This is Marcel Huber, CEO & Founder of Syncraft. Marcel is building “reverse power plants” wherein they take waste wood and pyrolyze it…with the outputs being energy and biochar. So other than burning coal, you are creating biochar that has a myriad benefits for agriculture and materials science.

This is Dr. Franziska Elmer, Head of Science at Seafields Solutions Limited. Fran left academia as she was compelled to jump in to try and “save the things that are dying, rather than just study them.” That sentiment is what we found across much of the CDR community, it is a group of individuals who are rolling up their sleeves to find solutions that work. 🪸 🌊 🪸

Nikki Batchelor is Executive Director of XPRIZE Carbon Removal. A big announcement of the winners is slated for April. In the meantime, we highlight Nikki’s appearance in Legion 44 wherein she outlines the use-case for captured carbon as well as the new frontier of carbon removal in the oceans. CDR will disrupt materials production, fuels production and much more, to learn about the emergence of this innovative industry

This is Max Zeller. At a time when emissions are set to increase, supporting and investing in the carbon removal (CDR) industry is an intelligent and forward-thinking activity. Max Zeller of Carbon Removal Partners is doing just that and is an early leader in this space having invested in an array of important leaders in the CDR industry. As he says, it is a necessity that this industry is able to scale.

This is Shashank Samala, Co-Founder & CEO of Heirloom. Heirloom is scaling very fast through continuous innovation…and scaling quickly is exactly what we need right now. As he says “when you figure out how to give superpowers to limestone, all you need to do is get more limestone, build more trays, stack more trays vertically, and make those stacks taller.” Their aim is to remove 1 billion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere by 2035 and by the looks of it, they will get there.

Dr. Will Burt, of Planetary Technologies, is the subject of our next “This is …” series of social posts on the cast of Legion 44. Will discusses Planetary’s CDR pathway — Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement (OAE). The pathway name itself speaks to the powerful additional impacts that CDR can have — in this case, helping to de-acidify the oceans. As many of you know, as the ocean absorbs carbon, the additional carbon increases ocean acidity that then impacts wildlife, especially shellfish. Planetary’s process removes CO2 from the atmosphere as well as brings the ocean, in that part of their world anyway, back into balance. For more exciting innovations, you can watch Legion 44 currently available here: http://www.legion44.world and while doing so, you can also remove CO2. It’s our “watch + remove” innovation!

Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW) is fast becoming mainstream in the CDR industry. New standards and MRV are emerging as well as high-quality certification. This is Mary Yap, Co-Founder & CEO of Lithos Carbon, a fast-growing ERW company. Lithos is turning farms across the world into carbon removal centers. For more on all of this, watch Legion 44. You can also remove CO2 + share with friends and colleagues.

CDR innovation seems like it has, rather spontaneously, emerged from all around the world. For those not in CDR at all, it is a revelation. Today we highlight a project in Oman, 44.01, with Alaa Al-Amri, a geologist at the company. Working with nature, in this case the rocky Hajar Mountains, 44.01 is mineralizing CO2 in a safe and effective way.

Advancing CDR requires good data. In the area of Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW), look no further than Dirk Paessler’s Carbon Drawdown Initiative wherein Dirk and Ralf Steffens work to measure how fast CO2 is removed under different soil conditions. With the help of their robot army of flux meters, they are creating a database with the data that is needed. Enjoy this snippet or, perhaps watch Legion 44 + remove some carbon while you are at it.