ERW

Just ahead of the 2026 F1 season opener, Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS has announced what may be motorsport’s most comprehensive carbon removal investment to date: 7 new CDR projects across 6 different technology pathways, bringing the team’s total portfolio to approximately 18,900 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent. The technologies span the full CDR spectrum: Direct Air Capture (DAC) Biochar Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW) Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement (OAE) Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) Biomass Storage Projects are located across Brazil, Canada, the US, the UK, Denmark, and India — deliberately overlapping with regions where the F1 circus races. ...

Germany just did something it has never done before: put carbon dioxide removal into the federal budget as a standalone line item. The 2026 Bundeshaushalt includes €98 million for CDR projects and an additional €11.5 million specifically for purchasing carbon removal certificates. According to the German Association for Negative Emissions (Deutscher Verband für negative Emissionen), the pipeline extends further — with additional funding planned through 2033. Handelsblatt broke the story, profiling two approaches already operational in Germany: biochar (led by Hamburg-based Novocarbo, which won the German Sustainability Prize 2025) and enhanced rock weathering. ...

New Scientist highlighted a growing body of research suggesting that spreading crushed basalt on farmland could absorb up to 1 billion tonnes of CO₂. Field trials in Queensland, Australia, are among the latest to generate real data. Nations like Brazil are already deploying enhanced rock weathering (ERW) at scale, partly because crushed silicate rock also reduces fertiliser costs. Big number. Important caveat: “could” is doing a lot of work in that headline. ...

New research from Cornell University modelled the global adoption potential of enhanced rock weathering and landed on a striking number: 1.1 billion tonnes of CO₂ removed per year by 2100. That’s roughly 3% of current annual fossil fuel emissions — meaningful at planetary scale. The headline is exciting. The fine print is where the real story lives. What the Study Actually Shows The Cornell team did something most ERW projections skip: they modelled adoption rates rather than just theoretical capacity. Using historical data on how fast farmers adopt new practices (like irrigation), they estimated a range of 350 million to 750 million tonnes per year by 2050, scaling to 700M–1.1 Gt by 2100. ...

🔬 Top Story: Cornell Study Puts ERW at Up to 1.1 Billion Tonnes/Year by 2100 A new study in Nature Communications Sustainability by Cornell’s Chuan Liao and colleagues models realistic adoption scenarios for enhanced rock weathering (ERW) — the practice of spreading crushed silicate rocks (like basalt) on agricultural fields to accelerate natural CO₂ drawdown. The findings: 350M–750M tCO₂/yr by 2050 and 700M–1.1B tCO₂/yr by 2100. That’s far below earlier theoretical ceilings of 5 Gt/yr but still a massive contribution to climate mitigation. A key takeaway: the Global South would eventually surpass the Global North in ERW deployment as supply chains mature, making the technique a potential equity lever for global carbon markets. (New Scientist · Nature) ...

Formula 1 teams aren’t usually associated with carbon removal. But Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS just made one of the most diversified CDR investments any sports organization has ever announced. Seven Projects, Six Pathways The team added seven new removal projects covering: Direct Air Capture (DAC) Biomass Storage Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) Biochar Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement (OAE) Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW) Combined with earlier investments through Frontier and Chestnut Carbon, the total portfolio now covers approximately 18,900 tCO₂e across Brazil, Canada, the US, UK, Denmark, and India. The portfolio is curated by CUR8, a carbon removal marketplace focused on rigorous project evaluation. ...

A new study from Cornell’s Chuan Liao and colleagues, published in Nature Communications Sustainability, models what enhanced rock weathering (ERW) could actually achieve under realistic adoption scenarios. The headline: 700 million to 1.1 billion tonnes of CO₂ per year by 2100. That’s less than half the theoretical ceiling of 5 Gt/yr that earlier studies floated. But it’s still enormous — roughly 2–3% of current global emissions, achieved by spreading crushed basalt on existing farmland. ...

A new paper in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment has mapped out the uncertainties that still plague enhanced rock weathering (ERW) as a carbon dioxide removal strategy. Meanwhile, Germany’s Thünen Institute — a federal agricultural research body — has gone further, calling ERW “not yet a reliable climate protection measure.” This is getting attention, and it should. But let’s read past the headlines. What the Paper Actually Says The Nature paper doesn’t claim ERW doesn’t work. It catalogs the variables that make precise quantification difficult: soil type, mineral grain size, local climate, microbial activity, and leaching dynamics all influence how fast basalt dissolves and how much CO₂ is actually captured and stored. ...

A new Nature paper maps the uncertainties of Enhanced Rock Weathering — from toxic trace elements to carbon tracking gaps. Here’s what it means for CDR.