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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. ...

Bregal Sphere, part of Bregal Investments, just committed up to $500 million to nature restoration company Imperative’s global pipeline of ecosystem restoration projects. That brings total capital earmarked for Imperative’s work to $1.25 billion. Half a billion dollars. For planting trees, restoring mangroves, and bringing degraded landscapes back to life. In Africa, Asia, and Latin America. This is the kind of capital flow that CDR has been waiting for. The Flagship: Spekboom in South Africa#Imperative’s most advanced project is Beka Emva, a large-scale restoration of the degraded subtropical thicket biome in South Africa. The star of the show: Portulacaria afra, commonly known as spekboom. ...

Octopus Energy Generation just tripled down on grasslands as a carbon removal pathway. The renewable energy investor expanded its partnership with nature-based solutions provider Cultivo from $40 million to $100 million, adding $60 million to accelerate grassland regeneration and carbon removal across the United States. The numbers so far: 650,000+ acres of US grasslands enrolled — roughly the size of Rhode Island. Target: 9 million tonnes of CO₂ removal over 30 years. Cultivo says it’s on track to surpass 2 million acres this year. ...

We wrote about this research earlier this week, but it’s worth drilling deeper into what makes these findings so consequential for the carbon removal industry. The core finding from Johannes Bednar’s team at IIASA: reaching net zero doesn’t freeze climate damage in place. Sea levels keep rising. Permafrost keeps thawing. These slow-response systems operate on timescales measured in centuries, not decades — and they don’t stop just because we stopped adding CO₂. ...

Svante Technologies just moved a planned BECCS facility at a paper mill in the southeastern United States into the feasibility study stage. The target: capturing and permanently storing more than 500,000 metric tonnes of biogenic CO₂ every year. To put that number in context — Climeworks’ entire Mammoth plant in Iceland, the world’s largest operational DAC facility, is designed for 36,000 tonnes per year. This single project would exceed that by more than 13×. ...

We covered the LOC-NESS ocean alkalinity enhancement experiment earlier this week — the first open-water OAE trial, 65,000 liters of sodium hydroxide into the Gulf of Maine, run by WHOI. The science is fascinating. But how different countries talk about it tells you a lot about where public CDR acceptance stands. The German Take#FOCUS Online — one of Germany’s biggest news sites — ran a detailed article with the headline: “65.000 Liter Chemie ins Meer? So wollen Forscher CO₂ speichern” — “65,000 liters of chemicals into the ocean? How researchers want to store CO₂.” ...

Most CDR companies are building something new. Rewind Earth is repurposing something old — and toxic. The company takes sustainably sourced biomass and stores it in deep underground mine chambers where oxygen-free conditions prevent decomposition. The carbon stays locked away. And the mines themselves benefit: less acid drainage, reduced land subsidence risk, lower methane emissions. The Approach#Rewind’s flagship project operates in a deep mine in Georgia (the US state, not the country). The concept is elegant: abandoned mines are environmental liabilities — they leak acidic water, release methane, and pose collapse risks. By filling them with biomass, Rewind addresses multiple problems simultaneously. ...

BECCS — bioenergy with carbon capture and storage — has always been the CDR pathway with the biggest gap between IPCC models (which assume gigatons of it) and real-world deployment (which is basically zero at scale). Norway’s Carbon Centric is trying to close that gap. Their Project Kirkenær just passed the Puro.earth Preliminary Assessment, validating that its design, monitoring approach, and lifecycle assessment meet the standard’s requirements. It’s not full certification yet — that comes later — but it’s a concrete step toward issuing permanent carbon removal credits (CORCs). ...

This is the story carbon offset critics have been warning about for years. And it just played out in Oregon. The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs launched a forest carbon project in 2015 under California’s cap-and-trade program. It covered 22,000–24,000 acres of tribal forest east of Mount Jefferson. Over several years, it generated $25 million in carbon credit revenue — one of the Tribes’ largest income sources. Then the Lionshead Fire hit in 2020. It scorched over 200,000 acres on and around the reservation. The fire was what foresters call “stand-replacement” — so intense it kills mature trees and resets the growth cycle entirely. The carbon that credits had been sold against? Released back into the atmosphere. ...

The single biggest thing holding back carbon removal? Cost. Direct air capture runs $400–1,000 per ton. Enhanced weathering is cheaper but slower. Biochar sits in a sweet spot — and a Minnesota startup just made it sweeter. Carba, co-founded by University of Minnesota Distinguished McKnight Professor Paul Dauenhauer, has developed a proprietary process that converts plant-based waste into biochar stable enough to lock carbon underground for over 1,000 years. Their target: $100–200 per ton of CO₂ removed. ...