Posts

Take on a podcast episode from Reversing Climate Change, originally published Fri, 15 Ma. Listen: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/reversingclimatechange/episodes/399-How-to-Pitch-Terraset-and-other-carbon-removal-buyersw-Taylor-Insley--Terraset-e3jd1gr TL;DR Taylor Insley (Terraset) says ~75% of developer interactions at Carbon Unbound are bad pitches — ambush style, no social grace. Believable and useful. Terraset claims 6-8x leverage per dollar deployed via its revolving fund model. First time I’ve seen that ratio cited publicly for them. Terraset gets ~450 projects in its intake pipeline against a team of three. Diligence bandwidth is the binding constraint, not capital appetite. Insley’s actual advice: relationship-building beats first-impression perfection; she discounts bad early pitches if the project matures. Ross’s “minor leagues” framing — Milky Wire/Terraset before Frontier/Microsoft — is the most operationally useful frame in the episode. Episode link. Ross Kenyon interviews Taylor Insley, Director of Strategic Growth at Terraset, the tax-deductible philanthropic CDR buyer. The episode is essentially a sales-craft conversation for developers pitching small-to-mid catalytic buyers, anchored on a Carbon Unbound Vancouver panel Insley did earlier this year. There’s also a long Ross monologue on status and in-group dynamics that you can safely skip. ...

Take on a podcast episode from The CDR Policy Scoop, originally published Sun, 24 Ma. Listen: https://shows.acast.com/the-cdr-policy-scoop/episodes/lulucf-carbon-farming-and-the-crcf-review-with-asger-strange TL;DR Carbon farming side of the CRCF (Carbon Removal Certification Framework) lacks the buyer momentum permanent removals have — no offtake equivalent of the Buyers Club in sight. Olesen pushes “performance certificates” as the right instrument for land that stays in production: an inventory-aligned reporting unit, not a credit. Useful framing. Strong claim: leakage and permanence have no role in this tool, and only simple stock-change additionality applies. Will be controversial but internally consistent. EU bottom-up inventory logic vs SBTi FLAG’s top-down benchmark is a real collision course — first time I’ve seen it spelled out this cleanly. Wishlist for Q4 national targets & flexibilities proposal: shift the buy-side obligation from member states to sectors/companies, keep Article 6 out, give CSRD↔CRCF a legal hook. The CDR Policy Scoop, hosted by Sebastian Manhart and Eve Tamme, brings back Asger Strange Olesen (International Woodland Company, EU Carbon Removal Expert Group) to walk through where the carbon-farming half of the CRCF actually sits after the recent CRCF Days. It’s a policy-mechanics conversation: methodologies adopted (soil, peatlands, afforestation), why credits are the wrong tool for most European farmland, and what the upcoming CRCF review and Q4 flexibilities proposal need to deliver. ...

Take on a podcast episode from The Carbon Curve, originally published Thu, 16 Ap. Listen: https://carboncurve.substack.com/p/seven-buyers-in-a-trench-coat TL;DR Microsoft pausing new durable CDR purchases isn’t the story — the story is they were ~80-90% of the market to begin with. Correct framing. Governments committed $45M to CDR purchases, spent ~$0; private sector spent $10.5B. Striking number, worth citing. Jack’s case: voluntary buying was always a house of cards; policy has to take over. Hard to argue with at this point. Defense of enhanced oil recovery as a legitimate scaling pathway for direct air capture. Will annoy some, but the argument is coherent. Dream policy: low-carbon-intensity product standard embedded in trade, with CDR compliance pathways. Interesting, underdeveloped here. Naim Merchant interviews Jack Andreasen Cavanaugh, who runs the Carbon Management Program at Columbia’s Center on Global Energy Policy and previously led carbon management policy at Breakthrough Energy. The episode is a reaction to Heatmap’s reporting that Microsoft is pausing new durable carbon removal purchases, and Cavanaugh’s weekend piece arguing the real failure is governmental, not corporate. It’s the cleanest articulation I’ve heard of “the voluntary market was always structurally fragile” — read the episode post if you don’t have an hour. ...

Carbon Herald just published Wren Kicks Off Its 2026 Call For Proposals, Looking To Back Climate Solutions. Carbon Herald reports that Wren, a public benefit corporation, has launched its 2026 Call for Proposals aimed at backing climate solutions that can scale and deliver removals or reductions at competitive cost. The program is positioned to surface and support projects that align with Wren’s funding criteria, with emphasis on measurable impact. The outlet frames the call as part of Wren’s ongoing effort to channel philanthropic and corporate dollars into vetted climate work. Specifics on award sizes, deadlines, and eligible technology categories are outlined in the full article. ...

Direct Air Capture (DAC) is the use of engineered equipment — fans, sorbents, solvents, or electrochemical cells — to separate carbon dioxide from ambient air, concentrate it, and hand it off to either permanent storage or industrial use. Unlike point-source capture at a power plant or cement kiln, DAC has no flue gas to draw from: it works against an atmospheric concentration of roughly 425 ppm, which is the central reason it is both energy-intensive and, when paired with geological storage, one of the most durable carbon dioxide removal (CDR) options available. For buyers and policymakers building portfolios with century-plus permanence, DAC sits alongside mineralization and bio-oil sequestration as a small-but-growing share of the durable removals market. ...

Carbon Herald just published Alberta Commits $50M To Industrial Decarbonization And Cleantech Projects. Carbon Herald reports that Emissions Reduction Alberta (ERA) has opened a new $50 million funding round under its annual Industrial Transformation Challenge. The program targets industrial decarbonization and cleantech projects across the province, aiming to support technologies that can cut emissions from heavy industry. ERA, funded through Alberta’s industrial carbon pricing system, has run similar competitive calls in prior years to back demonstration and scale-up projects. The new round invites applications from companies developing solutions relevant to Alberta’s industrial base, including oil and gas, petrochemicals, and other emissions-intensive sectors. ...