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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. ...

🔑 Key Takeaways Multi-year DAC offtakes are becoming the norm. Sirona Technologies’ deal via Patch follows a pattern: buyers are moving from exploration to long-term procurement with multi-year contracts securing permanent removals. The shift matters — it signals genuine market maturation, not just pilot-stage experimentation. Aviation’s CDR paradox deepens. Boeing is buying 40,000+ tonnes of quality CDR via Carbonfuture, while the SASHA Coalition argues that CORSIA lets the sector avoid harder decarbonization — leaving 1.1 billion tonnes unregulated since 2012. The gap between voluntary ambition and compliance reality is widening. ...

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. ...

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. ...

Five stories across four continents. Today’s thread: money, measurement, and a rainforest that stopped doing its job. 🇩🇪 Germany Puts Real Money Behind CDR — €98 Million in 2026 The Handelsblatt dropped a significant story that barely registered outside German media: Germany’s 2026 federal budget includes €98 million for CDR projects and €11.5 million for purchasing CO₂ removal certificates. This is a first. The German Association for Negative Emissions (Verband für negative Emissionen) says more is coming — a pathway to continued funding through 2033. CDR startups like Novocarbo (biochar) and InPlanet (enhanced weathering) get specific mentions as German companies building in this space. ...

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.