By Garrett Boudinot, Vycarb
Carbon dioxide removal and storage (CDR) is an extremely promising opportunity for our climate and economy—yet the budding industry has attracted its fair share of skeptics. Despite billions of dollars in investments, some dismiss it as a fig leaf for polluters – a justification for continued emissions disguised as environmental stewardship. Critics argue that CDR is impractical, unscalable, and ineffective.
CDR is absolutely critical for blunting the impact of climate change, and some approaches—like methods to accelerate the ocean’s natural ability to remove and store CO2 from the atmosphere, referred to as marine CDR (mCDR) —could offer very salable, cost-effective CDR. However, the industry—known for bringing in sizable funding rounds with relatively little actual evidence of success thus far—has to fix its reputation.
While there’s little technical limit to making major changes to ocean chemistry and biology to impact the carbon cycle, there are huge barriers to knowing if any of these approaches are effective—if they really remove the amount of CO2 they purport to. There are myriad chemical reactions and processes that can leverage the ocean to remove CO2 in theory—but the “ocean” is a heterogeneous, dynamic, and constantly-evolving array of individual systems and processes that consistently evade “theory” in reality.
To succeed, mCDR—and CDR writ large—must prove that carbon is being removed and stored in practice, rather than in theory. That requires embracing transparency through accurate and streamlined methods of measurement, prioritizing CDR approaches that can actually be measured, and critically adopting a new paradigm where measurement and CDR are integrated in the same approach. Foregrounding direct measurement of carbon cycle impacts in real-time, all the time, will lend credibility that will, in turn, attract greater demand and drive change that the world profoundly needs to combat climate change.
Modeling Carbon Removal and Storage Simply Doesn’t Work
One of the most critical barriers to scaling and commercializing mCDR technologies is accurately quantifying how much CO2 is being sequestered—and new carbon measurement technology suggests we’ve been getting it wrong.
Many proposed approaches to mCDR are classified as “ocean alkalinity enhancement,” where minerals and materials containing elements like magnesium (Mg) or calcium (Ca) are added to water to drive a chemical reaction that in theory captures CO2. Companies add the materials, measure some water conditions that confirm the materials were added, then estimate CO2 removal using models. But here’s the catch: these models don’t reflect reality. They’re built on major assumptions and theoretical equations based on piecemeal studies from decades ago, and while the model’s simplicity makes them easy to rely on, it also makes them wildly inaccurate.
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In fact, the efficiency of these processes can be dramatically lower than what models predict. For instance, we performed a CDR trial that conventional model-based estimates might claim was removing 100 tonnes of CO2 annually, based on how much material was added to water. However, our detailed, direct measurement approach that quantifies exactly how much CO2 is being removed and stored in real time showed the real number was at times below 1 tonne, as natural variability in water conditions and reaction rates influenced the actual carbon cycle impacts.
We use results from tests like these, and the integration of direct measurement within the CDR system, to optimize our CDR process in real-time, accelerating how those materials dissolve and interact with CO2 to maximize CO2 removal and storage under natural variability. But these data also provide an indictment on the status quo of CDR writ large, highlighting that without the direct measurement controlling the process, the outcomes could be dramatically overestimated.
After all, if direct measurement shows lower efficacy, who is incentivized to directly measure? Companies that can convince buyers and the public that their models and proxies are reliable have a cheap and fast route to playing the credits game—much like the forest offsets industry tried to do. Buyers get cheaper credits, and credit producers can cash in easier, if the input conditions of a project are fed into a model that uses theory to claim that carbon is removed.
We Know Modeling the Carbon Cycle Doesn’t Work—So Why is it Still Being Used?
If climate models can’t predict climate change accurately (e.g., here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here…), why would anyone believe they could predict the result of proposed climate solutions accurately?
For one—because most companies haven’t figured out how to measure the actual results of their attempts to remove and store CO2. For some, awareness of the decades-long reaction rates for the ocean to absorb CO2, or the hundreds of kilometers the water moves as it’s purportedly removing CO2, means that the approach just can’t be measured. For others, proxies and indirect evidence that CO2 may be removed is seen as good enough, as in the past there haven’t been available technologies to actually measure the different carbon cycle conditions in real time.
But there’s a more cynical view to the story. Many mCDR companies may believe they’ll make more money without measuring carbon removal and storage—after all, why measure and claim one tonne when a model can claim 100? Isn’t it easier to proclaim that “we need better measurement” than actually pay for it, or develop a new approach that can be measured? Current ocean carbon measurement approaches are labor-, capital- and energy-intensive, and thus, require money and time that companies, and even some buyers, aren’t willing to invest.
And perhaps, many aren’t measuring because they don’t actually know if it works. They know that the way they plan on doing ocean carbon removal can’t be measured—not just affordably, but at all—due to the timescales, complex dynamics through space and time, and biological, social, and climatic influences. As a result, they have every motivation to move forward without measuring, believing that action today with high uncertainty is better than any delay in action for higher certainty, and by simply relying on models and lab testing that—wouldn’t you know—indicate that it’s as effective and safe as they need it to be to make money off of it.
Measurement Works—and is Our Only Hope
Contrary to common perceptions in the industry, the carbon cycle can in fact be measured, and mCDR can be deployed in a way that enables measurement. This means that rather than spraying minerals into rivers ,oceans and soils with theoretical conviction that they should work, we can implement controlled treatment of carbon and water that does work—safely, effectively, and transparently. But it requires a paradigm shift in the industry, from “what tools do we have available today?” to “what tools can we build to solve today’s problems?”
Rather than pushing forward with mCDR using status-quo data collection methods and modeling, some are pursuing new innovations to make measurement not only possible, but cost-effective, rapid, and energy-efficient. These can adapt the new paradigm that integrates measurement in the carbon management, not just as a way to verify if it worked, but ensure it does work. New technology can support widespread measurement in a way that hasn’t been done before, without hands-on sampling and analyses but with autonomy and precision, so that measurement isn’t something that comes after an attempt at CDR, but is actually used to make it more effective.
For mCDR to really scale, we need to increase demand beyond the high-risk tolerant buyers and supporters, to sectors with lower risk tolerance and higher bars for certainty of safety and efficacy. By leveraging innovation to gain real-time data and data-informed processes, we can implement effective solutions with verifiable outcomes. That’s why the future of the climate depends on measuring—not modeling—climate solutions.
