https://captaindrawdown.com/categories/data-viz/Recent content in Data-Viz on Captain Drawdown's CDR Databaseshttps://captaindrawdown.com/images/og-default.pnghttps://captaindrawdown.com/images/og-default.pngHugoen-usTue, 03 Nov 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-liveliness-by-pathway-2026-11-03/Tue, 03 Nov 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-liveliness-by-pathway-2026-11-03/<p>This violin plot sorts every pure-play CDR company in the Directory by its pathway (columns) and its headcount (vertical axis, log scale from 1 to 100+). Each dot is one company, coloured by its current liveliness tier — Active, Moderate, Suspect, or Likely Dead. The grey shape behind each column is the size distribution: where it bulges, that&rsquo;s where most companies in that pathway sit.</p> <p>The value here is comparative. A raw company list tells you who exists; this view tells you where the weight sits. Pathways with most dots stacked at the bottom are dominated by sub-10-employee firms — many small entrants, few that have grown. Pathways with dots reaching up the column have produced operators that scaled past the founder-and-a-few-engineers phase. Colour (not vertical position) is what tells you the health story: red dots high up the column mean a sizeable operator went quiet; red dots on the floor are the long tail churning as it always has.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-census-trajectory-all-2026-10-29/Thu, 29 Oct 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-census-trajectory-all-2026-10-29/<p>This chart tracks CDR researchers over time on a diverging axis. Above the line are researchers who published a CDR-relevant paper that year (active), stacked upward; below the line are dormant researchers, split into those who published the previous year and those who published only earlier. New entrants join at the base of the active band each year as a teal block. The top envelope is the real, working research workforce each year — the number of people actually publishing, not the cumulative head-count.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-history-fte-growth-2026-10-27/Tue, 27 Oct 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-history-fte-growth-2026-10-27/<p>This chart plots every pure-play CDR company in the Directory as a single dot. The horizontal axis is the company&rsquo;s founding year (estimated from its primary domain registration), the vertical axis is its current headcount on a log scale, and the colour codes the company&rsquo;s pathway. The shaded blue background traces overall company density — darker patches mark where the crowd of pure-plays sits.</p> <p>The value here is shape, not ranking. A bar chart would tell you how many companies exist in each pathway; this view tells you the entire industry&rsquo;s growth contour at one glance — when did the wave of small startups hit, where are the rare big older operators, what cluster sits on the floor of &ldquo;still under five people&rdquo;. Outlier dots near the top of the chart are the names everyone already knows; the dense low band is where most of the industry actually lives.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-workforce-by-pathway-2026-10-26/Mon, 26 Oct 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-workforce-by-pathway-2026-10-26/<p>This chart is a stacked horizontal bar showing CDR-attributable headcount across pathways on the vertical axis, with each bar segmented by business focus: pure-play companies whose entire reason for existing is CDR, divisions inside larger firms where CDR is one line of business, and &ldquo;ecosystem&rdquo; firms, the directory&rsquo;s label for companies that sell tools, verification, brokerage, or software to those operators. Bar length is total attributed workers; the color split is where those workers actually sit.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-liveliness-by-pathway-2026-10-20/Tue, 20 Oct 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-liveliness-by-pathway-2026-10-20/<p>This violin plot sorts every pure-play CDR company in the Directory by its pathway (columns) and its headcount (vertical axis, log scale from 1 to 100+). Each dot is one company, coloured by its current liveliness tier — Active, Moderate, Suspect, or Likely Dead. The grey shape behind each column is the size distribution: where it bulges, that&rsquo;s where most companies in that pathway sit.</p> <p>The value here is comparative. A raw company list tells you who exists; this view tells you where the weight sits. Pathways with most dots stacked at the bottom are dominated by sub-10-employee firms — many small entrants, few that have grown. Pathways with dots reaching up the column have produced operators that scaled past the founder-and-a-few-engineers phase. Colour (not vertical position) is what tells you the health story: red dots high up the column mean a sizeable operator went quiet; red dots on the floor are the long tail churning as it always has.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-history-pathway-scatter-2026-10-17/Sat, 17 Oct 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-history-pathway-scatter-2026-10-17/<p>Each dot on this scatter is a single CDR pathway - direct air capture, enhanced rock weathering, biochar, ocean alkalinity, mineralization, and the rest. The horizontal axis counts how many companies are working that pathway; the vertical axis sums the employees across those companies. Linear scales on both, so distance on the page matches distance in the numbers.</p> <p>What this view reveals that a headcount table cannot is the shape of the industry. A pathway sitting high and to the right is crowded with firms and staffed deeply. One sitting high but to the left is a pathway dominated by a few large companies. Low and to the right means many small teams chasing the same idea. The spread between these corners is the story of where capital and talent have actually landed, versus where the field is still a cottage.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-top-companies-2026-10-15/Thu, 15 Oct 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-top-companies-2026-10-15/<p>This is a horizontal bar chart ranking the twelve largest pure-play CDR companies by employee headcount, with each bar coloured by the primary removal pathway the company pursues (DAC, mineralisation, biomass, ocean, and so on). Pure-play means the company&rsquo;s core business is carbon removal, not a side project bolted onto an existing industrial firm.</p> <p>For anyone tracking the sector, this is the quickest way to see where the human capital actually sits. Headcount is a slower, harder signal than press releases or announced offtakes - it reflects real hiring, real payroll, real conviction from investors. The pathway colouring shows whether the talent concentration lines up with where delivered tonnes are going, or whether one approach is staffing up well ahead of its removal track record.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-workforce-by-pathway-2026-10-06/Tue, 06 Oct 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-workforce-by-pathway-2026-10-06/<p>This chart is a stacked horizontal bar showing CDR-attributable headcount across pathways on the vertical axis, with each bar segmented by business focus: pure-play companies whose entire reason for existing is CDR, divisions inside larger firms where CDR is one line of business, and &ldquo;ecosystem&rdquo; firms, the directory&rsquo;s label for companies that sell tools, verification, brokerage, or software to those operators. Bar length is total attributed workers; the color split is where those workers actually sit.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-top-companies-2026-09-29/Tue, 29 Sep 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-top-companies-2026-09-29/<p>This is a horizontal bar chart ranking the twelve largest pure-play CDR companies by employee headcount, with each bar coloured by the primary removal pathway the company pursues (DAC, mineralisation, biomass, ocean, and so on). Pure-play means the company&rsquo;s core business is carbon removal, not a side project bolted onto an existing industrial firm.</p> <p>For anyone tracking the sector, this is the quickest way to see where the human capital actually sits. Headcount is a slower, harder signal than press releases or announced offtakes - it reflects real hiring, real payroll, real conviction from investors. The pathway colouring shows whether the talent concentration lines up with where delivered tonnes are going, or whether one approach is staffing up well ahead of its removal track record.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-history-pathway-scatter-2026-09-24/Thu, 24 Sep 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-history-pathway-scatter-2026-09-24/<p>Each dot on this scatter is a single CDR pathway - direct air capture, enhanced rock weathering, biochar, ocean alkalinity, mineralization, and the rest. The horizontal axis counts how many companies are working that pathway; the vertical axis sums the employees across those companies. Linear scales on both, so distance on the page matches distance in the numbers.</p> <p>What this view reveals that a headcount table cannot is the shape of the industry. A pathway sitting high and to the right is crowded with firms and staffed deeply. One sitting high but to the left is a pathway dominated by a few large companies. Low and to the right means many small teams chasing the same idea. The spread between these corners is the story of where capital and talent have actually landed, versus where the field is still a cottage.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-census-trajectory-soil-carbon-2026-09-21/Mon, 21 Sep 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-census-trajectory-soil-carbon-2026-09-21/<p>This chart tracks Soil Carbon researchers over time on a diverging axis. Above the line are researchers who published a Soil Carbon-relevant paper that year (active); below the line are dormant researchers, split into those who published the previous year and those who published only earlier. New entrants join at the base of the active band each year as a teal block. Soil Carbon is the largest pathway by headcount, sitting closest to mainstream soil science. The top envelope is the number actually publishing in the pathway each year.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-history-fte-growth-2026-09-20/Sun, 20 Sep 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-history-fte-growth-2026-09-20/<p>This chart plots every pure-play CDR company in the Directory as a single dot. The horizontal axis is the company&rsquo;s founding year (estimated from its primary domain registration), the vertical axis is its current headcount on a log scale, and the colour codes the company&rsquo;s pathway. The shaded blue background traces overall company density — darker patches mark where the crowd of pure-plays sits.</p> <p>The value here is shape, not ranking. A bar chart would tell you how many companies exist in each pathway; this view tells you the entire industry&rsquo;s growth contour at one glance — when did the wave of small startups hit, where are the rare big older operators, what cluster sits on the floor of &ldquo;still under five people&rdquo;. Outlier dots near the top of the chart are the names everyone already knows; the dense low band is where most of the industry actually lives.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-workforce-by-pathway-2026-09-17/Thu, 17 Sep 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-workforce-by-pathway-2026-09-17/<p>This chart is a stacked horizontal bar showing CDR-attributable headcount across pathways on the vertical axis, with each bar segmented by business focus: pure-play companies whose entire reason for existing is CDR, divisions inside larger firms where CDR is one line of business, and &ldquo;ecosystem&rdquo; firms, the directory&rsquo;s label for companies that sell tools, verification, brokerage, or software to those operators. Bar length is total attributed workers; the color split is where those workers actually sit.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-liveliness-by-pathway-2026-09-15/Tue, 15 Sep 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-liveliness-by-pathway-2026-09-15/<p>This violin plot sorts every pure-play CDR company in the Directory by its pathway (columns) and its headcount (vertical axis, log scale from 1 to 100+). Each dot is one company, coloured by its current liveliness tier — Active, Moderate, Suspect, or Likely Dead. The grey shape behind each column is the size distribution: where it bulges, that&rsquo;s where most companies in that pathway sit.</p> <p>The value here is comparative. A raw company list tells you who exists; this view tells you where the weight sits. Pathways with most dots stacked at the bottom are dominated by sub-10-employee firms — many small entrants, few that have grown. Pathways with dots reaching up the column have produced operators that scaled past the founder-and-a-few-engineers phase. Colour (not vertical position) is what tells you the health story: red dots high up the column mean a sizeable operator went quiet; red dots on the floor are the long tail churning as it always has.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-census-trajectory-dac-2026-09-10/Thu, 10 Sep 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-census-trajectory-dac-2026-09-10/<p>This chart tracks DAC researchers over time on a diverging axis. Above the line are researchers who published a DAC-relevant paper that year (active); below the line are dormant researchers, split into those who published the previous year and those who published only earlier. New entrants join at the base of the active band each year as a teal block. DAC is direct air capture, the most capital- and headline-heavy pathway. The top envelope is the number actually publishing in the pathway each year.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-census-trajectory-enhanced-weathering-2026-09-07/Mon, 07 Sep 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-census-trajectory-enhanced-weathering-2026-09-07/<p>This chart tracks Enhanced Weathering researchers over time on a diverging axis. Above the line are researchers who published a Enhanced Weathering-relevant paper that year (active); below the line are dormant researchers, split into those who published the previous year and those who published only earlier. New entrants join at the base of the active band each year as a teal block. Enhanced Weathering is one of the youngest and fastest-growing pathways. The top envelope is the number actually publishing in the pathway each year.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-census-trajectory-soil-carbon-2026-09-06/Sun, 06 Sep 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-census-trajectory-soil-carbon-2026-09-06/<p>This chart tracks Soil Carbon researchers over time on a diverging axis. Above the line are researchers who published a Soil Carbon-relevant paper that year (active); below the line are dormant researchers, split into those who published the previous year and those who published only earlier. New entrants join at the base of the active band each year as a teal block. Soil Carbon is the largest pathway by headcount, sitting closest to mainstream soil science. The top envelope is the number actually publishing in the pathway each year.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-workforce-by-pathway-2026-09-01/Tue, 01 Sep 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-workforce-by-pathway-2026-09-01/<p>This chart is a stacked horizontal bar showing CDR-attributable headcount across pathways on the vertical axis, with each bar segmented by business focus: pure-play companies whose entire reason for existing is CDR, divisions inside larger firms where CDR is one line of business, and ecosystem players who sell tools, verification, brokerage, or software into the space. Bar length is total attributed workers; the color split is where those workers actually sit.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-companies-by-pathway-2026-08-27/Thu, 27 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-companies-by-pathway-2026-08-27/<p>This chart is a stacked bar count of every company in the CDR Directory, grouped along the x-axis by removal pathway (direct air capture, enhanced weathering, biochar, ocean alkalinity, and so on), with each bar segmented by business focus: pure-play producers, brokers and marketplaces, and firms where CDR is a side business bolted onto a different core model.</p> <p>The total height tells you which pathways are crowded with company formation. The segment mix tells you something a raw count hides: whether a pathway&rsquo;s apparent size is built on operators actually delivering tonnes, on intermediaries reselling them, or on incumbents whose CDR line is a minor adjunct. Two pathways with identical totals can have very different underlying economies once you see the split.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-census-trajectory-all-2026-08-25/Tue, 25 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-census-trajectory-all-2026-08-25/<p>This chart tracks CDR researchers over time on a diverging axis. Above the line are researchers who published a CDR-relevant paper that year (active), stacked upward; below the line are dormant researchers, split into those who published the previous year and those who published only earlier. New entrants join at the base of the active band each year as a teal block. The top envelope is the real, working research workforce each year — the number of people actually publishing, not the cumulative head-count.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-census-trajectory-soil-carbon-2026-08-20/Thu, 20 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-census-trajectory-soil-carbon-2026-08-20/<p>This chart tracks Soil Carbon researchers over time on a diverging axis. Above the line are researchers who published a Soil Carbon-relevant paper that year (active); below the line are dormant researchers, split into those who published the previous year and those who published only earlier. New entrants join at the base of the active band each year as a teal block. Soil Carbon is the largest pathway by headcount, sitting closest to mainstream soil science. The top envelope is the number actually publishing in the pathway each year.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-history-fte-growth-2026-08-18/Tue, 18 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-history-fte-growth-2026-08-18/<p>This chart plots every pure-play CDR company in the Directory as a single dot. The horizontal axis is the company&rsquo;s founding year (estimated from its primary domain registration), the vertical axis is its current headcount on a log scale, and the colour codes the company&rsquo;s pathway. The shaded blue background traces overall company density — darker patches mark where the crowd of pure-plays sits.</p> <p>The value here is shape, not ranking. A bar chart would tell you how many companies exist in each pathway; this view tells you the entire industry&rsquo;s growth contour at one glance — when did the wave of small startups hit, where are the rare big older operators, what cluster sits on the floor of &ldquo;still under five people&rdquo;. Outlier dots near the top of the chart are the names everyone already knows; the dense low band is where most of the industry actually lives.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-census-trajectory-enhanced-weathering-2026-08-15/Sat, 15 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-census-trajectory-enhanced-weathering-2026-08-15/<p>This chart tracks Enhanced Weathering researchers over time on a diverging axis. Above the line are researchers who published a Enhanced Weathering-relevant paper that year (active); below the line are dormant researchers, split into those who published the previous year and those who published only earlier. New entrants join at the base of the active band each year as a teal block. Enhanced Weathering is one of the youngest and fastest-growing pathways. The top envelope is the number actually publishing in the pathway each year.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-companies-by-pathway-2026-08-11/Tue, 11 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-companies-by-pathway-2026-08-11/<p>This chart is a stacked bar count of every company in the CDR Directory, grouped along the x-axis by removal pathway (direct air capture, enhanced weathering, biochar, ocean alkalinity, and so on), with each bar segmented by business focus: pure-play producers, brokers and marketplaces, and firms where CDR is a side business bolted onto a different core model.</p> <p>The total height tells you which pathways are crowded with company formation. The segment mix tells you something a raw count hides: whether a pathway&rsquo;s apparent size is built on operators actually delivering tonnes, on intermediaries reselling them, or on incumbents whose CDR line is a minor adjunct. Two pathways with identical totals can have very different underlying economies once you see the split.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-liveliness-by-pathway-2026-08-08/Sat, 08 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-liveliness-by-pathway-2026-08-08/<p>This violin plot sorts every pure-play CDR company in the Directory by its pathway (columns) and its headcount (vertical axis, log scale from 1 to 100+). Each dot is one company, coloured by its current liveliness tier — Active, Moderate, Suspect, or Likely Dead. The grey shape behind each column is the size distribution: where it bulges, that&rsquo;s where most companies in that pathway sit.</p> <p>The value here is comparative. A raw company list tells you who exists; this view tells you where the weight sits. Pathways with most dots stacked at the bottom are dominated by sub-10-employee firms — many small entrants, few that have grown. Pathways with dots reaching up the column have produced operators that scaled past the founder-and-a-few-engineers phase. Colour (not vertical position) is what tells you the health story: red dots high up the column mean a sizeable operator went quiet; red dots on the floor are the long tail churning as it always has.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-biochar-pubs-vs-tonnes/Wed, 05 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-biochar-pubs-vs-tonnes/<p>Kevin Lee Caster asked me on Bluesky whether I could put biochar research output and biochar carbon-removal delivery on the same timeline. I can, and the gap between the two panels is the whole story.</p> <p>The top panel counts peer-reviewed biochar papers per year, from an <a href="https://openalex.org/">OpenAlex</a> search over titles and abstracts. The count climbs from 16 in 2005 to 9,936 in 2025, and it never has a down year. Biochar as a soil-science and agronomy subject is old and crowded.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-census-trajectory-soil-carbon-2026-08-04/Tue, 04 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-census-trajectory-soil-carbon-2026-08-04/<p>This chart tracks Soil Carbon researchers over time on a diverging axis. Above the line are researchers who published a Soil Carbon-relevant paper that year (active); below the line are dormant researchers, split into those who published the previous year and those who published only earlier. New entrants join at the base of the active band each year as a teal block. Soil Carbon is the largest pathway by headcount, sitting closest to mainstream soil science. The top envelope is the number actually publishing in the pathway each year.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-census-trajectory-biochar-2026-07-28/Tue, 28 Jul 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-census-trajectory-biochar-2026-07-28/<p>This chart tracks Biochar researchers over time on a diverging axis. Above the line are researchers who published a Biochar-relevant paper that year (active); below the line are dormant researchers, split into those who published the previous year and those who published only earlier. New entrants join at the base of the active band each year as a teal block. Biochar is a large, agronomy-adjacent field with a deep pool of one-time contributors. The top envelope is the number actually publishing in the pathway each year.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-history-fte-growth-2026-07-24/Fri, 24 Jul 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-history-fte-growth-2026-07-24/<p>This chart plots every pure-play CDR company in the Directory as a single dot. The horizontal axis is the company&rsquo;s founding year (estimated from its primary domain registration), the vertical axis is its current headcount on a log scale, and the colour codes the company&rsquo;s pathway. The shaded blue background traces overall company density — darker patches mark where the crowd of pure-plays sits.</p> <p>The value here is shape, not ranking. A bar chart would tell you how many companies exist in each pathway; this view tells you the entire industry&rsquo;s growth contour at one glance — when did the wave of small startups hit, where are the rare big older operators, what cluster sits on the floor of &ldquo;still under five people&rdquo;. Outlier dots near the top of the chart are the names everyone already knows; the dense low band is where most of the industry actually lives.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-liveliness-by-pathway-2026-07-23/Thu, 23 Jul 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-liveliness-by-pathway-2026-07-23/<p>This violin plot sorts every pure-play CDR company in the Directory by its pathway (columns) and its headcount (vertical axis, log scale from 1 to 100+). Each dot is one company, coloured by its current liveliness tier — Active, Moderate, Suspect, or Likely Dead. The grey shape behind each column is the size distribution: where it bulges, that&rsquo;s where most companies in that pathway sit.</p> <p>The value here is comparative. A raw company list tells you who exists; this view tells you where the weight sits. Pathways with most dots stacked at the bottom are dominated by sub-10-employee firms — many small entrants, few that have grown. Pathways with dots reaching up the column have produced operators that scaled past the founder-and-a-few-engineers phase. Colour (not vertical position) is what tells you the health story: red dots high up the column mean a sizeable operator went quiet; red dots on the floor are the long tail churning as it always has.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-companies-by-pathway-2026-07-23/Thu, 23 Jul 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-companies-by-pathway-2026-07-23/<p>This chart is a stacked bar count of every company in the CDR Directory, grouped along the x-axis by removal pathway (direct air capture, enhanced weathering, biochar, ocean alkalinity, and so on), with each bar segmented by business focus: pure-play producers, brokers and marketplaces, and firms where CDR is a side business bolted onto a different core model.</p> <p>The total height tells you which pathways are crowded with company formation. The segment mix tells you something a raw count hides: whether a pathway&rsquo;s apparent size is built on operators actually delivering tonnes, on intermediaries reselling them, or on incumbents whose CDR line is a minor adjunct. Two pathways with identical totals can have very different underlying economies once you see the split.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-census-trajectory-all-2026-07-23/Thu, 23 Jul 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-census-trajectory-all-2026-07-23/<p>This chart tracks CDR researchers over time on a diverging axis. Above the line are researchers who published a CDR-relevant paper that year (active), stacked upward; below the line are dormant researchers, split into those who published the previous year and those who published only earlier. New entrants join at the base of the active band each year as a teal block. The top envelope is the real, working research workforce each year — the number of people actually publishing, not the cumulative head-count.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-census-trajectory-dac-2026-07-21/Tue, 21 Jul 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-census-trajectory-dac-2026-07-21/<p>This chart tracks DAC researchers over time on a diverging axis. Above the line are researchers who published a DAC-relevant paper that year (active); below the line are dormant researchers, split into those who published the previous year and those who published only earlier. New entrants join at the base of the active band each year as a teal block. DAC is direct air capture, the most capital- and headline-heavy pathway. The top envelope is the number actually publishing in the pathway each year.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-census-trajectory-enhanced-weathering-2026-07-16/Thu, 16 Jul 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-census-trajectory-enhanced-weathering-2026-07-16/<p>This chart tracks Enhanced Weathering researchers over time on a diverging axis. Above the line are researchers who published a Enhanced Weathering-relevant paper that year (active); below the line are dormant researchers, split into those who published the previous year and those who published only earlier. New entrants join at the base of the active band each year as a teal block. Enhanced Weathering is one of the youngest and fastest-growing pathways. The top envelope is the number actually publishing in the pathway each year.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-census-trajectory-soil-carbon-2026-07-14/Tue, 14 Jul 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-census-trajectory-soil-carbon-2026-07-14/<p>This chart tracks Soil Carbon researchers over time on a diverging axis. Above the line are researchers who published a Soil Carbon-relevant paper that year (active); below the line are dormant researchers, split into those who published the previous year and those who published only earlier. New entrants join at the base of the active band each year as a teal block. Soil Carbon is the largest pathway by headcount, sitting closest to mainstream soil science. The top envelope is the number actually publishing in the pathway each year.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-liveliness-by-pathway-2026-07-09/Thu, 09 Jul 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-liveliness-by-pathway-2026-07-09/<p>This violin plot sorts every pure-play CDR company in the Directory by its pathway (columns) and its headcount (vertical axis, log scale from 1 to 100+). Each dot is one company, coloured by its current liveliness tier — Active, Moderate, Suspect, or Likely Dead. The grey shape behind each column is the size distribution: where it bulges, that&rsquo;s where most companies in that pathway sit.</p> <p>The value here is comparative. A raw company list tells you who exists; this view tells you where the weight sits. Pathways with most dots stacked at the bottom are dominated by sub-10-employee firms — many small entrants, few that have grown. Pathways with dots reaching up the column have produced operators that scaled past the founder-and-a-few-engineers phase. Colour (not vertical position) is what tells you the health story: red dots high up the column mean a sizeable operator went quiet; red dots on the floor are the long tail churning as it always has.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-history-pathway-scatter-2026-07-09/Thu, 09 Jul 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-history-pathway-scatter-2026-07-09/<p>Each dot on this scatter is a single CDR pathway - direct air capture, enhanced rock weathering, biochar, ocean alkalinity, mineralization, and the rest. The horizontal axis counts how many companies are working that pathway; the vertical axis sums the employees across those companies. Linear scales on both, so distance on the page matches distance in the numbers.</p> <p>What this view reveals that a headcount table cannot is the shape of the industry. A pathway sitting high and to the right is crowded with firms and staffed deeply. One sitting high but to the left is a pathway dominated by a few large companies. Low and to the right means many small teams chasing the same idea. The spread between these corners is the story of where capital and talent have actually landed, versus where the field is still a cottage.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-workforce-by-pathway-2026-07-07/Tue, 07 Jul 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-workforce-by-pathway-2026-07-07/<p>This chart is a stacked horizontal bar showing CDR-attributable headcount across pathways on the vertical axis, with each bar segmented by business focus: pure-play companies whose entire reason for existing is CDR, divisions inside larger firms where CDR is one line of business, and ecosystem players who sell tools, verification, brokerage, or software into the space. Bar length is total attributed workers; the color split is where those workers actually sit.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-history-fte-growth-2026-07-02/Thu, 02 Jul 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-history-fte-growth-2026-07-02/<p>This chart plots every pure-play CDR company in the Directory as a single dot. The horizontal axis is the company&rsquo;s founding year (estimated from its primary domain registration), the vertical axis is its current headcount on a log scale, and the colour codes the company&rsquo;s pathway. The shaded blue background traces overall company density — darker patches mark where the crowd of pure-plays sits.</p> <p>The value here is shape, not ranking. A bar chart would tell you how many companies exist in each pathway; this view tells you the entire industry&rsquo;s growth contour at one glance — when did the wave of small startups hit, where are the rare big older operators, what cluster sits on the floor of &ldquo;still under five people&rdquo;. Outlier dots near the top of the chart are the names everyone already knows; the dense low band is where most of the industry actually lives.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-companies-by-pathway-2026-06-30/Tue, 30 Jun 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-companies-by-pathway-2026-06-30/<p>This chart is a stacked bar count of every company in the CDR Directory, grouped along the x-axis by removal pathway (direct air capture, enhanced weathering, biochar, ocean alkalinity, and so on), with each bar segmented by business focus: pure-play producers, brokers and marketplaces, and firms where CDR is a side business bolted onto a different core model.</p> <p>The total height tells you which pathways are crowded with company formation. The segment mix tells you something a raw count hides: whether a pathway&rsquo;s apparent size is built on operators actually delivering tonnes, on intermediaries reselling them, or on incumbents whose CDR line is a minor adjunct. Two pathways with identical totals can have very different underlying economies once you see the split.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-liveliness-by-pathway-2026-06-25/Thu, 25 Jun 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-liveliness-by-pathway-2026-06-25/<p>This violin plot sorts every pure-play CDR company in the Directory by its pathway (columns) and its headcount (vertical axis, log scale from 1 to 100+). Each dot is one company, coloured by its current liveliness tier — Active, Moderate, Suspect, or Likely Dead. The grey shape behind each column is the size distribution: where it bulges, that&rsquo;s where most companies in that pathway sit.</p> <p>The value here is comparative. A raw company list tells you who exists; this view tells you where the weight sits. Pathways with most dots stacked at the bottom are dominated by sub-10-employee firms — many small entrants, few that have grown. Pathways with dots reaching up the column have produced operators that scaled past the founder-and-a-few-engineers phase. Colour (not vertical position) is what tells you the health story: red dots high up the column mean a sizeable operator went quiet; red dots on the floor are the long tail churning as it always has.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-history-pathway-scatter-2026-06-23/Tue, 23 Jun 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-history-pathway-scatter-2026-06-23/<p>Each dot on this scatter is a single CDR pathway - direct air capture, enhanced rock weathering, biochar, ocean alkalinity, mineralization, and the rest. The horizontal axis counts how many companies are working that pathway; the vertical axis sums the employees across those companies. Linear scales on both, so distance on the page matches distance in the numbers.</p> <p>What this view reveals that a headcount table cannot is the shape of the industry. A pathway sitting high and to the right is crowded with firms and staffed deeply. One sitting high but to the left is a pathway dominated by a few large companies. Low and to the right means many small teams chasing the same idea. The spread between these corners is the story of where capital and talent have actually landed, versus where the field is still a cottage.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-workforce-by-pathway-2026-06-18/Thu, 18 Jun 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-workforce-by-pathway-2026-06-18/<p>This chart is a stacked horizontal bar showing CDR-attributable headcount across pathways on the vertical axis, with each bar segmented by business focus: pure-play companies whose entire reason for existing is CDR, divisions inside larger firms where CDR is one line of business, and ecosystem players who sell tools, verification, brokerage, or software into the space. Bar length is total attributed workers; the color split is where those workers actually sit.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-companies-by-country-2026-06-16/Tue, 16 Jun 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-companies-by-country-2026-06-16/<p>This chart is a horizontal bar ranking of the fifteen countries hosting the most carbon removal companies in the directory, with country on the vertical axis and company count on the horizontal axis. Each bar is a simple headcount of firms whose primary registration or operational base sits in that country, regardless of size, funding stage, or tons delivered.</p> <p>The value here is structural. A raw spreadsheet of companies tells you who exists; this view tells you where the industry has actually taken root, which jurisdictions are exporting CDR capacity, and how concentrated or dispersed the sector is. Shifts in this ranking over time are one of the cleaner signals of where policy, capital, and talent are clustering.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-companies-by-pathway-2026-06-11/Thu, 11 Jun 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-companies-by-pathway-2026-06-11/<p>This chart is a stacked bar count of every company in the CDR Directory, grouped along the x-axis by removal pathway (direct air capture, enhanced weathering, biochar, ocean alkalinity, and so on), with each bar segmented by business focus: pure-play producers, brokers and marketplaces, and firms where CDR is a side business bolted onto a different core model.</p> <p>The total height tells you which pathways are crowded with company formation. The segment mix tells you something a raw count hides: whether a pathway&rsquo;s apparent size is built on operators actually delivering tonnes, on intermediaries reselling them, or on incumbents whose CDR line is a minor adjunct. Two pathways with identical totals can have very different underlying economies once you see the split.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-history-founding-years-by-pathway-2026-06-11/Thu, 11 Jun 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-history-founding-years-by-pathway-2026-06-11/<p>This chart takes the same founding-year history view and splits each yearly bar by CDR pathway, so you can see not just how many companies were founded in a given year but which kinds of companies. The x-axis is the founding year; bar height is the count of companies started that year; the stacked colors in each bar are the pathways, keyed in the legend.</p> <p>The reason this split matters is that the field did not grow as one thing. Direct air capture has an older cohort, with companies appearing well before the recent funding wave. Biochar, enhanced weathering, and marine pathways cluster much later, riding the 2020-2023 surge. A raw founding-year total hides that staggering; the stacked view makes the sequencing legible.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-liveliness-by-pathway-2026-06-09/Tue, 09 Jun 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-liveliness-by-pathway-2026-06-09/<p>This violin plot sorts every pure-play CDR company in the Directory by its pathway (columns) and its headcount (vertical axis, log scale from 1 to 100+). Each dot is one company, coloured by its current liveliness tier — Active, Moderate, Suspect, or Likely Dead. The grey shape behind each column is the size distribution: where it bulges, that&rsquo;s where most companies in that pathway sit.</p> <p>The value here is comparative. A raw company list tells you who exists; this view tells you where the weight sits. Pathways with most dots stacked at the bottom are dominated by sub-10-employee firms — many small entrants, few that have grown. Pathways with dots reaching up the column have produced operators that scaled past the founder-and-a-few-engineers phase. Colour (not vertical position) is what tells you the health story: red dots high up the column mean a sizeable operator went quiet; red dots on the floor are the long tail churning as it always has.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-history-fte-growth-2026-06-04/Thu, 04 Jun 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-history-fte-growth-2026-06-04/<p>This chart plots every pure-play CDR company in the Directory as a single dot. The horizontal axis is the company&rsquo;s founding year (estimated from its primary domain registration), the vertical axis is its current headcount on a log scale, and the colour codes the company&rsquo;s pathway. The shaded blue background traces overall company density — darker patches mark where the crowd of pure-plays sits.</p> <p>The value here is shape, not ranking. A bar chart would tell you how many companies exist in each pathway; this view tells you the entire industry&rsquo;s growth contour at one glance — when did the wave of small startups hit, where are the rare big older operators, what cluster sits on the floor of &ldquo;still under five people&rdquo;. Outlier dots near the top of the chart are the names everyone already knows; the dense low band is where most of the industry actually lives.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-history-pathway-scatter-2026-06-02/Tue, 02 Jun 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-history-pathway-scatter-2026-06-02/<p>Each dot on this scatter is a single CDR pathway - direct air capture, enhanced rock weathering, biochar, ocean alkalinity, mineralization, and the rest. The horizontal axis counts how many companies are working that pathway; the vertical axis sums the employees across those companies. Linear scales on both, so distance on the page matches distance in the numbers.</p> <p>What this view reveals that a headcount table cannot is the shape of the industry. A pathway sitting high and to the right is crowded with firms and staffed deeply. One sitting high but to the left is a pathway dominated by a few large companies. Low and to the right means many small teams chasing the same idea. The spread between these corners is the story of where capital and talent have actually landed, versus where the field is still a cottage.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-workforce-by-pathway-2026-05-28/Thu, 28 May 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-workforce-by-pathway-2026-05-28/<p>This chart is a stacked horizontal bar showing CDR-attributable headcount across pathways on the vertical axis, with each bar segmented by business focus: pure-play companies whose entire reason for existing is CDR, divisions inside larger firms where CDR is one line of business, and ecosystem players who sell tools, verification, brokerage, or software into the space. Bar length is total attributed workers; the color split is where those workers actually sit.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-companies-by-pathway-2026-05-26/Tue, 26 May 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-companies-by-pathway-2026-05-26/<p>This chart is a stacked bar count of every company in the CDR Directory, grouped along the x-axis by removal pathway (direct air capture, enhanced weathering, biochar, ocean alkalinity, and so on), with each bar segmented by business focus: pure-play producers, brokers and marketplaces, and firms where CDR is a side business bolted onto a different core model.</p> <p>The total height tells you which pathways are crowded with company formation. The segment mix tells you something a raw count hides: whether a pathway&rsquo;s apparent size is built on operators actually delivering tonnes, on intermediaries reselling them, or on incumbents whose CDR line is a minor adjunct. Two pathways with identical totals can have very different underlying economies once you see the split.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-liveliness-by-pathway-2026-05-21/Thu, 21 May 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-liveliness-by-pathway-2026-05-21/<p>This violin plot sorts every pure-play CDR company in the Directory by its pathway (columns) and its headcount (vertical axis, log scale from 1 to 100+). Each dot is one company, coloured by its current liveliness tier — Active, Moderate, Suspect, or Likely Dead. The grey shape behind each column is the size distribution: where it bulges, that&rsquo;s where most companies in that pathway sit.</p> <p>The value here is comparative. A raw company list tells you who exists; this view tells you where the weight sits. Pathways with most dots stacked at the bottom are dominated by sub-10-employee firms — many small entrants, few that have grown. Pathways with dots reaching up the column have produced operators that scaled past the founder-and-a-few-engineers phase. Colour (not vertical position) is what tells you the health story: red dots high up the column mean a sizeable operator went quiet; red dots on the floor are the long tail churning as it always has.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-history-fte-growth-2026-05-19/Tue, 19 May 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-history-fte-growth-2026-05-19/<p>This chart plots every pure-play CDR company in the Directory as a single dot. The horizontal axis is the company&rsquo;s founding year (estimated from its primary domain registration), the vertical axis is its current headcount on a log scale, and the colour codes the company&rsquo;s pathway. The shaded blue background traces overall company density — darker patches mark where the crowd of pure-plays sits.</p> <p>The value here is shape, not ranking. A bar chart would tell you how many companies exist in each pathway; this view tells you the entire industry&rsquo;s growth contour at one glance — when did the wave of small startups hit, where are the rare big older operators, what cluster sits on the floor of &ldquo;still under five people&rdquo;. Outlier dots near the top of the chart are the names everyone already knows; the dense low band is where most of the industry actually lives.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-history-pathway-scatter-2026-05-14/Thu, 14 May 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-history-pathway-scatter-2026-05-14/<p>Each dot on this scatter is a single CDR pathway - direct air capture, enhanced rock weathering, biochar, ocean alkalinity, mineralization, and the rest. The horizontal axis counts how many companies are working that pathway; the vertical axis sums the employees across those companies. Linear scales on both, so distance on the page matches distance in the numbers.</p> <p>What this view reveals that a headcount table cannot is the shape of the industry. A pathway sitting high and to the right is crowded with firms and staffed deeply. One sitting high but to the left is a pathway dominated by a few large companies. Low and to the right means many small teams chasing the same idea. The spread between these corners is the story of where capital and talent have actually landed, versus where the field is still a cottage.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-history-founding-years-by-pathway-2026-05-12/Tue, 12 May 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-history-founding-years-by-pathway-2026-05-12/<p>This chart takes the same founding-year history view and splits each yearly bar by CDR pathway, so you can see not just how many companies were founded in a given year but which kinds of companies. The x-axis is the founding year; bar height is the count of companies started that year; the stacked colors in each bar are the pathways, keyed in the legend.</p> <p>The reason this split matters is that the field did not grow as one thing. Direct air capture has an older cohort, with companies appearing well before the recent funding wave. Biochar, enhanced weathering, and marine pathways cluster much later, riding the 2020-2023 surge. A raw founding-year total hides that staggering; the stacked view makes the sequencing legible.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-workforce-by-pathway-2026-05-07/Thu, 07 May 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-workforce-by-pathway-2026-05-07/<p>This chart is a stacked horizontal bar showing CDR-attributable headcount across pathways on the vertical axis, with each bar segmented by business focus: pure-play companies whose entire reason for existing is CDR, divisions inside larger firms where CDR is one line of business, and ecosystem players who sell tools, verification, brokerage, or software into the space. Bar length is total attributed workers; the color split is where those workers actually sit.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-liveliness-by-pathway-2026-05-05/Tue, 05 May 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-directory-liveliness-by-pathway-2026-05-05/<p>This violin plot sorts every pure-play CDR company in the Directory by its pathway (columns) and its headcount (vertical axis, log scale from 1 to 100+). Each dot is one company, coloured by its current liveliness tier — Active, Moderate, Suspect, or Likely Dead. The grey shape behind each column is the size distribution: where it bulges, that&rsquo;s where most companies in that pathway sit.</p> <p>The value here is comparative. A raw company list tells you who exists; this view tells you where the weight sits. Pathways with most dots stacked at the bottom are dominated by sub-10-employee firms — many small entrants, few that have grown. Pathways with dots reaching up the column have produced operators that scaled past the founder-and-a-few-engineers phase. Colour (not vertical position) is what tells you the health story: red dots high up the column mean a sizeable operator went quiet; red dots on the floor are the long tail churning as it always has.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-history-fte-growth-2026-04-30/Thu, 30 Apr 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-history-fte-growth-2026-04-30/<p>This chart plots every pure-play CDR company in the Directory as a single dot. The horizontal axis is the company&rsquo;s founding year (estimated from its primary domain registration), the vertical axis is its current headcount on a log scale, and the colour codes the company&rsquo;s pathway. The shaded blue background traces overall company density — darker patches mark where the crowd of pure-plays sits.</p> <p>The value here is shape, not ranking. A bar chart would tell you how many companies exist in each pathway; this view tells you the entire industry&rsquo;s growth contour at one glance — when did the wave of small startups hit, where are the rare big older operators, what cluster sits on the floor of &ldquo;still under five people&rdquo;. Outlier dots near the top of the chart are the names everyone already knows; the dense low band is where most of the industry actually lives.</p>https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-history-pathway-scatter-2026-04-29/Wed, 29 Apr 2026 09:00:00 +0200https://captaindrawdown.com/posts/data-viz-history-pathway-scatter-2026-04-29/<p>Each dot on this scatter is a single CDR pathway - direct air capture, enhanced rock weathering, biochar, ocean alkalinity, mineralization, and the rest. The horizontal axis counts how many companies are working that pathway; the vertical axis sums the employees across those companies. Linear scales on both, so distance on the page matches distance in the numbers.</p> <p>What this view reveals that a headcount table cannot is the shape of the industry. A pathway sitting high and to the right is crowded with firms and staffed deeply. One sitting high but to the left is a pathway dominated by a few large companies. Low and to the right means many small teams chasing the same idea. The spread between these corners is the story of where capital and talent have actually landed, versus where the field is still a cottage.</p>