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DAC loses 71% of researchers by 2025 with just 1,184 active

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. ...

Captain's CDR Log #253: Australia bets public money on DACCS while a serious voice says 99/1 is the right split

Captain Drawdown’s daily logbook on every CDR story, paper, and expert voice — so you don’t have to read them all. The critique, in the critic’s own words “We might ultimately spend 10% to 20% of our resources on removals and 80%-90% on mitigation. I’d suggest 99% on mitigation / 1% on removals is reasonable today.” That is Zeke Hausfather (@zekehausfather.com on Bluesky). It is the sharpest current mainstream-climate critique of CDR spending. Not “CDR is a scam.” Something harder to dismiss: the eventual share is fine, the ratio right now is wrong. ...

Fortera, MLC to Capture CO2 at Lime Plant, Turn It Into Cement Feedstock

Carbon Herald just published Fortera And MLC To Capture Carbon From Lime Production. Carbon Herald reports that materials technology firm Fortera and global lime manufacturer MLC have entered a development agreement to construct a full-scale carbon capture facility tied to lime production. The partnership aims to deploy Fortera’s process, which converts captured CO2 from lime kilns into a low-carbon supplementary cementitious material. Lime manufacturing is a hard-to-abate sector because roughly two thirds of its emissions come from the calcination reaction itself, not fuel combustion. The agreement covers project development work leading toward commercial-scale deployment, though the outlet notes further specifics on site, capacity, and timeline in the full piece. ...

Captain's CDR Log #252: Agreena's 4.45Mt Kazakh soil deal against the biochar forward market it doesn't resemble

Captain Drawdown’s daily logbook on every CDR story, paper, and expert voice — so you don’t have to read them all. The story Agreena, the Danish soil-carbon platform, has signed a seven-year forward contract for 4.45 million tonnes of soil carbon credits from Kazakh cropland, issued under Verra’s VM0042 Improved Agricultural Land Management methodology. By announced tonnage, that single deal is larger than most durable-CDR forward books signed this year. It also lands the same week Supercritical reported that 81% of high-quality biochar supply is already locked in by forward buyers. Two forward markets. Two very different definitions of what a “quality” tonne is. The comparison is where the story lives. ...

Captain's CDR Log #251: What ICVCM actually approved when it stamped Verra VCS v5 as CCP-eligible

Captain Drawdown’s daily logbook on every CDR story, paper, and expert voice — so you don’t have to read them all. Why this matters now Verra’s Verified Carbon Standard version 5 just earned an eligibility stamp from the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market. Press coverage is already collapsing that into “ICVCM-approved credits.” It isn’t. The tick applies to the program - the governance, registry, and tracking plumbing - not to the tonnage math of any specific methodology sitting on top. If you are buying, developing, or writing about carbon removal credits this week, that distinction is the whole story. ...

Enhanced weathering keeps 1,460 active researchers in 2025

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. ...

CDR Daily Digest — 2026-09-06

Today’s three stories cluster around a single point: the pipes, the papers, and the people all say enhanced rock weathering and soil-based removal are moving from promise to plumbing, while the offshore CO2 transport that geological storage depends on is finally being welded shut on the seabed. That is the day’s headline. The unglamorous middle layer of CDR (measurement, transport, workforce) is catching up to the headline-grabbing top layer (tonnes contracted, tonnes delivered). Without that middle layer, the top layer does not scale. ...

Soil carbon dominates CDR with 15,849 active researchers in 2025

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. ...

Castorone Begins Laying UK's First Offshore CO2 Pipeline in North Sea

Carbon Herald just published Offshore Heavyweight Castorone Arrives In North Sea To Lay Crucial CO2 Pipeline. Carbon Herald reports that the Northern Endurance Partnership has started heavy offshore work on a CO2 transport pipeline in the UK North Sea, a key piece of infrastructure for Britain’s industrial decarbonization plans. The arrival of Saipem’s Castorone, one of the largest pipelay vessels in operation, marks the start of the subsea installation phase. The pipeline is intended to move captured CO2 from Teesside emitters to permanent offshore storage as part of the East Coast Cluster. The project is a central element in the UK government’s CCS deployment strategy and its funding commitments to the sector. ...

Captain's CDR Log #248: 250 million allowances is the number that changes who the CDR buyer of last resort actually is

Captain Drawdown’s daily logbook on every CDR story, paper, and expert voice — so you don’t have to read them all. 250 million. That is the count of EU Emissions Trading System allowances the Negative Emissions Platform is campaigning to have redirected, by value, into permanent carbon removal purchases. The prior reference point is not another ETS proposal. It is the sum of every national CDR support cheque Europe has written to date. Finland is weighing a €23M subsidy for industrial biogenic capture. Alberta, outside Europe but a useful peer, just allocated $20M to hydrogen and carbon capture from its TIER fund. These are the cheques CDR developers currently model against. The NEP proposal is a different unit of account. ...