A blockbuster Sunday for carbon removal. Over $600 million in new CDR capital announced, a BECCS project targeting 500,000 tonnes per year, research showing we may need centuries of removal, and a materials science breakthrough that could reshape DAC economics. Plus the EU builds its first government CDR certification framework and biochar enters concrete.
Today on CaptainDrawdown
🏭 A US Paper Mill Wants to Capture Half a Million Tonnes of CO₂ Per Year
Svante Technologies advances a BECCS facility at a southeastern US paper mill targeting 500,000+ tonnes of biogenic CO₂ annually — more than 13× Climeworks’ Mammoth capacity. Paper mills are almost purpose-built for BECCS: biomass feedstock on-site, biogenic CO₂ in flue gas, and Svante’s solid sorbent rotary contactors could offer faster cycling and lower energy penalties than liquid solvent systems. Captured CO₂ heads to Gulf Coast geological storage. Still in feasibility, but if it reaches FID this becomes one of the largest CDR projects in the world.
⏳ Net Zero Won’t Be Enough — We May Need Centuries of Carbon Removal
New IIASA research (Johannes Bednar et al., Environmental Research Letters) delivers a sobering finding: sea levels keep rising and permafrost keeps thawing for centuries after temperatures stabilize. Net zero doesn’t freeze climate damage. Permafrost feedback adds ~5% to total CDR needs. The implication for investors: CDR isn’t a bridge technology — it’s permanent infrastructure. The market for durable storage is structurally larger than most projections assume.
🌾 Octopus Energy Ups Its Grasslands CDR Bet to $100 Million
Octopus Energy Generation expanded its partnership with nature-based solutions provider Cultivo from $40M to $100M, accelerating grassland regeneration across 650,000+ acres of US grasslands. Target: 9 million tonnes of CO₂ removal over 30 years. Cultivo plans to surpass 2 million enrolled acres this year after acquiring grasslands developer Kateri. Serious institutional capital validating grasslands as a real CDR pathway alongside forests and engineered solutions.
🌍 Half a Billion Dollars for Ecosystem Restoration in the Global South
Bregal Sphere commits up to $500M to Imperative’s global ecosystem restoration pipeline across Africa, Asia, and Latin America — total committed capital now $1.25 billion. The flagship project: large-scale spekboom restoration in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, where this succulent may sequester more CO₂ per hectare than tropical rainforest. Directly addresses the chronic funding gap for Global South restoration, where the highest-impact opportunities sit.
🔬 Moisture-Swing Polymers Could Make Direct Air Capture Radically Cheaper
ASU researchers published the first comprehensive structural characterization of two commercial moisture-swing sorbent polymers in Materials Today Chemistry. The key finding: macropore structure governs CO₂ capture capacity and kinetics. Bigger pores = faster, more efficient capture. This turns sorbent development from trial-and-error into targeted engineering — and moisture-swing DAC needs only water, not heat, potentially slashing costs far below today’s $400–1,000+/tonne.
🏛️ The EU Just Built the World’s First Government CDR Credit Label
The Carbon Removals and Carbon Farming Regulation (CRCF) creates government-accredited certifiers, formal legislative methodologies, and a potential pathway to ETS integration. If CDR credits become eligible for the EU Emissions Trading System, that’s a compliance market for engineered removal. The Commission must assess ETS integration by July 2026.
🏗️ EU Greenlights €260M for Belgian CCS — Antwerp to North Sea Pipeline
The Commission approved €260M in state aid for the Kairos@C project. Air Liquide and BASF will capture CO₂ from industrial production in Antwerp and pipe it for permanent storage beneath the North Sea. Target: 20 million tonnes avoided over 15 years. CCS, not CDR — but every pipeline and storage site built lowers the barrier for future BECCS and DACCS.
🧱 UK’s First Net-Zero Concrete Uses Biochar From Coffee Waste
Holcim UK and Canary Wharf Group achieved net-negative carbon concrete using biochar from spent coffee grounds. Net GWP: -14 kgCO₂e/m³. Full-scale pours on real construction sites, verified by Arup, Queen’s University Belfast, and Cambridge. With 14 billion m³ of concrete poured globally each year, biochar in construction could become a significant removal pathway.
🚀 Frontier Opens 2026 Carbon Removal Innovation Program
Frontier — the $1B+ advance market commitment backed by Stripe, Alphabet, Shopify, and Meta — opened applications for 2026. Two tracks: prepurchases ($250K–$1.5M) and R&D grants ($250K–$750K). Priority: mineralization, ocean/inland alkalinity enhancement, and MRV for open-system pathways.
Also Published Today
- ⛏️ Abandoned Mines as Carbon Vaults — Rewind Earth stores biomass in deep mine chambers, sequestering carbon while fixing acid drainage. (Read →)
- 🔥 A $25M Warning From Oregon — Warm Springs Tribes’ forest carbon offset project earned $25M in credits — until wildfire rendered them worthless. (Read →)
- 🇳🇴 Norway’s BECCS Push — Carbon Centric’s 32,000t/yr BECCS at a Norwegian CHP plant passes Puro.earth assessment. (Read →)
- 💰 Biochar at $100/ton — Carba and University of Minnesota push biochar costs well below DAC territory. (Read →)
- 🇩🇪 German Media vs. OAE — How FOCUS Online framed the LOC-NESS experiment reveals the public perception gap in non-English CDR coverage. (Read →)
Also Noteworthy
🌊 Bio-DAC: Microalgae for Direct Air Capture — Researchers demonstrated bio-DAC using 600 m² microalgae raceway reactors growing Scenedesmus under extreme carbon limitation, capturing CO₂ directly from ambient air. An intriguing hybrid of biology and atmospheric capture. (Source)
🤖 ML Platform Boosts Biochar Efficiency 18% — A machine learning platform increased biochar adsorption efficiency by over 18%, showing how data-driven optimization can accelerate CDR materials development. (Source)
🇩🇪 “The Dangerous Dream of CO₂ Removal” — Klimareporter published a sharp op-ed arguing Germany’s CDR research programs distract from emission cuts. Worth reading as a window into European CDR skepticism, even if the either/or framing overstates the tension. (Source)
📊 Daily Snapshot
| Category | Signal |
|---|---|
| Capital deployed | $600M+ announced: $100M (Octopus/Cultivo grasslands) + $500M (Bregal/Imperative restoration) |
| BECCS pipeline | Svante’s 500,000 t/yr paper mill + Carbon Centric’s Norwegian BECCS — BECCS accelerating in 2026 |
| DAC science | Moisture-swing macropore discovery opens targeted sorbent engineering; low-energy DAC moves closer |
| EU policy | CRCF certification + €260M CCS state aid — Brussels building both market architecture and physical infrastructure |
| Nature-based | Grasslands and Global South restoration both attract nine-figure capital commitments |
| Framing shift | “Centuries of CDR” (IIASA) reframes removal as permanent infrastructure, not a temporary bridge |
CaptainDrawdown covers the business, science, and politics of carbon dioxide removal. Follow us on Bluesky, X, and Mastodon.