the think tank and polling organization Data for Progress released polling that showed that voters all across the political spectrum support federal procurement of carbon removal.

Researchers conducted two polls, one of New York voters on statewide legislation there and another of voters nationwide on pending Federal legislation. These two similar bills would compel the government to directly purchase carbon removals. In a February episode, we discussed the specifics of these bills with policy advocate and co-author of this report Toby Bryce.

Data for Progress also released polling last year, which also found support, though low recognition, for CDR and government investment into it.

This week Radhika and Chris talk with Celina Scott-Buechler of DFP about how this research was conducted, what the researchers found, and what she makes of the prospects for CDR procurement legislation.

On this episode

Celina Scott-Buechler

Chris Barnard

Resources

-Data for Progress

-DFP Polling

-Morning Consult Poll

-Forbes article “The Top Five Legal Barriers To Carbon Capture And Sequestration In Texas

-Manchin-Shumer permitting reform legislation

-Openair Collective

-Susskind et al. research on renewable energy siting

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Nori’s other podcast ⁠Reversing Climate Change⁠

Nori’s CDR ⁠meme twitter account

2023 is coming to a close, and a lot has happened in the world of CDR this year.

We’re going to take a look at the year in carbon removal to find out what’s changed in the last year- and what hasn’t. 

Investment in CDR remains strong, with many big deals making headlines- but what hasn’t changed? Deployments remain small and few in number.

The traditional offset market has faced scrutiny like never before, and seen a dip in investment. What’s still the same? Corporate buyers are still seeking out the lowest quality products.

Broadly climate progress is being made, but a new emissions gap report highlights how much more work there is and how much CDR has to grow to contribute. 

So join us as our business panel takes a look at what’s new in CDR, and what’s the same as it ever was. 

On This Episode

Susan Su

Na’im Merchant

Radhika Moolgavkar

Resources

Oxy-Climeworks Deal

New Frontier DAC Purchase

Heirloom Announces First US DAC Plant

Carbon Market Chaos

Bloomberg Report on Offsets

UN Emissions Gap Report

Connect with Nori

Nori

Nori’s Twitter

Nori’s other podcast Reversing Climate Change

Nori’s CDR meme twitter account

Carbon removal is in the news as Elon Musk has teased a one-hundred million dollar prize for the best carbon capture technology. What does it mean for the sector, and what is likely to happen next? Tito Jankowski of AirMiners is on the show to discuss.

The Clean Economy Jobs and Innovation Act involves billions of dollars being allocated across the carbon removal ecosystem. It just passed the US House of Representatives, and President Trump has stated his intent to veto it if it reaches his desk, but right now the focus is on its way through the Senate. Our panelist this week is Dr. Shuchi Talati, senior policy advisor at Carbon180. You can also read her recap of the bill here.

This week on Carbon Removal Newsroom, we’re starting off with an overview of biochar and discussing the main questions and concerns around this technology, including:

How does biochar compare to other Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) methods?

There is a lot of interest in making biochar, but does the market exist to use it?

What can governments do to help scale up the use of biochar as a carbon removal technique? Are any governments taking action yet?

Next, we transition to the CDR policy agenda in the United States. We look at the California Climate Crisis Act (AB 1395), which would Codify California’s commitment to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible and no later than 2045. If passed, this bill will set California on course to design a more comprehensive policy framework for CDR than exists in any state so far. The bill language is explicit in planning for technological as well as natural CDR methods and calls for measurable, durable CO2 removal.

We also cover geoengineering and its controversies, looking at the Politico article, “The problem with playing God to fix the climate: It might not work.”

Finally, our good news to round out the episode is that the team at ClimateScience has created a free online course on the science of carbon removal, with illustrations and quizzes along the way. 

Panelists Dr. Holly Jean Buck of the University at Buffalo and Chris Barnard of the American Conservation Coalition join host Radhika Moolgavkar of Nori for this episode.

Resources

Introductory Webinar: Methodology for Biochar Utilization in Soil and Non-Soil Applications (Verra)

Biochar Protocol (Climate Action Reserve)

Does biochar accelerate the mitigation of greenhouse gaseous emissions from agricultural soil? - A global meta-analysis (ScienceDirect)

The waste product which could help mitigate climate change (ScienceDaily)

Net-Zero Emissions Bill Advances in the California State Senate (EDF)

With the Climate Crisis Act, California can lock in a safer pathway to net-zero emissions (EDF)

Amid the Misery of Hurricane Ida, Coastal Restoration Offers Hope. But the Price Is High (Inside Climate News)

The problem with playing God to fix the climate: It might not work (Politico)

Why Geoengineering Is ‘Untested and Untestable’ (The Nation)

Climate Science: Carbon removal courses

This week we recorded our business episode live in front of a Zoom audience. The audience was invited to pose questions to our hosts Radhika, Susan, and Na’im. They discussed-

-Which type of CDR will be the first to achieve 1 gigaton of removal

-The effect of global economic turbulence on CDR’s prospects

-The First Movers Coalition

-Occidental’s plan for 70 DAC plants

-& more!

To kick off our season three premiere(!), yesterday was the big AirMiners conference, which the host platform shows 637 people attended! To discuss their takeaways from the event's diverse discussions are panelists: Dr. Holly Jean Buck, Assistant Professor of Environment and Sustainability at the University of Buffalo; Christopher Barnard, Policy Director of the American Conservation Coalition; Ross Kenyon, Creative Editor at Nori; and the show's new anchor and Nori's Supply and Methodology Program Manager, Radhika Moolgavkar. We discuss the buckshot vs. silver bullet paradigms within carbon removal, the latest takes on policy and environmental justice, and why we need carbon removal memes and await the arrival of a coming carbon removal TikTok superstar.

The U.S. Senate passed the Growing Climate Solutions Act with a strong bipartisan vote. But what does the bill aim to do? And why were more Democrats against this climate bill than Republicans? Plus, a look at soil carbon sequestration’s potential and other carbon removal technologies. Finally, carbon tax proposals are moving forward in Europe— what does this mean for the U.S. and the rest of the world?

This episode of Carbon Removal Newsroom is hosted by Nori's Head of Supply and Methodology, Radhika Moolgavkar, and features panelists Dr. Holly Jean Buck of the University at Buffalo and Chris Barnard of the American Conservation Coalition.

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 to Wyoming's oil and gas country.

Ben Rubin joins Radhika and Susan as a guest business panelist. Ben is the Executive Director of the Carbon Business Council, a trade group for CDR companies.

On This Episode

Susan Su

Radhika Moolgavkar

Ben Rubin

Resources

Carbon Business Council

Earthshot Prize

4401

DOE new CDR funding

Union Square Ventures announcement

Frontier Announcement

Inside Climate News article on CarbonCapture in Wyoming

Vox coverage of nuclear fusion announcement

Connect with Nori

Nori

Nori’s Twitter

Nori’s other podcast Reversing Climate Change

Nori’s CDR meme twitter account

Special behind-the-scenes episode! 

This week we're rebroadcasting a show from the other Nori podcast, "Reversing Climate Change" hosted by Ross Kenyon.   

From the RCC Feed-  "Carbon Removal Newsroom, the sister podcast to Reversing Climate Change, was born out of a desire to explore current events in the carbon removal space from a policy perspective.  

But since the show debuted in early 2019, its production team has evolved and so has our approach to discussing the latest in climate news.  Radhika Moolgavkar is Head of Supply and Methodology at Nori and Host of Carbon Removal Newsroom, and Asa Kamer serves as Producer of CRN.  

On this episode of Reversing Climate Change, Radhika and Asa join Ross to explain how CRN evolved to focus on the business, policy, and science of carbon removal news and share their favorite episodes from the recent past.  

Radhika and Asa explore how podcasting facilitates thoughtful public conversations around meaningful issues and describe how a show benefits when its host approaches the subject matter with a beginner’s mind.  Listen in to understand how CRN stays up on big news in the industry and get Radhika and Asa’s take on the future of carbon removal."

This week's guests are Nori's Director of Corporate Development, Alexsandra Guerra; and Carbon180's Senior Policy Advisor Ugbaad Kosar, and Policy Advisor Vanessa Suarez.

Here are the topics and articles we discussed:

• Microsoft's RFP for their carbon negativity commitments, and Apple's carbon neutrality commitment.
• Full Committee Hearing to Examine Development and Deployment of Large-Scale Carbon Dioxide Management Technologies
• CREATE Act
• REPLANT Act
• FARM Act (& its biochar provisions)

N.B. The self-titled Beyonce is the one Ross had in mind; crucial shownote, we know. Here is Carbon180's newsletter as well.

This week on Carbon Removal Newsroom, we’re recapping a year of carbon removal— what went right, what went wrong, and what we’re expecting in 2022. 

In 2021, terms like Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR), Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), Negative Emissions Technologies (NETs) entered mainstream climate discourse, corporate plans, and government agendas.

The IPCC’s 6th Assessment Report was released in August and underscored the need for carbon removal by highlighting the likelihood of global overshooting of the Paris goals. The United States supported DAC and carbon storage like never before with the Bipartisan Infrastructure bill passed in November. 

Climeworks launched its Orca facility in Iceland, which is making rocks underground out of our atmospheric carbon pollution as we speak. Nasdaq purchased a carbon removal marketplace. A growing share of the world’s economy was covered by ambitious net-zero commitments, which imply that maybe, at some point, corporations and governments might start removing a lot of co2 from the air.

Meanwhile, Exxon snapped up some prime carbon storage property in the Gulf of Mexico, United Airlines started assuaging travelers with advertisements of airline-sponsored DAC, and China said it might keep a few coal plants open down the line but cancel out the emissions by capturing atmospheric carbon. Those stories, plus so many more, made 2021 a landmark year for the field (and we didn’t even say the words Elon Musk). Let’s rundown the year that was and look ahead to 2022.

Panelists Dr. Holly Jean Buck of the University at Buffalo and Chris Barnard of the American Conservation Coalition join host Radhika Moolgavkar of Nori for this episode.

Resources:

A Research Strategy for Ocean-based Carbon Dioxide Removal and Sequestration

Carbon Brief Newsletters

CDR Primer 2021

The Climate Solution Actually Adding Millions of Tons of CO2 Into the Atmosphere

Climate Reparations (Intelligencer)

In this business-focused episode of Carbon Removal Newsroom, we’re discussing the major carbontech funding announcements that occurred throughout September, along with the news from Norway’s $1.4 trillion sovereign wealth fund that they’ll be requiring their portfolio holdings to go net-zero.

This episode is hosted by Radhika Moolgavkar, Nori’s Head of Supply and Methodology, along with Holly Jean Buck, Assistant Professor of Environment and Sustainability at the University at Buffalo. Plus, give a warm welcome to our new co-host for business-focused episodes: Susan Su, partner focused on climate investing at Toba Capital and course creator for Climate Change for VCs, a course and community through terra.do.

***

We start the episode by discussing the news from Norway’s sovereign fund: with $1.4 trillion of assets, this fund is the world’s largest single holder of stocks, and is the latest pool of investment money using its influence to decarbonize the economy. The fund currently holds a position in several of the world’s largest oil companies, so achieving ‘net-zero’ may necessitate use of carbon offsets and carbon removal. 

Meanwhile in the carbontech start-up world, the sustainable chemicals company Solugen announced $357 million of new investment in a venture round lead by Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund as well as Blackrock, Carbon Direct, and others. Solugen makes chemicals out of sugars, as opposed to the fossil fuel inputs traditionally used by the highly emitting chemical industry. In the future, the company aims to use CO2 as a feedstock, potentially creating a vast new market for CO2 utilization.

Also in September, Prometheus Fuels announced a $1.5 billion valuation after a series B funding round led by shipping giant Maersk and BMW. Prometheus aims to sell ‘electro-fuels’ by capturing CO2 directly from the atmosphere, mixing it with water, and then using proprietary catalysts and filters to restructure the chemical bonds to create hydrocarbons. They also say their product will be cheaper than fossil fuels very soon.

Also, Droneseed’s $36 Million A valuation is more evidence that the carbontech space is hot.

On September 8th, Swiss company Climeworks held a launch event for their new Direct Air Capture facility named Orca in Hellisheidi, Iceland. Orca is now the world’s largest DAC plant and plans to capture and permanently sequester 4000 tons of CO2 per year, and turn it into basaltic rock.

Charm Industrial announced the delivery of 1000 tons of permanent carbon removal ahead of schedule using their bio-oil technology.

Finally, Holly Buck finishes the episode with a good news story of the week.

In this special bonus episode of Carbon Removal Newsroom, we’re bringing you a panel from this week at Climate Week NYC that covers the state of the carbon removal market, as told by today’s buyers and sellers.

The panel is hosted by CarbonCure technologies and is moderated by Peter Minor, Director of Science and Innovation at Carbon180.

Panelists include:

Robert Niven, CarbonCure Technologies Chair & CEO

Stacy Kauk, Shopify Sustainability Fund Director

Mischa Repmann, Swiss Re Senior Environmental Management Specialist

& Marcius Extavour, XPRIZE Vice President of Energy & Climate

Listen in for a comprehensive assessment of the current state of the carbon removal market, and to hear goals and predictions for the future of the industry. The panelists discuss the pace of innovation, market making, carbon removal as a de-risking mechanism, and the role that government should play in scaling up the market. Then, the panelists answer an assortment of audience questions during the last 30 minutes of the event.

Learn more about each participating organization from this panel at carboncure.com, carbon180.org, shopify.com, swissre.com and xprize.org.

Background details from the Climate Week NYC event page:

"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 6th Assessment Report reiterated that any serious climate strategy must include a portfolio of aggressive emissions reductions paired with robust carbon removal. While policymakers consider pathways to advance carbon removal development and deployment at the massive scale needed by midcentury, private sector leaders are making their own climate commitments. Increasingly, corporate strategies have centered around carbon removal. These early adopters of carbon removal are critical to catalyzing the field and spurring a large-scale cleanup of legacy emissions. Moderated by Carbon180, this virtual Climate Week NYC conversation will include a range of perspectives on both the opportunities and challenges in buying and selling high quality carbon removal credits on our path to net zero."

#climateweekNYC #climateweekCDR

Panelists Susan Su of TOBA Capital and Na’im Merchant, author of the Carbon Curve, join host Radhika Moolgavkar of Nori for this business-focused episode of Carbon Removal Newsroom.

Na’im recently published a piece titled “8 Unique Direct Air Capture Companies to Watch in 2022” where he wrote, “2030 is a critical decade for DAC in which companies, researchers, and policymakers working on DAC to figure out how to do three things— 1. improve DAC’s performance, 2. bring down costs, and 3. responsibly deploy the technology.”

Three well-known ‘incumbents’ have been working on DAC since 2009, and they all had big developments in 2021: Climeworks, Carbon Engineering, and Global Thermostat. However, the scale of the problem will require many more companies to capture billions of tons of CO2 annually, globally.

There are many new entrants into the DAC space, but there is limited public information on many of them. Most of these startups are attempting novel technological approaches distinct from existing deployments.

Na’im, Susan, and Radhika discuss what sets this crop of DAC companies apart from those that came before, which ones they are excited about, and how they would be planning their approach to market if they were on the inside of one of these startups.

In our second segment, we dive into Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s inaugural Long-Term Carbon Offset Outlook 2022, released earlier this month. The report models several supply and demand scenarios for offset prices.

Main author Kyle Harrison says, “No matter the scenario, corporations and other entities looking to buy carbon offsets shouldn’t expect them to be a get-out-of-jail-free card for much longer.”

While the conversation begins as a breakdown of the BNEF report, it zooms out into a wider trading of philosophies about how the carbon offset market should be regulated. Na’im and Susan elucidate some of the most contentious issues surrounding carbon offsets.

We end the show with some good news— fewer oil derricks in Los Angeles and a lot more cultured meat in China.

In this week’s policy-focused episode of CRN, Radhika, and Chris are joined by one of the foremost authorities on the laws and policies which govern carbon removal: Wil Burns, Visiting Professor, Environmental Policy & Culture Program, Northwestern University & Emeritus Co-Executive Director of the Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy at American University.

Wil joins our hosts to discuss recent developments around ocean based CDR.

In December of 2021, the National Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine released its much-anticipated report, which outlined a research agenda for ocean-based carbon removal. Ocean-based approaches have the theoretical potential to remove significant amounts of co2 from the atmosphere, and thus help fight climate change.

The authors outlined six carbon removal categories they found worthy of further research: Ocean Nutrient Fertilization, Artificial Upwelling, Seaweed Cultivation, Ecosystem Recovery, Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement, and Electrochemical Processes. Each was assessed by the researchers on several criteria, such as the existing knowledge base, efficacy, and governance and public acceptance considerations. Overall, NASEM found ocean CDR at the gigaton scale is possible and recommended a federal research budget of $850 million over the next five years.

Wil also provides a CDR update from the world of international diplomacy. The London Convention is a global treaty governing the disposal of wastes into the ocean. The 87 nations which have signed on to the agreement share a standard set of rules that limit the dumping of pollution into the ocean from seaward vessels (it does not cover pollution originating on land). Recently, the London Convention has convened a new working group to assess ocean-based carbon removal.

Criticism of VCM is very common. But what about CCM?! Compliance Carbon Markets face design and political economy issues as well. Could we replace them both with industrial policy? Maybe, but that has trade-offs too. For what is a climate-concerned person to root?

This show delves into the fluctuations in the European Union's Emissions Trading System (ETS) carbon price and the U.S. Department of Energy's (DoE) efforts to boost carbon dioxide removal (CDR) investments through a purchasing challenge. The discussion spans the voluntary versus compliance carbon markets, with a focus on how the EU employs regulatory measures whereas the U.S. leverages financial incentives to address carbon emissions.

The episode also addresses the impacts of these policies on multinational corporations, the potential effects on carbon credit pricing, and the interplay between public policy and private sector initiatives in driving innovation in carbon removal technologies.

On This Episode

⁠Wil Burns⁠

⁠Holly Jean Buck⁠

⁠Radhika Moolgavkar ⁠

Resources

"Carbon Removal Is Getting Gamified", Heatmap article from Emily Pontecorvo

Connect with Nori

⁠Nori⁠

⁠Nori’s X account⁠

Nori’s other podcast ⁠Reversing Climate Change⁠

Nori’s CDR ⁠meme X account

In recent months, we’ve covered CDR developments in the EU, followed CDR’s role in international climate agreements, and interviewed startups working to bring DAC to Kenya. There’s so much happening with CDR around the globe that it’s a challenge to cover all the news of carbon removal’s rise.

That’s why on this episode we’re fortunate to have Tom Mills and Shantanu Agarwal join us today to share their work scaling up CDR in India with a new consortium called Carbon Removal Alliance India (CRIA). 

Tom is a co-founder of the organization, and Shantanu is a founder of Mati, an enhanced rock weathering startup in India that is a member of CRIA. 

India has existing climate policies, immense amounts of working lands, a rising working-age population, and a wealth of business and science resources. Can these assets allow it to become a CDR powerhouse? 

Our guests today will tell us about their work, what they think of India’s CDR potential, and what needs to happen within India to unlock carbon removal there.

On This Episode 

Tom Mills

Shantanu Agarwal

Radhika Moolgavkar

Resources

Our Episodes on the EU & Kenya

Susteon & Sustaera- Shantanu’s previous companies

Carbon Removal Alliance India

Mati

Carbon Removal Partners

Connect with Nori

Nori

Nori’s Twitter

Nori’s other podcast Reversing Climate Change

Nori’s CDR meme twitter account

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 plans to begin storing CO2 underground in 2024. 

They want to leverage advantageous local renewable energy, geology, and personnel to attract global customers. 

Today we’ll be talking with Octavia’s CEO, Martin Freimüller, about why Kenya is right for DAC, what they are working on now, and why the price of a DAC credit in Kenya will differ from one from the U.S.

On This Episode

Radhika Moolgavkar

Martin Freimüller

Resources

Octavia Carbon

Octavia’s Project Hummingbird Announcement

Puro.earth

Cella

Connect with Nori

Nori

Nori’s Twitter

Nori’s other podcast Reversing Climate Change

Nori’s CDR meme twitter account

A few weeks ago, the US government announced it would directly purchase carbon removal. The Department of Energy released news of a $35 million fund to procure CDR credits. The prize fund will take the form of offtake agreements and cover four pathways. 

More and more governments are funding CDR pilots, supporting research, and adding CDR targets to their climate plans. CDR has quickly entered an era of widespread support throughout North America and Europe. 

But while the support is wide, it is also shallow; most policies take the form of modest grants or targets, with a few more ambitious countries leading the way.

Many CDR commentators have come to the conclusion that without a compliance market, carbon removal won’t ever scale up. 

On this episode we asked our policy panel about recent government actions on CDR: will they work, are they enough, and what more needs to be done? Are today’s policies sufficient to get us where we need to go?

Radhika is joined by Wil Burns, Co-Executive Director of the Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy at American University, and Holly Jean Buck, Assistant Professor of Environment and Sustainability at the University at Buffalo.

On This Episode

Radhika Moolgavkar

Wil Burns

Holly Jean Buck

Resources

DOE Announces CDR Procurement

National Academy Report on CDR Research

DOE RFP for Responsible Carbon Management

Congress Members Letter on CO2 Pipelines

Heirloom commitment to DOE principles

Boston Consulting Group Report

Reykjavik Protocol

Connect with Nori

Nori

Nori’s Twitter

Nori’s other podcast Reversing Climate Change

Nori’s CDR meme twitter account

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. Specifically, this study evaluated whether afforestation in arid environments or in geographies that currently do not support trees would lead to carbon removal, if we take into account albedo.

This, combined with new data that shows that deforestation did not slow down enough this year to meet international climate agreements, puts the potential for forests to deliver additional climate mitigation into question.

With me to discuss the news in forestry is our science panel: Jane Zelikova and Shannon Valley.

On This Episode

Jane Zelikova

Shannon Valley

Radhika Moolgavkar

Resources

Limited climate change mitigation potential through forestation of the vast dryland regions

Anthropocene Magazine article about the paper

David Ho Tweet

Forest Declaration Assessment report of 2022 deforestation

Nature article about the report

New President of Brazil and the Amazon

Connect with Nori

Nori

Nori’s Twitter

Nori’s other podcast Reversing Climate Change

Nori’s CDR meme twitter account

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 Biden administration has been filling out its DAC expertise with industry experts such as Jen Wilcox, Noah Deich, and Rory Jacobson, among others joining the department. This has led to anticipation and expectations that the DOE’s planning for the DAC hubs projects would be sophisticated and well thought-out.

DOE gave the most in-depth look yet at the DAC hubs program last month with the release of a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA).

On this show we speak with Jason Hochman, Co-founder and Senior Director of the DAC Coalition, a group” bringing together diverse, leading global innovators…to educate, engage, and mobilize around Direct Air Capture”. Chris Barnard is also on this episode's policy panel.

On This Episode

Chris Barnard

Jason Hochman

Radhika Moolgavkar

Resources

DAC Coalition

2021 US Infrastructure Bill

DAC Hubs announcement

DAC Hub FOA

Connect with Nori

Nori

Nori’s Twitter

Nori’s other podcast Reversing Climate Change

Nori’s CDR meme twitter account

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 attributed to CDR in last year's report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

In response, the Carbon Business Council is drafted a letter, with support from over 100 CDR experts, in an attempt to persuade the UNFCCC to provide a clearer definition of CDR.

In today's discussion, we'll speak with Wil Burns, Co-Executive Director of the Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy at American University. We'll explore the purpose of this new definition, what's been proposed so far, and why it's so important."

This episode’s second segment is an interview with - 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 wildlife, cut back on CO2 emissions, and combat the issue of ocean plastic.

Radhika talks with Todd about a landmark decision in Washington State that recently made headlines as it became the first in the U.S. to pass its capital budget with funding specifically allocated for carbon dioxide removal. Todd also discusses his work on environmental policy and its applications to carbon removal. 

On This Episode

Radhika Moolgavkar

Wil Burns

Todd Myers

Resources

Axios on UNFCCC process

Draft of UNFCCC revision

Carbon Business Council Letter

Washington Policy Center

“Time to Think Small”

Washington State Funding

Connect with Nori

Nori

Nori’s Twitter

Nori’s other podcast Reversing Climate Change

Nori’s CDR meme twitter account

A lot has been happening in the United Kingdom with regard to carbon removal. Patricia Silva, Co-founder and Non-Executive Director of the Carbon Removal Centre, comes on the show to explain The Oxford Offsetting Principles, the UK's general climate policies and Boris Johnson's recent statements on the matter, a collaboration between Carbon Engineering and Pale Blue Dot Energy, and some news about BrewDog.

Here is the piece Patricia mentions writing for CRC.

The voluntary carbon market (VCM) has a total value of over $2 billion, and some predictions show it growing to $10 billion in just a few years. 

But the integrity of the carbon offsets available has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years, causing demand to slow and prices to go down.

According to a new report from Morgan Stanley the market is approaching a ‘tipping point’, as more and more companies hesitate to stake their environmental claims on offsets that may be debunked in the newspaper the next day.

If the market does hit a tipping point, what’s next? And what does it mean for the companies and governments hoping that “carbon removal” can fill the gap with a more reliable type of offset?

Our panel will take a look at implications of the oil company Oxy purchasing Carbon Engineering. Is big oil good for DAC? 

Whether or not oil and gas should be involved in carbon removal is healthy debate within the CDR community, and this announcement made headlines in the broader environmental media too. 

Listen to hear what our policy panel, Holly Buck and Wil Burns, think about this news and its aftermath. 

On This Episode

Radhika Moolgavkar

Wil Burns

Holly Jean Buck

Resources

Size of VCMs

Article on “Tipping Point” report

West et al. Paper on Carbon Offsets

Liberia + Dubai Offset Deal

Oxy buys Carbon Engineering

NOAA Awards

Connect with Nori

Nori

Nori’s Twitter

Nori’s other podcast Reversing Climate Change

Nori’s CDR meme twitter account