News

Here’s something that doesn’t get enough attention: the EU just gave carbon removal credits their first government-issued quality label. The European Commission has adopted a delegated act setting out certification methodologies for permanent carbon removals under the Carbon Removals and Carbon Farming (CRCF) Regulation. It’s voluntary, it’s technical, and it might be the most important policy development in CDR markets this year. What the CRCF Actually Is#The CRCF — adopted in December 2024 as part of the EU’s climate neutrality 2050 strategy — establishes a standardized framework for certifying carbon dioxide removal activities across Europe. Think of it as a government-backed quality stamp for CDR credits. ...

When you picture direct air capture, you probably think of Climeworks’ imposing fan arrays on Icelandic basalt, or 1PointFive’s industrial modules in Texas. Giant machines. Lots of energy. Chemical solvents or solid sorbents heated to high temperatures. What if the “machine” was a pond? How Bio-DAC Works#Researchers have demonstrated a bio-DAC (biological direct air capture) approach using large microalgae raceway reactors. A 600 m² system growing Scenedesmus — a common green microalga — operated under extreme carbon limitation, effectively forcing the algae to pull CO₂ directly from ambient air through photosynthesis. ...

Peter Droege doesn’t mince words. Writing in klimareporter.de, the director of the Liechtenstein Institute for Strategic Development calls Germany’s publicly funded CDR research programs — “CDR terra” and “CDR mare” — a dangerous distraction from the real drivers of the climate crisis. His argument boils down to four points. Each one deserves a straight answer. Critique #1: The Math Doesn’t Work#Droege argues that the maximum conceivable CDR capacity in Germany can’t even close the gap on the country’s so-called “unavoidable” residual emissions — emissions that remain even under Germany’s already insufficient climate targets. ...

A blockbuster Sunday for carbon removal. Over $600 million in new CDR capital announced, a BECCS project targeting 500,000 tonnes per year, research showing we may need centuries of removal, and a materials science breakthrough that could reshape DAC economics. Plus the EU builds its first government CDR certification framework and biochar enters concrete. Today on CaptainDrawdown#🏭 A US Paper Mill Wants to Capture Half a Million Tonnes of CO₂ Per Year#Svante Technologies advances a BECCS facility at a southeastern US paper mill targeting 500,000+ tonnes of biogenic CO₂ annually — more than 13× Climeworks’ Mammoth capacity. Paper mills are almost purpose-built for BECCS: biomass feedstock on-site, biogenic CO₂ in flue gas, and Svante’s solid sorbent rotary contactors could offer faster cycling and lower energy penalties than liquid solvent systems. Captured CO₂ heads to Gulf Coast geological storage. Still in feasibility, but if it reaches FID this becomes one of the largest CDR projects in the world. ...

Most direct air capture systems have an energy problem. They need heat — often a lot of it — to release captured CO₂ from their sorbents. That heat costs money and energy, and it’s a major reason DAC still runs $400-1,000+ per tonne. Moisture-swing sorbents work differently. They absorb CO₂ when dry and release it when wet. No heat required. Just water. It’s an idea that’s been around for over a decade, pioneered by Klaus Lackner at Arizona State University. But making it work efficiently requires understanding exactly what happens inside these materials at a structural level. ...

Bregal Sphere, part of Bregal Investments, just committed up to $500 million to nature restoration company Imperative’s global pipeline of ecosystem restoration projects. That brings total capital earmarked for Imperative’s work to $1.25 billion. Half a billion dollars. For planting trees, restoring mangroves, and bringing degraded landscapes back to life. In Africa, Asia, and Latin America. This is the kind of capital flow that CDR has been waiting for. The Flagship: Spekboom in South Africa#Imperative’s most advanced project is Beka Emva, a large-scale restoration of the degraded subtropical thicket biome in South Africa. The star of the show: Portulacaria afra, commonly known as spekboom. ...

Octopus Energy Generation just tripled down on grasslands as a carbon removal pathway. The renewable energy investor expanded its partnership with nature-based solutions provider Cultivo from $40 million to $100 million, adding $60 million to accelerate grassland regeneration and carbon removal across the United States. The numbers so far: 650,000+ acres of US grasslands enrolled — roughly the size of Rhode Island. Target: 9 million tonnes of CO₂ removal over 30 years. Cultivo says it’s on track to surpass 2 million acres this year. ...

We wrote about this research earlier this week, but it’s worth drilling deeper into what makes these findings so consequential for the carbon removal industry. The core finding from Johannes Bednar’s team at IIASA: reaching net zero doesn’t freeze climate damage in place. Sea levels keep rising. Permafrost keeps thawing. These slow-response systems operate on timescales measured in centuries, not decades — and they don’t stop just because we stopped adding CO₂. ...

Svante Technologies just moved a planned BECCS facility at a paper mill in the southeastern United States into the feasibility study stage. The target: capturing and permanently storing more than 500,000 metric tonnes of biogenic CO₂ every year. To put that number in context — Climeworks’ entire Mammoth plant in Iceland, the world’s largest operational DAC facility, is designed for 36,000 tonnes per year. This single project would exceed that by more than 13×. ...

We covered the LOC-NESS ocean alkalinity enhancement experiment earlier this week — the first open-water OAE trial, 65,000 liters of sodium hydroxide into the Gulf of Maine, run by WHOI. The science is fascinating. But how different countries talk about it tells you a lot about where public CDR acceptance stands. The German Take#FOCUS Online — one of Germany’s biggest news sites — ran a detailed article with the headline: “65.000 Liter Chemie ins Meer? So wollen Forscher CO₂ speichern” — “65,000 liters of chemicals into the ocean? How researchers want to store CO₂.” ...