CDR Week and notes

Captain Drawdown’s weekly Sunday selection — 48 candidate stories considered, 6-9 picked. Each link carries our 1-2 sentence take so you don’t have to click everything to know what’s there. The week’s most useful signal came from a five-year scorecard on whether durable CDR has lived up to its 2021 promises — and the answer, predictably, is “uneven.” Around it, mineralization quietly emerged as the pathway with the most institutional momentum (Frontier, Carbon Direct, Arca, a new Quebec hub), while buyer-side activity continued to broaden beyond DAC into biochar and enhanced rock weathering (ERW) portfolios. Meanwhile Europe is sending mixed signals on carbon markets: Germany retiring allowances, IEEFA pushing back on power-sector CCS, and the EU inching toward letting international removals back in. ...

Take on a YouTube video from AirMiners, originally posted 2026-05-01. Watch the source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEWnepySw_k AirMiners: What’s Hot in Carbon Dioxide Removal, April 2026 This is the April 2026 edition of AirMiners’ monthly “what’s hot” rundown, hosted by Tito Jankowski. It’s a roughly 10-minute state-of-the-market intro followed by breakout discussions. The framing is blunt: investors are pulling back, government funding is shaky, and Microsoft — the buyer that effectively underwrote the last two years of offtakes — has gone quiet. Tito’s pitch is to stop speculating and look at what’s actually closing. ...

Take on a YouTube video from Exomad Green, originally posted 2026-05-01. Watch the source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x4jaHMOx3M Exomad Green × Supercritical: Inside the 500,000-Tonne CDR Deal This is a ~10-minute Exomad Green podcast episode (“Green Talks”) featuring Francesco from Exomad and George, Director of Supply at Supercritical. The headline: a three-year offtake agreement for up to 500,000 tonnes of biochar carbon removal credits, covering all remaining 2026 inventory plus allocations for 2027 and 2028. It’s a vendor-produced announcement, but there are a few data points worth pulling out. ...

Take on a YouTube video from Nature Tech Collective, originally posted 2026-05-01. Watch the source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qpq2v2HRhXw Watch on YouTube This is a Nature Tech Collective webinar with Dr. Will Burt, VP Science & Product at Planetary, walking through ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) as Planetary practices it — adding a mineral antacid to seawater to neutralize dissolved CO₂ and shift the air-sea equilibrium toward more uptake. The framing is 101-level by Burt’s own admission, pitched at an audience he assumed would be mixed. The substantive claim is the familiar one: OAE sits in the favorable corner of the NOAA scalability-vs-cost matrix, and Planetary is among the further-along operators trying to prove it at sea. ...

The premise Biomass burial is the deliberate placement of plant matter — wood chips, agricultural residues, sludges, algae, even whole logs — into an environment where it cannot decompose. The carbon a tree pulled from the air over its lifetime stays as carbon, instead of returning to the atmosphere as CO₂ or methane within years or decades. The appeal is that the hard part of carbon removal — pulling CO₂ out of dilute air — has already been done, for free, by photosynthesis. The engineering problem is narrower: stop the rot. ...

Carbon Herald just published New Deal Advances CO2 Storage Plans For England And South Wales. Carbon Herald reports that a new deal has been signed to develop a carbon capture and storage hub at Avonmouth Docks, advancing infrastructure plans aimed at industrial emitters across England and South Wales. The agreement is presented as a step toward building out CO2 handling and transport capacity in the region, connecting capture sites with storage routes. The piece frames the project within broader UK efforts to scale CCS as part of decarbonisation strategies for hard-to-abate sectors. Specific operators and project partners are named in the original article, along with the role Avonmouth could play as a regional collection point. ...

Carbon Herald just published Deep Sky Enters DAC-Focused Strategic Partnership With ENGIE. Carbon Herald reports that Canadian carbon removal developer Deep Sky has entered a strategic partnership with multinational energy company ENGIE, centered on direct air capture (DAC) projects. The collaboration brings together Deep Sky’s role as a project developer and aggregator of DAC technologies with ENGIE’s experience in large-scale energy infrastructure. The article frames the deal as part of Deep Sky’s broader push to scale carbon removal capacity and connect captured CO2 to permanent storage. Additional context in the piece points to related CO2 storage planning activity in England and South Wales tied to the partners’ broader ambitions. ...

Carbon Herald just published Iowa Landowners Protest Use Of Eminent Domain For Carbon Pipelines. Carbon Herald reports that landowners in Iowa gathered outside the State Capitol on Tuesday to protest the use of eminent domain for carbon dioxide pipeline projects. The demonstration reflects ongoing tension between pipeline developers seeking to route CO2 infrastructure through agricultural land and property owners who object to compulsory easements. Eminent domain has become a flashpoint in the Midwest as multiple CCS-linked pipeline proposals advance through state regulatory processes. Iowa has been a focal point because of its concentration of ethanol facilities, which are among the prospective CO2 sources feeding planned pipeline networks. The protest follows a series of hearings and legal challenges over whether private CO2 pipelines qualify for eminent domain authority under Iowa law. ...