New study:

Earth's capacity for storing CO₂ underground in pore space may be much less than expected

Storing captured CO₂ as a semi-liquid in the tiny pore spaces of sedimentary rock underground is widely considered to be one strategy for reducing global warming. CO₂ would be captured from industrial emissions (carbon capture and storage, CCS) and industrial direct air capture plants (direct air capture with pore space storage, DACPS).

Rock layers in sedimentary basins throughout the world have been widely estimated to have enough pore space to ultimately store a total of 10,000 to 40,000 gigatonnes. This far exceeds the 2,000 GtCO₂ that has been widely viewed as requiring storage by the year 2100 — suggesting there should be no concern about adequate future storage capacity.

But a new GIS modelling study . . . Read more

Terradot's enhanced rock weathering research in Brazil gets boost from Microsoft agreement

Climate tech company Terradot will conduct one of the most extensive scientific monitoring programs yet for enhanced rock weathering (ERW), following an agreement with Microsoft to purchase 12,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) credits between 2026 and 2029. The project is centered on Terradot’s operations in Brazil, where the company is scaling ERW deployment.

The announcement of the deal explains Microsoft's funding will enable Terradot to expand research well beyond current . . . Read more

First DACCM projects not located in Iceland

Kenya’s Rift Valley Emerging as a Hub for DACCM Projects

The East African Rift Valley in Kenya is fast emerging as a new frontier for direct air capture with carbon mineralization storage (DACCM), thanks to its unique combination of geothermal energy and favorable geology. Two DACCM pilot projects are already operational, and three more are being planned, as companies look to tap into the region’s abundant low-emission energy and thick layers of basalt rock, ideal for underground carbon storage.

Kenya’s recently enacted Climate Change Act of 2024 provides a legal framework for carbon project implementation and carbon credit sales, building on the country’s push toward renewable energy under its Energy Act of 2019. Today, 91% of Kenya’s electricity comes from low-emission sources: 47% geothermal, 24% hydropower . . . Read more

OAE moving from the lab to the ocean with new research guidelines, government funding, and business startups

Ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) is the least developed of the geologic methods of carbon dioxide removal (CDR), having been tested only in computer models and small-scale experiments in the lab and ocean.

Other geologic methods of CDR such as ERW and DACPS have either been implemented at large scale or are on the verge of doing so. But OAE remains in only the experimental stage, having not yet been tested at a large scale in the ocean.

Big questions remain about how much CO₂ OAE can remove from the atmosphere and how spreading large amounts of rock dust in the ocean will impact marine life.

Progress is being made toward answering those big questions, however. Recently, technical guidelines were published for how to effectively conduct research on OAE. And, new government funding in the U.S. for developing verifying carbon removal methods will add further incentive to OAE development. Also, new businesses are being created that are testing the waters of OAE by proposing pilot projects at several locations in the ocean.

These new developments in OAE are located mainly in Europe, North America, and Australia, with little attention paid to OAE in Africa and Asia as found . . . Read more

Feasibility study of nuclear-powered DACPS completed

A direct air capture (DAC) plant uses a lot of heat energy to separate CO₂ from air. And a nuclear power plant throws off a lot of excess heat while generating electricity.

So, why not marry the two, and have a nuclear power plant send its waste heat to a DAC plant?

That is what the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) considered in a feasibility study that was completed in 2024.

The nuclear power plant in the study is Southern Company’s Joseph M. Farley nuclear power plant located about 300 km southwest of Atlanta, Georgia near Dothan, Alabama in the southeastern United States. The Farley nuclear plant produces 2,775 megawatts of thermal energy to generate 1,776 megawatts of electricity — enough electricity to supply about 450,000 homes.

The feasibility study included storing the captured CO₂ . . . Read more

Licensing in progress, agreements signed

Direct air capture will supply some of the CO₂ in the first industrial-scale carbon capture and storage project in the southeastern Mediterranean

EnEarth, a subsidiary of the London-based oil and gas company, Energean, recently announced that direct air capture (DAC) will supply some of the CO₂ that will be stored underground in the company's Prinos carbon capture and storage (CCS) project planned in Greece, in the northern Aegean Sea. Prinos is a depleted oil field.

The project initially will store 1 million tonnes of CO₂ per year that will be captured from the exhausts of industrial plants in the region, as well as CO₂ captured from open air by the DAC plant. The relative proportions of CO₂ from DAC and industrial plants were not specified in the announcement. The €500 million first phase of the project is expected . . . Read more

Equipment malfunctions at CCS sites in Norway and U.S. underscore need for robust monitoring, reporting, and verification in carbon storage underground

Two incidents at prominent carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects — in Norway’s Sleipner gas field and at Archer Daniels Midland’s (ADM) Decatur corn-ethanol plant in Illinois (USA) — have highlighted challenges in accurately accounting for and securing stored CO₂. Both incidents involved equipment malfunctions. Together, they underscore the need for transparent monitoring, rigorous measurement protocols, and regulatory oversight as CCS, DACPS, and DACCM projects scale up for industries' climate mitigation efforts.

At Norway's Sleipner gas field, operated by Equinor and in operation since 1996, the company reported in 2021 that a malfunctioning flow transmitter led to the company's over-reporting of CO₂ injection volumes during the period 2017 through 2021. The amount of CO₂ that was over-reported was more than . . . Read more

OAE developer, Planetary Technologies, scaling out as well as up

Planetary Technologies has been on a roll since 2022 when it first obtained funding for testing its ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) strategy. The process involves adding magnesium hydroxide (Mg(OH)₂) to coastal ocean water to make the ocean more alkaline (less acidic), thus enabling the ocean to absorb more CO₂ from the atmosphere. The company is . . . Read more

Italian OAE developer, Limenet, joins Carbon Business Council and forges ahead with new plant and working capital

Limenet, an Italian climate tech start-up focused on ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE), recently announced in a LinkedIn post that it has become a member of the Carbon Business Council — a nonprofit trade association uniting companies working to restore the climate.

This membership is the latest milestone in Limenet’s push to establish itself as a leader in ocean-based carbon removal using its patented process. In September 2024, the company launched its first modular carbon dioxide removal facility in Augusta, Sicily, a major step toward scaling up ocean carbon storage. The plant converts atmospheric CO₂ into stable calcium bicarbonate (Ca(HCO₃)₂) dissolved in seawater and is designed to process up to 100 kilograms of CO₂ per hour.

Adding to its credentials, Limenet recently secured ISO 14064-2 certification from RINA, an international standards body, for its carbon removal methodology. This recognition places the company among a small group of firms globally whose processes meet rigorous verification standards . . . . Read more

CarbonCapture Inc. shifts strategy, plans DACPS project in Louisiana carbon removal hub

CarbonCapture Inc., a Los Angeles-based developer of direct air capture (DAC) systems, announced in February 2025 a major strategic pivot, moving away from its planned high-profile project in the western U.S. state of Wyoming and concentrating future efforts in the southeastern state of Louisiana.

The company had originally planned to build Project Bison in Wyoming, a facility intended to become the world’s largest DAC plant, capturing up to 5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year through solid sorbent technology. That design relied on . . . . . . Read more

STRATOS, the world’s largest DACPS plant is under construction in West Texas (USA)

A new direct air carbon capture and storage plant, with pore space storage (DACPS) is under construction in Ector County, Texas that is designed to capture more CO₂ from the atmosphere than any other DAC plant in the world . . . Read more

New study:

Option-rich CDR pathway may be best due to uncertain future

Credit

Planning for carbon dioxide removal (CDR) isn’t just a matter of picking the right technology—it’s about navigating a maze of unknowns. A new study published in April 2025 in "Environmental Research Letters" by Quirina Rodriguez Mendez and colleagues offers perhaps the clearest framework yet for how to think about . . . Read more

Enhanced rock weathering is ramping up on smallholder farms in central India

Enhanced rock weathering remains a nascent method of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and is currently practiced commercially in only a few locations worldwide. However, its adoption is accelerating, driven by support from philanthropic organizations, government grants, and carbon credit sales.

One geographic area seeing increasing use of enhanced weathering is in the central Indian states of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Jharkhand where in the last three years Mati Carbon has enabled more than 16,000 smallholder farmers to spread more than 80,000 metric tonnes of crushed basalt on their farms which average less than 4 hectares . . . Read more

5 recent advances in measuring the amount of CO₂ removed by enhanced rock weathering

As some of the first large-scale ERW projects on cropland have gotten underway, significant improvements have been made in the variety of measuring how much CO₂ a project removes from the atmosphere. A commercial ERW project requires accurate accounting of carbon removal to provide enough . . . Read more