Carbon Removal Newsroom

The U.S. elections provided a boost to a President who has overseen climate action, world leaders are gathering in Egypt for COP27 to discuss our climate future, and what could be the next Enron has crashed crypto. What does it all mean for the business of carbon removal?? Join us this week to learn more- Susan thinks this election was a big win for climate voters, and provides some data about the unexpected impact that bloc has begun to have. Na’im reflects on the lesson’s of the FTX...

We planned an episode this week about carbon removal policy in the next Congress. At the time of recording we still don’t know which party will control either chamber. Since it looks most likely that the GOP will win at least the House of Representatives, we focused this episode on the prospect for bipartisan CDR policy opportunities. While Joe Biden and the Democrats retain control of the White House, they likely can’t pass legislation without Republican votes like they’ve been able to do...

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....

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...

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...

Can restoring animal populations in the ocean sequester CO2? This question has generated a lot of conversation and was explored in depth in the 2022 in the National Academy of Sciences report on Ocean Carbon Dioxide Removal. Chapter 6 of that report covered ecosystem restoration and how much CO2 it can potentially sequester. The report found the fully restoring ocean ecosystems would draw down CO2 equivalent to 5% of annual human emissions. In 2019 Alex Trembath and Seaver Wang at the...

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...

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...

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 --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/carbonremovalnewsroom/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/carbonremovalnewsroom/support

This week we're joined by two experts in the evolving world of CDR policy in Europe. Eli Mitchell-Larson from Carbon Gap and Lee Beck from the Clean Air Task Force. The E.U. is working on a certification standard for CDR to complement its existing climate plan. When completed, it will likely represent the largest jurisdiction with a comprehensive policy plan to scale up carbon removal. Last week the U.K. government sought public input on its own CDR effort. This particular policy effort...

This week Radhika is joined by Dr. Jane Zelikova and Dr. Sarah Myhre, Program Director, Climate Advocacy & Democracy Reform, at the Glaser Progress Foundation. For decades, the climate science community has examined the problems with climate pledges and carbon markets. But the ascendancy of carbon removal has prompted researchers to take a fresh look at the topic. Recently Carton, Lund, and Dooley’s commentary piece looked at assumptions often made in climate pledges and net-zero plans....

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! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/carbonremovalnewsroom/message Support this podcast:...

This week we talk about recent developments in local, state, federal, and international policymaking that aim to help scale up CDR. Joining the conversation is Greg Nemet. His 2019 book “How Solar Energy Became Cheap” traced the history of PV technology and the government policies that helped it become the cheapest form of electricity in history. At the book’s conclusion Greg examined how the lessons from solar’s rise could inform the effort to scale up DAC and other newer climate...

Ocean CDR is attracting attention from many corners of the climate community. In recent episodes, we’ve covered global policy developments in Ocean CDR regulation and research with Wil Burns and the business challenges in the space with two startups working to develop commercial methods to remove CO2 from the ocean. On this episode we complete the trilogy with a look at some recent science on the topic, focusing on the outstanding scientific questions that we’ll need to be answered before...

“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...

This week, we’re joined by four of the teams that won the Carbon Removal Xprize Milestone award. On April 22nd, Xprize announced the 15 winners of the second round of their competition for carbon removal solutions. Each of these teams was been awarded $1 million to help them compete for the grand prize of $50 million, or 3 $30 million runner-up slots, which will be awarded three years from now. The grand prize winner may not be one of the 15 Milestone awardees, but these teams are a step...

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....

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...

This week our guest is Roger Aines the Energy Program Chief Scientist in E Program at Lawrence Livermore National Lab. Roger leads the Carbon Initiative at LLNL, which “aims to understand, develop, and implement technologies for the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.” Several months ago, Roger wrote about the “Three Demons of Carbon Removal” in a submission to the journal Chem about “Misconceptions and Myths Surrounding Carbon Removal.” In that piece, he said that three big...

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...