Posts

Take: Carbon removal is not one thing

Take on a podcast episode from The Carbon Curve, originally published Thu, 25 Ju. Listen: https://carboncurve.substack.com/p/carbon-removal-is-not-one-thing TL;DR Counteract has screened 1,000+ CDR companies, invested in 27 — one of the widest dealflow vantage points in the sector. That alone justifies the listen. Core thesis: carbon removal is a category, not a pathway, so no single financing model fits — CREW’s small-ticket wastewater units vs. big DAC infrastructure need entirely different capital. Most striking claim: e-SAF costs $1,000+/t CO2 abated vs. $200–300/t durable removal, so aviation mandates should accommodate a removal share. Useful framing for policy fights. “Policy is expectation management” — the landfill tax analogy for how compliance signals unlock private capital. Not new, but well argued. Counteract is pivoting from early-stage venture to a “delivery fund” for first commercial projects. Worth watching who they raise it with. Na’im Merchant hosts Richard Barker, partner at Counteract, the 2021-vintage early-stage fund dedicated to carbon removal, on The Carbon Curve. The episode is an investor’s-eye tour of how capital actually flows into CDR (carbon dioxide removal) right now — pathway by pathway, with biomethane as the cautionary historical parallel. ...

Podcast take: Getting CDR Right in the EU ETS: What's at Stake - with Francesca Battersby and

Take: Getting CDR Right in the EU ETS: What's at Stake - with Francesca Battersby and Louis Uzor

Take on a podcast episode from The CDR Policy Scoop, originally published Mon, 06 Ju. Listen: https://shows.acast.com/the-cdr-policy-scoop/episodes/what-do-we-need-to-get-right-in-the-cdr-integration-into-the TL;DR The European Commission is reportedly leaning toward a public authority as intermediary for CDR procurement into the EU ETS — from public statements, not leaks. Significant if it survives co-decision. Carbon Gap’s position: integrate removals below the cap (“one in, one out”) for the first review period, revisit later. Hedges against mitigation deterrence. The “cap reaching zero” premise is shifting — Commission signaled in May that allowances will be issued well into the 2040s under a -90% by 2040 framing. Numbers to watch on 17 July: the 75 Mt central estimate for 2040 removals, a floated 100 Mt figure, and Carbon Gap’s ~21% of ETS emissions analysis. Only direct air carbon capture and storage (DACCS) and bio-CCS expected at launch; the mechanism for adding biochar and enhanced weathering matters more than the initial list. Useful framing. Eve Tamme hosts Louis Uzor (Policy Director) and Francesca Battersby (Associate Policy Lead) of Carbon Gap on The CDR Policy Scoop, recorded 6 July — eleven days before the Commission’s expected EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) review proposal. It’s a pre-game analysis of how carbon dioxide removal (CDR) gets wired into the world’s largest compliance carbon market. ...

569 pure-play CDR companies employ just 9,527 people

This violin plot sorts every pure-play CDR company in the Directory by its pathway (columns) and its headcount (vertical axis, log scale from 1 to 100+). Each dot is one company, coloured by its current liveliness tier — Active, Moderate, Suspect, or Likely Dead. The grey shape behind each column is the size distribution: where it bulges, that’s where most companies in that pathway sit. The value here is comparative. A raw company list tells you who exists; this view tells you where the weight sits. Pathways with most dots stacked at the bottom are dominated by sub-10-employee firms — many small entrants, few that have grown. Pathways with dots reaching up the column have produced operators that scaled past the founder-and-a-few-engineers phase. Colour (not vertical position) is what tells you the health story: red dots high up the column mean a sizeable operator went quiet; red dots on the floor are the long tail churning as it always has. ...

Biochar dominates CDR with 377 of 969 companies

Each dot on this scatter is a single CDR pathway - direct air capture, enhanced rock weathering, biochar, ocean alkalinity, mineralization, and the rest. The horizontal axis counts how many companies are working that pathway; the vertical axis sums the employees across those companies. Linear scales on both, so distance on the page matches distance in the numbers. What this view reveals that a headcount table cannot is the shape of the industry. A pathway sitting high and to the right is crowded with firms and staffed deeply. One sitting high but to the left is a pathway dominated by a few large companies. Low and to the right means many small teams chasing the same idea. The spread between these corners is the story of where capital and talent have actually landed, versus where the field is still a cottage. ...

CDR Daily Digest — 2026-07-08

The pattern today is clear: the machinery around carbon removal is growing faster than removal itself. A registry is raising venture money to sell its verification software beyond CDR. An accelerator is recruiting its next cohort in India. And the week’s operator spending data shows where money actually flows once the press releases fade. None of these stories is about a new plant or a big offtake. All three are about the supporting layer - verification, capital, and regional support - getting more professional. ...

remove opens applications to back a new cohort of CDR startups in India

Carbon Herald just published remove Looking To Back The Next CDR Cohort In India Through Its Accelerator Program. Carbon Herald reports that remove, an accelerator program focused on carbon dioxide removal, is preparing to support its next cohort of startups in India. The program targets early-stage CDR ventures and aims to expand the sector’s footprint in the Indian market, where interest in removal pathways such as enhanced rock weathering and biochar has been growing. The move signals continued investor and ecosystem attention on India as a location for scaling removal projects, given its industrial base, agricultural residues, and coastline. Details on cohort size, funding terms, and selection criteria are covered in the outlet’s full article. ...

Isometric raises $40M Series A to take AI-powered Certify beyond carbon removal

CDR.fyi just published Durable CDR Market Recap: June 2026 — Key Deals & Trends | CDR.fyi. Isometric raised $40 million in a Series A led by AVP, along with participation from Lowercarbon Capital and Plural, to expand its AI-powered Certify platform beyond carbon removal into the broader industrial certification market . Tencent announced the winners of its CarbonX 2.0 innovation program, sharing nearly $30 million … Our take (Context): Worth a click if you track CDR.fyi-style coverage. ...

Captain's CDR Log #189: Five numbers from the past week that reveal where operators are actually spending

Captain Drawdown’s daily logbook on every CDR story, paper, and expert voice — so you don’t have to read them all. Five numbers this week trace the same shape: CDR operators are retreating from headline tonnage promises and digging into narrow positions they can actually defend. The capital is going to certification rails, embedded products, and the power layer underneath removal. The gigatonne talk is getting quieter, and the invoices are getting more specific. ...

Only 59 percent of the 969 CDR workforce are pure play producers

This chart is a stacked horizontal bar showing CDR-attributable headcount across pathways on the vertical axis, with each bar segmented by business focus: pure-play companies whose entire reason for existing is CDR, divisions inside larger firms where CDR is one line of business, and ecosystem players who sell tools, verification, brokerage, or software into the space. Bar length is total attributed workers; the color split is where those workers actually sit. ...

Captain's CDR Log #188: The July 17 ETS review will decide if CRCF certificates are worth anything

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. On 17 July, the European Commission publishes its review of the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS), Europe’s carbon market. The publication was just delayed by two days, a small signal of how contested the drafting still is. This single document will determine whether Europe’s new carbon removal certification framework becomes a source of real, bankable demand for CDR, or remains a labeling scheme with no buyer of last resort. ...