Posts

Biochar dominates CDR with 377 of 969 tracked companies

This chart is a stacked bar count of every company in the CDR Directory, grouped along the x-axis by removal pathway (direct air capture, enhanced weathering, biochar, ocean alkalinity, and so on), with each bar segmented by business focus: pure-play producers, brokers and marketplaces, and firms where CDR is a side business bolted onto a different core model. The total height tells you which pathways are crowded with company formation. The segment mix tells you something a raw count hides: whether a pathway’s apparent size is built on operators actually delivering tonnes, on intermediaries reselling them, or on incumbents whose CDR line is a minor adjunct. Two pathways with identical totals can have very different underlying economies once you see the split. ...

CDR's active workforce tripled to 32k while dormant researchers piled up faster

This chart tracks CDR researchers over time on a diverging axis. Above the line are researchers who published a CDR-relevant paper that year (active), stacked upward; 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. The top envelope is the real, working research workforce each year — the number of people actually publishing, not the cumulative head-count. ...

Global CCS Institute Maps the Carbon Capture Tech Landscape as Sector Scales

Carbon Herald just published Global CCS Institute Maps Latest Carbon Capture Technologies As CCS Sector Expands. Carbon Herald reports that the Global CCS Institute has released an updated survey of carbon capture technologies, cataloguing both established approaches and emerging capture methods entering the market. The mapping arrives as CCS project pipelines expand globally and as developers and technology providers push newer capture routes toward commercial deployment. According to the report, the exercise is meant to give policymakers, investors, and project developers a clearer picture of where different capture technologies sit on the maturity curve. The piece frames the release against a broader trend of growing interest in CCS as a decarbonization tool for hard-to-abate sectors. ...

CDR Daily Digest — 2026-07-21

The day’s pattern is about staying power. Not tonnes, not funding rounds, but whether people and practices stick around. My analysis of the CDR Researcher Census shows that only 29% of researchers who published on direct air capture were still active in the field by 2025. Meanwhile, two practitioner takes on biochar landed today, and both make the same underlying argument from different angles: biochar persists because it is embedded in an industry that already exists. Farming does not need to be invented. DAC’s talent base, by contrast, has to be built and held together from scratch, and right now it is leaking. ...

Take: Biochar in agriculture: Can biochar benefit livestock - Melissa Rebeck

Take on a YouTube video from Local Land Services NSW, originally posted 2026-07-20. Watch the source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nuk18apLFWI TL;DR Speaker claims Australian biochar carbon sells at ~AUD $200/tonne on voluntary markets — higher than what an ACCU method would pay. Useful pricing datapoint. ANZBIG targets 50 million tonnes of biomass pyrolysed annually: $6B biochar + $3B removals + $1-2B energy. Aspirational, no timeline given. Energy co-product pitch: $300-400k in thermal energy value per ~5,000 tonnes of biomass processed (she states the ratio inconsistently in the talk). Title says livestock; the transcript is almost entirely production economics and industry advocacy. Feed applications barely appear in this segment. Melissa Rebeck — chair of the Australian New Zealand Biochar Industry Group (ANZBIG) and business development lead at pyrolysis equipment vendor Metamorph Engineering — presents to a Local Land Services NSW farmer audience on biochar production economics. Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nuk18apLFWI. Despite the title, this is a talk about the business case for on-farm pyrolysis, not livestock feed trials. ...

YouTube take: Biochar in agriculture: How can biochar create opportunities in the carbon marke

Take: Biochar in agriculture: How can biochar create opportunities in the carbon market? - Emily Wilson

Take on a YouTube video from Local Land Services NSW, originally posted 2026-07-20. Watch the source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mx6J74S07xk TL;DR Australia still has no domestic biochar carbon method; producers must use international registries like Puro.earth. Practical confirmation from a state advisor, not news. Cited spread: biochar credits at ~AU$150–200/tonne vs Australian Carbon Credit Units at ~AU$40–50. Useful anchor for Australian project economics. Biochar application is eligible inside Australian soil carbon projects — but capped at 100 kg/ha/yr unless biomass is on-farm or from a designated waste stream. Applied biochar carbon must be deducted from measured soil carbon stock gains. A detail many farm-facing biochar pitches skip. Registration walkthrough (additionality, EPA compliance, end-use traceability) is basic but accurate. This is a five-minute talk by Emily Wilson, natural capital adviser at Local Land Services NSW, given at a farmer-facing biochar event funded under a NSW decarbonisation program. It’s an extension talk, not a technical presentation — but it’s a reasonably precise snapshot of how biochar intersects with Australian carbon crediting right now. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mx6J74S07xk. ...

Direct air capture keeps just 29% of researchers active by 2025

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. ...

CDR Daily Digest — 2026-07-20

The rules for carbon removal are being rewritten at both ends of the market on the same day. In Brussels, the European Commission is moving to let removals into its Emissions Trading System, the bloc’s compliance carbon market, as part of a reform tied to a 90% emissions cut by 2040. In the voluntary market, Verra has reopened VM0044, the methodology that governs how biochar projects earn credits. Different venues, same underlying story: the credit rules that will decide which removal projects get financed for the next decade are on the drafting table right now, and the fine print will matter more than the headlines. ...

EU Ties Long-Awaited ETS Reform to 90% Emissions Cut — the Fine Print Matters

Carbon Herald just published EU Targets 90% Emissions Cut With Long-Awaited ETS Reform. Carbon Herald reports that the European Commission has unveiled its reform package for the Emissions Trading System, the bloc’s central carbon pricing instrument. The reform is framed around a 90% emissions cut target and, per the outlet, reflects an attempt to balance competing pressures from industry, member states, and climate policy goals. The ETS covers power generation, heavy industry, and aviation, and its design choices shape carbon prices across Europe. Any structural change to the system carries consequences for compliance markets, industrial decarbonization timelines, and potentially the future treatment of carbon removals within EU climate policy. ...

EU Proposes Letting Carbon Removals Into Its Emissions Trading System

Heatmap News just published The EU Rides to DAC’s Rescue. Heatmap’s AM Briefing leads with a notable policy development for carbon removal: the European Commission has proposed integrating removals into the EU Emissions Trading System, marking the first time the bloc’s carbon market would formally account for them. The outlet frames this against a shifting geopolitical backdrop, with the Trump administration scaling back plans for carbon removal facilities in the US while Canada under Prime Minister Mark Carney courts direct air capture companies seeking a new base. The briefing also covers incoming UK prime minister Andy Burnham upholding a ban on new North Sea oil and gas exploration licenses, Scottish approval for the 2-gigawatt Caledonia offshore wind farm, and ongoing Canadian wildfires. ...