Carbon Dioxide Removal

“All of the scenarios modeled by the IPCC that keep climate change to two degrees or lower by the end of the century agree. In addition to decarbonizing, we're going to need CDR.”

“AI doesn't change our sustainability goals. We're still buying CDR in pursuit of our carbon negative goal. And the AI hasn't really changed that target for us. It just increased the importance of a net zero world still needs to be possible in it, despite the A…”

“There are companies like Microsoft, Frontier, and others that are seeking to create a market and build a supplier base. I see those companies providing the leadership in the market. They're doing it for good reasons for themselves as well. Securing a first rig…”

“There's, you know, a number of companies, particularly around Frontier, that are willing to pay upwards of 5000 dollars a ton for CO two”

“So, kind of what we're seeing in the industry at the moment is people are kind of waiting to see that CDR can be deployed before they make the commitments as well. So, it's kind of this vicious cycle.”

“Yeah, the thing that keeps me up most is definitely that first one that you mentioned, the market and the demand because your second one, like you said, the project financing that will come if the demand is there. So, having more businesses beyond those first …”

“And then there's that kind of question of like, hey, what would take that step change up to real demand is probably more of a compliance market or governmental demand as well.”

“One, when the IPCC runs these models, and we say politically we want to try and keep to a world of 1.5 warming, the models don't close. You can't do it without a whole bunch of assumptions around carbon dioxide removal.”

“Like, loudest, most conservative scientist in the room-based governance doesn't work for this. You actually do need to make something off-takeable and contractable, and the way you do that is for these emerging more uncertain approaches, or the approaches that…”

“The reason for that is, the way that I Think about CDR is that you're looking, your mythical unicorn solution for removing CO two from the atmosphere has four characteristics. It is cheap, which is, you know, let's just call it sub a hundred dollars a ton, but…”

“Now, typically in the QSR, the retention rates, in fact, the attrition rates are over a hundred percent. So you're talking about a 120% attrition, which means more people in a year, in a set finite period, leave the organization and actually join. Whereas in t…”

“But I think that the UNFCCC should be aligning closely to the IPCC report's definition of carbon dioxide removal. In that it is a solution that's part of the puzzle to reaching our net zero goals.”

“This is a proven technology, and we have the ability to develop this technology now. I think the question that we really should be focused on is scale.”

“The National Academies of Science estimates that we will need to remove 10 gigatons that's ten billion metric tons of carbon dioxide yearly by twenty-fifty, and then doubling that by 2100.”

“The notice of intent last Thursday covers that sixty million of the funds will actually go towards direct your capture, but I think what's even more exciting is the Track Two CDR purchase pilot, because this is allocating thirty-five million, roughly over seve…”

“With CDR in particular, I think we would do well to really recognize this as essentially a depletable resource in some ways. You know, there's an amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere that means we're not going to run out anytime, you know, in the foreseeable future…”

“I do not think personally that in the 20 years are going to be enough to scale CDR solutions in a really, in a way that would really make an impact.”

“One thing that I found a little more useful is to kind of just think about like, what's the actual trapping mechanism for the CO two? Like where does the carbon actually end up? And there you can sort of think like, okay, well, it's leaving the air and another…”

“Eventually it needs to get there, I think. It's going to be really bumpy and sloppy on the way. Long-term fullness of time, CDR needs to become a commodity market. I don't think there's a mechanism to scale it otherwise.”

“Some of the more expensive methods, like direct air capture, are gonna probably be easier to verify. And some of the potentially cheaper methods, especially those using biomass, are probably gonna be harder to verify.”

“We're probably going to blow past the deadline by about two decades, which means, you know, CDR is basically an admission of failure. That we did not mitigate fast enough.”

“The key CDR technologies, in my mind, will be direct air capture with CCS, because what CCS does is it takes the CO₂ taken by the direct air capture unit and pushes it back underground, and probably some forms of geological weathering, and it's going to be a b…”