Posts

Governments talk about carbon removal a lot. Canada just started buying it. The Government of Canada has launched a new Request for Standing Offer to invest at least $7 million USD ($10 million CAD) in carbon dioxide removal credits. It’s the first national government in the world to create a dedicated CDR procurement program. That distinction matters more than the dollar amount. How It Works#Federal departments will be able to purchase CDR credits through a competitive procurement process — think government contracting, not voluntary offsets. Each CDR pathway gets its own competitive stream, evaluated on technical merit and price: ...

Sixty-eight point four million. That’s how many permanent carbon removal credits Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft purchased in 2025, according to data compiled by carbon credit management platform Ceezer for CNBC. That’s a 181% jump from 2024. And 2024 was already a 104% increase over 2023. The Numbers Tell the Story#The trajectory is hard to ignore: 2022: 14,200 credits (essentially a rounding error)2023: 11.92 million (the post-ChatGPT awakening)2024: 24.4 million (+104%)2025: 68.4 million (+181%)This isn’t linear growth. It’s exponential — and it maps almost perfectly onto the AI infrastructure buildout. The four companies are eyeing a combined ~$700 billion in AI spending this year, mostly on data centers that consume staggering amounts of energy and water. ...

A quieter Monday after yesterday’s capital-flow blockbusters — but today’s stories cut deeper on the “how” and “whether” of carbon removal. A German expert calls CDR a dangerous dream, the EU responds by issuing the first real certification methodologies, biology offers a radically different path to DAC, a visit to Mammoth exposes corporate accountability gaps, and biochar finds maybe its most creative feedstock yet: dirty diapers. Today on CaptainDrawdown#🌍 From Germany: “The Dangerous Dream of CO₂ Removal” — A Skeptic’s Case#Peter Droege, director of the Liechtenstein Institute for Strategic Development, argues in klimareporter.de that Germany’s publicly funded CDR research programs — “CDR terra” and “CDR mare” — are a dangerous distraction. His four critiques: CDR capacity can’t cover even Germany’s residual emissions, the CDR belief system enables fossil fuel delay, ocean-based methods risk ecosystem harm, and biosphere regeneration should take priority over tech fixes. ...

Some carbon removal stories are about gigawatt-scale DAC facilities and billion-dollar government contracts. This one is about dirty diapers. And it might be the most creative CDR approach I’ve covered yet. The Diaper Problem#Disposable diapers are the third-largest consumer item in US landfills. That’s staggering when you think about what’s ahead of them (food waste and paper products). Each conventional disposable diaper — made from a cocktail of sodium polyacrylate, polyethylene plastics, and wood pulp — can take up to 500 years to degrade. While it slowly decomposes, it releases methane, a greenhouse gas roughly 80 times more potent than CO₂ over 20 years. ...

Standing on volcanic basalt in Iceland, next to the massive fan arrays of Climeworks’ Mammoth plant, carbon removal stops being abstract. The 36,000-tonne-per-year facility is industrial, loud, and unmistakably real. It pulls CO₂ from the thin Icelandic air and injects it deep underground, where it mineralizes into rock within a couple of years. The team at Harmonic Financial Planning visited Mammoth earlier this year and came back with a nuanced take that CDR advocates should hear: the technology works, but the investment landscape around it is complicated — and the biggest risk isn’t the engineering. ...

Here’s something that doesn’t get enough attention: the EU just gave carbon removal credits their first government-issued quality label. The European Commission has adopted a delegated act setting out certification methodologies for permanent carbon removals under the Carbon Removals and Carbon Farming (CRCF) Regulation. It’s voluntary, it’s technical, and it might be the most important policy development in CDR markets this year. What the CRCF Actually Is#The CRCF — adopted in December 2024 as part of the EU’s climate neutrality 2050 strategy — establishes a standardized framework for certifying carbon dioxide removal activities across Europe. Think of it as a government-backed quality stamp for CDR credits. ...

When you picture direct air capture, you probably think of Climeworks’ imposing fan arrays on Icelandic basalt, or 1PointFive’s industrial modules in Texas. Giant machines. Lots of energy. Chemical solvents or solid sorbents heated to high temperatures. What if the “machine” was a pond? How Bio-DAC Works#Researchers have demonstrated a bio-DAC (biological direct air capture) approach using large microalgae raceway reactors. A 600 m² system growing Scenedesmus — a common green microalga — operated under extreme carbon limitation, effectively forcing the algae to pull CO₂ directly from ambient air through photosynthesis. ...

Peter Droege doesn’t mince words. Writing in klimareporter.de, the director of the Liechtenstein Institute for Strategic Development calls Germany’s publicly funded CDR research programs — “CDR terra” and “CDR mare” — a dangerous distraction from the real drivers of the climate crisis. His argument boils down to four points. Each one deserves a straight answer. Critique #1: The Math Doesn’t Work#Droege argues that the maximum conceivable CDR capacity in Germany can’t even close the gap on the country’s so-called “unavoidable” residual emissions — emissions that remain even under Germany’s already insufficient climate targets. ...

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. ...

Most direct air capture systems have an energy problem. They need heat — often a lot of it — to release captured CO₂ from their sorbents. That heat costs money and energy, and it’s a major reason DAC still runs $400-1,000+ per tonne. Moisture-swing sorbents work differently. They absorb CO₂ when dry and release it when wet. No heat required. Just water. It’s an idea that’s been around for over a decade, pioneered by Klaus Lackner at Arizona State University. But making it work efficiently requires understanding exactly what happens inside these materials at a structural level. ...