Enhanced Weathering Alliance (EWA)

Enhanced Weathering seems to bring out the ambitious, audacious, even the arduous. This is really exciting watershed-scale research that shows the impacts of silicate mineral additions on the carbonate budget. ??

?? Enhanced Rock Weathering: The Diamond in the basalt rock ?? ?? ERW remains one of the most scalable, cost-effective, and co-beneficial CDR solutions available. But don’t just take my word for it. ?? The IPCC has recognised ERW as a high-potential CDR approach, estimating its global removal capacity at 2–4 GtCO? per year by 2050. Within Europe, studies suggest its five largest countries alone could remove up to 200 Mt of CO? annually - almost half of all its expected residual emissions. ?? In addition to its climate potential, it has tremendous co-benefits for farmers: ERW can serve as a free replacement for aglime and requires minimal changes to farming operations. ?? As a result, its potential is being recognised in the market: ERW is already achieving pricing of around $300 per tonne with deals from Frontier and Google. In December 2024, the largest ERW deal in history was closed—Terradot secured a 200k tonne contract worth $58 million. ?? Yet, despite all this momentum, its often overlooked in policy discussions. For example, in Europe - unlike DACCS, BECCS, and BCR - it has not been prioritised in the first round of CRCF methodologies and is eligible for only a small fraction of funding opportunities. ??? Today the amazing team at Cascade Climate are releasing their white paper, Farming with Rocks: Policy Priorities for Enhanced Rock Weathering. ?? In it, they outline how to ensure ERW receives the recognition and support it deserves. Expect targeted explainers and blogs breaking down these recommendations. ??? Make sure to give it a read: https://lnkd.in/dsvnytQ6 ?? Big shout out to the Cascade team, Dai Ellis, Vilas Rao, Hara Wang, Brad Rochlin, and Rachel S.. ? And if you are in team ERW, make sure to give Enhanced Weathering Alliance (EWA) a follow, the global association standing up for the sector as a whole. ?? What is your take: do you agree with the potential of ERW?

??What are the trends in the enhanced weathering job market? ?? If you’ve been curious about where the #CDR job market is heading, here’s an interesting stat in? Enhanced Weathering. ?? EW Job Market Snapshot (April–December 2024): ? 151 job openings in #EW and related fields like MRV (Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification) and Research since April 2024. ?? EW roles now make up 6% of total CDR hiring, reflecting a growing demand for specialized skills in this area. If you are ready for a new challenge in Enhanced Weathering , visit https://www.cdrjobs.earth/ and explore these and more roles in CDR ?? Role: Field service technicians ??? Company: ZeroEx ??? Location: Germany ?? Apply on: https://lnkd.in/dwi9NuA2 ?? Role: Head of Finance CFO ??? Company: InPlanet ??? Location: Worldwide ?? Apply on: https://lnkd.in/d6BewSzP ?? Role: Head of Research & Development (w/m/d) ??? Company: Everest Carbon ??? Location: Linz, Austria ?? Apply on: https://lnkd.in/djqBGmud ?? Role: Market Development Associate ??? Company: Lithos Carbon ??? Location: United States ?? Apply on: https://lnkd.in/dBizEiXM ?? Salary: $ 80K-115K ?? Role: Senior Accounting Manager ??? Company: Vesta, PBC ??? Location: Worldwide ?? Apply: https://lnkd.in/dfEWvZke #EnhancedWeathering #Carbonremoval #CDRjobs #Hiring #ClimateChange

A major milestone for the industry and a key step to enable ERW to play a role alongside DAC and BiCRS as a verifiable permanent CDR pathway. ?????? Under the hood are extraordinary science chops and technical leadership. The nuanced issues of additionality, counterfactual baseline, downstream inefficiencies, reconciliation of liquid and solid phase measurements are not for the faint of heart!

Exciting to see the ERW field expand with this offtake with Terradot. Great science, great academic collaborations, and great business strategy combine to illustrate again how enhanced weathering can remove CO2 while delivering co-benefits for land and rural communities. Hats off! ??

Anyone who tries to pull the sword from the stone, err, tries to quantify CDR from ERW, comes up against obstacles that are mythic in their complexity. Everest Carbon is doing the hard work of developing new instruments (!) that work in agricultural settings (!!) to measure the faint signals of weathering at science-grade (!!!). Thanks team! The industry is grateful for your passionate contributions.

?? Hot Brussels insights: where is EU CDR policy heading? ?? ???? Just wrapped up a week of meetings across European institutions. Now that the dust of June’s election has settled, it was a perfect time to touch base with policy makers from the EU Commission, EU Council, and EU Parliament. Key takeaways: ? Everyone gets it: from working level to top officials, folks stress the role of CDR in EU’s net zero strategy. The question is no longer if, but only when and how to make CDR a reality across Europe. Quote: “CDR is a no brainer”. This is huge progress. ???? Trump’s election: the optimistic read is that the EU can use the next four years to lead on climate, attracting companies and investment. But what I am hearing is that EU countries could take Trump as an excuse to fail their own targets and roadblock progressive policy. ?? 2040 CDR target: top of the agenda right now is a dedicated CDR target in next year’s Climate Law Amendment. The Commission seems to be opting for the path of least resistance (=no CDR target). Our focus will have to be on Parliament and Council, where there are many supporters. ?? CRCF is looking good: yes, we need some final tweaks, but enthusiasm all around about the progress of the CRCF. Work on an enhanced weathering methodology might also start in early 2025. Optimistic about the first CRCF units being certified in 2026. ?? ETS integration: across the board, support for integrating CDR into the ETS from 2031 abounds. With the CRCF, the road seems paved. Resistance seems to come only from the NGO community, who fears primarily that fossil emissions could be offset with temporary removals, an outcome that has to be avoided. ?? Where is the money? I have serious doubts that we will see any EU funding for CDR pre-2031, except the oversubscribed Innovation Fund. Focus is shifting to member states and unleashing subsidies there, just like Denmark and Sweden have been doing. ?? Urgency, urgency, urgency: I had to hide my frustration a few times. Yes, we need to operate responsibly. But, no, we do not have time to wait any longer. And, no, CDR won’t magically come out of the tab in gigatons in 2040. Period. ? Overall, the picture that emerges is that a LOT of CDR policy breakthroughs seem to be scheduled for 2026, a potential step change which could finally unleash the CDR industry. But what happens until 2026? The next 1.5 years could be very tough for CDR companies. ?? Big thanks to the policy makers who graced us with their time and insights: Kurt Vandenberghe , Fabien Ramos, Andrea Klaric, Marina García Alonso, Thomas Meier, Michelangelo Chini, Joaquim Nunes de Almeida, Lídia Pereira, Radan Kanev, Maria Malova, Milo? Grajcar, Adrian Leip, Giuseppe Pellegrino, emmanuel PETEL, Tsjerk Terpstra, and many more. ?? And, of course, Negative Emissions Platform for making this all happen. Chris, Elisabeth, Atilla, Alina, and Lambrini - you rock! What is your read? Does this resonate? Where do you disagree?

?? Webinar alert: Where is Carbon Management heading? ?? Tune in for this fantastic event co-hosted by illuminem and Carbony on October 24th at 5pm CET where I will be diving deep into the promise, challenges, and future of carbon management alongside a fabulous set of speakers: ?? Eve Tamme (Managing Director at Climate Principles) ?? Thomas Rinder (Co-founder at Carbony and environmental scientist in geochemistry) ?? Alexia Kelly (Managing Director at High Tide Foundation? ?? Bryony Collins (Climate Journalist at Carbon Pulse) | Moderator ? Do you have any burning questions we should address? ?? Register today: https://lnkd.in/eRFzUryN #carbonremoval #netzero #carbonmanagement

?? What you need to know about the upcoming CRCF workshop ?? ???? The next Carbon Removal and Carbon Farming (#CRCF) Expert Group meeting (the 5th - but who’s counting?) takes place next week on the 21st-23rd of October. As always, it will be a hybrid workshop, allowing for remote participation. ?? Why should you care? The CRCF is arguably one of the most important carbon dioxide removal (#CDR) policies in development globally. We are on the final stretch, and things are getting concrete. ?? For permanent CDR, the EU Commission already delivered three draft methodologies for #BECCS, #DACCS, and #BCR. These will be presented and discussed. From my perspective - largely drawing on Carbonfuture’s in-house experts Anna J. LEHNER, Berta Moya, PhD, Altug Ekici, and Nikolaus Wohlgemuth - this is where we stand: 1?? The EU Commission has done a terrific job on these methodologies. They are detailed, well-structured, and a fantastic foundation to build on. 2?? We need to go beyond the method specific and towards a generic framework stating the core differences and common quality standards between the different CRCF unit types. 3?? The role of the carbon removal activity operator is not designed consistently across BECCS/DACCS/BCR: the first owner of issued CRCF units should be whoever can take the responsibility to provide proof for the whole CDR value chain, no matter if they capture, process, transport or store carbon. 4?? Digital monitoring, reporting, and verification (#dMRV) is missing altogether, yet it will be essential in operationalising the CRCF and make it work at scale. As we finalise the foundations, more focus should shift to this. 5?? What on earth is soil temperature dependence still doing in the BCR methodology? Beyond methodologies, I am calling on the Commission on two specific topics: ?? Applications for the Expert Group were due in mid 2022. There are a number of highly relevant groups that did not exist at the time and should be allowed into the group: Deutscher Verband für negative Emissionen e.V. (DVNE), AFEN, Enhanced Weathering Alliance (EWA) to name a few. ?? Transparency on timelines: we need more clarity when exactly methodologies for other technologies, especially enhanced weathering (#EW), will be developed. ?? Check out the agenda: https://lnkd.in/ds4Rup5p ?? And the livestream: https://lnkd.in/d6s-RuFU What is your take? What do you hope to see next week? Particularly interested in the take of my fellow CRCF aficionados Lukas, Helen, Elisabeth, Louis, Johan, Rachel, Robert, Eli, Georgia, Eve, Harald, Isabella, Ennio, and Rodica. ?? Want to stay up to date on all things CDR? Follow me here on LinkedIn and sign up to my monthly newsletter, the Gigaten: https://lnkd.in/d2BKe7gr

Deal Alert! Really exciting news from Alt Carbon, bringing Enhanced Weathering to Darjeeling. This speaks to the broadening presence of EW in the global south, as well as the presence of EW within charismatic value chains like tea. Really impressive fleet-footed team, reach out to them to learn more! The diligence from NextGen is a real mark of quality for this project, company, and wider category. Onward!