Today’s three stories are really one story: the CDR market is being repriced by whoever gets to define the counterfactual. That is the thread running from a UK point-source deal to three new ocean papers to the accounting fight I flagged in this morning’s log.

Counterfactual accounting is the pricing event

In Captain Drawdown’s daily CDR Log #231 I argued that the next repricing in durable CDR will not come from a new technology or a new buyer. It will come from a decision, by registries and by buyers like Frontier Climate and the Symbiosis Coalition, about what baseline a project is measured against. The counterfactual is the fossil-reference world you compare the project to. Move the baseline and you move the credited tonnes. Move the credited tonnes and you move the price per ton.

This matters because two of the loudest debates right now, ocean CDR additionality and point-source capture accounting, are both counterfactual arguments dressed up as science arguments. The methodology committees deciding these questions are, in effect, price-setters. If a buyer coalition accepts a generous baseline for enhanced weathering runoff, ERW (enhanced rock weathering) unit economics look different overnight. If a registry tightens the baseline for a biomass-plus-capture facility, BECCS (bioenergy with carbon capture and storage) credit volumes shrink without a single physical change on site.

I think the next 12 months will see at least one high-profile buyer walk away from a signed offtake because a methodology update cut the credited tonnes below the contract floor. That will be the pricing event.

The Uniper-SLB Capturi deal, and the residual-only line

SLB Capturi announced a contract to supply carbon capture equipment for a 1.38 GW Uniper gas plant in the UK, part of the Humber industrial cluster. This is point-source capture on fossil generation, not CDR. I mention it here for one reason: the framing risk.

A gas plant with capture is not a removal. It is an emissions reduction at best, and only if the captured CO2 is actually stored and the upstream methane is accounted for. CDR is for hard-to-abate residual emissions after fossil phase-out, not a reason to extend fossil generation. The Humber cluster will need real removals to net out its residual industrial emissions. It should not be conflated with the gas plant that sits inside it.

The interesting question for CDR watchers is whether the storage infrastructure being built for Uniper (pipelines, injection wells, monitoring) lowers the marginal cost of adding DAC or BECCS to the same cluster later. Shared CO2 transport and storage is where point-source and removal economics actually touch. That is worth tracking. The gas contract itself is not a CDR story.

Three ocean papers, read together

The three ocean CDR papers I covered today do not agree on much individually, but read together they point the same direction. One tightens uncertainty bounds on OAE (ocean alkalinity enhancement) durability in coastal waters. One raises concerns about biological response to alkalinity addition at field-relevant doses. One proposes a cheaper MRV (measurement, reporting, verification) approach using existing oceanographic sensor networks rather than bespoke deployments.

The synthesis: ocean CDR MRV is getting cheaper and the durability picture is getting clearer, but the ecological side is where the next round of uncertainty lives. That is a familiar pattern. Every CDR pathway goes through a phase where the carbon accounting matures faster than the side-effect science. ERW went through it. DAC (direct air capture) largely skipped it because the side effects are contained. Ocean pathways are entering it now.

The practical implication for buyers: ocean CDR offtakes signed in 2026 should have explicit ecological monitoring clauses, not just carbon MRV clauses. If the contract does not name what happens if a monitoring result triggers a pause, the contract is not finished.

What’s next

Two things I am watching. First, whether any registry publishes a revised counterfactual methodology for BECCS or point-source-adjacent removals before year-end. That is the trigger for the pricing event I described. Second, whether the Humber cluster storage infrastructure attracts a removal project announcement in the next two quarters. Shared storage is the quiet subsidy that could pull DAC costs down in the UK faster than any direct grant.

The counterfactual fight is not a sideshow. It is the market.

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