Climate Workers Anonymous

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

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The U.S. elections provided a boost to a President who has overseen climate action, world leaders are gathering in Egypt for COP27 to discuss our climate future, and what could be the next Enron has crashed crypto.

What does it all mean for the business of carbon removal?? Join us this week to learn more-

Susan thinks this election was a big win for climate voters, and provides some data about the unexpected impact that bloc has begun to have.

Na’im reflects on the lesson’s of the FTX collapse and what carbon removal and climate tech communities should learn from it.

The panelists also talk about the people, organizations, and trends they’re thankful for this year in the world of CDR.

Our regular business panel Susan Su and Na’im Merchant join host Radhika Moolgavkar.

On This Episode

Susan Su

Na’im Merchant

Radhika Moolgavkar

Resources

Environmental Voter Project

EVP Seminar on Georgia runoff

This Election’s ‘Green Wave’

NY Voters pass Environmental Bond in the midterms

Dai Ellis’ The Great Unwind

Carbon180

NOAA Ocean CDR

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We planned an episode this week about carbon removal policy in the next Congress. At the time of recording we still don’t know which party will control either chamber. Since it looks most likely that the GOP will win at least the House of Representatives, we focused this episode on the prospect for bipartisan CDR policy opportunities.

While Joe Biden and the Democrats retain control of the White House, they likely can’t pass legislation without Republican votes like they’ve been able to do for the last two years. All legislation, including the annual budget, must be agreed upon by both parties.

The U.S. invested a lot in CDR during the last congress…

-Some of that the Democrats passed alone, like increases to the 45Q tax credit included in the Inflation Reduction Act,

-but some were done on a bipartisan basis, like the direct investments in CDR found in the Infrastructure bill and CHIPS Act.

What can we expect from Federal Government in the next two years? Will divided government bring more or less support for CDR?

We have two special guest panelists here to discuss this with us today, Savita Bowman, a Program Manager at Clearpath, and Karly Matthews, the Communications Director at the American Conservation Coalition.

Chris Barnard is away at COP27 this week and Radhika Moolgavkar is away. This episode was guest hosted by CRN producer Asa Kamer.

On This Episode

Savita Bowman

Karly Matthews

Resources

Clearpath

American Conservation Coalition

Increases to the 45Q tax credit

CDR in the Infrastructure bill and CHIPS Act

CREST ACT

Bipartisan Biochar Bill

Growing Climate Solutions Act stalls

US Climate Targets Achievable if Congress Flips

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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

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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

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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

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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 Breakthrough Institute wrote an article about the concept of “Negative Emission Whales” in response to a that large whale populations would drawdown significant amounts of CO2.

Trembath and Wang balked at this report and cited other, less ambitious figures assessed by other research. They also focus on the limited ability of existing methods to quantify the CDR ability of this approach.

Today we’re joined for the first time as a regular co-host by Shannon Valley. We’re happy to welcome her as a monthly science guest! Shannon has been a researcher of paleoceanography and marine biogeochemistry, has served on Joe Biden’s NASA transition team and is currently a AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow at USAID (US Agency for International Development).

This week Radhika, Jane, Shannon discuss a wide range of topics related to ocean habitat restoration. Can it pull down CO2? Can we measure the sequestration? And should we still do it ASAP even if those measurements aren’t yet possible?

On This Episode

Jane Zelikova

Shannon Valley

Radhika Moolgavkar

Resources

NASEM Report

30 x 30

Breakthrough article on “Negative Emissions Whales”

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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

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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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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